Perfect Snacks: Bill and Leigh Keith

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Perfect Snacks: Bill and Leigh Keith"

Introduction In the June 9, 2025 episode of How I Built This with Guy Raz, host Guy Raz delves into the inspiring journey of Bill and Lee Keith, siblings who transformed their father's homemade energy bars into a thriving business, Perfect Snacks. This detailed narrative explores their tumultuous upbringing, entrepreneurial spirit, significant milestones, and the challenges they overcame to achieve success.

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1. Early Life and Family Dynamics (00:00 - 06:15)

Bill and Lee Keith grew up in a large family environment, navigating financial instability and frequent relocations across the western United States. Raised primarily in a school bus, the siblings experienced a nomadic lifestyle imposed by their father, Bud Keith—a health and fitness enthusiast with a strong Christian faith.

Key Points:

• Large Family: Raised with ten siblings, Bill was born in 1982, and Lee in 1985, in a household marked by movement and financial hardship.
• Father's Influence: Bud Keith operated a gym in San Diego and emphasized health, nutrition, and spirituality, albeit struggling financially.
• Unconventional Education: Formal schooling was limited; the siblings learned to read and educated themselves at home, particularly through the Bible and practical life experiences.

Notable Quote:

Bill Keith [05:09]: "Our own test on ourselves came back with a positive microbe."
Lee Keith [05:24]: "And Costco, major retailers, they do recall everything. They don't want to take any risks, which is totally understandable."

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2. The Birth of Perfect Snacks (06:15 - 15:34)

Amidst growing responsibilities, Bill and Lee tapped into their father's homemade energy bar recipe. Combining peanut butter, honey, and his nutritional supplement powders, they created a palatable and nutritious snack that became the foundation of their entrepreneurial venture.

Key Points:

• Recipe Origin: Bud Keith's supplement powders were transformed into tasty energy bars to make them more appealing to children.
• Initial Sales Efforts: At ages 13 and 9 respectively, Bill and Lee began selling these bars door-to-door, targeting gyms and health enthusiasts.
• Fundraising Motive: Sales were often motivated by specific financial goals, such as raising money for family trips.

Notable Quote:

Bill Keith [14:21]: "We were allowed to have one of those little balls every day. And that was getting our five tablets that we were supposed to Have."

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3. Moving to Willow Creek and Expanding Efforts (15:34 - 27:38)

Facing mounting financial pressures due to their father's declining health, Bill and Lee relocated to Willow Creek, an isolated town, to support the family by managing an abandoned motel and ramping up the production and sales of their energy bars.

Key Points:

• Relocation: Moved to Willow Creek to live off the grid and take on various odd jobs to sustain the family.
• Motel Purchase: Acquired a 130-year-old motel with the hope of generating steady income.
• Family Responsibilities: With their father suffering from severe skin cancer, the siblings bore the brunt of maintaining the household and supporting younger siblings.

Notable Quote:

Lee Keith [20:00]: "We were just thinking, gosh, this could shut down things permanently."
Bill Keith [20:13]: "We call the FDA. I remember like just that feeling that, just sick to your stomach, stomach, call the FDA on yourself."

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4. Securing a Breakthrough with Whole Foods (27:38 - 43:35)

Determined to save their family business, Bill and Lee secured a test placement at Whole Foods. Through relentless demos and personal sales strategies, they managed to generate significant sales, laying the groundwork for broader distribution.

Key Points:

• Whole Foods Test: Successfully conducted a 30-day product test, resulting in $30,000 in sales.
• Sales Tactics: Emphasized in-store demos to directly engage with customers and gather immediate feedback.
• Scaling Challenges: Faced production limitations due to hand-rolling the bars, leading to inconsistent product sizes and packaging.

Notable Quote:

Lee Keith [39:23]: "We were trying to sell them in gyms and we would sell them in like, oh, co ops, actually festivals as well."
Bill Keith [43:35]: "They allowed us to demo Sunup to Sundown, I think, just to kind of prove that that team leader had a good idea."

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5. Overcoming the Salmonella Crisis (72:16 - 75:24)

In Christmas week 2014, a routine product test revealed potential salmonella contamination, threatening to derail their burgeoning business. Faced with a recall and FDA inspections, the siblings navigated this crisis with resilience and support from their investors.

Key Points:

• Contamination Scare: Positive microbe test prompted an immediate and comprehensive recall of products.
• Regulatory Scrutiny: FDA inspectors, armed and rigorous, shut down their kitchen pending further tests.
• Investor Support: VMG Partners stepped in, providing crucial financial backing without penalizing the company for the setback.

Notable Quote:

Bill Keith [73:16]: "We don't know, still to this day, we don't know."
Lee Keith [74:25]: "They did not. To their credit, they did not penalize their offer at all."

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6. Scaling Through Investment and Rebranding (75:24 - 87:23)

With the infusion of $10 million from VMG Partners, Bill and Lee undertook a significant rebranding effort, improving packaging and expanding distribution channels to include major retailers like Starbucks. This period marked substantial growth, propelled by strategic decisions and external expertise.

Key Points:

• Investment: Secured $10 million from VMG Partners, allowing for accelerated growth and professionalization.
• Rebranding: Invested $85,000 into a new branding strategy, focusing on protein and superfoods, resulting in a 40% sales lift.
• Expansion: Entered new markets, including Starbucks, enhancing national presence and brand recognition.
• Operational Growth: Transitioned from hand-rolling bars to semi-automated production, scaling from 7 million to 20 million bars annually.

Notable Quote:

Lee Keith [84:10]: "Success comes where preparation meets opportunity."
Bill Keith [85:00]: "We're still those homeschool kids... as a sponge and putting ourselves, you know, we're smart enough to know what we don't know."

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7. Acquisition by Mondelez and Family Reflections (87:23 - End)

By 2018, Perfect Snacks achieved $70 million in sales and was acquired by multinational company Mondelez. The acquisition was executed with careful consideration to preserve family dynamics and the brand's integrity. Post-acquisition, Bill exited the company, while Lee continued to lead as Chief of Brand.

Key Points:

• Acquisition: Sold to Mondelez, ensuring the family's continued involvement and preservation of the brand's values.
• Family Harmony: Established a trust to manage financial distributions, minimizing potential conflicts among 12 siblings.
• Personal Growth: Lee overcame significant health challenges, emphasizing the importance of balancing personal well-being with business responsibilities.
• Legacy: The siblings reflect on their journey, attributing success to a blend of hard work, timing, opportunity, and familial support.

Notable Quote:

Bill Keith [89:14]: "I would have to say it's a combination of both... hard work and determination."
Lee Keith [89:52]: "We reached a point in this natural industry to where the timing was right to accept this kind of product."

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Conclusion

Bill and Lee Keith's story is a testament to resilience, adaptability, and the power of family collaboration in overcoming adversity. From their unconventional upbringing to building a multi-million-dollar business, their journey encapsulates the essence of entrepreneurial spirit. Their ability to navigate crises, seize opportunities, and maintain family harmony provides invaluable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Final Thoughts:

Lee Keith [89:54]: "Success comes where preparation meets opportunity."
Bill Keith [90:34]: "We pair that with hard work and determination. Just really amazing things have happened."

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Post-Episode Reflections

After the acquisition, Bill founded Green Fat, a nutritional supplements company, while other siblings pursued diverse careers, including education, environmental non-profits, and international projects. The family's legacy continues through their individual and collective endeavors, highlighting the enduring impact of their entrepreneurial journey.

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This episode of How I Built This underscores the intersection of personal hardship and entrepreneurial triumph, illustrating how determination, family bonds, and strategic partnerships can transform challenges into monumental success.

Transcript

[Guy Raz]

Wondery subscribers can listen to How I Built this early and ad free right now. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Thank you to our sponsor, American Express. Being a business owner means you are in control of your destiny and you get to be your own boss. With Amex Business Platinum you can get a flexible spending limit that adapts with your business. Not all purchases will be approved. Plus you can earn 1.5 times Membership Rewards points on select business purchases. Points cap applies. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms apply. Learn [e-mail] AmExBusiness so here's something pretty cool to think about. Have you ever been lying in bed at night at an Airbnb? Maybe scrolling through your phone when you realize, wait a minute, could I do this too? That was the question Giovanni asked about his house in Florence, Italy. And guess what? I got to stay in that magical palazzo for a few nights because it was on Airbnb. Find out how much your place is [e-mail] host how I built this is supported by Ring. With Ring, you can be there from anywhere with doorbells and cameras that help you see more to exciting features that help you know more to the app that lets you connect more. See more at the front door, up high and down low with battery doorbell's head to toe video capture it all all day and all night and get smarter alerts that know the difference between a person and a package right in the Ring app. I use Ring to check in on my dog when I'm out of the house or running errands just to make sure everything's okay. It's awesome because I can see her wherever she's in the house. With Ring, you can check in and be there from anywhere. Some features require a subscription and are available only on select Ring devices. Exclusions apply. Learn [e-mail] during what I guess was a routine kind of testing of your dough or your batter, you find a possible sign of contamination. A microbe, salmonella and something like that can kill your business, right? So what happened?

[Bill Keith]

Our own test on ourselves came back with a positive microbe.

[Lee Keith]

And Costco, major retailers, they do recall everything. They don't want to take any risks, which is totally understandable. So I'm calling folks that I have spent years, you know, a decade of creating trust with and telling them that this product needs to be returned and it's crushing. And so we're just thinking, gosh, this could shut down things permanently. I remember not wanting to go to Sleep, because you have to wake up the next day and go through it all again.

[Guy Raz]

Welcome to How I Built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how a family rescues itself from financial ruin by selling hand rolled energy bars, which eventually wind up in every major grocery in the country. I'm going to let you in on a little secret about this show. Even though it's an audio program, I actually want you to experience it visually, almost like a movie in your head. And oftentimes the stories on this show are so implausible, so against the odds, crazy, that indeed they sound like fiction. Maybe you heard the episode a few years back with the McBride sisters, how the sisters only discovered the existence of each other after their father died and then connected and started a wine brand. That story was incredible and so is today's. And make no mistake, you will learn business lessons in this one for sure. In fact, you will hear how Bill and Lee Keith, brother and sister, turned their dad's homemade energy snack into a big business, Perfect Bars, a business now owned by the multinational company Mondelez. Bill and Lee grew up with 10 brothers and sisters. They were raised in the 1980s and 90s, traveling around the western United States, mostly in a school bus, which they also sometimes lived in. Their dad, Bud Keith, was a small time health and fitness guru who was also a deeply committed Christian. He was a complicated man who struggled financially and it's fair to say the kids grew up in conditions most people would describe as poverty. But Bud also emphasized health and nutrition at home. Before Bill and Lee came along, Bud ran a gym on Mission beach in San Diego and at one time worked with fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne.

[Lee Keith]

Growing up, my father was larger than life. You know, he was 250, 300 pounds. Anytime he could go into a gym and pick up the hundred pound dumbbells and just do a few reps with them just to show the young kids.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Bill Keith]

Yeah, he was a big guy, super strong, full head of hair, curly blonde hair, just so charismatic, always giving the thumbs up to people on the boardwalk. Just that's what he was known for. Just saw life through the rosiest glasses and just absolutely such a positive person, maybe to a fault.

[Guy Raz]

So he had several different lives by the time you guys were born. Bill, you were born in 1982 and Lee, I think you were born in 85. Your dad married your mom, Barbara, which was his fourth wife, is that right?

[Bill Keith]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

And you guys Were raised basically kind of like this. You were like an itinerant family. You were on the road. Tell me about your Life in the 80s and 90s. What does that mean, living on the road?

[Bill Keith]

So we were born kind of all over the place. So our parents would go between living in a motorhome, maybe signing a six month lease somewhere, maybe parking in someone's driveway and kind of living with them. And then eventually as the kids grew, that became a school bus that we lived in. Not a converted fancy thing by any means. You're sleeping right in the bus benches. So it was just kind of a nomad lifestyle always. So California, Utah, Texas, Arizona, primarily there. But we went all over the country end to end.

[Guy Raz]

I'm looking at a photo of you guys in the early 90s. Bill, you must have been seven or eight or eight. And there's seven kids in this photo. Your mom's holding a baby, so number seven. So she's still gonna have several more kids, five more. And I'm trying to figure. So first of all, they had all of these kids and your dad was trying to make a living by selling nutritional supplements. Tell me about school. I'm assuming you never really went to a regular school because you were on the road all the time.

[Lee Keith]

Correct. So early on we were taught from my mom, just out of like a hundred lessons, reading.

[Bill Keith]

There's a book called how to Learn to read and 100 easy lessons. And I remember that that's how Bill and I learned to read. As learned.

[Lee Keith]

You learned at the same time, by the way.

[Guy Raz]

It's, to say the least, like a very unorthodox upbringing. Right. And you talk about your dad quite fondly and your mom and I imagine with 12, with so many siblings, and Bill, you're the oldest, I mean, you probably had to take on some responsibilities with all those younger brothers and sisters. How aware were you guys of your unusual circumstances? Like, for example, did you have access to tv? Did you watch cartoons? Were you into like Pokemon cards and other things other kids your age would have been into? Like, was that part of your, like your world?

[Lee Keith]

Yeah, so we, we really learned how to read, at least for me, out of the Bible. Just taking the Bible out. We would have little, I would call them glimpses into what we'd call, quote, unquote, the world. We would have this little box grain white television that had the clicker broke off, so you'd have to use pliers to turn the channels. And you had like one or two stations and you'd see some cartoons and it would just, you know, we were glued to it. But then, you know, my father would say, all right, no more TV for a year.

[Bill Keith]

We knew. To your question, we knew how small our world was. You know, I'd say our dad, we were very mature to kind of look at him and reflect on why things were the way they were and probably why we would leave Elise and hit the road again. I think Bill and I have, like, as we've gotten older, maybe viewed. He always made it like it was his choice. But I think you come to learn he probably was out of money, and he needed to hit the road and take some of the pressure off and kind of go find another place to settle or opportunity. I think, like, now we look back on it now, being parents ourselves, and we say there was a bit of a midlife crisis probably here, and just wanting to take control of this chapter of his life and to forget the ties to any responsibility to the. The modern world. He didn't want to owe anybody anything. He said, if you don't have anything, nobody can take anything from you. I'll never forget him saying that sentence. And I said, well, we sure don't have anything.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. I imagine, given that the 12 of you were really all kind of together and traveling and moving every few months, that you didn't have other friends. Your friends were your siblings.

[Lee Keith]

That is correct. And, you know, I would be typically the one watching the kids. And so, yeah, we. You know, not only all of us getting together, sort of getting to. To know us, but we. I built. I feel like we built a lot of trust during that time, Lee, you know, so that we've carried the rest of our lives that when it was time to do something big to take care of our family, I knew I could trust Lee, because I. You have this survivor instinct that goes back to when we were kids just trying to help each other out.

[Bill Keith]

It's a bond like no other, that's for sure.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. Meantime, while you're sort of traveling around the country, your dad was also, like, visiting people to, I guess, to advise them on their health and nutrition. I mean, it sounds like. I mean, I use this word very carefully because it can be pejorative, but was almost like a guru to some people. Right. And I guess one of his messages was like, in order to become healthy, you need to follow the path of God or Christ or whatever, however he presented it. Is that fair to say?

[Bill Keith]

That was part of it. Mind, body, spirit. Definitely a religious element to his healing practice, but also really mind, body, and then Food being the cure for everything.

[Lee Keith]

That's right. And my dad was just. He was so excited about helping people. And this is, again, a really positive aspect. He had folks with different, you know, diseases, MS, Crohn's disease, and he would bring him into his house and do his absolute best to get results, and he wouldn't charge people for this. He would do mind, body, soul therapies through reflexology on the beach. He would use his organ meat tablets and protein and essential fat supplements and just, you know, these are all things, by the way, mixed up in barrels in our backyard. You know, these are not lab tested. And we would see these folks go through a lot of transformation, and it was incredible.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, today he would have been an influencer on Instagram and would be making hundreds of thousands of dollars. But it sounds like he was motivated by his faith. Based on your description. Doesn't sound like he was making money off of this. You could imagine people coming to him and him saying, listen, I can work with you and consult with you, and it's gonna be 100 bucks a week or something. He didn't do that usually.

[Lee Keith]

No, no, you're exactly right. He was motivated by his faith and results. That's what he cared about.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. All right. So one of the things that he started to make was these, like, energy bars or whatever. Just. Just nutrition. Just bars to feed you, I guess. And it was a. Like a combination of peanut butter and honey and fruits and. Tell me about these bars that he would make for you guys.

[Bill Keith]

So he. He. The way the recipe was born. As little kids, he wanted us to take those whole food supplement powders and oils and tablets that he had concocted and would sell.

[Guy Raz]

And the supplements were like, what, powdered? I don't know, vitamins?

[Bill Keith]

They were whole food powder concentrate, so all, like beef spleen powder, beef liver powder, all dehydrated concentrates pressed into a tablet. And as kids, didn't know how to. To swallow those big tablets. And of course, they tasted really gross to chew. And so he ground them into a powder and mixed them with his protein powder and his omega oil. Mom had the stainless steel bowl, kind of smashing it all with her hands and adding honey as a sweetener. And we would roll them into balls and we'd eat them, and you couldn't taste the tablet powder. And they were sweet and peanut butter and honey, and they were so delicious to us. And we were allowed to have one of those little balls every day. And that was getting our five tablets that we were supposed to Have. And so we've been eating this recipe, you know, for almost 40 years now.

[Guy Raz]

I guess your dad, that this became one of the things that he would. He thought could make some money for the family. You guys, I read in like 1995, Bill, you must have been 13, and Lee, you were 9 or 10. You guys were. Helped him sell these door to door.

[Lee Keith]

Correct. So we would have Ziploc bags and we'd have these labels over it that would say Perfect Foods Bar Plain. You know, that was. That would be our flavor name.

[Guy Raz]

That was just peanut butter and honey.

[Lee Keith]

And no official label or anything. And we would give these to friends, to folks at gym, as a way to get your protein in a really easy, digestible way with no sugar, just honey. And. And it was a great tree. So we would sell a few hundred of these. And my father, if he ever had any big trips for us to go on, he'd make this. Like, for instance, we were going to Disneyland. And he put the goal that we needed $600. And so we would mix these many bars up over the next year, all of our garage sales money and all these different ways to raise $600. So that was part of the motivation us getting up there and, you know, making these bars.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So you were selling these bars. And I guess around. I don't know, Bill, you must have been 17, 18. You guys moved up to Northern California to a town called Willow Creek, which I had to look up on the map. I live in Northern California, but this is like Oregon almost of California. It's like way up there, like this tiny, tiny town, probably a couple hours south of the Oregon border. Willow Creek. Why did. Why did you guys move there? What happened?

[Lee Keith]

So he was really wanting to get into the woods, pretty isolated, where he could be off the grid. And we headed up there from San Diego. And I remember thinking, gosh, this is isolated. Not seeing a house for hundreds of miles in the middle of the forest. And then you come across this little valley.

[Bill Keith]

So we moved to the little town without a plan. And he started talking to the townsfolk and kind of figuring out where we could work. And we would harvest someone's cherries and split it with them and sell the cherries to the local co op and make a few dollars that way. From harvesting crops to landscaping to kind of just odd end jobs putting us kids to work. And then we settled in a abandoned pizza restaurant behind the one gas station in the town. And I was 14, Bill was 17, had no windows, still had the old pizzas, moldy in the oven. And we cleaned that place up and slept in the booths where people used to dine. And that was home for a year. We had Christmas there. A sister was born there, which keep in mind the last three siblings, my sisters and I delivered without a doctor.

[Guy Raz]

You were the midwife to your three of your siblings?

[Bill Keith]

Yes. The first one, the midwife, couldn't make it. And then it went well enough, I guess that we were hired. And so there was no doctors after that. Keep in mind, it was number 11 and 12. So my mom was a pro.

[Guy Raz]

That's pretty experienced.

[Bill Keith]

Yeah, but. And it's things like that guy, I look back and think, gosh, we're pretty lucky in a lot of ways. And things could have gone a lot of different avenues. And yeah, that pizza restaurant was where our youngest sister Faith was born.

[Guy Raz]

It's just amazing because this is not Little House on the Prairie era. This is the 90s, right? Or early 2000s.

[Lee Keith]

Yeah, early 2000s.

[Guy Raz]

Just a remarkable upbringing. I mean this, we could do a whole episode on just your childhood. But meantime, this, I guess an inn or bed and breakfast becomes available for sale. And your dad bought it. How did he have the money to buy it?

[Lee Keith]

So he actually carried a note with the owner. They were getting older and we were able to carry a note and spend the next few years trying to pay aggressively. And the thought process behind is that if we could put the work in to fix the motel up, we'd be able to raise the rental amounts because we're talking about 15, $20 a night, very small margins. And so that was going to be our next business venture.

[Bill Keith]

There was this little, little motel on the highway that was built in the 1870s. So it's 130 year old stagecoach stop property and it was all overgrown and the folks that owned the place were elderly and really not able to take care of it. And then we also really came to learn there wasn't really, you know, any kind of industry in the town. So there wasn't necessarily people even needing to stay in a motel. And it had a middle house. And that was probably felt like most home for us. That was for me, 14 to 18 years old was living there.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. Meantime, your dad's getting sick. Did he know what he had? Did he know what was going on? Or was he just not feeling like, did he go to a doctor?

[Bill Keith]

It was obvious he had skin cancer that was progressively getting worse on his head.

[Lee Keith]

And so we saw this spot grow from, you know, a pimple, it took 15 years to where it Took over the side of his head. It eventually took his ear off. You know, it was really sad. It was really sad.

[Guy Raz]

Was he getting any kind of, like, medical treatment at all?

[Bill Keith]

No, none. And he actually wouldn't even take aspirin. And so nothing. Nothing. And he never saw a doctor. And I. I think that the strain that also came with him being in so much physical pain was. It became a very volatile home. But we, you know, education wasn't around. I remember asking my dad at, you know, 15 years old, there wasn't any textbooks around, and I was the maid in this motel. And so he said, well, if it's meant to be, God will provide it. And we were at a yard sale a few months later, and there was a book with no cover on it that said GED. It was for 25 cents. And he said, well, there you have it. And he bought that for me. And through that, I had gotten my GED with that book. And I'll never forget, my dad was sitting in the living room and I knew that would really bother him. He didn't want any of us to leave. I think his world was a little bit closing in on him. And he also needed us to take care of his younger kids. That's just plain and simple. I knew that was a part of it. And so I remember telling him, hey, dad, remember that book? I got my ged? I took the test when I went on a grocery run with Mom. Like, I was nervous to tell him because he would probably be upset. And I remember he, like, muted the TV and he looked at me and he, huh. And then he unmuted the tv and that was the end of my high school graduation. Didn't get a reaction. That was better than a bad reaction. And then I went on with my day. And it's wild to think back now, having my own kids, how just, you know, unbelievable experience for me, but it absolutely kind of shaped my character for sure.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Lee Keith]

Yeah. I'm always impressed with Lee's motivation because I, early on I started getting into basketball, and my dad had a little bit of a fondness coming from Indiana for basketball. So that allowed me to sort of go out into the quote unquote world. And I was able. My dad met with the local principal at the high school in Hoopa and said, hey, he needs to work, but he wants to play basketball here. I was 16, and so they allowed me to come one day every two weeks.

[Guy Raz]

And Hoopa was a town about what, 20 minutes north of.

[Lee Keith]

Yeah, it was about 15 minutes north. So met with the coach out there. And it was my first sort of look at the outside world. So you.

[Guy Raz]

You end up playing basketball in high school, and then you actually went on to play basketball at the community college in, I guess where. Eureka.

[Lee Keith]

College of the Redwoods. Yep.

[Guy Raz]

So you took a business class, and one of your ideas, or you had to come up with a business idea, was to make your dad's bars to create a business out of your dad's bars.

[Lee Keith]

Correct.

[Guy Raz]

Was this a serious idea? I mean, was it something that you had talked about with any of your siblings, or was it just like, okay, I got to do this assignment, and this is an idea?

[Lee Keith]

It was just I had to do this assignment. Making bars for us was a pretty tough chore and didn't come with good memories, and so that was sort of the last thing I wanted to do, funny enough. But we had this assignment in business class of a class that I've used all throughout my career, quite honestly, that in accounting. And the presentation was the Perfect foods bar was this name that I was. You know, that we were putting together. And so I presented it, handed out samples, and I never forget my teacher going, it's a delicious tasting product, but a refrigerated bar? That just doesn't make sense. That's what he told me on the note. And he wasn't wrong, 100%. Oh, absolutely.

[Guy Raz]

And meantime, while this is going on, Lee, you also left home, I guess, after you got your ged, But, I mean, you really left, like, you kind of, like, kind of ran away, right?

[Bill Keith]

Yeah. I had turned 18 and was trying to talk to my dad about letting me move out or maybe I could go to college or go to the college of the Redwoods with Bill and my sisters and I wanting something more, and that wasn't an option for our dad, and. And I had ran away with my brother, our little brother and my sister in the middle of the night. And I came to Bill's house, and Bill was like, I'm living a fine life, Lee. What are you doing? Go back. And I was like, I'm 18. Like, there's no doing this on dad's terms, and I have to make my way. And so Bill let me and my sister move into one of his bedrooms with two twin mattresses on the ground. And we started taking the bus and worked at Blockbuster Video and had little small checks, and then we could mail some of that money back to mom.

[Guy Raz]

You know, it's kind of remarkable, and I say this with admiration, that neither of you seem to have resentment about this. Maybe you did at some point. Maybe you worked through it with therapists or on your own. But it seems like, upon reflection, you aren't angry.

[Bill Keith]

No, I think that I'd say yes, we definitely had resentment. At least I'll speak for myself. As we stepped into taking over financially for our family and having that responsibility of all the kids, I think that was really hard and difficult. But I think that harboring any kind of anger or resentment and instead just have a lot of empathy for our father, and we're able to really forgive a lot of those. Those things.

[Lee Keith]

I think it took time for me, speaking for myself, because it was so unique, and it felt like you were tied down in a sense that it did take some therapy. It took years of just talking to folks, working it out, and you could be held hostage, in a sense, by your past, or you can just say, I can write my own story. And that's where Lee and I really shared sort of the same vision for that's not going to hold us back. We're going to do it in spite of.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Lee Keith]

And when we were faced with this really devastating point where our father gotten severely sick, our outlook was very grim. We had less than $1,000, a $3,500 mortgage that we were behind two months on, and we needed a way to quickly raise some capital or we were gonna lose our place, lose everything we had.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Bill Keith]

We then get that call that, you know, we are going to lose the motel and our mom saying, we'll have no place to live. And there were nine little kids under the age of 18 at that time. And so there was just a long road in front of our family.

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment, how the family gets rescued by its own recipe for peanut butter bars, and how those bars eventually find their way into Whole Foods, Starbucks, and beyond. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built this. My favorite vacations have been to towns and cities where I could also just enjoy living like a local, shopping in the markets, cooking in my own kitchen, or spending a lazy afternoon looking out the window and reading a book. And all of this has been possible because I usually stay at Airbnbs. Maybe you're planning a trip for a long weekend, or maybe you want to book a stay somewhere warm while you're away. You could Airbnb your home and make some extra money toward the trip. Whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home or spare room might be worth more than you think. Find out how [e-mail] host and now a quick vital break. A little more from our sponsor, Vital Proteins. Have you heard of Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides. It's a supplement that has four benefits all in one helping support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones and joints. After 30, our body's natural collagen production can start to decline by 1% per year, which may lead to the appearance of things like fine lines or saggy skin and your bones and joints not moving like they used to. By taking collagen peptides daily, you can help support your hair, skin, nails, bone and joint health. Everything I do for my health, I try to make sure to do every day because consistency is key. So I take a serving of Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides every day to help look, feel and move. My best get 20% off by going to www.vitalproteins.com and entering promo code BILT at checkout. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. If you are pregnant, nursing or have a medical condition, consult your physician before this episode of How I Built this is brought to you by Square. Recently, I collaborated with Square on a new series called the Way Up. In the Way Up, I sit down with six local businesses, the ones that make a neighborhood. And in each interview, we chart an entrepreneur's journey, the hurdles and the highs, and how Square played a part in helping the business grow. To hear all of these Inspiring stories, visit square.com go built that's s q u a r e.com go built and check out the story of Charles Gabriel, the award winning chef behind the legendary Charles Pan Fried Chicken in Harlem. And how he went from a childhood in rural North Carolina to culinary stardom in New York City. And along the way, turning his talent into a booming business. Here are the journeys of six rising American businesses. Visit square.com go bilt to learn more. That's s q u a r e dot com go built. Learn how square can help your business on the way up. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy raz. So it's 2005 and the Keith family is in trouble. Bud Keith, their dad, is getting sicker and sicker. So the older siblings, Bill and Lee, decide to head back to the little town of Willow Creek to help support the family. I mean, that's a massive amount of responsibility to take on at such a young age. You know that now this is going to fall on your shoulders. Bill, primarily yours because you're the oldest kid. How did you. I mean, were you kind of an autopilot? Like, I, I just have to do this. I gotta figure this out.

[Lee Keith]

First of all, the love for my family, the love of all of us. And it definitely wasn't just me. It was Lee and Heather and Moniece.

[Bill Keith]

And Amias and Shareese. If you were at all an adult, like, that's who was in that circle standing up. And what were we gonna do? Yeah.

[Lee Keith]

And so all of us huddling together and thinking all of the best options. And at that time, a lot of my brothers and sisters started getting jobs to help support the family. My job was to get this motel ready to sell because there was no way that we could run this place and try to get whatever equity we, we could out of it. Then we, we found a, a buyer that would be willing to give us cash. And we had 100,000 in equity.

[Guy Raz]

So that's pretty great.

[Bill Keith]

We'd never seen money like that in our bank account. And that was a moment for our family was talking to our mom and we had had our dad move out and take care of himself and take some space from the family.

[Guy Raz]

He moved out to like an apartment in Willow Creek.

[Bill Keith]

A motorhome.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Bill Keith]

He, you know, took to a motorhome and kind of went to stay with some folks that knew in Southern California. That wasn't his choice, that was ours.

[Guy Raz]

Because he was so volatile.

[Bill Keith]

Yes. And, you know, we thought it best for him to take space, which he did. And we turned around and said, okay. The idea that we had the best idea and Bill really led this charge was we could try and control our own destiny by if we could put our family recipe in a real candy wrapper, we could start selling it in stores.

[Lee Keith]

The vision was if we could sell enough of these bars, we could support.

[Guy Raz]

The family and make this peanut butter bar, turn that into a business.

[Bill Keith]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

All right. This is a crazy idea. This is like Jack and the Beanstalk. This is like, here are some beans for your goats. I mean, who's gonna take that hundred thousand dollars and say, let's take it all and invest it in a peanut butter bar? I mean, it's gonna totally nuts.

[Lee Keith]

Well, think about mom, right? And she's Gonna let her 21, 22 year old son take all the family finances and, you know, roll the dice on this bar. And I, still having kids now, can't believe that she did it. But she, she always says she had so much faith in us.

[Bill Keith]

Yeah, we. It's wild to look back, but we spent 65,000 cash on a candy wrapper machine off of ebay and it's arriving on a truck. Bill signs a lease at a thousand square foot little warehouse in Sacramento.

[Guy Raz]

You decided at this point you all moved to Sacramento, right? The whole family, Most of the family moves to Sacramento.

[Lee Keith]

So the family actually moved down to San Diego to pee a little bit more closer to my father and stuff down there. Even though he was separate. Lee had gone down there and it was me and my brother in Sacramento.

[Guy Raz]

It was you and your brother. What's your brother's name? Amias.

[Lee Keith]

Amias, Yep.

[Guy Raz]

You moved to Sacramento. So you, you basically take 60,000 of the hundred thousand and buy a machine that automatically wraps candy bars, thinking once we get this machine that's going to transform this product because you had these things you were selling in Ziplocs. Just for a moment, was there a cheaper way to do this? I mean, did you, did you have to buy a candy bar wrapping machine to do this?

[Lee Keith]

So I researched co packers out and the co packing minimums were so large because we're talking about 50,000 bars minimum, which back then, I mean, that would have been everything. And not only that, they couldn't make the bar with the quality we wanted and expected. Because for us in this company, it was always about if we can make a great tasting, highly nutritious protein bar, folks are going to love it. And every time we'd give it to our friends, folks would say this is the best snack that they've ever had.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, there's so many reasons why I can see people saying this is not a good idea. Okay? Like a refrigerated bar made out of peanut butter and honey. And like, I mean, you're basing the potential success on this just from feedback from Friends, which I know, Having done almost 700 of these episodes, every entrepreneur, when they start and they hand out their cookies or their bars or their apparel to friends, their friends are like, these are awesome. I love these. And they're not always the best control group here. The best panel, oftentimes they're not.

[Bill Keith]

And keep in mind, in 2005, that was in the height of the Atkins era. So low carb, zero fat was everything trending in food. And we were high fat, calorically heavy from nut butter. Um, by no means were we on trend. We also think about the category. This was the same year Kind Bar founded. So, you know, still the key prominent players were Power Bar, Cliff was still very much, you know, kind of on track.

[Guy Raz]

Larabar had been around for a couple years.

[Bill Keith]

Lara bar was still new. We did demos in the grocery store next to Laura herself. And so many new brands that were coming into the space at that time.

[Guy Raz]

And let me just get a sense of how you were doing this, because first of all, from what I understand, it's you and your brother originally in Sacramento, and not only were you trying to sell them, you guys were physically making the bars.

[Lee Keith]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Tell me how you were doing that. You had like a.

[Lee Keith]

So we had a little, A little mixer and then we had just these trays where we would take it by 12 bars at a time, weigh it out after mixing, roll it into a firm tray, and then cut it by hand and put it through this packaging machine and box it up ourselves. So we, me and my brother could do about a thousand bars in about 10 hours.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, that's pretty good. Did they look janky? I mean, using like a knife to cut through peanut butter bars? Like, you're not going to get a perfect cut. It's not going to look like machine cut. Like, did they kind of look sort of like, you know, it was a.

[Lee Keith]

Hodgepodge of trying to get it right. We, we try to make sure we got the net weight correct, but a lot of times that would send us way over and folks would get bars that, that, you know, we're basically a bar and a half in one and so wildly inconsistent. And we had a label. It was.

[Bill Keith]

We made it on Microsoft Word.

[Lee Keith]

Yep. On Microsoft Word and the nutrition facts, we didn't. We looked up how to make a supplement fact panel, how to display the ingredients, all of that, you know, we didn't have any advisors or anything.

[Guy Raz]

Where were you trying to sell it? I mean, you're in Sacramento. And traditionally with these kinds of stories we've done on the show, a food product, there's concentric circles. Like you're in Sacramento. You start with a couple of stores in Sacramento, then maybe you get into a local chain in Sacramento, and then you maybe get into Whole Foods in Sacramento. That was not how you guys were doing this.

[Lee Keith]

No. So we were trying to get an audience with Whole Foods, with some of these bigger retailers, but just not breaking through the clutter, quite honestly. And so we would sell them in gyms and we would sell them in like, oh, co ops, actually festivals as well.

[Guy Raz]

How are you making all these bars and then going out and trying to pitch it to co ops and like, tell me about your day to day up there. In Sacramento?

[Lee Keith]

Oh, it was. We would spend, oh, our mornings prospecting, going door to door, and then we would spend our time doing demos if we were lucky enough to get a gym here or there. We actually had a chain of four different gyms in Sacramento that we were in at nighttime. After we were done pitching, we would make the product we did almost every day. And we put a big old goal, I'll never forget in my office. It was a small office, and then next to it was the warehouse. And it was 10,000 bars a month if we can get. That was our break even point. And I. The first month would be 2500, the next month would be 27. I mean, it was taking too long. And you start going three or four months, five months into it, not hitting your hurdles, starting to get in bigger and bigger debt. Well, we found ourselves in a point where we had a month's worth of cash left and this was going to be it. All of the credit cards. I was over $100,000 in debt, and I was reaching the breaking point.

[Guy Raz]

So you've really got to do something to generate more sales here, right? And I guess one idea that you had was to start going to, like, music festivals, rock festivals in Northern California, to hand out samples there, right?

[Lee Keith]

Yeah. So we looked at these festivals, went into a local, sort of a hippie festival up in Sonoma County, a harmony festival. They would come and, you know, listen to music, and everybody was feeling great. And let me just tell you, they had the munchies for peanut butter and honey snacks, you know. And so we did very well. And one of the folks that attended our booth worked at Berkeley Whole Foods, a grocery team leader. And she tried the product and she loved it. And she said, oh, my gosh, I'm gonna put this in my store. And me knowing that you had to get corporate approval, you know, I called her afterwards, and I end up getting a meeting at the local corporate office in Livermore. After going through all the details, we were fortunate enough to get a one.

[Bill Keith]

Store test for 30 days.

[Lee Keith]

For 30 days. And that's when I called up my sister Lee. And Lee remembers the desperation in my voice. And I go, lee, please, I need help. We have a chance, remember? I mean, that's all it was. It was just, we have a chance.

[Guy Raz]

Meanwhile, Lee, you are in San Diego, and is it you and another one of your siblings that were trying to also kind of market and get this product in front of into stores in San Diego?

[Bill Keith]

So I. One of my roles was to demo at the accounts that we did have in San Diego. So we had a few gyms that would sell our product and also working at a real estate office and helping my mom with the kids. And so we got in our car, Sharice and I, and I think drove north within a day. And these brothers of ours, guy, they needed a kick in the butt. Their apartment was pretty dirty. They weren't eating well. And so we did a big reset in that apartment and started bossing them around. And we started making bars. And we took advantage of that 30 day test.

[Guy Raz]

And, Bill, you were driving back and forth, Sacramento to Berkeley every day or every other day to get fresh bars in to stock the store?

[Lee Keith]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Bill Keith]

They allowed us to demo Sunup to Sundown, I think, just to kind of prove that that team leader had a good idea. But, Bill, gosh, there was, I think.

[Lee Keith]

You moved $30,000, $30,000 worth of sales in those 30 days.

[Guy Raz]

You were demoing it every day?

[Lee Keith]

Every day. But after those 30 days, I end up calling the buyer and he got right back to me, which never happens.

[Guy Raz]

You know, because you sold $30,000 worth.

[Lee Keith]

And I slow played it too. I said, hey, how is our store in Berkeley doing? Like, acting like we were all big, you know? And he called me back quickly and he said, my gosh, that was gangbusters. That was really, really great sales. He said, tell you what, we'll put you in 10 more stores. This seems like a hit, but still.

[Guy Raz]

Mainly what you're selling is a peanut butter bar. I think you have maybe two or three other flavors. Maybe you added like a carob chip bar. Right. What other flavors did you have?

[Bill Keith]

In the beginning, we had a mixed nut, fruit and seed, carob chip and peanut butter.

[Guy Raz]

And did people buy the carob chip? Cause carob, to me is more controversial than. I don't know what, than any controversial issue. Like, to me, carob is the third rail of American politics.

[Lee Keith]

I love it.

[Bill Keith]

In the natural channel, if you couldn't find a chocolate option of a perfect bar, I think people settled on having carob. If that's kind of where their cravings led them, it definitely is. No chocolate chip. And that came later.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And just to clarify, I mean, again, if you go to Whole foods today, it was different in 2006, but if you go to Whole foods today, there's half an aisle that's just energy bars.

[Lee Keith]

That's right.

[Guy Raz]

Then at the time, there was probably like a quarter of an aisle, maybe less. But nothing in the refrigerated section. Like you're going, so so but because you're demoing in the store, you could direct people to where to get.

[Lee Keith]

Well, that was the key. Demos have always been our key because to your point, whenever we would try to do recommendations or ads, they would always go to the dry bar set. No one would ever consider going to the refrigerator ration set. And so we were first put next to the orange juices. Kombucha was just coming on board at that time. We'd get put next to the kombuchas. And so it was really a hodgepodge of whoever had, you know, 6 to 12 inches of shelf space.

[Guy Raz]

Why did it have to be refrigerated? I mean, it's peanut butter and honey and protein powders. I mean, peanut butter doesn't have to be refrigerated.

[Lee Keith]

Yeah. So what it really is, it's from a stability aspect. So the cold just, it kept it firm. If you don't put something structurally in there, a lot of folks will use an emulsifier or some type of binding agent to bind the, the proteins and the oils together. What happens is it just spreads apart.

[Guy Raz]

Right. It's like salad dressing.

[Lee Keith]

Correct. And if you've ever had anything, peanut butter out of the freezer, it just tastes better. It's delivered better that way. It's sort calms down the peanut butter taste a little bit. That can be overwhelming.

[Guy Raz]

And the refrigeration seems to me to be like there were some disadvantages because, you know, people aren't, if they're looking for an energy bar, they're going to the energy bar shelves. But the other side of that coin is if you see something like that next to orange juice or yogurt or salsa, you're like, wait, that's interesting, that's different. Which stands out too.

[Lee Keith]

That created curiosity. And so we'd always say if we can make the product good enough with the best quality, when they bite into it, they're gonna tell their friends about it.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. Okay, so now you're gonna go to 10 Whole Foods.

[Lee Keith]

That's right.

[Guy Raz]

What does that mean?

[Bill Keith]

We needed more demo people, we needed more demonstrators.

[Guy Raz]

How did you, how did you, did you, did you bring more siblings on or hire people? What'd you do?

[Bill Keith]

We all did those demos ourselves. You know, that was our weekends. We're standing behind tables and you could make sure you sold through the product on the demo table and then you could leave them fully stocked when you left. And so we could sell $400 in a three hour demo and then leave behind a couple hundred dollars. So you're generating $600 to make that store stop, and you're doing that weekly. It was really cobbled together.

[Guy Raz]

So. All right, so you guys were doing that, and you're in 10 Whole Foods, but were you getting anybody coming to you to just kind of help you and give you some mentorship? I mean, you are all really young, and I would be super excited to see what you guys were doing as a family. But was there anybody who was like, hey, I've got some experience here. Let me give you some advice, or not quite yet.

[Lee Keith]

There was actually a gentleman that loved the product, and he said, tell you what, I would buy half of this company for $50,000, and I'll help you make it. I'm a professional business person. And we were close to closing that deal.

[Guy Raz]

50 grand for half the business?

[Lee Keith]

For half the business. Because we were running out of options. We had no money.

[Bill Keith]

He actually backed out of that deal.

[Lee Keith]

He backed out of it, saying, I usually get 51% is what he said. So thank God that deal didn't come through.

[Guy Raz]

Talk about divine intervention.

[Lee Keith]

Absolutely.

[Guy Raz]

Because I'm sure the time was super disappointing. You're like, oh, we lost this chance to get 50 grand.

[Lee Keith]

Right. Well, we thought that was during the times where you're still not sure you're going to make it.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So by 2007, you're in 10 Whole Foods that year. Just out of curiosity, did anybody at Whole Foods say you really might have more of a shot at scaling this if you can make it shelf stable?

[Bill Keith]

Yep. We definitely had folks telling us, hey, this would be great if you can just, you know, tweak your recipe. And. And we had, you know, we had tried to do that. I remember taking it to a manufacturer and saying, hey, can you. What could we do? But it just changed the taste of the product. And then also, when you bind the oils and protein in the bar, it kind of leave like a rock in your stomach. And you think, like, it's hard to digest, you know, proteins that are bound with the fats. And so it really. It changed the product, and it changed the way you felt consuming the product. And so it was back to, no, we need to just continue using kind of our more fragile product and still.

[Guy Raz]

Hand rolling it, hand making it, hand making it with rolling pins in Sacramento in that warehouse.

[Bill Keith]

So in 2008, we had kind of built up up a little bit of revenue, a little bit of business that we moved the kitchen. We also, like, our family did need us closer. Like, we offered a lot of stability for our Siblings. And so we moved down to San Diego and signed a lease for a little warehouse there and, you know, started continuing to roll the bars with rolling.

[Guy Raz]

Pins and just do it yourself, basically not working with the coach Co manufacturer co packer. Just as an aside, Bill, I mean, you are ostensibly the CEO and you're the oldest sibling, and you're kind of the leader of the tribe here. How did that work with your siblings? I mean, I think based on the two of you, I think probably you're all pretty nice people and have good values, but still, you've got to tell them what to do and they've got to listen to you and you're the boss. And so how was that going?

[Lee Keith]

It had its challenges because I think there was a lot of personal development that my brothers and sisters were going through because of sort of the big life change that we had had, going from one thing and one direction of our father to being sort of independent. And so we felt like we did the best that we could at the time. And sometimes that meant splitting apart for a little bit, but we always sort of gravitated back together with the goal in the early days of just survival. That was always the rallying cry across the family.

[Guy Raz]

And I think right around this time, like this is still, in 2008, you guys hit a decent milestone. A million dollars in revenue. Right. And meanwhile, Bill, I think. I think what, you move out to Denver for a while to expand the products into some more stores out there.

[Lee Keith]

I moved to Denver for a year. I had just gotten married to this lady that was a sister of a demonstrator we had in Northern California, and she moved with me to Denver. Lee was running the show back home, and I was in Colorado, going store to store, pitching, trying to get. Get traction out there.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. That market was that important that you moved there?

[Lee Keith]

We still needed sales. You have this fear in your head that something bad is going to happen because you're not official at every touch point. You know what I mean?

[Guy Raz]

What would the bad thing that would have. Like, what was keeping you up at night?

[Lee Keith]

Maybe, you know, the. The food processor folks would come in and shut us down, or the fda. You have all these fears in your head of not having everything buttoned up the way you want it to be. You desperately want that. You just can't afford it. And so you're running in a race to try to get to that point.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Bill Keith]

While Bill was gone and starting to, we were continuing to grow, you know, in a grassroots kind of way, where we were sold and it was time to take a big leap. You know, we had to become official. And so I toured this space that was 6,500 square feet. It was beautiful. It was zoned to be a commercial kitchen. It was just an empty warehouse. And to think about what it takes, even just out of the material or the know how to build out a kitchen, we had no idea. We called up the health department and said, what kind of floor can we use? What kind of ceiling? What kind of walls? What's a drop sink mean like? And we just started putting one foot in front of the other. But we signed a lease in 2009 on a kitchen on Eastgate Mall in San Diego and went to work with our own money, still totally bootstrapped, to cobble together a certified kitchen.

[Guy Raz]

How much was a kitchen, by the way? What were you paying for it?

[Lee Keith]

It was into the half a million dollar range, which back then is. It was enormous. And that was being cheap. That was taking a lot of shortcuts.

[Guy Raz]

And you're living in Denver at this time.

[Lee Keith]

I'm living in Denver. Well, I had got the message from Lee. We came back home after about a year.

[Bill Keith]

We needed to build this kitchen together. We needed to build out.

[Lee Keith]

We needed to build this kitchen. And during that time, we needed some sales. We ended up getting a national Fresh Market account. And so we jumped in a van and we took off across the country, me and my buddy, from San Diego to Miami, up to Washington D.C. and back, selling bars, pitching accounts to really try to promote a national launch. After that, we came back and we had spent $10,000 on this trip. And Lee looked at me and she's like, $10,000?

[Bill Keith]

I said, Bill, you could have done this for seven. I know it.

[Guy Raz]

Where did the 10,000 go? I mean, you weren't staying at, like, the risk.

[Lee Keith]

I know. Well, it was food.

[Bill Keith]

I saw some Six Flags magic.

[Lee Keith]

Yeah, there was a few. Amusement parks were part of the deal.

[Guy Raz]

Amusement parks. You're supposed to be selling bars. What are you doing? Go to amusement park.

[Lee Keith]

You need to have a little motivation in there. My buddy, that's all he asked for, was that if we go to amusement parks on our way through, he'd go with you.

[Bill Keith]

Yeah, Bill and I were always the yen to each other's Yang guy. You know, I think when over the years, people ask, how did it work? I think, you know, I. I could overanalyze and hesitate and be too, you know, like maybe thoughtful, critical, and you really do have to just go, right? And I think to Bill complimenting That he's just, he goes, Lee, I just.

[Guy Raz]

Want to sort of pause for a moment because at this point, I mean, again, you grew up with like, just enormous disadvantages compared to a lot of people that you knew. Here you are just like four years after you get a ged and you're talking about margins and you're talking about P and LS and you're doing all the accounting. Like, Like, I mean, it's. Did you ever stop and think, I freaking, like, taught myself this stuff?

[Bill Keith]

We were so hungry to not be those, those homeless kids in the motorhome without an education. Like, it really lit a fire in us. And we wanted to give a different life to our brothers and sisters. And I really value those parts of my upbringing. Like, we used those hard times, I think, to our benefit. But self taught in QuickBooks, self taught manufacturing, we just, you know, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. That was our mantra.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So in 2009, I guess you guys get a really big break. Right. Because this is just three and a half years after you launch the business. You get a meeting with Costco, which is huge, or the potential is huge. And I guess a broker there had reached out to you.

[Lee Keith]

Correct. I was able to get a presentation with Costco. Very janky. If you look at our old packaging, it's wild that they even met with us. But the buyer liked the product, he tasted it, and it was great. Well, they started obviously going back and forth on price.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. Because Costco is. Again, we've done this on the show. It's risky because in many cases you're essentially subsidizing the consumer for a while. It can be that the case where you have to price the bars or the product at a certain price point where you're essentially losing money for a while.

[Lee Keith]

Right. So we, we didn't want to do that. So we made sure that it was going to be one of our best accounts from a margin perspective. And on the third time, we dropped the bar by $0.01. That was the. Because the buyer literally told us, if. If we don't do a deal, deal, we're not gonna come back here. And we dropped the product by $0.01. That was enough to sort of close the deal. We had favorable terms and we started roadshowing.

[Guy Raz]

And by the way, just 10 Costco's in Southern California.

[Lee Keith]

It was five in Southern California.

[Bill Keith]

And and so keep in mind, like we had done these demos standing in the traffic of a Whole Foods, and you could sell $400 to $600 dollars in product where a Costco, you could walk in and we would commit to a four day roadshow Thursday through Sunday and you'd set up your 10 by 10 booth. And we could move anywhere from a really slow moving Costco, you know, $12,000 in revenue in those four days to 35, $40,000 in four days off of that 10 by 10 table. And it also was really quality interactions where we were able to point to the refrigerator, they could see what the product looked like, they could hear why. And it was, we talked to thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of.

[Lee Keith]

People and you get great feedback directly from the customers to Lee's point about the product and that. And you bring that because there was no middle management or any, you know, we would be the ones making the product. We would make the adjustments, little quality adjustments based on customer feedback in real time.

[Guy Raz]

I. People who listen to the show regularly know I'm a big fan of Costco. I think it's a great equalizer. I think everybody just, I just think most people love it and so, But I wonder, like, I don't ever do the samples at Costco because I, I just, I don't. They're very. Like a lot of things I just choose not to eat, but I might want to go with my kids. They just go and just sample everything. So part of me is like, yeah, you know, people are just sampling and sampling, but I guess only the tiny percentage buy, it still works out in your favor. Right. Because they have to buy a large quantity of this product.

[Lee Keith]

Absolutely. From the exposure. Costco sampling was one of the most effective ways to get product in mouth for a consumer. And that was our job because we felt our competitive advantage was our taste.

[Bill Keith]

Yeah, but we were concerned would getting into Costco cannibalize our existing business. And in fact it only built awareness for us. You'd cut up 10,000 samples in those four days and they'd go away and they could find the product in the natural channel. We had built up Whole Foods Market in these regions, sprouts market, and we started seeing, you know, more traction without having to stand as much in those natural channels. Because you were sampling tens of thousands of people with your brand, by the.

[Lee Keith]

Way, all of our policies and procedures were just googled out and researched and, and when they came and did an audit, because Costco does an audit.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, they came to your, your manufacturing facility.

[Lee Keith]

Yes. They were really surprised how small it was, I'm sure.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, you were hand rolling this stuff.

[Lee Keith]

Exactly.

[Bill Keith]

We manufactured, produced product for two 8 hour shifts and then the sanitation shifts ran through the night. And so the lights never turned off in the kitchen. And we scaled from 20 team members in the kitchen to 65, still using rolling pins guy. And so that was a tipping point for us. We had pursued that co man opportunity again. Still came up dry.

[Guy Raz]

You couldn't find a co manufacturer that could deal with the viscosity of, of the dough or the correct.

[Bill Keith]

And we still didn't have anybody. Like now we understand you don't have any financing behind you. You don't have good credit as a business. Certainly our Dun and Bradstreet number wasn't anything you'd want to measure. But Costco was really turning well for us and they wanted to expand to more regions. And I took to UT and we were able to find these kind of semi automated machines from a company out of Santa Barbara. So on YouTube I saw that these machines, it was pressing a Rice Krispie treat into the tray in a pneumatic way and making it even. And lo and behold, that equipment bill, we won't forget that moment that it pressed 45 bars into one of those sheet pans. And we were able to go from the last year we made product with rolling pins. We produced 7 million bars. And we were then able to convert to these small pieces of equipment and we were able to scale that little 5,000 square foot kitchen to produce 20 million bars. The last year we were producing in that kitchen.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. So this is happening and I want to back up in the time for a little bit because we jumped ahead a little bit, but there was so much momentum because you're in Costco and you're growing and then you're still hand rolling it while you're selling this at Costco. 24 hour shifts. But your dad, who is getting progressively sicker, he passes away in 2009. I know that he was increasingly volatile as he was getting sicker and sicker, but he was able to start to see that his children were having some success with this business. What did he think about that?

[Lee Keith]

It was wild. I'll never forget one of the last things he said to me as I was loading these small coolers up to go take them to a retailer. He said, bill, that looks like a lot of expense. I doubt those pencil out is what he said. And I said, no, dad, you know what? They actually are making money.

[Guy Raz]

Do you think your dad derived some comfort from knowing? Because I think probably a lot of his stress came from the fear that he couldn't provide for these children that he would die and they would be on their own, but seeing kind of that maybe actually they would be okay. Did that, did you get a sense that it provided him some, like, psychological comfort?

[Bill Keith]

I think it did. He had spent some time kind of on his own and then to our mother's credit, being, you know, just leading her life with unconditional love. He spent the final, the final years of his life under the same roof with our mother and our brothers and sisters. And I think we had, he had come to terms with his illness and I think that we had the family in a nice home and the kids were going to school and food was on the table and he saw his kids working together and selling a recipe that he was very passionate about.

[Guy Raz]

It's kind of. Again, I hope I'm not sounding like I'm psychoanalyzing your dad, but he strikes me as somebody who really, truly was the definition of a visionary without the discipline of an entrepreneur.

[Bill Keith]

Perfectly said.

[Lee Keith]

That's Wilson.

[Guy Raz]

It would require his children and their discipline to do it.

[Lee Keith]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Bill Keith]

We always talked about that like we were not going to hop to the next idea because that's what we saw our whole lives. Like we are just going to dig our heels in and, and stick with.

[Guy Raz]

It when we come back. In just a moment, Lee and Bill get their first chance at private investment and their first taste of disaster with a possible outbreak of salmonella. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 answers. Rates will rise or fall. Inflation's up or down. Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 41,000 businesses have future proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one Cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one fluid platform with one unified business management suite. There's one source of truth giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. With real time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. When you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next. As a business owner myself, I love the idea of having this much clarity and control. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com bilt the guide is free to you at netsuite.com built netsuite.com bilt @ Schwab, how you invest is your choice, not theirs. That's why when it comes to managing your wealth, Schwab gives you more choices. You can invest and trade on your own. Plus get advice and more comprehensive wealth solutions to help meet your unique needs. With award winning service, low costs and transparent advice, you can manage your wealth your way at Schwab. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy raz. So it's 2014 and Perfect bars are at about 4,000 stores with roughly $15 million in annual revenue. And Bill and Lee decide the packaging needs a new look. So they hire a branding agency to design it. And now the label changes to what it looks more or less what it looks like now with a giant sort of peanut shape. And on the front and so you see the peanut and there's the, the just the, the protein content. And it's changed even more now where it's sort of, it's, it's translucent. You can see the bar underneath it. But, but it more or less looks the same. A peanut bar.

[Bill Keith]

Very similar.

[Guy Raz]

It's a really nice looking packaging. And, and who, I mean did that cost you a fortune to get that rebranded?

[Lee Keith]

So we had to take a note. With them it was, was $85,000 for which now seems like a really good deal, honestly. But that was for a website and SKUs and, and all of the branding. And for the first time we got to really focus on the brand and what we were about. We were about this family full of caregivers and bullet points on our packaging. Instead of having 15 claims, we focused on protein. We focused on and you know, superfoods.

[Guy Raz]

Macros, basically what people call macros now.

[Lee Keith]

Exactly.

[Guy Raz]

Protein superfoods. When you change the packaging and the branding, what did it do for sales?

[Bill Keith]

40% or at least a 40% lift.

[Guy Raz]

40% lift. Just right. It's amazing. And you guys were in Starbucks, which I think was kind of a pioneer in that in the refrigerator section. How did you get into Starbucks? Did they come to you or.

[Bill Keith]

So Starbucks, you know, interesting. It was just a personal connection that we had met at an event. We just, we didn't know who they were. And my sister and I were chatting with this awesome lady and just sharing our story and what kind of products we sold. And so never forget, she handed me her card, had the Starbucks logo on it. And you know, it was right during the MeToo movement. And there had been just some things that happened with my sister and kind of the manufacturing space. Unfortunately, you know, it's a very male dominated sector and we were just sharing stories and so we just a credit to kind of who they are as a company that that woman just put her arm around us and gave us her card and said, you know, let's, let's talk about your product. And so just having no idea who she was and having that kind of human connection, we were then able to send samples. They gave us a, you know, couple hundred store test. And just imagine how thrilling that was to see your little family recipe now with that new brand on the shelves in Starbucks. That was a huge awareness driver for us.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you guys are growing, growing, growing and I imagine so I want to, I want to talk to you by bringing in outside investors because you brought in outside investors in 2015. VMG Partners. Did you have people coming to you or were you still under the radar enough where you had to go find it yourself?

[Lee Keith]

Yes. So we actually met VMG, Wayne Wu, one of the partners at VMG. And at the time we were only doing 3 to 5 million and we weren't there yet, but he was going to keep an eye on us. So when we reached after the rebrand, we decided that we wanted to take a next step with this brand, to give it all that it could be.

[Bill Keith]

I, I would say though, Bill, we had hesitated a little bit of what tipped us over the edge think we had gone from 3 million to 7 million to 15 million. Keep in mind, you know, Target, Kroger, Walmart were all starting to knock on our door. Hey, you're, you're really selling well in Whole Foods. You know, we were posting amazing numbers at Costco, rolling the dice every single day. And it's hard to build a business and scale from 7 million to 20 million like very quickly without anything in the bank. And we really didn't have a fallback.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, and you're really close to getting this deal. But then something really bad happens, which is during what I guess was a routine kind of testing of your dough or your batter, you find a possible sign of contamination of microbes, salmonella and something like that. I mean, we've talked to other founders who've dealt with this kind of thing. I mean, something like that can kill your business. Right. So what happened?

[Bill Keith]

Yeah, Christmas week 2014, we had built our processes so quickly and being a little bit reckless in how fast we were shipping our product and our own test on Ourselves came back with a positive micro. And that product was not in the walk in.

[Guy Raz]

You had shipped it out already.

[Bill Keith]

It had shipped the same day.

[Guy Raz]

Was it a false positive? It didn't matter. Right?

[Bill Keith]

We don't know. Still to this day, we don't know. So what happens? Ah, never forget that Christmas week. Some of the toughest, toughest days in the history of our company.

[Guy Raz]

You have to recall everything from the shelves. Everything. Right.

[Lee Keith]

So we have the specific lots that are affected. But, but, right. Costco, major retailers, they do recall everything. They don't just.

[Guy Raz]

They don't want to take any risk.

[Lee Keith]

They don't want to take any risk, which is totally understandable. So I'm calling these folks that I have spent years, you know, a decade of creating trust with and telling them that this product needs to be returned and it's crushing.

[Bill Keith]

And we call the fda. I remember like just that feeling that, just sick to your stomach, stomach, call the FDA on yourself. So then within a day, they show up to our kitchen and they have guns, by the way. At least those did. And badges. And they said, we're shutting this kitchen down. Like, this is it.

[Guy Raz]

We're taking FDA inspectors. Yes. I didn't know they were armed.

[Lee Keith]

Wow. Well, so it's, it's actually, yeah, it's the food processors. They deal with a lot of like, like agriculture, like farmland and stuff. And so they do carry guns and.

[Bill Keith]

Wow.

[Lee Keith]

And it's wild. Yeah. So they come in guns blazing. Oh, boy. And they're going to do 500 tests on our factory and finished goods and they're going to find the root of this issue.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, man.

[Bill Keith]

And all the shelves across the country are empty and we're not filling any orders because we're not producing product.

[Guy Raz]

How much money does this cost you so far?

[Lee Keith]

Hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, but it's depleting our inventory and our cash reserves. So there is no fallback. And the inspector comes in and says, hey, this might not be an operation that can make product like yours, this cold press product. And so we're just thinking, gosh, this could shut down things permanently. And really having. I remember going to not wanting to go to sleep because you have to wake up the next day and go through it all again. And after two weeks, we're just waited, waiting to see the results. And they didn't find one issue. And so it very well could have been a false positive or an ingredient issue.

[Bill Keith]

And I feel like at that point we had gained a relationship with this one woman in particular from the fda. And I think that she felt so sorry for us. Like, you guys, if you just had those finished goods on hand, we could have tested to confirm. And so the energy shifted from, we're gonna catch you. We're taking this place down. And I mean, good on them. I want food safety across the country. I commend people in that line of work. And we made a call to obviously, VMG during that time.

[Guy Raz]

Your new investors.

[Bill Keith]

Yeah. And said, we have a little issue going on. And they did not. To their credit, they did not penalize their offer at all. They said it's a wrinkle in the rug that needed to slow us down and pay attention and be open to taking on investment. And we like to see that with the attitude that things happen for a reason. And we still to this day believe things happen for a reason and all of that.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, I want to ask you about bringing on investors, because now, 10 years, a little over 10 years, you guys have brought this business up to $15 million in sales all by yourselves. Bootstrapped it. You've learned a lot along the way. You got the scars to prove it. You are experienced operators now. You've got professional investors coming in. And they brought in some executives to join you guys, I think. Did that cause any tension? I mean, I'm sure now that you've got more of a professional group of people joining you, they have ideas of what it means to professionalize. And was that smooth sailing or was there some. Was it a bit rocky?

[Bill Keith]

Oh, gosh. Talk about feeling like imposters. Like, in my mind, in our minds, we were still those homeschool kids. Like, Guy, we grew up showering in public bathrooms. I brushed my teeth in the Home Depot bathroom and washed my little sister's hair in the public bathroom. Like, there's no being having any ego after that. And so they had taken a minority position, so Bill and I controlled the board. And so we kind of always felt like kind of the, you know, ownership still in our business very much, but very open. Like, we have learned everything we have through our lifetime from just being a sponge and putting ourselves, you know, we're smart enough to know what we don't know and putting ourselves in the room with people that are smarter than us. And so. So our first meeting with them, I'll never forget, was in their offices in San Francisco in the Presidio at Overlook the Golden Gate. Beautiful office, you know, amazing team. Everyone's Ivy League. Like, it's just, who are we? You know? And we walk in there, the huge Binder with everything, you know, just starting to articulate our business in a way we never knew how. Dividing it into four departments. We're going to need four department heads. You know, finance, we're going to house HR under there, operations, sales, marketing. Now we're going to need a director of analytics. You're going to need. And you just start seeing somebody that's done it before. Map it out for you. It was just some really exciting time.

[Guy Raz]

I'm curious about when you got this investment. How much money did they put in?

[Bill Keith]

So they invested 15 million and we put 5 million in the bank and took 10 million off the table.

[Guy Raz]

That must have been massively life changing. I mean it was $10 million to distribute among the family and the, you know, equity holders in the business.

[Lee Keith]

It was life changing. I bought a house. I think Lee did too, bought mom a house, you know, and having a little buffer, that was the biggest thing, is not just being on a knife sedan.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. But Bill stayed on as CEO. You were still the CEO running the business.

[Lee Keith]

I remained the CEO. Yep.

[Guy Raz]

And one of the things I guess there, so the people that came and joined you suggested was, hey, ditch the carob and use chocolate. And this was like kind of controversial among, among the family. Right. To use chocolate.

[Lee Keith]

So early on growing up, we did not eat chocolate. Everything was carob in our household. And so carob chip was a flavor that we enjoyed, but it just wasn't translating on the shelf.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, I thought carob kind of faded away with the end of like 70s co ops, but it didn't.

[Bill Keith]

It was still around the world. Not in the Keith house, you know.

[Guy Raz]

Not in a Keith house. Yeah, carob that my mom, when I was a kid used to say was chocolate. She'd say, here's chocolate, we eat carob. And it was not chocolate. You couldn't fool me. It was just, oh, that's great. It wasn't good. It was not delicious.

[Bill Keith]

We never had chocolate or refined sugar growing up in our house. So carob chips was chocolate to us.

[Guy Raz]

It's amazing because when VMG invested, I'm assuming that they expected certain metrics in growth. And from what I gather initially you were not. And that created some pressure, which I guess was the reason why or one of the reasons why you guys introduced the chocolate chip bar. Because it was sort of a Hail Mary, like we need to, we need to hit these metrics.

[Lee Keith]

Right. And, and so that was the big theme around these board meetings is how are we going to get, are we just going to be a natural in some club business brand, are we going to be able to make that jump, which is not guaranteed with a lot of brands that they can make the jump to conventional, make the jump to mass Target, Walmart, And Wayne Wu, he at a board meeting, he says, bill, have you ever considered chocolate with peanut butter?

[Bill Keith]

We were like, never, Wayne. All of our customers would leave us. Everybody would write in and abandon our brand.

[Guy Raz]

Nope, they wouldn't care. They wouldn't care, he's saying. And they didn't. In fact, introducing a chocolate chip peanut bar like that was a game changer.

[Lee Keith]

It became the number one seller in the country.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Bill Keith]

And it still is.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Bill Keith]

But sometimes you're too close to things, you know, and we just thought that was outside of our guardrails. And you know, I remember, you know, the patience it must have taken for the VMG team to sit there and I was sitting next to Mike Mose at a board dinner and I reach for the chocolate dessert and he's like, see? So you eat chocolate. And I think about like how sweet they had to be to sit and talk us through how maybe that was your dad's food values, but where's your food values? And what a credit to who they are as humans to really take us along in that and get us to get on board.

[Guy Raz]

All right, you guys now are, with the injection of cash and partners, you hit $70 million in sales by 2018. And that's, I mean once you hit 50 million, that's really where you start to kind of think about acquisition or a bigger investment. 100 million now I think in CPG in food is more common. But that year you guys started to search for potential acquirers. So you guys made a decision that, hey, maybe now we should, you know, we've done this, we've built this up coming into 15 years of doing this. Let's see if we can, you know, you know, get some money for what we've done.

[Lee Keith]

Yes. And we wanted to make sure that this story remained a beautiful story and that the family dynamics, you know, you hear about multi generational business to where it might have worked with the brothers and sisters, but the kids didn't get along as well and something that was beautiful turned into something else.

[Bill Keith]

Yeah, I think we. Not by any ones did we all want to be peanut butter bar makers growing up. When we were little kids, in fact, we hated making those perfect bars a lot of the times. And I think we all kind of wonder, you know, a lot of our brothers and sisters, seven of us @ one time working in the business. Sister Heather and sister Moniece running the roadshow program, traveling across the country. Just hard work over those years. Zane out in retail demos, ShareEase running operations with Steve, and kind of all going where we were needed in the business. I think there was a little curiosity of what it would feel like as brothers and sisters. And sisters, to just be brothers and sisters. We had never just had that between us. It was always, you know, money and a level of business and responsibility that we carried between each other. So it was the right move for our family. It allowed our. Our siblings to kind of set out into the world and what do you want to be when you grow up? You know, but here you are 15 years in and. And if we could find a right partner that would leave our business independent, you know, it. It would be. That might be the right choice for our family.

[Guy Raz]

You did eventually find and acquire, well, somebody who was interested in. In. In buying a majority share, and that was Mondelez, which also owns Clif Bar.

[Bill Keith]

And Oreo and Nestle.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And I mean, there was a gonna. They. They put in a lot of money to acquire a majority share. I mean, this is a very sensitive question, but when money gets involved, it can tear families apart. It can really damage family dynamics. So I have to imagine with 12, you know, 13 siblings, and now you're talking about serious money. I mean, did it create some challenges in terms of how it was going to be distributed among the siblings?

[Lee Keith]

Thankfully, we had it pretty spelled out and we put together a trust. So the challenges came from, I would say some of us knew how to handle finances, and some of us just weren't taught and didn't have the literacy. So there were some challenges there. But overall, it's been such a positive benefit across everybody, and it ended up being the right decision. I know for me, my health was another thing.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. I mean, I think on the, like around this time, where you're about to come into serious money, which is going to be just unbelievable given, especially given how you guys grew up.

[Lee Keith]

Right.

[Guy Raz]

You yourself were very quite unhealthy. And it's. I don't want to say ironic, because you're doing. You run a healthy company, but you're on the road, you're under stress, you're probably not eating well. Tell me what health issues you were dealing with, because, again, you were a young guy, you were in your 40s, right. Early 37, late 30s. Yeah, 37. Okay. And you've high prostate PSA levels or what?

[Lee Keith]

Yeah. So I'm not able to Pee, you know, without getting too much details. And I'm literally a week after seeing the number in your checking account, just, it doesn't make sense. Your mind, you know, and then you literally a week later think, wow, I would have traded all that to just be healthy and be able to go to the restroom. And it was, the stress was pretty severe. You know that the year of selling a business, you're doing two full time jobs, you're, you're running the biggest business that you've ever ran and then at the same time you're on the road constantly. And it caused me to get way behind in my health to a point to where I did a reading that said I had a high likelihood of cancer. And, and so I had to basically really take a step back and start researching what I could do to fight this. So one of the ideas that I, that I had was my father used to make this oil mixture, this omega oil mixture that he'd give to folks that had prostate issues. And thankfully after six months I started seeing some really good results. My readings were going down and happy to say it's been five years and, and I'm in a really good place with no cancer. But that was a very critical time that had me take pause and work on my health. And I lost 50 pounds and really went through a transformation.

[Guy Raz]

And this is while you were sort of transitioning out. I know Lee, you and your brother served as co CEOs for a time but eventually, but I assume imagine Bill, at least for you, as you started to focus on your health, you were already thinking I'm going to eventually transition out.

[Lee Keith]

Yes, at that time. Exactly. We had a few years that we could help transition the company, what they.

[Bill Keith]

Call an earn out and then three and a half years after that earn out in what Was that then? Q1 of 2023 they purchased the rest of the business and Bill had exited out and. And I've continued on with the business for the last two years.

[Guy Raz]

You're the chief of brand.

[Bill Keith]

Chief of brand. We brought in a CEO which to Mondelez's credit, they gave Bill and I that responsibility and discretion to find the right next leader for our baby business. And so it's just been really fun to see it continue to make healthy transitions because for any founder out there, you start a brand, it's like it's always going to be yours forever.

[Guy Raz]

And now you can focus on the fun stuff like branding and being an ambassador rather than dealing with the kind of the things that is not always.

[Bill Keith]

Fun like tariffs or inflation. Yes.

[Guy Raz]

Right. Right. Your story is so remarkable and unlikely. Like the two of you based on, and all the things that you had to overcome, all the hurdles, all the things in your way should not be multimillionaires, should not have created a very successful CPG brand, should not had no background. You didn't come from elite schools. You didn't have a formal education growing up. You grew up in buses. And with this very unstable upbringing. And yet the kids in this family stepped up and made this happen. How much of this do you attribute to the work you put in the grind and how much you think had to do with fortune, faith, luck, whatever God call it? I don't know what you want to call it. Lee, what do you think?

[Bill Keith]

I would have to say it's a combination of both. Right. I mean, I reflect back on our childhood. How lucky are we built to have been born in the United States of America and to have the opportunity to take the background that we had and to create the American dream? I think that's lucky. You know, I think I'm lucky to have been introduced to the natural products industry through my dad, however eccentric that it was. I'm lucky to work alongside my amazing brothers and sisters, especially this brother right here. So I think you pair that with hard work and determination. Just really amazing things have happened.

[Guy Raz]

Bill?

[Lee Keith]

Yeah. How do you follow that up? No, I. I think it's very cliche, but success comes where preparation meets opportunity. Right. So we reached a point in this natural industry to where the timing was right to accept this kind of product. If we had launched 15, 20 years before this, we saw what happened. It wasn't ready. So when you have. The timing is right, when you have determination behind you from all of the folks involved, you sort of create a lot of your own luck and you have some grace from the heavens above, and that's when magic happens.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. I mean, it is amazing to think your mom, who sort of, you know, we didn't talk about her that much in this episode, but kind of an unsung hero here. I mean, she had, I think, probably a difficult life for much of her life, and now probably has, you know, is provided for. Right. Have some comfort.

[Lee Keith]

Right. She's an amazing person. And oftentimes when she met my father on the beach that day, she took a right instead of a left. And I go, how many times do you wish you went left? You know, she says, no way. I wouldn't have all of you. She's the heart behind our. Our family and. And mom sort of kept things in the, in the background together with that heartbeat. And I'm thankful for that.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And she's still a young woman. She's only in her early 60s.

[Bill Keith]

Yes. And mom has now how many a dozen or 13 grandkids from us so far. I have three beautiful daughters. But I think I've worked through so much with my mom becoming a mom myself and realizing, you know, the situation that she navigated in her life and ultimately the unconditional love that she gave to her kids. Very much the unsung hero. So I appreciate you asking because it's very worthy.

[Guy Raz]

That's Lee and Bill Keith, co founders of Perfect Snacks, by the way. Since leaving the brand, Bill has started a new business called Green Fat, which sells nutritional supplements. As for the other siblings, many of them have gone on to pursue higher education education and start their own careers. Right now, one is in Belize rebuilding a school. Another is the president of an environmental non profit. And remember Faith, the youngest sister who was born in the pizza restaurant? She just graduated from college. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the Follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas and and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my [e-mail] or on substack. This episode was researched and produced by Chris Masini with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant. Our engineers were Kwesi Lee and co Takasugi Chernovin. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, JC Howard, Casey Herman, Carla Estevez, Sam Paulson, Kerry Thompson Johnson, Isabella and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built this. If you like How I Built this, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey running a business is hard work. Building your website shouldn't be. With wix, you can express your ideas, give direction, then leave the heavy lifting to AI. From site creation to branded content and images. Have fun with the details, customize what you want the way you want, and manage your whole business from a centralized dashboard with expert AI tools. Build, scale and enjoy the incredible results. You can do it all yourself on wix.