← The Kirsh Connection
The Kirsh Connection
Founders, Family, and a Fast-Growing Brand: The Hugh & Grace Playbook, My Conversation with Founders Ben and Sara Jensen
00:46:12
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- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Andrew Kirsch, co founder of Sklar Kirsch. On this podcast, I interview industry leaders. You'll hear their real time opinions on today's market, their background, unique career highlights and guidance for newcomers to the industry. This is the Kirsch Connection. Welcome to another edition of the Kirsch Connection. Now, normally I interview real estate executives. This week, I diverge a little bit with Sarah and Ben Jensen, co founders of Hugh and Grace. They're close personal friends and clients of mine in Sklar Kirsch for many years. And their journey is an incredible story of sacrifice and grit and dedication and one of love. And I am sure that you are going to enjoy this conversation with Sarah and Ben Jensen. Welcome to another edition of the Curse Connection and is my privilege to share my studio with Ben and Sarah Jensen, co founders of Hue and Grace. Guys, how you doing?
- [01:10]
B
We're great. Great to be here with you.
- [01:13]
A
What do they say? Best made plans are those that just happen organically. I heard you. We were emailing and you said you were in LA and I said come on in for a podcast.
- [01:24]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And happy to be here.
- [01:27]
A
So, full disclosure, I'm an investor of Hugh and Grace, our firm's counsel for Hugh and Grace. I guess, sort of. I've been opposite Hugh and Grace at times.
- [01:38]
B
We'll tell that story. It's been full circle at the same
- [01:41]
A
time, but it's an amazing story. I want my audience to hear everything about the company, what you guys have endured, the product. But before we talk about Hu and Grace, let's talk about what life was like before Hu and Grace. So we'll start with Sarah. All right, so, Sarah, before you co founded Hu and Grace, just give us a rundown of your background, where you
- [02:06]
C
grew up and raised in Northern California. Then I got married. I was young. Got married. I was 23. But I always worked in philanthropy. So my last. I have my MBA from usc. In my last role, I was on the major gifts team. So fundraising. Major gifts for the business school from our school of business, where I worked with our top alumni and parents. And I covered over 25 states. So philanthropy. And then never thought we'd launch a brand together. And then we met through. Well, I met you through Ben. I could talk about how we met, but good friends with Andrew and Courtney and love your family.
- [02:40]
A
Oh, likewise. Your kids are probably destroying my office right now. Office right now. No, they're great kids. They're great kids. Yeah. They need to be careful of the five wooden baseball bats and how about you, Ben.
- [02:55]
B
I grew up in Las Vegas. Started my career in finance and investment banking, moved into real estate, spent most of my career in real estate, actually. Did apartment acquisitions, went around the country, went back to graduate school at usc. Also I did an MBA and a Master of Real Estate Development and then worked at GE Capital for a number of years and then was hired at this thing called a family office. I didn't even know what it was when I was hired. And shortly thereafter, I met you and Jeff. We were some, I believe some of your very first clients of Kirsch, then Sklar Kirsch Sklar, then Sklar Kirsch.
- [03:30]
C
Yeah.
- [03:31]
B
And now it's been what, almost 15 years?
- [03:35]
A
I remember us going. It was you, Bill Payne, me and Jeff going out to the Palm Restaurant across the street from Crypto or Staples center and going to either a Laker or Clipper game. And I can't even, I mean, years and years ago.
- [03:49]
B
Yeah.
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A
And the number of real estate transactions and corporate transactions that, that we had worked on.
- [03:56]
B
Yeah, I mean, I went there initially to kind of help Bill build out the family office and build out the real estate portfolio and then ended up getting involved in some of the operating businesses and got involved in Wally's, and.
- [04:08]
A
Yeah, talk about Wally's, still to this day, one of the, I don't know, great hot spots of Beverly Hills, thanks to Ben Jensen.
- [04:15]
B
No, no, I wouldn't take that. But I, you know, I worked for some great principals who gave me a lot of opportunity and a lot of responsibility, and I have a lot of respect for that. We, we bought a few operating businesses. Generally we were, we were kind of an LP position, but with, with lots of decision making rights. And we were pretty active and had controls in a lot of our deals. But then we would buy some fun stuff along the way. So one of those businesses was Wally's, which used to be Wally's on Westwood. We bought it. It was a fun business. It was making money. And then it wasn't making money. And then I got inserted and said, go figure it out. And so, you know, interestingly, I grew up. I didn't drink. I grew up. I grew up Mormon. I'm Lowell's six kids no longer practice, but got a lot of respect for everything. So when I was installed to kind of help wallies, I didn't know what a Pinot Noir was. I knew nothing. The staff would try to teach me. I knew nothing. So I would just. The nice part was I wasn't in love with the product. I just Looked at it very analytically
- [05:18]
A
as any other business.
- [05:19]
B
And then I memorized the names of the really expensive ones and that's. That that worked and that that helped us out. But yeah, we opened up the Beverly Hills location, kind of helped reconcept that and negotiated the lease with the city of Beverly Hills and did all that stuff. And that was, that was kind of some of my last real estate deals.
- [05:35]
A
I remember negotiating that lease, but I mean that's now is it 10 years ago?
- [05:39]
B
Yeah, more, more.
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A
And how that like I said, that restaurant is really just like one of the flagship restaurants of Beverly Hills and also in Santa Monica. And you just such a successful brand. And so what then led to the creation of not the people, Hugh and Grace, who I know are your kids, which we could talk about if you want. It'd be a totally different podcast. I guess it is sort of about the.
- [06:09]
B
It is, it is related.
- [06:10]
A
So I was trying to make a joke and then it actually is what spawned the company Hue and Grace. So Sarah, why don't you stop me from talking and you start about the founding of Hue and Grace.
- [06:20]
C
Yes. So Ben and I both loved our careers. You know, he was working large family office and traveling and doing wallies. I was working in philanthropy at usc, going to all the football games, the president's parties and we loved our careers. But the entire. Well, for 14 years we were struggling with unexplained infertility and Ben mentioned he's the oldest of six. I'm also the oldest of six. So we envisioned our lives with four kids and just we spent 14 years struggling going to top doctors across the country and acupuncturists, therapists, you name it, we did it. Maintaining huge lifestyle changes and yet we could never get pregnant. And it was, I remember our sixth round of ivf. We're at the one of the best doctors in Beverly Hills and just saying like we can't keep doing this, like we're spending all our time, you know, it's going to end our marriage. It's breaking me as, as a woman, I just thought this is my job to get pregnant. To get pregnant. And I remember the doctor said, well what, what chemicals are you spraying around your house and what skincare and wellness products are you using? Because those impact your hormones and with ivf, they're trying to manipulate your hormones to get you pregnant. And, and it was a aha moment for us cuz we had not realized for all of our rounds of ivf we were, I was prescribed a hormone cream and I rub a small amount of cream on my. My leg at night, get my blood levels tested the next morning, and my hormones would significantly rise. And thinking, oh, if that small amount of a cream can impact hormones in such a significant way, other products I use as well can as well. But the amazing and best part of the story is Ben's sister volunteered to be our surrogate and gave birth to our son Hugh. And then a year later, my sister called and she said, I want to try to give Hugh a sibling. So she. And she gave birth to our daughter Grace. So they're eight and six now. And the names, they're in your office.
- [08:03]
B
Who knows what they're doing? They're very real.
- [08:06]
C
The name Hugh means heart, mind, and spirit. Grace means goodness, generosity, and love. And we had our kids, and I couldn't sleep. And it wasn't because we had a crying newborn, which we did have. But I told Ben because when we were first learning about the topic of hormone disruption and overall hormone health, we were thinking of hormones and infertility. And as we dove into the research of these chemicals, these chemicals are linked to infertility, but they're also linked to cancer and obesity and depression and anxiety and strokes. And list went on and on.
- [08:33]
B
And I said, and the flip side. Well, the flip side, but, yeah, go ahead.
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C
But I said, ben, we were so fortunate that we could afford, first of all, all the treatments that. That we did. And then we have our miracles. And I said, we, like, we have amazing networks. And sometimes you look at your life, you're like, oh, I feel like we learned so much, and we had this knowledge that truly impacted everybody. And I said, how do we leverage our relationships and really create something to pay forward, you know, this. This problem that's really impacting everybody. And. And what does that even look like? And at first, Ben said no.
- [09:08]
B
For a long time, I did say no. I said, we finally have our kids. You know, I've got a. I've got a job that I really enjoy. I. With great people, get to spend time with lots of friends in the industry. And I just wanted to be at peace. And my wife does not ever want me to be at peace.
- [09:23]
A
So it keeps you on your toes
- [09:25]
B
in a good way. She wants to stretch us, you know, to make us, you know, even more than what we are today. And she was passionate about it. And so initially, we started looking at it as a business case, and again, we were looking at through this lens of infertility. And I just thought, I don't want to be Talking about what was so difficult for all these years. And then we looked more into the studies, and as she mentioned, that right next to infertility, there was, you know, developmental disorders, and there was, you know, brain fog, and there was cancers and all these things. And then I started looking at the corollary of that. What's the opposite of that? Well, it's better health. Right. Better mood, more energy, better sleep, better, you know, overall muscle mass and body. Body mass. And I thought, wait a second. Those are the things that everybody's looking for. We're all trying to feel better. We're all trying to have more energy. We're all trying to think more clearly. And that is the definition of hormone health. Like, you know, when your body's doing what it's supposed to do, you feel good, you look good, you know, you've got energy to pursue your dreams. And when we looked at that, I thought, you know, those are massive markets. Every single one of those categories, from weight management to, you know, health and longevity, all of it tucks in within. I mean, hormone health touches all of those things. And so we started thinking, you know, if we look at it from that perspective, that's a big market. That's something. We could build a business, so we could make an impact, but we could also make something that's. That's meaningful, meaningful for our families and everything else. So that's what we. We set out to. To build. And. And we. We looked at it and said, well, what should we name the company? And immediately it was. It should be Hugh and Grace. It should be named after our kids. That's. That's why we're doing this. And that was. That started it.
- [11:04]
A
And so what was the fir. I mean, gosh, you go from philanthropy and raising money for usc, you're running wallies and also involved in real estate. And now you're at the infant stage of not only just two infants, but of a company. And so from product development to raising money to just marketing, now you're going into a world that you really hadn't had exposure to.
- [11:35]
B
Yeah, look, if we had talked to you about this before, we would have said, no, you're scaring me now. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I think you start a business usually out of naivety. You have passion, you want to do something for us. We had a problem that we wanted to solve. Then we looked at it and said, how should we approach this from a product perspective?
- [11:55]
A
And so what's the first product that you guys.
- [11:58]
B
Well, we started. We thought to ourselves, well, what's the body's largest organ? The skin's the body's largest organ. What goes on your body gets in your body. So we started with skincare, and I'm happy to report now, five years later, 90% of our revenue is not from skincare. So 90% of our revenue is from wellness products. So it evolved from what goes on in your body to what goes in your body and really thinking about things like detoxification and hydration, you know, proper nutrients, proper protein intake. So that's what informed our later products. So skincare, very simple regimen. And then our number one selling product is called hydrate detox. And it's kind of the best thing you can do in the morning when you wake up. You're generally dehydrated. Like, you haven't drank water for a long time. Your body's looking for hydration. You need some gut health support. You've got. We're all dealing with inflammation and restoration. And that product kind of touches all of those things in something that tastes like a sports drink. So that one's been great.
- [12:59]
A
And you know, given your backgrounds, you're not, I don't know, chemists and, and engineers. And so how, how. Who did you hire? How. What was the process like of creating these products?
- [13:12]
C
We have, really. So as I mentioned, I work with USC's alumni and parents, and Ben had a great network. And so we just start calling our friends and saying, who can you introduce us to? And because we really offer lifestyle situation solutions, we say, what goes on and around your body impacts your hormones positively or negatively. So we started calling and saying, who could you introduce us to? And we received sea level introductions to some of the best product manufacturers in the world in different product categories, which we were incredibly fortunate because as a young brand that a lot of top formulators will not work with you. But because of the connections. And I remember we first walked in our skincare manufacturer, we had interviewed several, but this was a great introduction. And we walk in and the formula, he's 66, and he sits down and he's like, the world does not need another face serum. The world does not need, you know, their body oil. And we told our story and we talked about what we, how we wanted to formulate and what we wanted to do. The very end, he, he thought about it, he's like, okay, the world does need this. And we had not. He's like, we've been doing this for 30 years and we had not heard anybody try to approach it in this manner. And so when people heard the mission, understood what we really wanted to create. But also we don't want to have a ton of SKUs. We want it to be simple systems.
- [14:25]
B
The second thing we did in parallel with that is we knew that we needed to establish credibility. As you rightly pointed out, we're not chemists, you know, but also I didn't drink wine when I was running a wine company. It's sometimes it's to your advantage to be humble and seek out the very best. So in parallel with this, we assembled a medical advisory board with some of the best medical experts in the field. Endocrine reproductive endocrinologists. So the endocrine system is your hormone systems. It's what controls your body. We've talked about this. Your endocrine system is the chemical brain of your body. Tells you when you're hungry, tells you when you're tired, affects your mood. So we wanted to talk to people who knew what that was all about. One of the top obgyns in the world. One of the top two of the top endocrine reproductive doctors. And then we went with a chemical exposure expert. So she's a PhD, but a PhD and a dietitian, not a doctor. So we said we want to formulate clean products. I mean, that's a word that's got a lot, you know, gets used all the time. But we want to formulate products that are really clean, but they work really well and they're very supportive products. And it's got to be very simple, simple, easy, not intimidating because you know, the second you start throwing big scientific words in, people's eyes glaze over. And that's, you know, nobody wants to feel stupid when they have to figure out a product.
- [15:41]
A
And so where can the public find your products?
- [15:47]
B
Yeah, today we focused on direct consumer. We built out an interesting business model at the time. Well, I'll start and then Sarah will kind of back into it. At the time I was sitting on the board of a direct to consumer wine company and watching the challenges of reliance on algorithms and on meta, Facebook, Google. And we looked at this and then we looked at our situation five, six years ago when we were concepting the business, nobody was talking about hormones. They were just starting to kind of talk about clean products and formulations and things that could kind of affect you and your environment. And so we had this issue where we needed to educate, we needed more of a long format conversation. And that doesn't do well in, in scroll ads where you've got about a half a second to grab somebody's attention before they scroll past you maybe one. So we thought how do we facilitate word of mouth? How do we facilitate conversation? And if we can do this successfully we can be able to build a brand in an authentic manner. The best way to build and the best way to market is using word of mouth. But it's hard to do. You've got to get people to really buy in in order for them to share. So we looked at different business models and Sarah and I were talking about this and then you tell them kind of what it reminded you of.
- [17:02]
C
My favorite Harvard Business case study was on a lady named Brownie Weiss. She invented the Tupperware party back in the 50s. And it's back in the 50s women were not working outside the home. And we did this whole Harvard Business case study on her. And the very end we watched this black and white video of her at a conference recognizing women on stage and just seeing these women cry on stage. And I went home to Ben that night and I said this lady created a platform that empowered so like thousands, tens of thousands of lives to was women when they earn income they were, they're better parents, they're better citizens and you just get more confidence. And actually flew to her museum in Orlando after I graduated 15 plus years ago. And when we were trying to say like okay, this needs. We know the holistic solution is creating awareness and education and content community with products. That's word, that's direct sales. But how do we modernize it? How do we elevate it? Because we're already asking our friends for product recommendations versus being served ads. I always wanted to know my friends actually like and so we created this platform where we have education, we have, we do live events, we do master classes, we do personal professional development. But we also. It's also a G2C experience where, where we ship everything direct to consumer so we don't put any inventory risk on an individual. It's all performance based. But it's been incredible. We're coming up on our five year anniversary but we have over 10,000. We call them advocates. They're advocating for better health for themselves and their communities. But we've grown authentically word of mouth with people who get really. And it's been interesting because people want to connect with things that are authentic. They love that Hugh and Grace exist and they show up with us and they want to know they're part of something. And as the community consumers are talking more about hormone health than perimenopause and all these topics that impact themselves. It gives people something that really, really can connect to and enjoy.
- [18:56]
A
Now there are a lot of founders out there who sacrifice and the stories and what you guys have sacrificed, even before Hue and Grace was launched to going all in and moving from your house. What in Cheviot Hills or Beverly Wood, if I recall.
- [19:15]
C
Chevy Hills.
- [19:16]
A
Yeah, Cheviot, to then to Utah and then buying an rv, living in an RV and literally living in an rv, homeschooling your kids. Why don't you talk about.
- [19:31]
B
We literally went from living and working in Beverly Hills to running a living
- [19:36]
C
nanny and a housekeeper. Came multiple times a week to homeschooling the kids.
- [19:40]
B
We were going out to dinner every night and having great food and wine and experiences. And you know, I work for guys that had amazing aircraft fly around on gulf streams and get exposed to that kind of billionaires lifestyle. We went and did that and then we just decided, but what is it that we want to accomplish? What is it that we want to. What is the mark that we want to leave on this world? What are the things that we want to do? And we did a lot of soul searching. And for me, the things that I found, I find most rewarding is helping other people succeed. I love seeing people win. I love building, growing. One of the things about wallies that was different than in real estate. Real estate, if you have your own business, you have a lot of employees, you can experience this. But generally real estate's a pretty employee light business model. It's asset heavy, employee light. And then I got into a business that was employee heavy, asset light. But I love seeing and coaching and training people. And our business model allows us to help people gain confidence, make extra money. We teach them leadership skills, we educate them on products, give them something to be excited about that's bigger than themselves. A mission of really promoting better health for everyone. Yeah.
- [20:55]
A
But the journey that you guys are.
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B
Sorry, back to the real question, I
- [21:02]
A
guess how you're sitting at the dining room table one one night and. And someone comes up with the idea of I got a great idea, let's buy an RV.
- [21:11]
C
When we first launched our business, yeah. We had 200 advocates and it was just coming out of COVID So. And we said, we said if you guys get 50 people in a room, Ben and I will fly in and support you.
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B
And we didn't even know what that meant.
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C
And I, we thought we'd be like in five cities the next few months. We were, Ben and I were in
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A
60 cities and 60 cities in what
- [21:31]
C
duration of time in like three months, flying in for events. And then also because people are not talking out of, like they.
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A
So your home base, you had moved to la?
- [21:40]
C
No, we were still in la. Still in la, flying around. And then we said this. Actually, it really helped us with our messaging. Like when you're in a room and when you see people lean in and get excited or their eyes glaze over and look away, like, you know what, messaging works and doesn't work. And this is a time when no one was talking. Like, we started talking about endocrine disrupting chemicals in their eyes. Like they'd look away. But like, we talked about simple swaps. Yeah, we talk about just things that he could do to have healthier, happier lives. And then it was actually Ben's idea, but I love it. The RV is my happy place.
- [22:08]
B
We were gone in 60 cities. We couldn't bring our kids from very many of those trips. And our whole goal was to have a family. And then our family was at home while we were out building a business. And I just thought, this is backwards. I wanted nothing more to be a dad and I want to have time with our kids. And so I thought, what if we flip the equation around and said, okay, we're going to plot a route and if you want, if you want to have an event, we'll be in this area on these dates and this area on these dates and you can plan it around our schedule. So we did that and then I thought, well, if we're going to do that, we probably need to bring the kids. So we bought a 40 foot RV.
- [22:49]
C
We wrapped it.
- [22:49]
B
We wrapped it in this gunmetal kind of matte gray, and as Hugh and Grace, about 25ft long. It says Hugh and Grace with QR codes. I'd never driven an RV so we could get behind the wheel. I bought a Mini Cooper because it was stick shift and front wheel, you need that to tow it. So we hooked it to the back of the rv. We actually left and rented our house out for the summer. And our Tesla, we left that there too.
- [23:15]
C
Well, Tom, we went from LA to Seattle, Boston, D.C. and back, so. And I did over 20 events. We were in cornfields, we were in barns, we were in bars. Like that. We were there and it was. So the first two weeks we thought, we're gonna kill each other. But then after that, I thought you were gonna.
- [23:30]
B
You were trying to kill me.
- [23:32]
C
No, but it was such an incredible experience. And like, it's my happy place. I kept trying to convince within two years ago, we were looking at our travel schedule and we were speaking at so many conferences, events. So we actually spent the first six months of the year on the rv. And I'm trying to get Bennett to do back with me.
- [23:48]
B
So after that first summer, we said, well, we're never here. We're paying for a house that we don't have. So we got rid of our house. My family had a home in Utah that was empty, and they were. You know, nobody was using it. And so we put our stuff in storage and we moved up to the Utah house and kind of used that as home base. And then we went back out. And so we ended up staying in Malibu at an RV park with ocean views. And it was. And we invited people over to come hang out, and it was pretty incredible. And then we got in, we went to conferences, went to San Diego and Vegas and went back around the country again.
- [24:26]
A
Amazing. I mean, honestly, I have never heard a story of founders who are that dedicated to their business to go to that extent and how great to see the country at that level. I mean, we talk about blue states and red states and. And there's so many stereotypes and people. I feel like if people just got to interact with each other, our similarities. There's so many more similarities than our differences. And so I guess not about hue and grace, but more about people and Americans. What did you observe and what do you still observe driving throughout the country, going to large cities and small towns? Are we as divided as the media wants to make it seem or politicians want it to make it seem, or are we really more united?
- [25:19]
B
Yeah, I would say it's not what the media portrays. I don't know that the media has an agenda. I don't want to go there, but I'll give you an example. So Sarah mentioned going to 60 different cities. This was. Right. This was kind of during COVID and then Covid stopped, and then it started again, especially if you're in California. So we had our launch party and then there was lockdown again, and we were out. We were out in Texas and we were in Utah and we went to Florida and we went. And what it did for me, I knew what it felt like to be locked down in la. You know, like, I didn't think twice when they said, if you take a shot, you can be out of jail. Like, you can go back to life to some semblance. For me, that was nothing. But if you were in some of these other places where they didn't have those restrictions, their life didn't change. That much. And we went to North Dakota and South Dakota and Minneapolis. If you were in some of those places, it didn't affect you the way it affected us in the big cities. And what it did for me is I looked at it from their perspective and I thought, oh, I can see why they look at it the way they do, because I'm sitting here in their communities watching them now, they didn't come to la, so they didn't get to experience that. But it gave me a perspective. It gave me. I didn't judge, I just looked at it and thought, different people in different places have different experiences. And I don't want to belabor Covid, but that was a great example of it. And then the other part is, you know, we go to these campgrounds again. We spent seven years living in Beverly Hills, literally walking down Cannon and Beverly and I worked on South Beverly and, you know, and then we're in campgrounds. But what was cool about the campgrounds is the people who are there are there by choice. We went to nice campgrounds, they're there by choice, and they're with their families. And so it's a completely different socioeconomic experience. But the people were there and they were warm and they'd come over and talk, and it just kind of gave us a lot of hope in humanity.
- [27:15]
A
It's amazing.
- [27:15]
B
Yeah, you see people or firefighters and different guys and. And they are all there loving their families. And we didn't talk about politics. Who cares? We talked about our kids. We talked about what they're gonna do the next day. We talked about the lake over here. We're up in the Great Lakes.
- [27:31]
A
How about the products that you guys are selling? The story that you have, how did it resonate in middle America versus the coast and the large cities?
- [27:43]
C
We had to simplify things. You know, it's interesting because we talk about hormone health and people would go to our website and they say, like, well, you have skin care and you have home care and wellness. What do I do? What do we do? We start. So about three years ago, we launched, we called the routine, and you can choose two or three products. You take it every single morning. There are top performing wellness products. And we say, this is what you do. This is where you start. And that simplicity. People say, like, oh, I can do two products or I can take three products every morning and you actually feel a difference. And when we did that, like, we think we grew over 200% the next few months. Just simplifying, just simplifying and calling it simple. Swaps and these are products you're already using choose hormone supported products. And our products are good for men, women, kids during pregnancy. And so by making it really easy and then having people feel the results and then their friends are saying, hey, this is what works for me and I think it'll work for you. But it was that that we learned.
- [28:39]
B
I mean people don't buy science, they buy emotion and results. They buy an image of what they want to become, a transformation and then they justify it by the science. And that's an observation. And if you look at marketing studies, it's actually there. And so what we realize is we need to be talking about benefits. These are the things that people are experiencing on this. After you've done some detoxification, if you've done some hydration, you know, you hydrate three or four days in a row and you haven't been doing that day one, you're going to feel better. Like you literally your brain is mostly water. It needs to stay hydrated properly, it needs proper electrolytes. Right? These are little things that add up to a meaningful difference. And so you do a few things in a row and by week one, you're feeling better by week two, by week. So the way we know this is how do you tell if people vote with their wallets? 55% of people who buy from us buy again. 66% of our products are on subscription. If somebody buys once, revenue on subscription. So 60%, 66% of our revenue, subscription revenue. So they're buying again and again and again. Our average customer who buys from us buys four times and then and longer. If you're in real estate, that may or may not make it, you know, make sense. But you do know what top quartile is like. Top decile, we're in top decile within repeat purchase rate, within average order value. People are spending money and they're buying and buying again and again. And it's incredible. And it took us a long time to figure out why, you know, you do it and then people are loving it. And then you look at your data and say, wait a second, they're buying this and then they're buying this and they're buying this. That's what formed the routine, that's what we went back and said, well, we should just. People are buying this, let's present it in the way that they're buying.
- [30:30]
A
And what about the price point? I mean, is the perception that to purchase organic groceries is more expensive oftentimes than your standard groceries or non organics Is it the same thing with respect to your products? If you could compare just the price point of your products versus a product that may be full of hormones and people don't realize it.
- [30:57]
B
Here's a simple illustration. Collagen, right? There's a lot of collagen products on the market. There's bovine collagen made from cows. There's not really vegan collagen. There's a little bit, it's not as effective. And then there's marine collagen. And they do different things. But the problem with collagen is you're taking large organisms and you're distilling them down into a powder. So those organisms have heavy metals. You're taking heavy metals and concentrating them down. And this happened with vital proteins, some of the most popular ones. They've had heavy metal reports. That's the inexpensive version. Right. So the challenge is if you want to have really high quality pure stuff, you got to test and then you got to go with producers that work. And then secondly, we use clinically studied ingredients and combine them into our products. So these are ingredients that have actually been independently studied to prove that they do what they're supposed to do. And then there's claims with those products that show over time you have reduction in fine lines, you have improved skin elasticity and things like that. So we have our collagen products, one of our top sellers. I think it's our number two or three skew. You put it in water, it dissolves completely clear. You don't taste it, you don't smell it. And to get that, it has to be really pure stuff. It's Japanese codfish. Why Japan? Because the water's pure there, it's cold, it's clean. You don't want that. You know, not everywhere is. And it's farm raised. Why is farm raised important? Because you control the diet. So you don't have heavy metals. Fish that eat other fish that eat other fish. We hear about tuna and mercury. It's because it's consuming fish on top of fish up the food train and it just accumulates. So if you're going to have something you're going to distill down to a powder, you better make sure that it's pure to begin with. And you do that by controlling its environment.
- [32:48]
C
Well, I think all of our products, they do multiple functions. We really want people not to feel like they have to take 10 supplements in the morning and have this huge wellness routine. So they're all multi purpose, but also they are a Little elevated because the quality of the ingredients are high. But all of our advocates get 25% off. So all of my, most of my friends are advocates because they want the 25% discount, but you do. We price it so it's affordable, it's obtainable luxury.
- [33:14]
B
You know, it's, it's not, it's not unobtainable. It's not Beverly Hills.
- [33:18]
A
No, I get it. But, and, and so what is, I guess the reaction to the price point? It doesn't sound like it's overly expensive, but it's going to be more expensive than your, just your traditional, the traditional products that people were used to buying and not thinking that it was filled with hormones.
- [33:39]
B
Yeah, yeah, well, and it's not usually, it's not necessarily filled with hormones, but it can have action, you know, it can disrupt. You can have a number of things from a price point. You know, we're selling quality, quality products, products that you can believe in, products that people who make the investment. If somebody buys from us once, 82% of the time, they buy from us again. Right. So if they bought from us, they keep going.
- [34:04]
A
That's incredible. In our remaining times, couple last questions, quick answers of sort of a mini lightning round curse connection. You've been all over the country. How about a city that you were surprised? Wow, this is a pretty cool town.
- [34:23]
B
Bensonville, Bentonville, Arkansas. Kind of blew our minds where Walmart is. Yeah. So Walmart's headquarters is there. The, the Walton family. There's now there's a couple of generations of them, but if you add them all up, they're close to one of the wealthiest in the entire world. But the Waltons have created some incredible things. This is a small community and it's got top golf, it's got James Beard award winning chefs, some of the best mountain biking in the country. They've built out all these trails, museums, art collections. We were there and we're just like,
- [34:53]
C
wow, this is, we extended our stay. It was so cool.
- [34:56]
B
What we didn't realize is that Walmart requires its top vendors to have a presence, so have an office there. So you have representation from a number of, a big number of the Fortune 500 companies. So it just brings a whole different, you've brought like metropolitan life to the small community. It's crazy.
- [35:14]
A
How about just one of the craziest things that happened to you guys on the road. We could go on for another hour or two.
- [35:21]
B
I'll give you one. Manhattan. We've done one event in Manhattan. We'll never do Another one, we had engaged a PR firm to help us out, out. And we were doing event in Manhattan, and we'd rented a conference room. Right. The bottom floor of a hotel. And, you know, they were supposed to bring in influencers. We brought all the editors, Editors, influencers, product. Well, the PR firm dropped the ball, and we're getting. It's a week before, and we're asking them how the. How the RSVP list is looking, and, oh, it's going great. It's going great. It wasn't. And so somehow they pushed a message out that got into free newyorkcity.com which means free. Free food, free whatever, booze. And we went into this hotel lobby, and Sarah and I rolled in. The team was there. We rolled in 15 minutes beforehand, and the lobby was completely full. There was a line around the corner.
- [36:16]
A
Could be a good thing. Homeless. They don't use your product.
- [36:21]
B
Yeah. So they stole our products. Yeah. So we went into the conference room, this room that was set up. We had all these displays. And. And so I'm standing there, and our employee says, here. Here's the founder, Ben Jensen. Welcome.
- [36:31]
C
They let everybody in because we had
- [36:32]
B
to let everybody in. And I'm. I'm standing there and I'm watching people taking our product and shoving it in their purses. And it wasn't just our product. They started taking the stands and the easels. They were taking all the food. So it was. I mean, there was a lady there that. It was fun. It was nuts.
- [36:51]
A
At least they all had good. Good skin care for.
- [36:53]
B
Yeah. I mean, they were glowing by the time they left. So that was. That was one of the most wild ones. That was probably the worst.
- [37:00]
A
And how about your kids living on the road?
- [37:05]
C
It's so fun because it's. I joke. My kids love caviar. They have very good taste because we take them to lots of great places. But they. They love hot dogs. And it's. I remember because we make these plans. And yes, there are very nice RV parks. Thank you. Covid also helps with that because people want to be on the road, but, like, sometimes we get out later than we wanted. I remember pulling up in Idaho, and we got. We had to find some random place off the road for a night, and we get out, and then now, next to us, he's, you know, 70s, and he's in his underwear with no tighty
- [37:33]
B
whities on a lawn chair.
- [37:35]
A
Love it.
- [37:35]
B
And smiles. He's got three teeth.
- [37:37]
C
And our kids go out and start saying, hi, I'm Hugh I'm Grace. What's your name? Do you have any kids? Like, and so they, they. Because they go everywhere with us and, and they're just so accustomed to seeing new people, new places and they will, they acclimate and they talk to everybody, look everybody in the eyes. And it's just so fun to see different people and ways of life and realize there's no one right or wrong way.
- [38:00]
A
It's amazing. I mean, look, we all spend so much time of worrying of how to educate our kids. Private school, public school, which school. And you're just giving them the school of life, of just being able to meet so many different types of people on a daily basis.
- [38:18]
B
I tell you, the world is changing fast. We have AI it's doing the work that we, the stuff that we spend our time learning in school is getting somewhat commoditized. And in my mind, I look at this and I kind of think fast forward. What are going to be the skills that matter most? Right? If the computers can do the thinking for you and you still need to learn this. I'm not saying it's. But what matters most, it's being able to understand and engage with humans. Personal connection will not go away. Right? That is something that humans need and they've needed for millions of years. We evolved as a tribal society. We still need emotional connection and human connection. We offer that in part of our business model and getting together and doing live events. You know, never in society have we been more connected by phones and technology yet never have we felt more alone. There's a loneliness epidemic even though we're all connected. So getting and connecting and learning how to talk and engage with people, the
- [39:14]
A
ability to sell, the ability to sell. The ability to communicate, to relate to,
- [39:20]
B
understand, to see people in different situations and not judge.
- [39:24]
A
Final question. So you're talking to any age, people that want to start a company. And I know you're not done yet. We're not at that liquidity event yet. So we're not talking about a full life cycle. But it will be there. I know it. But what advice would you give someone who's thinking about starting a company from you had no prior knowledge to now, you could literally write a Ph.D. or Harvard Business case study. So if there was one thing that you may have underestimated and you would tell this person, you must focus on X,
- [40:12]
B
if it were me, I didn't realize the amount of pure grit and gut that you had to endure. And Andrew, you mentioned it early on. You asked a question about fundraising. No, most of the money that we've raised have come from our friends and family. So, Andrew, you mentioned earlier, you said something about, you know, tell me about fundraising and this and that, that we didn't talk about that. If I were to tell somebody or give somebody advice, it's just the amount of grinding that you have to do, the amount of work. And, you know, here's a good illustration. You're a deal guy, right? Deals have a rhythm, and they have a conclusion. Either it makes or it doesn't make. When you're building a business, the conclusion. What is the conclusion? Is it an exit? That may not even be the conclusion. So how do you define winning? You have to change your whole perspective, and you have to look at it and say, what is winning? And then you have to take the small wins. And my wife is much better than this. So, yeah, how do you define winning? What is it that. What is it that you can benchmark against and show us progress and then the second piece to it, you know, most of our money that came in were from friends and family, people like you who said, I love what you're doing. I want to support you. It's a lot of small checks. And when times get tough, we never quit. We've been through multiple wars. We've been through recession. We've been through a global pandemic. Man, there have been a few months in there that were good, too, from an economic standpoint. And we've had money that fell out. You know, you raise money. We raised money from friends and family. Most of it was people that wanted to support us. And when those times get tough, when the times are like, I don't know if I want to keep doing this anymore. The alternative is, if I don't keep doing this, the business fails, and the people that I love and I care about lose money. And, of course, Sarah and I lose the most. We've put, you know, pretty much all that we have in there, all of our liquidity, but we just don't look at that as an option. We just decide we're going to figure it out. We're going to figure out. We always do. We'll figure it out. And some. I've had mornings where I've woken up and didn't know. I mean, this is early on, didn't know how I was gonna make payroll. And by the afternoon, we'd figured it out, but we didn't have it figured out in the morning. And it's just that kind of stress. We have thousands of people that rely on us to make income. And, you know, we care and you have to have that level of responsibility to weather the difficult storms. I think oftentimes entrepreneurs look at tech entrepreneurs where they have an idea and it scales to a billion dollars really rapidly. We just crossed over. We're looking at the statistics. 93 and 95% of businesses never make it to a million dollars in revenue. They fail before they get there. And then 99% don't make it to 10 million. Right. So we're already in the top 1%, if not more. And that's what we have to look at and say, I guess we are winning. Because we're not losing. I guess we are winning.
- [43:31]
A
We're all judged on a curve.
- [43:32]
B
But
- [43:34]
A
you guys are highly successful people and you knew what the definition of winning was in your prior careers. And. No, I thought it's well said. And the people who have invested in Huwan Grace, the people who work for Huwan Grace, just to hear that passion and sentiment from you is. It's really something. Sarah, last words before we wrap.
- [44:05]
B
She always gets the last word.
- [44:06]
C
Last words. No, I. You think about a business, it is really hard. It's really hard. And it's amazing working as a married couple, but it's also incredibly hard. But I'm like, this is a business we couldn't not start. I was thinking about it 24 7. Like, this is something that we've, I felt so. We've felt so compelled to start. And so if that's, if you have an idea like that where you, you'll regret not doing it the rest of your life, just do it. But no, it. We have called in so many favors, reached out to so many people, really. Thousands of phone calls over the past several years to say, like, please help. Let's. Let's work through this. Let's work through this problem. Let's, you know, how can we collaborate here? But when you have that drive and you just have to believe and put everything in it.
- [44:51]
A
Well, I know that one day there will be a Hu and Grace, I don't know, exit party and maybe we'll be at a campgrounds in Idaho and we'll invite the three teeth guy to.
- [45:07]
B
He's invited anytime. It was great.
- [45:09]
C
Yeah.
- [45:10]
A
Well, I really appreciate you guys stopping by. I know you have a packed schedule with your kids and all the meetings you have, and it's great to see you and I wish you nothing but success for your family and. And the company.
- [45:24]
B
Thank you, Andrew. It's great being here and congratulations to you as well. It's fun. Fifteen years later, sitting in your office when it was nothing. You guys started. You did it. You did it, too. And I look at you and Jeff, both close friends and examples, and it's fun to have grown together.
- [45:41]
A
You imagine Jeff and myself in a RV in the middle of the country trying to get clients. I don't think that would work well.
- [45:48]
B
Well, take your show on the road, buddy.
- [45:50]
C
Yeah.
- [45:50]
A
But anyway, thank you so much for coming in. And that's another episode of the KJ Connection.