How Death & Co Turned Crisis into Opportunity | David Kaplan and Alex Day

Summary

Rocket Fuel Podcast Episode Summary

How Death & Co Turned Crisis into Opportunity | David Kaplan & Alex Day

Podcast: Rocket Fuel
Host: Mark C. Winters
Guests: David Kaplan (Founder/Visionary), Alex Day (Integrator) – Death & Co
Date: March 20, 2025

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Episode Theme Overview

This episode dives into the collaborative dynamic between David Kaplan and Alex Day, the entrepreneurial duo behind Death & Co, a renowned cocktail bar group. The conversation explores how their unique Visionary/Integrator partnership transformed the company, especially during crisis, and how the EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) framework helped clarify their roles, deepen trust, and create a resilient, adaptable business. Candid insights are shared on overcoming resistance to “corporate” systems in a creative industry, developing effective communication, leveraging the strengths of each role, navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, and building an enduring business partnership.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Discovering EOS and Clarifying Roles

• How EOS Entered the Picture
  • David was introduced to EOS via an industry peer, after feeling he'd "tapped out" with standard entrepreneurial circles ([01:41]).
  • Initial skepticism about EOS being “too corporate” for the bar industry, but visible transformation after just a few sessions with implementer Josh Holtzman ([04:08]).

"I had just a casual catch up... And that was the first time that I was introduced to EOS. I dove in, read the book, and kind of gently introduced it to the team."
— David Kaplan ([01:41])

• Visionary vs. Integrator: Recognizing the Dynamic
  • Alex initially resisted; perceived the integrator/visionary distinction as overly simplistic and restrictive ([04:46]).
  • Upon deeper reflection and a second read of Traction, Alex saw the value of a shared language and framework to clarify their natural working styles ([04:46]–[07:21]).

"At the time...I was, in that way, almost a little resistant to it because of its simplicity. And then the second read through, I’m like, oh, I get why this is simple...to provide a shared language."
— Alex Day ([04:46])

2. Evolving the Partnership

• Healthy Tension and Creative Conflict
  • Importance of not strictly boxing themselves into visionary/integrator roles, but using them as anchors for collaboration ([09:16]).
  • Their roles remain fluid, expanding into new ventures (e.g., online marketplace, publishing), guided by mutual respect and a willingness to learn outside their comfort zones ([11:34]).

"We allow ourselves both healthy tension and healthy conflict and have developed a lot of skills around that thanks to other advisors in our world."
— Alex Day ([00:00]/[16:31])

• Mutual Empowerment / “Letting Go of the Vine”
  • EOS empowered both to lean into their strengths rather than feel obliged to do everything jointly ([12:18]–[14:56]).
  • Explicit trust allowed each to focus on what they excel at — Alex operational detail/people, David vision/growth.

"Right away, Alex and I said, ‘Oh, you’re great at this stuff. I don’t need to be because I have an endless trust in you. I can stop trying to be even good at that.’"
— David Kaplan ([12:18])

3. Communication & Staying in Sync

• Same Page Meetings Across Coasts
  • Weekly 90-minute Zoom “same page” meetings keep them aligned despite David being in Seattle and Alex in Portland, Maine ([18:01]).
  • Meetings blend Level 10 EOS structure with informal personal check-ins, allowing venting, personal discussion, and business problem-solving ([18:22]).

"We meet every Monday, typically for 90 minutes...It’s an L10 structure, but we run it a little bit looser — 70, 80% L10 and fairly typically focused. And we use it as an opportunity to personally catch up."
— David Kaplan ([18:22])

• Personal Bonds Aid Business
  • Their families are closely connected, and they deliberately make time for non-work socializing, which deepens trust ([20:22]).

4. The Origin Story: From Nightclub to National Brand

• How They Met
  • David founded Death & Co in NYC; Alex, recently out of college, became a regular, then worked a swing shift ([20:45]).
  • Shared backgrounds (both from ski towns), ambition, and willingness to support each other rapidly grew into friendship and business partnership ([23:17]).

"It was pretty quick that Dave and I realized... we just continue to feel alignment. And at the core of that, which is really important, was us aligning as individuals and understanding that we had a similar background that allowed a sort of shared language."
— Alex Day ([20:45])

5. Crisis as a Catalyst: Lessons from the Pandemic

• Facing Existential Threat Together
  • The COVID-19 crisis forced them to lay off nearly the entire staff — a traumatic but clarifying moment ([27:36]).
  • Rather than pause or retreat, they doubled down on internal reflection, strategic adaptation, and transparent communication ([27:36]–[31:13]).

"We looked at each other a couple days in and I swear it was a couple days in. We’re like, we’re not wasting any fucking time here."
— Alex Day ([27:36])

• Adaptability Grounded in Core Values
  • Their North Star: maintaining alignment with mission, vision, and values, using EOS tools for stability and clarity ([31:13]).
  • Created an industry “Covid and reopening playbook” and made it open source to help others, reflecting their commitment to community leadership ([33:50]).

"We were very fortunate to have EOS and to have this foundation...it was our mission, purpose, our core values, our core target. Like we knew what we wanted to do and we knew who we were, who we are."
— David Kaplan ([31:13])

6. Advice for Visionaries & Integrators

• Emotional Intelligence Matters Most ([34:34])
  • IQ alone isn’t enough; self-awareness, empathy, and direct but human communication are key to sustaining the visionary/integrator relationship.
  • Recommendation to use approaches like “factual, direct, neutral, and kind” in tough conversations (shoutout to coach Mary Pat Knight’s Humanized Leader) ([34:34]).

"IQ does not trump EQ...being aware of who we are as emotional creatures and where we sit within the spectrum of our interaction with others can be really powerful."
— Alex Day ([34:34])

• Don’t Box Yourself In ([35:58])
  • The journey with visionary/integrator roles is iterative — start with the rules to understand the framework, but master them by making the approach your own.
  • Continuous learning and self-development are vital; “your company’s never done, and you’re never done” ([35:58]).

7. Business & Life Metaphors

• The “Dance” and Sports as Analogies
  • Their partnership is “a dance” — mutual acclimation and rhythm, as in bartending and sports ([16:31], [38:40]).
  • Wake surfing: failure doesn't hurt so much, so “fall often and get back up” is vital to growth in business ([38:40]).

"The empowerment of failure is something we should all talk about more. Because we don't learn that much when we succeed...We learn a ton when we fail."
— David Kaplan ([38:40])

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Notable Quotes & Timed Highlights

On EOS Resistance and Acceptance

• "I was a little nervous to bring it to them...it felt corporate. And so I was a little nervous...but pretty quickly everyone saw the value."
  — David Kaplan ([03:07])

On Their Relationship

• "Maybe we’re 20 years in. Like, that’s pretty remarkable, right? But even then, having some of this language, I’m like, oh, well, that sure explains it...that motivate you, and these are the things that motivate me."
  — Alex Day ([04:46])

• "It’s essentially like a buddy system of which you’re like, hey, I’m going to look out for you, you look out for me."
  — Alex Day ([00:00], [16:31])

On the Pandemic

• "We let almost everyone go except for a core group of people...to then take that and turn it on its head and say, okay, we need to do something with this energy. We are not going to waste it."
  — Alex Day ([27:36])

Advice to Their Younger Selves

• "IQ does not trump EQ...approach these things that are emotionally challenging with...being factual about it, being direct, being neutral, but also being kind and humans about things."
  — Alex Day ([34:34])

• "You have to adhere to the rules...to truly master it, you have to know how to break the rules and sort of rise above it and know how those rules can otherwise empower you."
  — David Kaplan ([35:58])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:41] – David’s introduction to EOS and Traction
• [04:46] – Alex’s initial resistance and breakthrough with EOS roles
• [11:34] – On creative tension, the value of grit, and non-linear career paths
• [12:18] – Mutual empowerment, “letting go of the vine”
• [16:31] – The “dance” metaphor for their working relationship
• [18:01] – How weekly “same page” meetings function
• [20:45] – The origin story: how they met and aligned
• [23:17] – David recognizing Alex’s integrator qualities early
• [27:36] – Facing the pandemic: decisions, emotions, and reinvention
• [31:13] – Grounding in values and mission during chaos
• [34:34] – Integrator/visionary advice for others
• [38:40] – Sports as a metaphor for business; “the empowerment of failure”

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Memorable Moments

• The guests playfully quiz each other on their favorite cocktails ([25:39]).
• Honest reflection on feeling like “rogues” and the discomfort of adopting “corporate” systems ([03:07]).
• Vulnerability about the pain of employee layoffs during the early pandemic ([27:36]).
• The use of family connections and “mixing business and pleasure” to strengthen professional ties ([20:22]).

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Takeaways

• The power of structure: EOS provided language and frameworks that helped clarify roles, deepen trust, and empower both leaders.
• Creative tension is healthy: Embracing role boundaries while valuing overlap and mutual respect yields multiply creative, resilient businesses.
• Communication is non-negotiable: Regular, honest dialogue—formal and informal, work and personal—is foundational to lasting partnerships.
• Adaptability is survival: The pandemic forced them to innovate, hold strong to their values, and shape a culture that’s nimble and human, not just profitable.
• Continuous personal growth: Both visionary and integrator roles evolve; mastering them means finding your own path, deepening emotional intelligence, and learning from failure without fear.

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For aspiring Visionary/Integrator duos in any industry, this episode offers a roadmap for thriving through change—and for building businesses and partnerships that last.

Transcript

[Alex Day]

We know each other's rhythms and that's part of that trust and the communication side of it. And it's really just not that complicated. It's like, it's essentially like a buddy system of which you're like, hey, I'm going to look out for you, you look out for me. We're going to communicate and we allow ourselves both healthy tension and healthy conflict and have developed a lot of skills around that. Thanks to other advisors,

[Mark C. Winners]

Everybody. Welcome to another season of the Rocket Fuel podcast where visionary integrator duos from entrepreneurial companies share a behind the scenes look at their relationship. These amazing leaders blend their unique skills to create Rocket Fuel. I'm your host, Mark C. Winners, co author of Rocket Fuel and an expert EOS implementer. Today I'm thrilled to be talking with David Kaplan and Alexander Day of Death and Company, a cocktail institution with an award winning menu. David works as the founder and visionary of Death Co. And Alex is the integrator. The two have published three influential mixology books together and continue to open new Death and Co locations nationwide. The brand is known for creating unforgettable experiences and connecting people through cocktail anchored hospitality. In this episode we'll hear how Alex and David balanced their partnership and how they stepped into their unique roles. The tool also break down how they make level 10 meetings work from opposite coasts and the challenges that became catalysts for success. We're kicking off the conversation with David's story of how he was introduced to the book Traction after tapping out in other entrepreneurial groups. Here we go.

[David Kaplan]

I found out about EOs. You know, we, we were fortunate enough to get exposed to a lot of the sort of entrepreneurial, kind of entrepreneurial books, data systems through a friend of ours, an amazing peer in the industry, he set up this, this sort of retreat for operators and I felt like I had kind of taken it as as far as I could. Alex joined for a number of them as well. That's really where I first learned about a lot of business practices such as quarterly cadence, vision, mission, et cetera, core values. But I felt like I was kind of topping out there and I had just a casual catch up with a friend of mine, a phenomenal entrepreneur. And I caught him kind of just journaling at the bar and thinking I was poking fun of. I was like, hey, are you writing in your diary? He was like, well actually I've developed this daily journaling ritual. And that brings me to another question I wanted to ask you, what are you doing? How are you running your business? We recently adopted eos, and it's been transformative and we're paying an implementer. It's really changed our world. I was like, that's not where I thought this casual cocktail ketchup was going to go at all. And so that was the first time that I was introduced to eos. I dove in, read the book, and kind of gently introduced it to, to the team.

[Mark C. Winners]

What, what was the first book you read? Was it traction?

[David Kaplan]

It was traction, yeah.

[Mark C. Winners]

Okay, first book. So, so then you come back and you, you tell Alex what you know.

[David Kaplan]

Alex and I have always had a great rapport. You know, now understanding ourselves as sort of the visionary integrator role. Before, like many folks, we were just thought of ourselves as partners. You do this and I do this, and we all kind of tackle everything. And we've always been very close, very good friends, and we've been cognizant to work at that relationship. So I think I was less reticent to tell Alex where I was at and what I was thinking, but I was very aware, at least I thought that the, our, our executive team or leadership team would, would be pretty wary of this. You know, we're in the bar industry. We like to think of ourselves as rogues or alternative folks or rebels or whatever it is. And this felt corporate. I don't know how else to say it felt corporate. And so I was a little nervous to bring it to them. And I think, you know, it took a few months of a little kicking and screaming, but pretty quickly everyone saw the value. And after I don't know how many sessions, it was either the first or second session that we had with our implementer, everyone was like, this is going to change what we do and how we do it.

[Mark C. Winners]

And your implementer was Josh Holtzman? Yeah, two.

[David Kaplan]

Great, great guy. Based out of la. Still really close with him. We worked with him for four years, I think, and still get the opportunity to hang out with him. I just went to my first US conference with him actually in San Diego.

[Mark C. Winners]

Yeah, Josh is a superstar. He's really great, great guy, great guy. So that's, that's cool that you, you got connected with him and to get this thing kicked off. So in the process, early on, reading the book a little bit, maybe in going through the accountability chart in that first focus day, you get exposed to this concept of the visionary and the integrator. So, Alex, talk to me about the first time you saw that terminology and kind of that structure. You know, what do you think?

[Alex Day]

It was certainly a process of getting Acclimated to it. And I think I'm probably. And this is more reflective of me in that time and place, felt resistant to it. Resistant to Dave, on a whim, being like, this is the thing that we should do and look at and getting really excited about. And meanwhile, my brain. And now I have language around this, right? But at the time, you know, look back at him, my brain was in the mud working on a project in. In operation, whatever it was that I was very focused on, like, what are you doing? This is a waste of my time. And so it. It took a little while, as Dave said, a little kicky and screaming when that barrier was broken for me. And when I read the book for the first time and consumed the information, you know, my first pass through it was, it's set in. And then I did a second pass on it. And, you know, my first reaction was, wow, this is really simple. I was, in that way, almost a little resistant to it because of its simplicity. And then the second read through, I'm like, oh, I get why this is simple is because it's meant to appeal to a very large audience and to be clarifying, to be simplifying, to provide a shared language for people. And then it started clicking. And specifically, when I revisited the integrator visionary relationship, I had a lot of different thoughts about it. You know, I come from a. A very creative background, and a lot of the work that, you know, I still do today and Dave and I work on together is within the creative realm. And some of the more kind of binary definitions of an integrator versus visionary were challenging for me to wrap my head around. But then when you dig a little bit deeper and understand some of the psychology around what it means to kind of align with one direction or the other, then things start making sense and you layer on other things like Myers Briggs and all these other kind of like, assessments, and suddenly we start developing a language together. We're like, oh, wait, no, that's just kind of how my brain works. And so what had been before, maybe, I mean, Dave and I have gone maybe in one fight, two fights, professionally speaking, over our careers. Maybe we're 20 years in. Like, that's pretty remarkable, right? But even then, having some of this language, I'm like, oh, well, that sure explains it, because my brain works like this, and your brain works like this, and these are the. That motivate you, and these are the things that motivate me. And. And so as I wrap my head around that leading in to implementation with Josh Holtzman, it was really like, I see it now in retrospect, as the kind of early foundations of what has really become, you know, an incredibly fruitful relationship for Dave and I built on trust and communication and collaboration with that framework as that foundation.

[Mark C. Winners]

I guess it was hilariously clear, right, the roles, when you thought back on your 20 years of experience together. Give me a specific example from kind of your life leading up to this. Like, oh, yeah, okay, that explains it. That's in this situation, that's why you were this or he was that.

[David Kaplan]

I think even just how I introduced EOS to us was a good example. I was like, went off in whatever direction, was very confident that this would be transformative. And it was one of the times, and I try not to do this very often, but one of the times where I was like, all right, come hell or high water, I'm going to find a way to introduce this. And whether everyone buys in or one person buys in, I know I really just need Alex to buy in. And then we can, together, we can make sure that everyone kind of gets there. And again, whether we take them kicking or screaming or whether they just jump straight into the water, that was certainly one instance. But I mean, just looking down, like long term vision, big ideas, like Alex and I, when we first started reading integrator and Visionary, like what those kind of types are, I think we, we quickly saw ourselves. But I know I was a little nervous to bring it to Alex and at least in one part because of the term visionary, because it's a little, it's a little highfalutin, it's a little self aggrandizing, you know, And Alex and I both were doing everything, and we're both pretty confident and doing everything. But this gave us a tool to understand what we were most comfortable in, most fluent in. And it's not to say that we can't be good or great at the other things, but it's like sitting, sitting in our true seats or performing the tasks we're meant to do. It became very clear, like, oh, I'm. I kind of live a little bit over here and I have integrated capabilities, but that's not, that's not who I'm born to be. That's not where I'm sitting in my seat. And I feel like, Alex, you, you felt the same way.

[Alex Day]

Yeah, I think I, I did for sure. And I saw the opportunity within it too, you know, of acknowledging. And we did. We, we talked extensively about what this language meant for the future of our company. And is it. If we are adopting these almost identities. Do those collide? Do they assimilate? Do they live separately? Are they, what are they relative to our self identification as human beings? Right. And so much of our work in our industry is built and specifically our work as Gen and luck and as death and company is built upon a very incremental and self initiated path that very little of it was methodical. If we're being clear. I am passionate about this thing and I'm going to persevere to make it the best version that it possibly can be. And it's going to be driven by like those two things. And you know like Dave will make fun of me, but I always bring up Angela Duckworth and grit and the concept of it is like, is the basis of our company and without that passion and perseverance we never would have gotten where we are. Do we maybe have some aptitude for this stuff? Kind of. But Dave studied art and the find photography at Gallery Arts and a little bit of psychology in there too. And I, I have a degree in European studies and like a music background. Like whatever. We're not qualified academically to be where we're at. But that, that confluence really, really helped us. And so having again having those conversations saying okay, what does this mean to us and allowing attention to exist that isn't so restrictive of saying yes, yes, we are these roles and, and this is my function within this organization. And we can also do other things, we can expand that and I think you know, our body of work speaks to that in various ways. Be it the books, be it our work, opening of building bars, be it our forays into media, be it our online marketplace which is a huge part of our business and a massive marketing engine is all the architect. That's Dave's entire. You know, they've created that whole thing much to my eye rolls, Adams rolling right out of my head with it. You know, so it's, it's. What are we doing now? Like I find that. Yeah, exactly. Like what selling glassware? Why?

[Mark C. Winners]

So, so I heard you, Alex, you used the word tension, right? And so it's, it's sort of that creative tension, it's the tension on the rubber band that, that, that creates. You know, we talk about power, we talk about rocket fuel being truly power between the, the differences that the two of you bring and blending that into something positive. So as you got language around this, so now you've got words. A visionary and an integrator that. Okay, it kind of makes sense that the pattern that's there the internal wiring that's there. How did it change how you communicated? So you've been together for 20 years, as you said, so you've been talking. You've got all kinds of ways that you've done it that have been very effective to get you to where you are and then that kind of clicks into place. So tell us what changed in the way that you communicated between the two of you as a result of clarifying those roles?

[David Kaplan]

Everything pretty quickly. We were probably fairly typical partners in that we didn't lay out what Alex did versus what I did. We did everything together for the most part. So we didn't in. In doing so. It was great. And I had to become very good at areas that are. Not that I don't feel like I'm born to be great at. But having that competency certainly has given me confidence in areas that I otherwise have tried to run away from. Typical kind of visionary stuff that I now see where it's like day to day ops running to the numbers, like really digging deep into the P. Ls, the minutiae and like the world of accountability and the culture of accountability that you need to create and have a fluency there. But right away, Alex and I said, oh, you're great at this stuff. I don't need to be because I have an endless trust in you. I can stop trying to be even good at that. I'm confident in my. In my fluency. So I can understand where you're going, what you're doing, how hard you're working, and the level and the caliber of your work. But I. I can then free myself, let go of the vine and U S parlance. I can then free myself to really try to get much better at the things that I. I feel like I'm pennant born to do. And in that way, you know, I don't think that we would have been able to do anything, almost anything that we've done to date with, without that almost disentangling and empowering of ourselves and each other and looking at each other and be like, no, no, you, you go forth. I got this. And we love to do everything. Like right now, next week is a great example. I'm flying to Denver. I'm shooting a campaign video for our next crowdfunding campaign. And then I have an investor, a webinar on Thursday morning, then an investor happy hour. I'm shaking hands and kissing babies and doing, doing that dance all, all week. It's going to be fun. I enjoy it. I feel like I'm Pretty darn good at it. Alex, meanwhile, is. Is doing a. A massive road trip kind of blitz around the south and three of our new locations with the entire ops team. And I'm just like, overflowing with. Want to be there with him because, like, I love that stuff. I love digging into the weeds, but it's like, ah, you got this. I just want to be there because I love you guys. I love working with you. I love seeing you do what you do. I'm going to be over here doing what I do so that mutual empowerment. We never would have been able to raise the money that we've raised to structure the company, to grow, to have these opportunities without being like, really looking at the accountability chart, being like, this is you and I know you got this and this is me, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna tackle.

[Mark C. Winners]

Yeah. So trust is obviously a big part of your equation. Right. And so Alex, from your, from your seat.

[David Kaplan]

What.

[Mark C. Winners]

What changed. What's a big change that, that you've experienced as you got that language and you got that clarity around the two roles?

[Alex Day]

I mean, gosh, it's a long. It's a long history. And, and I think that there's various stages of our career and our relationship with EOS as a system on which to operate. And I think it did start at the beginning of, you know, us simply having a conversation around this, aligning on where we sit in these roles and then trying it out. There was a testing period right. Of does this feel right? Are we letting go too much of the vine or are we leaning in too much? And, and it's a part of our back and forth on a kind of annual basis or whatever longer term trajectory that is really, really helpful and really important and valuable for integrators and visionaries, I think kind of as a universal statement to have conversations about. Right. You know, where, you know, Dave purely specializing as the example, he just said, purely going to Denver and just focusing on that, whereas I'm kind of overseeing our ops team and making sure that they are bringing to life the larger engines of our company in the future for our growth and doing it the way that needs to happen. If we were to purely do those things and those two routes, we would not have the connection that we have. So we do need to kind of ebb and flow a little bit with that.

[Mark C. Winners]

One of you described your relationship as a dance. So is that what you mean? Is that back and forth? Is that what you mean?

[Alex Day]

I think so, yeah. I mean, I think any good relationship has it, if you use the dance metaphor, has, you know, steps in and out, it has give and take, it has acclimation. And when you dance with somebody, you know how their body moves. When you work with somebody, you know how they move. And it's an analogy we use often within bartending. That's what my background is. I was a bartender for many years. The kind of cliche is you never really learn a bar until you've been behind it for six months. Just know organically where everything is so you can remain face up and facing your guests, so you can kind of work fluidly. But there's also the dance with your coworkers that you develop over time. And I think that that really applies to our work together. And so we know each other's rhythms and that's part of that, that trust and the communication side of it. And it's really just not that complicated. It's like, it's essentially like a buddy system of which you're like, hey, I'm going to look out for you, you look out for me. We're going to communicate and we allow ourselves both healthy tension and healthy conflict and have developed a lot of skills around that thanks to other advisors in our world.

[Mark C. Winners]

So talk to me a little bit about. In the communication area, how do you stay on the same page? What does that look like?

[David Kaplan]

All sorts of things. I mean, you know, we, we follow a lot of the EOS suggestion in terms of we have weekly same page meetings. Those are really important. We prioritize those over a lot of other calls.

[Mark C. Winners]

So tell me specifically about those. So how, how long are they? Where are they? What do they look like?

[David Kaplan]

Alex and I and our entire company, we've worked to make it as absolutely complicated as possible. Accidentally, I'm in Seattle and Alex is in Portland, Maine. So we could not be farther apart.

[Mark C. Winners]

Genius.

[David Kaplan]

Yeah, I know, it's great. It's really great.

[Alex Day]

You read. It's cheap too.

[David Kaplan]

Yeah.

[Alex Day]

Really inexpensive, affordable.

[David Kaplan]

You know, you read about far more intelligent hospitality professionals like Danny Meyer, who was, was hesitant to open up new restaurants more than a couple blocks from his home. So we're in New York, Denver, Louisiana, D.C. and soon to be Atlanta, Nashville, Savannah, Seattle, Las Vegas, and then we're looking at two deals in Australia, which will be international licensing deals. So super convenient. So going back to your question, Alex and I, almost everything that happens in our company on a regular cadence is on Zoom is remote. So we meet every Monday, typically for 90 minutes in the afternoon, Pacific in the evening, because Alex is very gracious on the east coast and it's great. It's an L10 structure, but we run it a little bit looser than we do the rest of our meetings and we use it as an opportunity to personally catch up. And sometimes we'll just talk about non work related things for a little bit. Sometimes we open it up to vent about things either in the company or outside the company, share personal stressors or otherwise. But for the most part it's probably 70, 80% L10 and fairly typically focused. And then in addition to, to that same page meeting, we try to get as much in person time together and we also try to get non work in person time together. We're very fortunate. I absolutely adore Alex's husband. We get a chance to work with him on almost everything. He's an interior designer and they do. His firm does almost everything that we do. But we're also very close personally. And then similarly Alex's. Alex and Andrew are very close with my wife Jenna. She does our PR for everything. So no nepotism, none street pipe. Well, what I like to say is we just, we happen to be attracted to brilliant and talented people and so we were fortunate enough to marry the best people that we, we've met and encountered and lucky enough to get to work with them. So we try to travel together as couples as well and, and know each other's families closely. All that good stuff in addition to work.

[Mark C. Winners]

Love that, love that. So y' all have known each other for 20 years. A lot of visionaries and integrators. Their first big challenge is getting paired up right and finding each other. So 20 years ago, where were you that you happened to connect?

[Alex Day]

It was a very different relationship than it is now. How deep do we want to go Post college living in New York City, Dave opened Death and Company. I wasn't there at the beginning and you know, he can speak to that trajectory. But I was just after college kind of figuring out what I wanted to do, toying around with going to grad school, mostly just being, you know, a young 20 year old living in New York, working in bars and restaurants and having a really good time. And this bar, Death and go open right around the corner. I went in, sat at the bar and absolutely fell in love with it and was vowed that I was going to find a way to work there. And I just started going there more and more and eventually crossed paths with Dave and invited him down to my bar. And I think you were throwing a party for Tim and you know, like Dave comes in with them and I'd set them up. And it was essentially a nightclub that I was running. And for some reason, somebody let me at like 22 years old run a nightclub. It was. There was a lot of questionable decisions there, but it was a very fun place and set them up. I took my staff aside before we started. I was not like, hiding anything. And from there, you know, kind of talked a little bit and found my way to the Sunday night swing shift at Death and Company about six months after the bar opened. And from there it was pretty quick that Dave and I realized that, you know, in addition to having some aspirations that may be aligned, and I don't. I certainly don't know it then, if I could have articulated where I wanted to be now, where I, Where I am now, certainly I think Dave had vision for doing more. And he really, like, loved this thing that Def and Co was becoming and wanted to do more. And that was really exciting to me. Some other opportunities I had, I just. That we just continue to feel alignment. And at the core of that, which is really important was us aligning as, as individuals and understanding that we had a similar background that allowed sort of a shared language. And we both grew up in ski towns, for example. That was kind of a thing. And we were both living in New York. And so it was like, when you do that, when you grow up in a place like that, you live in a place like New York City, there's a certain level of reminiscing about that. And that came. Became a little bit of a nugget that then grew into a much larger friendship. And from there, you know, I can let Dave speak to kind of the trajectory after that. But from there, business relationship forged and, and eventually we came to a place of more mutual alignment versus me being Dave's employee.

[Mark C. Winners]

So, so Dave, you got this, you know, young guy that, that comes on board and is doing some cool stuff. And how did you begin to see, okay, you know, here's somebody that can really have an even more significant role in making your vision a reality, if you will.

[David Kaplan]

If that's not the easiest question anyone could see and certainly could see Alex's brilliance. And I tell him that not because we're being recorded today, but, you know, someone. Someone gave Alex the. The. The reins of a pretty big nightclub wannabe speakeasy cocktail bar at a really young age because he was incredibly driven, very what we call abk, which is, you know, worked with rigor and thoughtfulness and, and clearly had a passion for it. Very, very organized, a Lot of, you know, what we now think of as relatively integrator type mindset and execution. And as Alex said, you know, we also had a ton in common. We were very, we were both very ambitious and very young. He was the only person at Death and Company younger than me when we opened. I was younger than everyone that, that we employed there. And I also very quickly understood that Alex, even though we didn't have this language, I very quickly understood that Alex is very, very good at a whole world of things that I am not very good at. And I think that was almost one of my first. And it certainly wasn't integrator visionary, but that, that's one of the reasons I became comfortable with the integrator visionary difference so quickly is because I opened Ethico. I've never been a bartender and said I was like, I know I'm pretty bad at almost everything that we do. Which is an interesting thing to say as, as someone who helps build cocktail culture nationally, globally, whatever it is. I'm like, I was a terrible waiter in high school. I've never been a bartender. Not a very good. I was never a gm. I don't think I would be a great gm. I like to be the guy behind the curtain. I like to be exactly in the. See that I am. I like to be connected to it and see what we're building and see the impact that we're having. And I've worked really hard to try to get better at the areas that I'm not good at. But anyway, that very quickly saw all of that in Alex and it just made sense. It clicked and we started to work together more and more and it became more and more fun.

[Mark C. Winners]

Very cool. So, okay, just to kind of set context for our listeners about the size of your organization now. So with employee wise, how many folks you got?

[Alex Day]

177 employees right now.

[Mark C. Winners]

177. And so you're. You're right in the cocktail business. So I have to ask each of you, what is your favorite cocktail?

[David Kaplan]

You first.

[Alex Day]

I know what Dave's is. You should ask us what the other ones is.

[David Kaplan]

Oh, okay.

[Mark C. Winners]

Let's do it that way. Let's do it that way. Alex, what is Dave's favorite, favorite cocktail?

[Alex Day]

His favorite cocktail is a Martini, actually. And I would say a subset of that would be a Vesper.

[Mark C. Winners]

Okay. A Vesper. Okay. So very specific. Anything more specific? Can you even get more specific about it?

[Alex Day]

I think you like coqui Americano instead of lille blanc in there, as I recall.

[Mark C. Winners]

And what temperature is that served at.

[Alex Day]

Well, I mean, he knows that too close. Close to zero. I mean, as cold as his freezer can get with the proper dilution and pre batched in a bottle.

[Mark C. Winners]

There we go. So David, did he nail it?

[David Kaplan]

Of course he did.

[Mark C. Winners]

Okay, so let's see if you can do the same. What's, what's Alex's favorite cocktail?

[David Kaplan]

Oh, man, I can't. I can't. I. Well, I, we'll see if I'm right. I, I think it, my answer is that I, I think it depends on, on the time, place and mood. And so I, I think it would probably go from either Calvados, Negroni, cider. What am I missing? What am I missing?

[Alex Day]

I mean, Martini's pretty high up there.

[David Kaplan]

Martini's high up there. I didn't think it was the number one spot, though.

[Alex Day]

Yeah, it is very situational.

[David Kaplan]

Alex is more than him, right? Alex is more interesting in almost everything

[Mark C. Winners]

we're going to talk about.

[David Kaplan]

He's a more interesting person. He's got more interesting drinks.

[Alex Day]

Don't listen to him. He's full of it.

[Mark C. Winners]

You guys, you guys really like each

[Alex Day]

other

[Mark C. Winners]

and appreciate each other. That's very cool. Very cool. Okay, so, so let's talk about this. It hasn't all been, you know, roses and sunshine. You've been through some tough stuff together too, right? So, like you, Pandemic was a big deal particularly for business in your sector. So what lessons did you learn going through something like that that was so devastating for so many, many other bar businesses, again, businesses that were trying to do the same thing you're trying to do, what, what you learned, what was your big takeaway from making it through that?

[Alex Day]

I'm sure they are, I think. Wow. I mean, if, if you're reflective over the last five years, it's. There are so many different phases and milestones within that that we're edifying. You know, we often joke that this period of time was the equivalent of going to hospitality grad school. And what I mean by that is almost monthly, if not weekly. In the beginning, we were reimagining and reinventing our business. And you know that some of those, some of the kind of motivators behind that were dictated by legal restrictions or our own convictions about what we wanted to ask of our staff and the safety that we wanted to create for our guests in a very kind of challenging environment with a lot of conflicting information. Right. So it's a very confusing time, but in that we had a fiduciary responsibility to our business to do the best that we could to make our way through it and an obligation to our employees and the people around the table and, and really, you know, our core group that we built this with to, to have it survive. And you know, I think some people had, the, had an opportunity over those early days of COVID to, you know, spend some time on personal reflection and growing maybe hobbies they were into. And I have so much respect for that and just a little bit of jealousy. But Dave and I looked at each other a couple days in and I swear it was a couple days in. We're like, we're not wasting any fucking time here. And sorry for the use of language, but it was dire. We let almost everyone go except for a core group of people, which is for those who have had to do that, who've had to fire one person, let alone almost 200, is awful. Is a truly existentially challenging moment. And to then take that and turn it on its head and say, okay, we need to do something with this energy. We are not going to waste it. We're going to look internally, figure out what matters to us. And over the course of many, many months, let alone years, asking ourselves hard questions about who we are, where we want to be and what we want to do was extremely clarifying for our future. And then there's kind of the more mechanical side of things, which is how this business functions. And fundamentally our industry has changed. It is no longer the same. And currently right now, in 2024, mid year, it is. We are in such an interesting place in that, you know, the larger consumer perception is that things are back to normal. And that's just not true. It's not true from an economic standpoint about our cost of goods and the labor environment nationally that exists, let alone the lingering impacts of the last many years. And so, you know, I very much on a pulpit right now, whatever, blowhorn I have to remind people of this and let them know of the challenges because it's a really, really challenging time right now. And so we are continuing to reinvent and change our business model. And I think that the moral of the story there is we have become a very nimble company and one that looks at data in a way that is just far more profound than we ever have before. And I think that's both good and at times can some can kind of strip away the creativity, strip away the passion, strip away the things that we love about the human engagement and connectivity of our work.

[Mark C. Winners]

So let me, let me play when I hear all that, Alex, what I hear you say is, it's, it's. The lesson is about adaptability and being able to move, but with a, with sort of a foundational foothold of your, your core values and your vision and what's most important to you. Am I hearing you right, Mark?

[David Kaplan]

You, you took the words out of my mouth. I think in absolutely aligned with everything Alex said. And, and I think when you're, when you're faced with really just earth shatteringly tough moments in, in your life and in your career, in the company that you're building, you need to look to something right? Like you need to feel, you need to hold on to something. And the whole world feels like it's sweeping you away. You got to have something. And we were very fortunate to, to have EOS and to have this foundation. And we are not paid by eos. I say this to anyone and everyone. I had a meeting yesterday where I was proselytizing about it and it really was, as you just said, Mark, it was our, our mission, purpose, our core values, our core target. Like we knew what we wanted to do and we knew who we were, who we are. And that did not change. And so Alex is, is very right where. Or we looked around and we saw some people saying, all right, well, we're closed. I'm going to go learn to play the piano. We pursued growth and whatever that meant. And I find purpose through work. I know Alex does as well. And so we got to work. We worked probably as harder, harder than we ever have through this time where none of our doors were open and we looked to opportunities to show who we were and what our values are. And one of the many great things that I think we did through that time is we created a Covid and reopening playbook. And we said, all right, we need this for ourselves. Let's not forget who we are. Let's make it sexy, let's make it beautiful, let's package it, make it fun and dynamic and interesting to read. And let's share it with everyone. Let's just make it open source. How can we be there for our community, for our culture, and help people get back? And that was just one of many things that we did. And as Alex also said, we went to the books, we reviewed the tapes and every tape we could. And within that metaphor, we were really pulling up Excel and saying, how can we reopen? How can we do this better? How can we do this differently? What's the world going to look like? And how can we be better operators to ensure we have margin to share that margin to better incentivize our people and be better employers, because that's always been the North Star for us. How can we be a truly great employer? And that's part of pos. It's a huge part of our motivation for us. If we're a better organization, we're going to be better employers, we're going to have better product, and it's going to be a better hospitality experience. We're going to become a more sustainable and more profitable company because of that investment.

[Mark C. Winners]

What a great example of learning from the tough stuff that comes along and doing something good with it. We got a lot of people listening that are. They're visionaries themselves, they're integrators themselves, or they're trying to figure it out, or they're just interested in these crazy visionaries and integrators that are out there in the world. So if you're talking to them, and so Alex, maybe you take it for the integrator and David, maybe you take it for the. For the visionary. If you're talking to, you know, yourself 20 years ago, or you're talking to somebody that's going to end up on that path but somewhere ahead of where they're trying to get to, what nugget of wisdom would you offer? What's one thing that you've learned, maybe the hard way that you can share that is going to be really important to them to making this do what they want it to do.

[Alex Day]

I would say that IQ does not trump eq. And what I mean by that is, you know, a lot of people that are engaged in these conversations are cognitively adept. They're smart people. Right? And if we know anything about the modern world of business or life for that matter, simply being smart does not always equate to success nor positive relationships. And clicking in a layer deeper than that of being aware of who we are as emotional creatures and where we sit within the spectrum of our interaction with others can be really powerful. In forming these relationships, we had the great fortune of working with a coach, Mary Pat Knight, who wrote a book called Humanized Leader, which, I mean, Mary Pat is like, I miss talking to her every week. She is. Yeah, I. Mine's downstairs in my actual office. Better light here. She taught us a number of skills that have been with me that I think about every day. And one of them is factual, direct, neutral and kind. And as I interact with Dave and I in our relationship, as we have hard conversations about things, as we make really big sea changes in Our company, as can be the case, and has been the case in the last couple of years to approach these, these things that are emotionally challenging with, you know, some of these skills of being, as we navigate situation, being factual about it, being direct, being neutral, but also being kind and humans about things. I think that is the biggest piece of advice I could have.

[Mark C. Winners]

Love that. Very well done, David.

[David Kaplan]

For the visionaries, I should have gone first. Alex is always a tough act to follow. Tough act to follow for a few things. In relation to the visionary integrator role, when it was first introduced, you know, we, we've had an interesting journey with it and, and I, I think it's probably fairly typical where we started to understand it really adhered to the textbook definition. And in some ways if you do that, you can box yourself in. And, and I don't think that's the intention. You know, it's, it's almost the more you work with something to learn it, you have to adhere to the rules. And then to truly master it, you have to know how to break the rules and sort of rise above it and know how those rules can otherwise empower you. And that's been the case for our partnership. That's been the case for how Alex continues to become a phenomenal integrator. How I hopefully continue to become a phenomenal visionary and leader in the company. Is that all of these things, visionary role and integrator role, anything, it's incredibly dynamic. And the more you take in, the more you can layer on and make it your own and make it even better than where you're at today. And I think Alex was speaking to that in a certain respect with the humanized leader. I love taking in business books and consuming them at massive volume. And you know, if you do that, if you don't, the more you learn and however you choose to learn, the more dynamic and layered you make your role. And I always think about Jim Collins. In the 20 mile march. I got a long list of top 10 hits, but they kind of all change around depending on where I'm at. But you know, the 20 mile march of not just where your business is going, but where you yourself are going as a visionary, as in this question, in this example, you're never done, your company's never done, you're never done with your personal journey. And that can be daunting or that can be incredibly exciting and empowering.

[Mark C. Winners]

Love that. So in the, in the space of being dynamic, I was told you're a wake surfer.

[David Kaplan]

That's I, I, I, I Would say I enjoy wake surfing. To say I am a wake surfer feels like a level of, I don't know, I don't compete in it. I, I enjoy doing it. But yeah, I mean, and they, you throw pretty much any sport. Again, Alex and I have this in common. Any sport, our way, either of our way. And we, we love to pursue it. But yes, Seattle and Sammamish is actually the home, the birthplace of week surfing,

[Mark C. Winners]

which is pretty cool. I didn't know that. Is there anything you've learned from being whatever level of wake surfer you are that you think ties back into making a visionary integrator duo powerful?

[David Kaplan]

Oh, man, what a great curveball. I think sports in general are great metaphors for business. Wake surfing is a fun one, actually, because it's one of the few sports where you really don't get hurt or it's almost kind of tough to get hurt when you fall down. And the empowerment of failure is something we should all talk about more because we don't learn that much when we succeed. We just don't like as humans, we don't. We're like, great. And sometimes that can give us false confidence and then we it up next time. We learn a ton when we fail. And the same is true for sports. If you're pushing yourself to really get better in a sport, you're gonna fall. And it depends on what sport, how hard that hurts. You know, skateboarding, not for me. You fall. Wake surfing, I think is a better comparison to business in that like most of the time you will fall down, up and fail. And in our profession, we get to do it every single day because we have people coming in every day and we're going to slip up. We're going to have a less than stellar service somewhere in one of our doors every day. And not just that for Alex myself, you know, I have seven, ten calls a day and then a million tasks in between. We all live that life. We're not going to show up as our best selves in each of those. And to reflect on that at the end of the day and think about how we can do it better. Just like when you fall down, wake surfing doesn't hurt. The water's cold. You get back up, away you go.

[Mark C. Winners]

Love it. I'd say you hit that curveball right out of the park. Very well done.

[David Kaplan]

Well, think about the metaphor. I love it.

[Mark C. Winners]

Yeah, right.

[David Kaplan]

Thank you for giving me an easy sports metaphor. If you went a little deeper, you'd find out that I do not know traditional team sports.

[Mark C. Winners]

Alex metaphor Alex has been setting a high bar all day, so, you know, we tried to try to balance it out here. In the end, I appreciate you. Right. So, Alex and David, I have loved spending this bit of time with the two of you, and I'm super grateful that you took the time to spend it with, with me and more importantly, with our listeners. So I'm grateful. I. The whole idea behind this podcast is to help people learn faster than we can learn on our own through others experiences, good and bad, right? The tough stuff and the stuff that's really, really cool. And hopefully if we'll pay attention, we'll learn something that will help us not have to step in the same hole that they stepped in or maybe even get there a little bit faster. And so I know you've helped some listeners today, so I'm grateful to you and I'm also grateful to our listeners for taking the time they take to listen to these episodes and do something with it, go out there. And I'm a huge fan of entrepreneurs in general and specifically the visionaries and the integrators that make them go and make them have these huge impacts they can have on the world. So thanks for setting a great example for them listeners. Thanks for listening. If you like this little podcast, tell somebody, leave us a review. If you really like it, it helps other people find out about it and maybe we can help them too. So what a fun conversation. Conversation with Dave and Alex of Death and Company. Super, super people. And, and a lot of, a lot of learning in there. So just trying to anchor it back a little bit. So let's go to the rocket fuel toolbox and the two things that jumped out for me on this one, the first one really ties to the accountability chart tool. And so if you noticed when they were talking about getting clear on their roles and thinking about, wow, am I really this or really that? And am I exclusively this or exclusively that? One of the things that was kind of challenging was, well, gee, we're both creative, we're both, in a sense, visionary. So does that mean that I, I don't get to do that? And so for me, the question I see come up a lot is kind of, well, where does vision come from in the leadership team of a company? Where does vision come from? And if you think about the process, who creates the vision? Who creates the. The vto? And really it's the leadership team. You know, you're doing it together and everybody's kind of bringing their view, their voice into it. But the visionary has a very specific role. They're char making sure that they bring that visionary energy into that conversation that they bring seeing the future, they bring the ideas and kind of connecting the dots and looking at where things are going and thinking about where we should position ourselves. They got to bring that energy. But it doesn't mean that the integrator can't contribute something in that vein too or some other member on the leadership team. And then we work through our process and we figure out what the, you know, what the right answer is. But everybody's playing a little bit. But we, by having the visionary own that seat and truly play there, we make sure that we get that, that energy represented in the conversation we're having with regard to vision. Second thing from the toolbox, and I'm going to tie this back to the same page meeting. As you heard them talk about how they do their same page meeting, there was sort of a reference to using the level 10 agenda. And so just to clarify, the same page meeting agenda, super, super simple. It's the check in at a deep level. And he talked about that we're sharing personal stories and personal experiences and it's really kind of deep because that's how important the relationship is. You're trying to understand it's your business spouse. So how would you check in with somebody that, that the relationship is that important to you. And then it's really, it's just ids so you're not necessarily going through and doing all the things we might do in a level 10 of checking the scorecard and the rocks and the headlines, all that kind of stuff. It's really just, let's take it to the issues. And so the visionary brings their issues, the integrator brings their issues. And the issue should be anything that you're feeling, you're not on the same page about currently. Anything that you're feeling there, you're at risk of not being on the same page about. And the third thing is something that's coming, something that's coming that you want to make darn sure you get on the same page. So you're proactively talking about it, getting alignment around it to, to make sure that, that we don't get off in a ditch and get out of alignment on it. So that's the links that I clearly saw back to the rocket fuel toolbox today. So hopefully you learned from that. And again, what a great conversation. Tons of lessons in there. So take advantage of those and do something good with them. Meanwhile, please go to rocketfueluniversity.com and check out the resources that we've got for you there. Take the assessment if you hadn't haven't already, that'll help you get clear on which of these roles might be you. And if this structure has a role in your world, in your business, and maybe something that can help help you, there's more tools there that you can take advantage of and really join our community of visionaries and integrators. So love to have you be part of that and and hopefully see you out there somewhere. So that's it for this episode. Until next time. Go Rocket. Thank you for listening today. I really hope this episode inspired you to bring rocket fuel to your business. If you're interested in learning more about the free community for visionaries, integrators, and the people who support them, please visit rocketfueluniversity.com.

[Alex Day]

Sam.