Andy Frisella | He Made $58K In 10 Years… Now His Portfolio Is Worth $1B

Summary

School of Hard Knocks Podcast

Episode: Andy Frisella | He Made $58K In 10 Years… Now His Portfolio Is Worth $1B

Date: May 13, 2026
Guest: Andy Frisella
Summary by: Podcast Summarizer

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Overview

In this powerhouse episode, hosts James, Jack, and Josh sit down in St. Louis with entrepreneur Andy Frisella — founder of Supplement Superstore and First Form — to trace his journey from “making less than $60K in a decade” to building a personal portfolio worth over $1 billion. Andy unpacks his early struggles, the real cost of discipline, entrepreneurship myths, the origins of the 75 Hard challenge, the evolution of authentic company culture, and the deep personal sense of responsibility that drives his relentless work ethic.

This conversation is rich in raw truths, actionable strategies, and energetic anecdotes, making it an essential listen (and read!) for aspiring founders, professionals, and anyone interested in business, mindset, and leadership.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Early Struggles & The Myth of Overnight Success

• Andy reveals the brutal reality behind his early business years:

  “Total amount of money that we made for the first 10 years was $58,380. I could have made more money working in McDonald's.” (00:00, Andy Frisella)

• Despite now being worth over $1B, Andy admits he still feels broke — a mindset that keeps him hungry and focused.

  “You still feel broke today?”
  “Yeah, absolutely. And my personal portfolio is worth over a billion dollars.” (00:06-00:07)

Upbringing, Discipline, and Lessons from Parents

• Andy’s childhood was marked by modest means, an athletic gift (that ironically delayed the cultivation of discipline), and two key parental lessons:
  • From Mom: Always do the right thing (learned after stealing Kool-Aid and being made to apologize to a store manager).

    “And that was a lesson that stuck with me and has stuck with me my whole life.” (07:21)

  • From Dad: Make friends, not enemies, and “Make a friend, make a sale.” (09:48)
• On discipline:

  “Discipline is actually a skill set that we build... you’re making your deposits, your discipline gets stronger. Just like every day you go in the gym, you get better and better and better.” (03:46–06:23)

The Reality of Building a Business: “Zero Options” Mentality

• Andy warns against the social media myth of fast, flashy success:

  “A lot of the shit that you see online is total fucking bullshit... I wanted to be rich. That's why I started... And it didn’t happen that way.” (13:29–16:44)

• He attributes much of his perseverance to having “no other options,” which forced relentless commitment even when there was no visible progress.
• The major shift: Stop focusing on extracting money from customers, and start focusing on actually solving their problems — this shift multiplied their business.

  “When we consciously took the intent from ourselves and put it to the customer, our business grew 100% the next five years.” (20:55–24:28)

Branding, Vertical Integration, and First Form’s Growth

• Supplement Superstore was born out of years of on-the-ground feedback; First Form was designed in their heads long before it launched, aiming at “best in class” rather than maximizing margins.

  “We are going to always try to make the efficacious products the best that we can... Ferrari ain’t for everybody either.” (30:08–31:13)

• Vertical integration was key:

  “We started out in retail, so we were selling other people's products. Then we moved into selling our own... then moved into owning, like, the facilities that make the ingredients... It’s the long way, but it’s very important to longevity.” (45:30–48:08)

• He discredits the idea of “seven streams of income” for new entrepreneurs:

  “It’s bullshit. They might when they're 30 years in, but not when you're one year in.” (47:11)

Company Culture & Leadership

• For Andy, culture is lived and spoken, not posted on a wall. Correction, reward, hiring, and firing are all tied to cultural values.

  “You have to speak the cultural language... define your culture, make it known, and then speak the cultural language in all aspects of your business.” (33:08–35:58)

• Leadership means personally modeling standards, like picking up trash in the warehouse to demonstrate the values of initiative and responsibility.

Hospitality, Networks & Relationships

• True relationships are earned by becoming someone “worthy of knowing.”

  “You're not going to have a good network until you're worthy of having one.” (37:05)

• On mentoring:

  “Unless you're showing me that you're doing something and that you have some value and you've done some shit on your own, I'm not going to waste my time to help you.” (37:39)

Civic Pride and Patriotism

• Andy remains rooted in St. Louis out of loyalty and obligation to his community.

  “This city has done a lot for me... We all love this city, and we want this place to be something that people are proud of, that provides to the community.” (41:16)

• His patriotism is deeply informed by personal family history and a sense of duty:

  “If you know history, this is the freest... country that’s ever existed in humankind. And it's built upon the sacrifice of people just like us.” (62:01)

75 Hard Challenge: Origins & Impact

• Originated from Andy’s personal struggles with discipline and a moment of self-disgust at being “beaten by a beer and a pizza."
• 75 Hard combines mental and physical tasks to create mental toughness:
  • 2 daily 45-minute workouts (1 outdoors)
  • Read 10 pages of nonfiction daily
  • 1 gallon of water daily
  • Progress photo each day
  • Stick to a diet (no alcohol/cheat meals)

  “The key to success is that you have to do things at a high level when you don't feel like doing them, when it's not convenient.” (57:36)

Influencer Marketing & Social Media Pioneering

• First Form was one of the first supplement brands to empower “real people” with affiliate links on social.

  “We were one of the first companies, if not the first company, to ever take real people and allow them to have a link to... buy things from them on the Internet. That completely changed the way that every single company does business.” (59:34–60:00)

• Big-name partnerships drive awareness; everyday transformations drive authenticity and word-of-mouth.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Discipline is actually a skill set that we build, not a trait you’re born with.” (03:46, Andy)
• “Make friends, not enemies. Make a friend, make a sale.” (09:48, Andy on his father’s lessons)
• “When we consciously took the intent from ourselves and put it to the customer, our business grew 100% the next five years.” (24:28, Andy)
• “Price is only an issue when value is absent.” (31:13, James)
• “You're not going to have a good network until you're worthy of having one.” (37:05, Andy)
• “If you want a really solid culture, the language of the culture is super important. And then obviously, the example, you have to live it.” (33:52, Andy)
• “If you know history, this is the freest... country that’s ever existed in humankind. And it's built upon the sacrifice of people just like us.” (62:01, Andy)
• “Just understand that you have an obligation to maximize the gifts that you have.” (65:26, Andy’s message to the younger generation)
• “I want to change more lives than anybody that was ever living while I was alive.” (66:43, Andy on his legacy)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic | |---------------|-----------| | 00:00-00:53 | Andy’s humble beginnings & still feeling broke | | 02:00-06:23 | Upbringing, discipline, parental lessons | | 10:38-16:44 | Early entrepreneurship, “zero options”, online myths, cash flow | | 17:13-24:28 | The turning point: intent shift to true service | | 30:01-33:08 | Product philosophy, pricing, value, culture | | 33:08-37:05 | Building/living company culture, hiring/firing by values | | 37:05-40:56 | Hospitality, networking, being worthy of relationships/mentorship | | 41:16-42:55 | St. Louis pride, patriotism, community roots | | 45:30-51:02 | Vertical integration, cash management, growth journey | | 51:31-57:36 | 75 Hard: origin, philosophy, discipline as a skill | | 59:34-61:19 | Influencer strategy, social media, authentic marketing | | 62:01-65:13 | Patriotism, personal/family sacrifice, perspective | | 65:26-66:43 | Andy’s message to youth, how he wants to be remembered |

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Conclusion

Andy Frisella’s story is not just about extraordinary financial success, but about transforming both himself and others through discipline, values, real service, and an unwavering sense of obligation to family, employees, customers, and country. If you’re building a business, struggling with your mindset, or simply aiming to live at a higher standard, this episode is a masterclass in grit, strategy, and leadership.

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“Just understand that you have an obligation to maximize the gifts that you have... there are people who are going to win or lose based upon the story that you create out of your own life.”
— Andy Frisella (65:26)

Transcript

[Andy Frisella]

Total amount of money that we made for the first 10 years was $58,380. I could have made more money working in McDonald's.

[James]

You still feel broke today?

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, absolutely. And my personal portfolio is worth over a billion dollars.

[Jack]

One of the things I love about your story is, like, you're a testament to the school of hard knocks.

[Andy Frisella]

I was working at the bars, doing side hustles, doing little concrete projects. I certainly never thought that we were going to be here. I thought differently about success. I thought it was something that was gifted to you. I didn't really understand that it's as

[Josh]

simple as I actually first discovered through the 75 hard challenge.

[Andy Frisella]

75 hard.

[James]

75 hard challenge.

[Andy Frisella]

When you think about discipline, I think a lot of people think about it like it's something that you just have. Why does that guy have that? Why is it so hard for me? I said, hey, I'm doing this. This is what I'm doing. I'm doing it. For the next 75 days, we're calling 75 hard. Those of you who want to do it, do it with me. And ton of people did it, and they all fix their.

[James]

If me and you were to die tomorrow and you could leave one last message with the younger generation, what would that be, man?

[Andy Frisella]

Just understand that you have an obligation.

[James]

What's going on, everyone? Welcome back to the School of Hard Knocks podcast. I'm James. I'm here with Jack and Josh, and we are out for the first time in our entire lives out here in St. Louis, Missouri, with an incredible guest today. We're out here with Andy Frisella. Andy's not only become one of the most renowned entrepreneurs in general, in the entire business space, but you've built one of the most recognizable, one of the biggest supplement companies in all of America, man. And before we get into some questions today, I just got to say, when you had kind of gone out to take care of some business for second, we were talking the headquarters, the facilities, the company culture you have here is just fascinating. I mean, we spend our entire lives, you know, traveling the country to meet up with an interview entrepreneurs. And I mean, we're like, man, you know, Dave Ramsey's got a cool spot. But it's like, man, this is a compound, man. Congratulations, man. Like, I'm so inspired by it. And, you know, I was talking to you about it earlier, but I want to just maybe set the tone here. Did growing up, you know, you're from the Missouri area as well, did you have any idea that this was Going to be possible, the empire that you've built for yourself and for your family.

[Andy Frisella]

No, I didn't. Like a lot of young entrepreneurs, people with ambition and drive, I always had that feeling inside that I wanted to do something. I wanted to be successful. I didn't feel like I was going to fit in into the typical. I guess living by the list is what I call it. Graduate high school, go to college, get a degree, get the white picket fence, do the mortgage, and two kids. That never felt like me. I always felt like I wanted to do more. And I didn't know what that was, but I certainly never thought that we were going to be here. I thought differently about success. I thought it was something that was gifted to you or you got lucky or. I used to. I call it the success fairy. Right. The success fairy flies down from the success land and it hits one of us on the head and we get to be successful. I didn't really understand that it's as simple as inputs and outputs. I thought there was, like, a lot of magic to it. So I didn't know if I was going to be chosen to be successful. And I think, you know, the result, as we were speaking earlier, it's really just a combination of, you know, learning as we go, staying committed to the plan, continuing to expand the vision over and over and over again, and eventually you end up in a really, really cool spot. Yeah.

[James]

Where was the discipline instilled in you? Was it from your parents? I mean, because like we were talking about, when you walk in here, you see your core values all throughout your facility. Right? You've got loyalty, you've got discipline. There's all these different things. Right. And you mentioned that that was one of the most important things to you. Was that instilled in you from your parents or where did you develop that discipline from?

[Andy Frisella]

Well, quite honestly, I was the opposite of discipline. I was growing up, I was pretty gifted athletically, so I never really had to try that hard. I was good at that without having to practice, without having to do things. And that actually set a really bad precedent for me as an adult, because then when I got out and we got into business, I thought, you know, everything would just happen immediately. And I think my parents did the best they could to install that in me. But the truth of the matter is, it took me a long time to figure out how to cultivate that out of myself. And once I did it, the game changed. So it wasn't something that I was ever. You know, when you think about discipline, I think A lot of people think about it like it's something that you just have. Right? That's how I used to think. I used to. I used to be around some of my buddies, and they were always consistent with the things that they were trying to do. They would do the things they needed to do. They would eat well, they would train, they would do their. Their work, you know, diligently and disciplined. And I always thought that was. That was confusing to me. It was confusing to me to look at someone who I knew and be like, why does that guy have that? And why is it so hard for me? And I never consider the fact that at one point it was probably hard for him, too. And once I figured out that discipline is actually a skill set that we build, the game completely changed for me. And so when you think about discipline, instead of thinking about it like it's a trait that we're born with, I would encourage everybody to think about it as a skill set that you invest into. Sort of like a bank account, right? You're going to make deposits and you're going to make withdrawals. And when you do the things you're supposed to do, you're making your deposits, your discipline gets stronger. Just like every day you go in the gym, you get better and better and better and stronger and stronger and stronger. And when you live a disciplined life, that's. It's no different. You're investing and making deposits into that skill set. And, you know, when you fall off, which we all do from time to time, you're making withdrawals. And your skill set, it's kind of like, you know, you guys ever played, like, Madden Football, right? So, like, you know, it would be like speed 99 and then, you know, discipline two. You know, you've got to do discipline things to get that rating up. And once I started thinking like that, the game really changed for me. So I think people tried hard. My teachers tried hard. My parents tried hard. I had great parents, but it never took until I. I'm kind of like one of those people that has to learn things by fire. Like, I've got to touch the stove and figure it out. You know, I want to touch real

[James]

quick on your parents, right? You know, we get asked this all the time, like, what are some of the lessons that your parents taught us? When I think about my dad, I think about integrity. He was a West Pointer, an incredible man. Mom, she's the most compassionate woman that I know. When you think about your mom and dad, what are maybe a couple of traits or characteristics that they instilled on you and that you immediately think of whenever you think of your mom and dad.

[Andy Frisella]

That. That's. That's super easy for me to answer. I have two key lessons that I've learned from my parents. My mom's lesson was do the right thing. Okay? And I'll tell you how I learned that. When I was a little kid, you know, I wouldn't say we were, you know, poor. I never thought we were poor. I just thought that was the way that it was. But now looking back, I would say, okay, well, we definitely weren't rich. That's a nice way to say it, you know? And we had, like, Tang. I don't know if you guys know what tang is, all right? It's like a powdered drink. It's not Kool Aid, okay? So we didn't have kool Aid. We had fool Aid.

[James]

All right?

[Andy Frisella]

That's what we got. So we were at a grocery store here locally, and I was just a little guy, and there was a mountain berry punch Kool Aid. And I remember the flavor, because this lesson stuck with me so hard. And I asked my mom, I said, mom, you know, let's let me get this mountain berry, you know, Please, please, please. And she's like, no. And so I stole it. So I put it in my. My little pocket. I took it home, which wasn't. I didn't really think this through because I didn't know how to make kool Aid. All right? So we got home, and I pull out the kool Aid, and she's like, where'd you get that? And I'm like, well, can you. You know, I had to have her make it. And I got my ass beat, okay? That's what we did back in the day. We got our asses beat. She had this thing called the spanker, and the spanker was a. Like a pancake flipper. All right? So I got my ass beat by the spanker. And then she drove me back up to the grocery store, and I had to go in and tell the manager, hey, I stole this. I'm sorry. And that was a lesson that stuck with me and has stuck with me my whole life. And that is by far the most important lesson that I've ever learned about anything, okay? And you're not always going to do the right thing. Sometimes you're going to make mistakes, but you got to do your best to correct that if you recognize it later. And that was my mom's lesson. That was something that I really am so thankful that I learned from her. And then my dad's lesson was very simply, make friends, not enemies. So. And then the other one, my dad has two make friends, not enemies, and make a friend, make a sale. Okay, so the. Those two lessons have been very much so a part of my business success. You know, I do want to compete. I want to win. I want to dominate. I want to crush people. But I also want them to be good, too. Right. Because when you're a true competitor, you want your competitors to bring their best. You want them to be great, you want them to push you, because if you're really a competitor, you're going to rise to that level. And so when I was younger, I used to be a lot more aggressive about just wanting to step on people's throats. And now, as I've grown older and got more mature and realized how thankful I am for my competitors, which, by the way, they're some of my best friends, I think that was a very important lesson in my success, for sure.

[Josh]

Andy, I think there's something that you touched on earlier that I wish that our generation understood more, and even the generation that's younger than us is that it does not happen over, like, it's not. It's not going to happen just tomorrow. I think a lot of people, they look at someone like yourself, and even if they came out and saw, like, the headquarters, and even a lot of people on social media in the entrepreneur space, they see, oh, they're doing so well, like, everything looks great. They think that, oh, I'm gonna pick up this thing called entrepreneurship, and I'm gonna have it tomorrow. And they don't see the years of hard work because, like, a lot of people probably don't know this, but, like, for your first 10 years of, like, building your supplement company, I know for you, I've read the book of mental toughness, and for you, I know entrepreneurship goes back a long way, when even you were a kid, but for when you were first starting, you know, your supplement store, like, it took you guys, like, like, a decade of work before you were even profitable.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Could you share some light on, like, what was your mindset like going through that time? Because I think there's so many people in our audience that take a stab at the thing, entrepreneurship. They. They think they're like, oh, I'm gonna start this business. It's gonna be great. And they get their first, like, road hump that they have to go over, and they're just like, oh, it's not. It's not for me.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, Those of you guys that follow my content, you know that I'm very critical about the online entrepreneur, the image that is portrayed, just to bring people up to speed on that story. You know, when we started our first retail store, we started in 1999, we had $12,000 from painting the stripes on the parking lots between myself and my business partner. And we used all that money to build out our first store rent, get our first lease. And the first day we opened, we sold $7. Second day, we sold $0. Third day, we sold $23. It took us eight months to have a day over $200. It took us six years to open our second store.

[James]

How are you making rent?

[Andy Frisella]

I was working at bars. I was working at the bars, doing side hustle, doing little concrete projects, because I grew up around concrete, just doing what I had to do to keep it working. So my day would look like this. I'd wake up, store open at 9, work from 9 to 9, go to the bar, work till probably 2, 3 by the time I got out of there, go back to the store, go to sleep, wake up, do it again. And, you know, we'd shower at people's friends houses. And, you know, we had times where we had apartments and things, but we went back and forth between living in the store and having places to live. So that was kind of like the entire first 10 years of my life. And our total amount of money that we made for the first 10 years was $58,380. And that was not per year. That's cumulatively, I could have made more money working at McDonald's. And the mindset I had at that point in time was not like, I would love to say, oh, yeah, man, I had all this grit and this toughness, and that's not what it was. It developed those things, but that's not what it was. What it was for me was I didn't have any other options. So I. When you don't have any other options, it's really actually the best place to be, because you can't turn around and go backwards. And I think, you know, one of the most important things entrepreneur can cultivate is the mentality of zero options mentality. Okay? So when you start making money and you start doing well, it's very easy to get comfortable. It's very easy to take your foot off the gas. So you have to be able to convince yourself that you don't have an option. So even to this day, like, even to this day, all right, I still feel like if If I don't show up today and give it up my best, I'll be digging ditches next week. That's what I still feel like.

[James]

So you still feel broke today?

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, absolutely. And my. My personal portfolio is worth over a billion dollars. So, like, that's my personal portfolio. So, like. And I still come to work here every single day and feel like I'm going to lose. And I'm just running, running, running, running, running. And a lot of people will judge that, but I'm very grateful for it. I love that. And I think it's very important to cultivate that even when you're making a little money. Now, that's a long answer to your question. You guys who are out there and you are. You're trying to build something. The mistake I see here is, like, a lot of guys are looking for some cash flow, all right? They're looking for some cash flow to fund their lifestyle. Then they think their lifestyle is going to bring them more opportunity, which maybe there's a little truth to that. Like people. People do judge you differently. When you drive a nice car and you take care of yourself, you're doing okay, you get invited to some. Some more things. But you shouldn't put yourself in a position to where that's like, you're stretched to do that to a point where it's going to kill you. You have to realize that what's taught on the Internet is basically just one aspect of building a brand and building a company that has enterprise value, right? Most of the people that are teaching on the Internet are teaching how to build a funnel, how to sell a widget, and then rinse and repeat when the widget stops selling. That is one aspect. That. That is one aspect of a business. That's we. That's one thing. There's so many other things that you guys should be learning and paying attention to. Because the idea, you don't get wealthy off the cash flow. You get wealthy off of the enterprise value and the portfolio value and the potential exits that you will have. So you guys who are young and you, you know, you see all of this content, understand that that's an important tool, but it is like 10% of the tool, right? It's 10% of what you want to know. And the reality is, is that a lot of the shit that you see online is total fucking bullshit. It's total bullshit, okay? And it's appealing to young people because you don't have the perspective, right? All you know is that you don't have shit and you Want some? Right? So. And I can understand that because when I started my first. When we started our retail store, I wanted to be rich. That's why I started it. Okay? I started it because I wanted to have a cool cars and I wanted to be on the boats and I wanted to have the girls and I wanted to do all the things you all want to do, and it didn't happen that way, you know, And I've never seen it happen that way in a short term. I've never, ever, ever seen it happen. And when it. If I see a glimpse of it happening, then we always see them get in trouble or we see them go to jail or see something happen and they fall. Right? And my words to the young guys out there is just, dude, remember, you have a tremendous opportunity with the knowledge and the technology that's available to where you should be spending that time working on something that when you're 35 or when you're 40 or when you're 45, is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. That's actual security. And you're not going to get that, you know, by selling a different widget every. Every two months. Right.

[Jack]

One of the things I love about your story is, like, you're a testament to the school of hard knocks. Like, we. There was no teacher. We don't come from an entrepreneurial background. We just figured it out. And you went years without making any money.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah.

[Jack]

And when you're going through that time, was there some lessons or some things that was instilled in you that you took throughout the journey and even where you're at today, whether that's like, focus on the customer experience and then what ultimately led to, like, the turnaround of, like, hey, I'm unprofitable to actually, like, hey, I'm actually starting to get some traction and I can build something out of this.

[Andy Frisella]

That's such a good question because we. We started in a different era. I think one of the reasons that. That I've been effective in entrepreneurship, you know, a lot of people know me for just first form, but I own a. A number of different companies, and we didn't have social media, which was a good thing and a bad thing. Okay. Because one, I wasn't getting my mind filled with the. With the instant gratification shit. Okay. I didn't know any. I knew one guy who had a Lamborghini growing up. Right. And he was, like, mythical to me. I was like, holy shit, dude. You know, like, it was the coolest thing ever. Now you open up Instagram and it's like, you know, the young guys who were like me, who are trying to build something correctly, they look at everybody out there and they say, oh, I'm the only one without it. And that's a hard thing. I didn't have to deal with that. I didn't have to navigate the minutiae and the wish wash and the bullshit. I could only learn from people I could actually get to or books. And so I learned a lot. I credit a lot to entrepreneurs that came before me. Tony Robbins was a big influence on me for personal development. But I read books about shit, man. Jack Welch, Sam Walton, you know, these legendary entrepreneurs who have built amazing things. And I tried to take what I was reading from these books and apply it to our business and the turnaround. For me, like I said, the first 10 years, we really struggled. And the reason I could say this confidently now, but I didn't realize it then. The reason that we struggled is because, like most people, I looked at business. If you ask most people, what's the purpose of business, what are they gonna say? To make money, okay? And that's actually not true. The purpose of a business is solve a problem. The purpose of a business is to create relief for a problem that somebody else is experiencing that they are willing to trade you money for. And about 10 years into the business, we weren't making any money. We had this part of our journey where we were going to quit. And we decided, hey, man, you know, we may not. This isn't going to work, dude. We're now 10 years in, and we're still making 600, $695 a month, right? So we had to have a real talk with ourselves, like, okay, we need to do something. So I was going to go start a carpet cleaning franchise with my dad, and Chris was going to go to ocs, which is offer candidate school to be a pilot in the military. And so I left Springfield. Springfield, Missouri, was where we started. We're from St. Louis, but we started the business in Springfield. And I. I went on a training trip for the carpet cleaning. And while I was on the training trip, I threw my back out. And I was kind of bedridden for like 30 days. It was pretty bad. And Chris and I were having these conversations, and I was like, dude, I'm like, I really don't want to go clean carpets. Like, I really. That really sucked. I did not want to do that. And. And during the time that previous that in the stores, we had looked at it for ourselves, like, how can we make Money, like, to the point where people would be walking into the stores, and this is embarrassing for me to share, but I. Sharing it because it makes a point. There'd be people coming in the store. Me and Chris would be like, I bet I could sell them this, I bet I could sell them that. I bet I can do this. And that was our mentality, like, what could we sell? What could we get from them?

[Jack]

So you were assuming the sale without even asking questions.

[Andy Frisella]

Right. And we weren't worried about helping them. We didn't think about it like that. And so while we're having this conversation, which is why we didn't make any money, when we're having this conversation, I was. But every once in a while, when someone would come in the store, because we didn't see any. We didn't see very many customers, there'd be someone who would come in and, you know, they were 100 pounds overweight. And we try to keep them in the store and talk to them because honestly, like, we were bored, and they were nice people, and we talked back and forth. And sometimes those people would go, and. Because we actually spent the time with them, they'd lose 50, 60, 70 pounds, 100 pounds. And they would come back in, dude. And they would be so grateful. They would be crying. They would give you a big hug. They say, andy, Chris, thank you so much for showing me this and that. That was awesome. And we loved that. But we were young. We didn't. We didn't connect that. Like, oh, man. Like, that's the point of the business until we were about to close it. So I had this conversation with Chris. I was like, dude, I don't want to fucking go clean carpets, dude. And no offense to anybody that does it, but it's just. It's not. It's hard, and I'm kind of lazy about that shit. All right? And we just decided. We're like, okay, well, maybe we kind of gave up on our dreams, like, our financial dreams. All right? We kind of said, okay, well, maybe we won't be rich. Maybe we won't have all the things we want. But, man, there's a lot to actually change in people's lives that's rewarding. That was the thing that we both really loved. And we said, okay, well, let's rework the business to just try and replicate that as much as possible. Let's replicate actually serving and helping people as much as possible. And when we did that, when we. When we consciously took the intent from ourselves and put it to the customer, our Business, our retail business grew 100% the next five years. Okay, so that was like, when you say, what was the turning point? It was a, it was a switching of the intent. It was from how much money can I make to how can I actually solve these problems? Because let's be real, what's the best marketing out there? Anybody who knows anything about marketing is going to tell you. It's word of mouth. Okay? The way we buy things is we ask our friends. Did you like that? Hey, what do you think of that tracksuit? I saw ads for that, but I didn't buy that. But do you like it? Yes, you like it? So now I'm like, okay, James likes it, so I'm going to go pick it up. So this word of mouth cultivation is what actually grows a brand, what grows a business. And we just leaned into that as hard. And then right then when we did that, social media came around, like got really hot at the same time, which allowed us a thing that we never had before. And a lot of you young guys don't realize how great social media is because before social media, for word of mouth to spread, it would, it might take years because what you're depending on is me running into James and then just happen for that conversation to come up. I might not see James but once a month, and when we're together, he might not bring that up. But now we have this ability to connect with everybody we've ever known, ever, plus a whole bunch of people we've never met before. And if you actually drive home an amazing customer experience and you actually help people, they, they can share it to everybody they want in a click of a button. Okay? So now it accelerated word of mouth at an exponential scale and we, we kind of hit all that right at the same time. And dude, everything fucking blew up.

[James]

He's touched on something beautiful right here. Because the first time that I ever started posting on, you know, TikTok, obviously when you started to utilize social media, TikTok hadn't existed yet. But I saw it as like, wait a minute, you could have 50 followers, you could put out one piece of content and 4 million people could see it organically. Like, yeah, but that's the craziest form of marketing.

[Josh]

Best marketing invention ever.

[Andy Frisella]

It's unbelievable. Like, it's unbelievable. And guys my age that have. Because there's not a lot, it seems like everybody kind of falls into two categories. They're like old heads that like, don't know how to do the new thing, or they're like new Thing that doesn't understand how to actually service a customer or solve a problem. And I was so fortunate to be, like, able to build a brand before and after, right? So we took a lot of the things that we learned, and then we just applied them to social and it fucking went crazy.

[James]

So the name of your first business, remind the people what it was.

[Andy Frisella]

It was called Supplement Superstore.

[James]

Supplement Superstore. When did the transition go from that to building First Form? And the reason why I want to touch on the branding aspect here, because I think about, like, the Poppy founders who we just did, Stephen and Alison Ellsworth.

[Andy Frisella]

Those guys were awesome.

[James]

They're incredible people. What was the name of their initial?

[Josh]

The Mother Beverage.

[James]

The Mother Bever. And when they brought in that initial capital from Shark Tank, they rebranded to Poppy. Talk to us about your transition in branding and how FirstForm actually came about.

[Andy Frisella]

Well, it wasn't necessarily a transition because we still have the retail company, but what it was was a vertical, right? So all those years that we sat in the store and we didn't have any money and we didn't have any resources and we didn't have any investors, and to this day, dude, like, we. We are one of the largest companies in the world that's never taken money. All right? So, like, we never got a financial partner. We never had a seed capital investment, never. So everything. We own everything. And that's why it's taken longer. But it's. It's. You know, we started young.

[James]

I would imagine you have no regrets about that.

[Andy Frisella]

No, not now. Yeah, now. But for a long time, James, I was pissed off. I'm like, nobody believes in us. Nobody. This guy had this advantage. They got this kind of how everybody thinks when they start, right? And I was angry about it. I was bitter about it, and it didn't come to where it was a. Like, where I'm thankful for it until, like, you know, things started working. And I'm like, oh, man, this is great. Now I don't. Nobody else owns any of this, so. But all that time that we were sitting in the stores and we were just sitting there, we used to talk about all of the other brands, okay. And we'd say, man, if we were that company, why don't they do this? Why don't they do that? And then we would examine this company and say they should be doing this because we were getting feedback on the ground that they could never, ever know. And so, you know, we kind of designed this company first form in our brains, and the conversation was like this, man, one day, if we're ever fortunate enough to have the ability to start a brand, this is what it would be like, okay? And we saw a hole in the market because back then, all the brands, all they were doing was making the cheapest possible product they could make. And that never made sense to me because you're putting this in your body, you're putting it in there for performance. And nobody was trying to make the best. Nobody was making efficacious formulas that actually did what they said. You know, they were pixie dusting ingredients and putting on the label and selling it. And it was just. It was just all bullshit. And, dude, I had this ridiculous opportunity. Now, I don't like to talk about luck because I feel like when I talk about luck, people see that as, oh, well, see, you got lucky. But when you're in the game and you're playing the game, things come to you and they appear to be lucky. But, yeah, but it's you playing the game. You have to be in the game for that to happen. So I had a cousin of mine who was working for a manufacturer of chocolate milk, and they do. They do powders, and they had a opportunity to do a protein powder for Target, and they asked that. She called me up and she's like, hey, would you mind coming in and giving us some consultation on this product that we're doing for Target? I'm like, yeah, no problem. So I go in, I help them, I kind of tell them what it needs to be, blah, blah, blah. The Target deal falls through. They had already made all the investment in their facility to do powders and make protein and do all these things, and it fell through and they were all upset. And I said, well, I'll fucking do it. And they're like, what do you mean? I'm like, I'll do it. Just help me get it going. I'll do it. And so that's how FirstForm got going. So we got an opportunity that came to us for a consulting opportunity. It didn't work out. And I raised my hand, even though we weren't in a position to do it, and I said, we'll do it. And it happened like that. And so we were able to start building that company.

[James]

You talked about how a lot of, you know, brands in today's world, it's very common that they'll do whatever it takes to get the cheapest ingredients, so that way they can get the highest margin on their product per se, when they sell. It reminds me of Khalil. What's his last name, Rafati. Sunlife Organics. He owns, like, a very large smoothie chain, Sunlife Organics. Very expensive smoothies. But it's incredible products, and he goes to all they are. Donna.

[Andy Frisella]

Awesome.

[James]

Yeah, he's an incredible guy. Yes. But. But it reminds me of what you're saying, and I wanted to kind of talk about how the emphasis that you put on the quality of the products and the ingredients that you put in there, even though you may necessarily not be able to get the maximum margin, it's like you care about the stuff that your people are actually consuming, which a lot of people like in his sense.

[Andy Frisella]

Right.

[James]

A lot of the competitive smoothie chains, the ones that span out to thousands of locations, they're putting a lot of BS in there. Like, they don't have the best ingredients.

[Andy Frisella]

So there's different kinds of consumers, right? You have the consumer that shops for the cheapest, you know, good, better, best. Right? You have the good consumer, which is the cheap consumer. You got the better, which will pay a little bit more, and then you got the best. I'm the. I'm a consumer of the best, and I always was, even when I was broke, I wanted the best. Shit, I didn't care that it cost more. I wanted the best. And that's where I wanted to position the company. And we do the best that we can to make the best products that we can. And that was like, a fundamental core value of our company. We are going to always try to make the efficacious products the best that we can. And if we're not making it, we'll take it back off the market and we'll reformulate and try to try to continue to be better. And, you know, it made. It makes sense to me, right? Like, you put it in your body, you want good shit, you're doing this for a reason. And so we just tried to plant our flag in that. In that. In that best category. And at the fir, we still get a lot of pushback because people are like, oh, man, you're the most expensive. Yeah, we are. We are the most expensive. We're not for everybody, man. You know what I'm saying? Like, Ferrari ain't for everybody either.

[James]

Hey, one of our favorite sayings is that pricing is only an issue, though. Value is absent.

[Andy Frisella]

That's right. That's right.

[James]

Price is only an issue of value is absent.

[Andy Frisella]

Like we were talking, James asked me when we were walking through the warehouse, you know, we don't really judge our company. Like, there's not a meeting that happens in our company outside of, like myself, our CEO, who's my brother Sal, he's partner in the business, and a few other executives where we actually talk about numbers. Every meeting that we talk about is about how are we going to better serve the customer when we reward people. Here, we don't. There's not a single award in this company that is given out on sales numbers. It's all about how many lives are we changing, Are we helping people? How well are you helping people? And our individual recognition is based around that concept. So while a lot of, yes, we do a lot of revenue, we're a very big company. We don't think about it that way. We think about it as if, okay, we know that, like the switch of intent that we just talked about, we know that if we get that person the results that they're looking for, that that is the best marketing that we will ever have. Solving that person's problem the way that they want. And that's what we focus on. And that's what we talk about. That's all we talk about inside here. And I know that's probably hard to believe, but I think you guys just being here for a couple hours, you could see what we're talking about.

[James]

And you're also not creating an environment full of money, mercenaries, right? It's people that are genuinely. They're bought into the vision of what you're doing, and they want to be a part of that culture. Can you touch on that as well? Because again, another thing that we notice as well is the company culture, even from people outside that we know mutually, that, you know, maybe know you from a distance as well. They've spoke about that time and time again and repeatedly. That's the reputation that you've built. You as the leader, right? As the person that started this company, how do you actively and that in. Because it's one thing to preach, oh, we're going to have great company culture. You're going to live by these values. What are actionable things that you do to us to lead it, to make sure that the people that are coming in, they follow suit.

[Andy Frisella]

That's such a great question, brother. That's a great question. Nobody's ever asked me that. And it's probably the most important question about culture. Everybody thinks that culture is just a list of values. Like if you played sports and they have a poster in the locker room, it says, you know, play like a champion today. Like at Notre Dame, where they run out and they touch it and it ends there, right like, if you go to. If you go to most companies, they'll have, like, these motivational sayings and shit, like integrity or whatever, right? That doesn't mean shit to anybody. No one gives a fuck. So the way that you actually do it requires it to be omnipresent in everything that you do. You have to. You have to speak the cultural language.

[James]

All right?

[Andy Frisella]

And what that looks like, it's not just preaching. Hey, man, we stand for, you know, building fun and positive relationships or going the extra mile. When we hire, we speak in the language of core values. Okay? We try to dig out, like, do these people fit our culture? When we fire, we fire for reasons of not being aligned with the culture. When we correct. We correct people when there's issues. When, like, culturally, okay? Like, for example, like, if I were to walk through the warehouse and you guys were just in there, and you could eat off the floor, and let's say that we went in there one time and it wasn't like that, and there's a pile of, you know, just trash or something on the floor. I'll go back myself. I don't go back, and I say, hey, who did this? Trash? That's not what we do. I go back, I get a broom, I get a deskpan, I start sweeping it up. And inevitably, someone will come over and say, oh, Andy, no, no, I got it. I got it. And I'll say, no, I got it. And I'll take it back. And then I'll walk back to the person. I'll say, okay, now why was that there? And they'll say, well, you know, we were busy, or this or that. And I say, okay, what core values does that violate? All right, well, it violates. Take initiative. You saw that there. You didn't take initiative to fix it. It violates. Take responsibility. You saw that there. You didn't take the responsibility to clean it up. So that's what I'm talking about when we talk about, like, actually correcting and speaking the language. So if you want a really solid culture, the language of the culture is super important. And then obviously, the example, you have to live it. You have to live it yourself. You can't be one of these guys that expects everybody else to live it, and you're not living it. So, you know, we could do a freaking week workshop on culture building. But I would say, if you want to drastically improve your culture off of just listening to this right now, define your culture, make it known, and then speak the cultural language in all aspects of your business, I want to touch

[Josh]

on that, not only just from what you do internally, but also externally. Because obviously, clearly, obviously, walking through the office today, we see everything built internally. But even from an external standpoint, I mean, even us coming here, I mean, came here, had the locker set up for James, got the picture on the wall. It's just such a great hospital experience. And so. And even through just talking with you, I know that you have some really, really solid relationships with some other very respectable people. And so for you, how have you been able to build that trait of being super hospital to hospitable to people, but also building relationships and building the network that you do have? We travel around the country meeting billionaires, and even we've gone over to the Middle east and done some content over there with a lot of the moguls over there. And I can tell you the hospitality in the Middle east is we need to learn some things from how they do that over there and building relationships and networking. But I see very similar with you and how you go about it as they do over there. Where have you learned and what are maybe some lessons that you've learned in how to build extremely great relationships with people externally, in business?

[Andy Frisella]

You know, I think especially with the younger generation, they feel like, you know, we hear that saying, your network is your net worth, okay? And there's some truth to that, but you're not going to have a good network until you're worthy of having one. All right? So that's the thing that you have to understand.

[James]

Can I interject for one second? Okay, I promise you. One of my favorite in an interview that I did was with Robert Herjavec. And I asked him, you know, what's more important, what you know or who you know? And he said the most bullshit advice that you ever hear is that who you know is more important because until you're somebody worthy of, they're not going to give you the time of day.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm just being real. I get lots of young, young people who say, andy, mentor me. Andy, help me. Can you give me some advice? Can we do this? But they haven't done anything yet, okay? And I'm very generous. I care a lot about the next generation coming up, okay? There a lot would have to go wrong for me to fuck up right now, Right? I've been doing this for 27 years. I'm very successful. So I care a lot about the next generation, a whole lot. And I'm very generous with my time. But unless you're showing me that you're doing something and that you have some value and you've done some shit on your own. I, I'm not going to waste my time to help you. So this idea that people have where they're just going to hop in DMS and you know, hey man, can I buy you a cup of coffee? No, motherfucker, my time is worth more than a cup of coffee. That's not going to fucking work, all right? So there has to be some signal that they are giving that they are going to take and implement so that you can be proud of that. And then when they work, I mean, dude, I have guys, I have guys, I do arte syndicate with my let where we coach other entrepreneurs. We don't advertise it, but we've been doing it for a long time and it's very rewarding. I have guys that started out in that group who are just normal dudes. They were just starting a business and we've been doing it eight years, seven years, and now they're running 100 plus million dollar companies, okay? Now they're not just some dude asking me for an advice. Now they're my friend, now they're a peer, Now I'm asking them, hey, what, what's did that work for you really? Well, yeah, man, you know, I'm learning from them just like they're learning from me, right? Exactly, dude. And so when you think about like building these relationships, the truth of the matter is, is that when you're good enough, they come to you. When you're doing great shit, people recognize you. I know who the fuck you are. I've seen you working your ass off for the last five years, right? Or however many years you've been doing your thing, right? And so when you see that and people up the chain see that, there's a lot of they, dude, most of these guys, they understand how hard the path is. Most people who have done like the biggest names in the world, dude, like Dana White's one of my very good friends. Dana White is the most generous man that I've ever met in my entire life with his time and his money, okay? He will talk to anybody and help anybody with anything as long as he knows they're doing it, okay? And so these guys up at the, the top, you know, the top of the rung, they want to help, but they're not going to drag you up the ladder, bro. You got to be climbing aggressively on your own. And so for me, I never went out and saw it. Um, and actually you guys probably know this. But, like, one of the things that people probably say when I'm not around is, like, Andy doesn't fucking go anywhere. Like, you. You got to go to him, you know? I don't go anywhere.

[James]

Your security guard did say that you're a hermit.

[Andy Frisella]

You're a little bit of a hermit. Yeah, bro, I'm. I do my thing, but we've done it in such a way where it's gotten the attention of bigger people, and. And I've made. I've made some amazing friends and amazing relationships just by hustling, dude. And just by showing people that are bigger than me, like, hey, man, I'm fucking worth knowing, you know? Yeah.

[James]

Could you actually talk about that, though? Because, again, you're from St. Louis, and obviously you're still based here now 46 years old. Is there a particular reason? Because, I mean, you could set up shop anywhere with how incredible your company's, you know, been built and whatnot. Why kind of stay put? I mean, obviously, like, it's. Your family ties are here and whatnot. Is this just home and you're not leaving?

[Andy Frisella]

St. Louis is a very, very, very large, small town, okay? And I love this city. I care a lot about this city. This city has done a lot for me. This country has done a lot for me, and that's why I'm so big on my patriotic messages. Whether you agree with my views or not, I love this country, and I love the people in it, and I love this town. And I wanted to. We all wanted to. When I say. By the way, when I say I. I'm talking about we, okay? There's a lot of people here that make up I. Right. But we all love this city, and we want this place to be something that people are proud of, that provides to the community, that provides careers and jobs and sponsors the little league teams. And that's important to me. I think in my mind, there's two different kinds of entrepreneurs. There's ethical entrepreneurship, and then there's just extreme entrepreneurship. And the extreme entrepreneurships usually make more money, okay? Because they're willing to not care about anything other than that number. But, dude, in life, other things matter. And I just care a lot about this town, dude. And I wanted to do something here. I wanted to keep it here because I felt obligated to. You know, I've had so many good things come from here. So many people treated us right. So many people have given us opportunities, take chance on us, shop with us, support us, wear our shirts. You know, I don't forget that, you know, that's not something that I take for granted, nor do I forget. And so we're very proud to be here from St. Louis.

[Jack]

One of the things that you said is that the extremists oftentimes make a lot more money. And extreme standards is something that you stand for. And we walked through the gym today, and every single weight in the dumbbell rack was racked perfectly, completely aligned. And extreme standards, I'm sure, come with a cost of some extent where people are super talented, but maybe they don't want to conform to, you know, hey, like, I'm. I'm from corporate or I've never kind of had these type of standards before. Is there downsides that come with having extreme standards that you've kind of run

[Andy Frisella]

into sometimes, but it's only a down. It's only a downside in the short term. Okay. So, yes, there are highly skilled people that probably wouldn't want to work here because of the standards that we have. Like art. It's like we were talking. It's kind of like being on a pro sports team. Like, you are training together. And when I say training, you're not going in and lifting a couple of weights. I mean, you're running sprints. You're like, you know, we're. We're an athletic company, we're a health company. We have to live that example. And people that just want a job who happen to be skilled at that job, they will not fit here. Okay? And I'm a big believer in hiring for character and culture and teaching skill. So while it may not move as fast, the long term is much stronger, and I wouldn't change it. You know, there's been people who have come and they've gone, and they're not bad people. It just wasn't a fit. And, you know, I get to come to work every single day with people that are fucking have great character, they're strong, they care, they work hard, and I like that energy, and that's what I want to spend my life around.

[James]

I want to go back and talk a little bit about how you built your business. I know that we went into a whole bunch of different topics here, which I love, but I think where we left off was talking about how, you know, you had pretty much partnered up with a chocolate milk company that had a bunch of powder where there had a deal that felt through with Target. One of my favorite things I learned about you today because one of the business concepts that I obsess over when studying other businesses is vertical integration. Right. Like, when I think about guys like Michael Rubin, who's become a good friend of mine, right. With fanatics and just all the different verticals in which they own. And then also, like coming here to the first form headquarters and just seeing how you've gone about vertically integrating. Can you give us a timeline, kind of of your progression of starting the first form business and then also maintaining, you know, the supplement store, store, you know, franchise as well? Could you talk about the progression of you beginning to own all the verticals? Because you've got factories in there that you own, and it's so cool to see that production go down in person.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah, that's definitely the long way to do it. You know, if you're someone that wants to spend 10 years in the game or five years in the game, you can't do what we've done. It takes a lot longer than that. We started out in retail, so we were selling other people's products. Then we moved into selling our own products. Then we moved into making investments and having partnerships in our manufacturing facilities. You know, then we moved into owning, like, the facilities that make the ingredients which creates the entire vertical from top to bottom. We did it from the bottom up. Some people do it from the top down, but it's very important to the longevity. And if you're building a real big brand to vertically, you know, work that ladder as much as possible. Because at the end of the day, man, as an entrepreneur, you're going to get to a place where you want more. You're going to get to a place where you want to make investments. And we see this a lot on Internet culture, right? Oh, I'm making some money. I'm doing this. You know, let's just say I'm doing shoes and now I want to do cars. And they start to make investments in things that are, like, outside the realm of what they already know. And I call this, like, the illusion of Midas Touch. So when you start. When you start to win that first time and you found success, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that just because they were successful here, that they can also be successful there. Some people can. Guys that have been in the game for 20, 30 years, they understand the principles to do anything. But in the beginning, you know, we have this saying on the Internet, right? The average entrepreneur has what, seven streams of income?

[Jack]

The biggest lie, right?

[Andy Frisella]

It's bullshit. They might when they're 30 years in, but not when you're one year in. So when you think about, like, vertical integration, you have to think about what that does to your overall concept and brand of what you actually do. It makes things easier, it makes things more profitable, it gives you more control and it gives you more enterprise value. Right? It's a turnkey operation. If someone like a big VC firm or somebody were to come to us right now, they could literally buy our company and be in the supplement game today, top to bottom. So. But how those things came about was actually very similar to how we were talking about building relationships. We were doing good here, we started here, we started doing good there, we got an opportunity to move to the next thing and so on and so forth. And instead of making investments outside of the realm of what we knew, we made them inside, which allowed us to vertical, vertically scale.

[Jack]

One of the things that I hear a lot of E Commerce owners kind of run into, especially early on, where they don't come from a lot of money, is managing that cash flow where they have to, you know, marketing budget, you got inventory, you got in payroll. How did you kind of go about managing your cash when you didn't come from a lot of money?

[Andy Frisella]

We didn't have any money to manage, bro. You know what I'm saying? Like, we were always running with like our ass on fire for, for years and years and years. It did. We didn't have any money in the bank for the first 12 years we were in business, like none. So a lot of like how, like when we first started, first form, they gave us a $3,000 line of credit. Like $3,000, right. And then we just kept expanding and building and building and building. And then we started developing cash. We stopped working on credit because I don't like debt. Now I'm learning, you know, why debt's so important. But when I was younger, I really didn't like it because I was unsure if we were going to make it and I didn't want to owe anybody. So it ended up being a blessing that I had that fear. But we could have went a lot faster had I leveraged that. But at the end of the day, man, you know, I think it's. I think when it comes to managing cash, man, you know, it's really about thinking ahead, being smart, being able to see a little bit down the road and not make stupid decisions today, right? Like when people first start to get a little bit of cash, you know, you know what they do, they go out and they buy a car or they go out and they, they upgrade their lifestyle or they go up and they get a first house and what you don't realize is, like, at 23 or 24, man, there's going to be times in your life where money doesn't come in. You know, there's been a number of times over the course of my journey where I've had to go two or three years without getting after getting paid, then go back to not getting paid just so that we could generate the cash to do bigger projects. So I think one of the best things that people could do to manage that cash flow is to live way below their means for as long as they can stand it. That was something we did. Right. Okay. I know, you know, people that follow me, they know I've got a big life now. In the beginning, it was the opposite. It was very, very humble. It was very, very modest. It was very, very under what I could have done. And even to the point where we, you know, when we talk about what I got paid for the first 10 years, right. The first two. First three years, we made zero. The next seven years, we got $695 a month. That. That's one way to say it. But from year seven to 10, we were making money. We just didn't take any more, and we were able to roll that money into other things. So I think it's really just about being ultra conservative for as long as you can and making sure that you're being responsible.

[Josh]

I have to ask this question because I think it's going to benefit a lot of people watching this podcast. And earlier on the podcast, you said that most people probably know you from first form, but I actually first discovered you through the 75 hard challenge when. How. Why did you create 75 hard? And, you know, I feel like a lot of people know what it is, but, I mean, we can give them a quick recap of it. But I gotta ask the man himself. How did you come up with the 75 hard challenge?

[James]

This is somebody who's done it before as well.

[Andy Frisella]

You know, it's been seven years now, and it's still hot, like, really hot, and continues to grow because it works. And, you know, I had a hard time. I was struggling with my. Like, I was telling you guys, I struggle with my discipline. I wasn't born with that. And I became a student of it. Like, how does. How does this guy have it and I don't have it? Like, what is that? And my whole perspective sort of switched when I thought of it as a mental game. All right, so I used to be 350 pounds. As you guys know, I was extremely overweight. I Struggled my weight my whole life. And there were a number of things that I did over the course of my life up until that point that really helped me get things in check and what 75 hard was. And it's all supported by science too. You can look every single aspect up. But what it was is the combination of all the things that I had done that had got me that momentum to make me move forward and make me catch that momentum, be disciplined and get results in life. And forever and ever and ever. I was a student of like, man, how are they doing this? How they're doing this, how they're doing this? And then one day I was, I was sitting. There's this local restaurant up the street here that I used to go drink at. It's like my drinking spot. And that's £350. I'm sitting there and I was, you know, I was pretty drunk, had a good buzz. And I'm, I'm like, you know how like when, when you're drinking some beers, you feel good and then sometimes you get in these like, spots where like, I'm kind of a loser. I was like in one of those spots and I'm sitting there and I'm feeling all fat and I feel gross and I'm looking at this beer and I was like, why the does this beer? And I had a pizza on the table too. Why, why can I not say no to this? Like, how the am I losing to an inanimate object? How the am I losing to something that doesn't even breathe? You know what I'm saying? I'm losing to a glass with some liquid in it and some cut up pepperoni, you know what I'm saying? Like, this is not, this is, this is mental weakness. And it clicked for me. I got pissed off. And so I started thinking that was a big turning point, that one thing. And then what happened was I went on the podcast on MSC EO and I said, hey, I'm fucking doing this. This is what I'm doing. I'm doing it. For the next 75 days. We're calling 75 hard. Those of you who want to do it, do it with me. And a shit ton of people did it. And they all fucking fix their shit. And after that, dude, I never ran an ad. I never did shit. It just went, yeah. So, you know, it's like we talked about, if you solve a problem, people talk about it and it solves the problem for people of what we call mental toughness, which includes things like discipline, grit, fortitude perseverance, self confidence, self belief, the ability to endure hardships. And each aspect of 75 hard teaches different lessons. And they all come together to create what's called mental toughness. And some people will criticize 75 hard because they'll say, well, if it works so good, why do you got to do it more than once? Well, because discipline is a perishable skill, okay? It's no different than playing a guitar. If you're really good at playing guitar and you put the guitar down for two years, when you pick it up, you're not as good if you can even still play. Same thing with shooting a pistol. Same thing with taking a shower. You could you fucking. Why do you gotta take a shower every day? Well, that's because you stink. You know what I'm saying? So it's the same concept and that's a different. That's something that people, I think the biggest thing people need to understand about mental toughness and discipline is that you have to practice it to get good at it. And it has to be part of your intentional practice. And 75 hard turned into what's called live hard, which is a year long program with one phase, which is the boot camp, 75 hard and then three 30 day phases throughout the year. So for less than half a year, you're able to maintain a high level of discipline, a high level of fitness, a high level of confidence. It drastically improves your quality of life. And I mean, the proof is in the pudding, man. You know, it just, the reason it went is because it works.

[Josh]

And the thing is, it's not rocket science. The thing what most people don't understand is that when like, for us, like, you know, we work with a lot of people on social, helping them with their social media and you know, they'll be like, oh, why isn't my page taking off? You know, I made like five or six pieces of content. I'm like, well, it's because you made three. Then you stopped posting for two weeks and then you posted two more, then you stopped. It's the consistency aspect of it. You're doing the everything on that list of 75 hard. For those that don't know, it's. It's two workouts a day, 45 minutes each. One of them has to be outdoors. It's 10 pages a day of a nonfiction book that you have to read. It's drinking a gallon of water, which I think is the hardest one, by the way. You have to take a picture every single day, like a progress picture. And, and you have to stick to a diet. No cheat meals and no alcohol for 75 days. Did I miss anything?

[Andy Frisella]

No, that's it.

[Josh]

I think I got it.

[Andy Frisella]

Part of the diet. The diet is. The diet has to be geared towards making a physical transformation.

[Josh]

Exactly. And the thing is, when you do that every single day for 75 days in a row, it's not like waving a magic wand. It just. It's because, like, you. It's the consistency of doing it every single day.

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah.

[Josh]

I think that's the piece that. The kicker for most people, like, hey, this thing actually works because it just, like, it forces you to stick with it. The problem is, like, people have to. They have to maintain it, after which I know you're big on, like, changing your identity away from, like, doing just like, oh, hey, I'm just doing this for a habit. And then, like, actually, like, building that mental toughness as an identity as well. I think people actually miss that part when they come towards the end.

[Andy Frisella]

Well, you don't know that you can do things until you do things right. And also, you can always tell who actually followed through on the program, because people, when they get to day 70, if you did the program right and you get to day 76, you don't want to stop because your life has gotten so much better and you have so much momentum. And you can always tell who didn't. Who didn't do it right, or who made compromises or who adjusted the program to make it their own. They don't even understand, like, the reason that your life sucks, bro, is because you take every single thing that comes your way and try to make it convenient for you. Okay? The key to success is that you have to do things at a high level when you don't feel like doing them, when it's not convenient. That's the difference. If you're going to win in life and you're competing against everybody else who can only execute when they feel like doing shit, you're gonna crush them because now you're operating on, you know, they probably feel like doing it 20% of the time, which means 80% of the time, they're not doing it. So you have an 80% advantage, let's say, over the people, everybody else, by just understanding how to operate when things are not convenient or where you don't feel like it. But like I said, you can always tell when people don't do the program right, because this on day 76, they're like, I can't wait to have a drink. I can't Wait to, you know, go to the, whatever food place they want to talk about.

[Josh]

Want to get that ice cream?

[Andy Frisella]

Yeah. Like. Like if you did it right, dude, you don't want that shit. Yeah.

[James]

You were one of the first supplement brands to take storm on social media. Reminds me of Anastasia Beverly Hills. Her and her daughter, they were, I think, the first beauty brand to develop influencers in the beau space on social media. I wanted to ask about how critical, number one, that was for your success. But more importantly, you've also partnered up with some of the biggest athletes in the world, World champions, people at the top of the game across all different sports, even race car drivers. How critical were those partnerships to your success?

[Andy Frisella]

Extremely.

[James]

Yeah, break it down.

[Andy Frisella]

Extremely critical. So we were one of the first companies, if not the first company, to ever take real people and allow them to have a link to, for people to buy things from them on the Internet. Okay. The only other company that was even kind of doing it when we were doing it was gymshark. That completely changed the way that every single company does business.

[James]

All right?

[Andy Frisella]

We took up until then in our industry, it was magazines and, you know, bodybuilding magazines, fitness magazines, things like that. And they would, you know, go get the big name. They put them in a magazine and that would be their brand. We wanted to make real people the hero of the brand.

[James]

Did you rely on, like the magazine, traditional advertising?

[Andy Frisella]

At first we couldn't afford it. Yeah, we couldn't afford it. So when we first did that, that really switched things because now we were using real people with real stories as the face of our brand. They were showcasing the actual results and that worked really well. All right, but the partnerships that you're talking about that are what I would call, you know, the apex partnerships, those are very important for brand awareness. Right. Like, you people aren't going to know who you are unless you have some people that already have audience. So the way it works, you know, or the way it's worked for us is, you know, you have the bigger names, they bring the awareness, and then you have the aspirational real people who are looking to build a brand, build a life, help people, coach people who follow behind those kind of people. So it acts as a feeder of awareness for, for our influencer program, if that makes sense.

[James]

I want to, I want to touch on. This is a little bit kind of like a different subject here, but when we were kind of going around the headquarters and office that you had up upstairs on the. I think it was in, in your office, you had like one of the original American flags that was used in the, in the Civil War. And, you know, that hits home for us as well. You know, again, we grew up living in South Korea on our dad. He ran the largest overseas military base in the world. Our dad's actually both served in Iraq as well. And so that level of, you know, patriotism that you have, it's definitely shared amongst us. And we're proud to be Americans and from this country. But I'm going to ask you today, Andy Frisella, are you proud to be an American?

[Andy Frisella]

I think it's the thing I'm most proud of.

[James]

Why is that,

[Andy Frisella]

you know, if you know history, this is the freest. Even though we deal with a lot of right now that needs to be corrected, this is still the freest country that's ever existed in humankind. And it's built upon the sacrifice of people just like us. Men your age, men your guys's age found in this country. A lot of people don't realize that, you know, guys that were 20, 22, 25. When I think about the sacrifices that have been made for us to have the opportunities that we have, right, for you guys to fly all over the world and build this amazing media brand and connect with the biggest names in the whole world in entrepreneurship, for me to be able to do what I'm doing, for you guys to be able to do what you're doing, people literally died for that. They fucking died for that. And I think that's something that everybody needs to remember. My grandfather, his name was Clarence. He never even met my dad. Okay. My grandma was pregnant when he went to World War II, and he was 20 years old. And he stormed the beach on D day, on Utah Beach. And then six, six months to the day after that, he was killed. So he never even got to meet my dad. He never, he never. My dad never met him. He grew up his whole life never knowing his own dad. Now he had a great, who he calls his dad, which was actually Clarence's friend from the war. So his friend comes back, takes care of his kids, ends up marrying my grandma. They have 12 kids, mixed family. Okay. And a lot of people would say, oh, that's kind of weird. Well, not really. Not back in the day. There was honor in our, in our, in the way that we did things and we took care of families. And, you know, when I think about that sacrifice, which is directly in my family, and I think about, like, my brother was a tremendous athlete. He ended up playing, you know, high level minor league baseball for The Cardinals until he had a career ending injury. If you want to see an early video, go Google on or go YouTube Sal Frisella leg injury, and you'll see probably one of the gnarliest injuries ever. But my grandfather never got to see any of those things. You know, he died. And he didn't die for anything, man. He died for us to have the opportunity to go out and build and create and become and contribute. And when I think of the biggest problem that we have here in this country is that people have lost sight of what other people have given just for us to have the opportunity. And so I feel very, very much so, a strong sense of duty and obligation to maximize my own gifts and my own life and then to spread that message. Because if this guy's 20 years old and he's gonna go get killed, I want it to mean something. And I think, you know, that doesn't have to be your family member for you to recognize that there's millions of people who have done that. And personally, I feel very obligated for. For. I think that's a. It's a massive driver for me.

[James]

Yeah, it's a beautiful answer. Andy, we'd like to end these podcasts off with two questions. I'm going to start. Jack will finish it, man. We'll wrap up here. But, Andy, if me and you were to die tomorrow and you could leave one last message with the younger generation, what would that be?

[Andy Frisella]

Just understand that you have an obligation to maximize the gifts that you have. And no matter what you've been told, no matter who told it to you, you were born with some sort of potential inside of you. And your job is to figure out what that is and put that gift into the world for other people to learn and benefit and become. And we have to understand that just like people came before us to give us the opportunity, inspire us to do things, you have an obligation to build that story so that other people will have that same opportunity. The people that haven't even been born yet. All right? And that comes with a lot of responsibility. And yes, it's a heavy thing, and yes, it can wear you out sometimes, but also in those moments where you feel like quitting, in those moments where it feels too hard to continue to go, let that be the thing that keeps you in the game. Let that obligation and that duty be the thing. Understand that there are people who are going to win or lose based upon the story that you create out of your own life.

[Josh]

And Andy, you've built incredible companies, relationships, and influence in the world. But for you, how do you want to be remembered?

[Andy Frisella]

I want to change more lives than anybody that was ever living while I was alive. That's, that's what I want to do. I, I don't have kids. I don't have. For some reason, you know, I wasn't blessed to be able to have kids. I want people to go build those stories that we just talked about and at least maybe once or twice have a fleeting reminder that, hey man, that dude helped me. His words mattered, his story mattered, he helped me be better. And, and, and I think that's all we can hope for.

[James]

Andy, this was an incredible conversation and podcast and I know that one that will forever remember. So thank you so much for having us out here, my friend.

[Andy Frisella]

Thank you guys.

[James]

I appreciate you, really appreciate that, all of you for, for everybody watching right now. Guys, be sure to like and subscribe for amazing content and episodes every week. We're bringing the biggest business owners in the world right here to the Hard Knocks podcast. We're also going to put the link down in the descriptions to first form to all Andy Frisella's socials for you all to follow along with him and his journey. Anything coming out that everybody should be aware of.

[Andy Frisella]

Oh man, you know what? Hit your if you want to support dude, you want to support, hit your local C store, your grocery store, grab yourself first form energy drink, maybe a first form protein drink, maybe a snack or a bar. That's, that's cool, you know, but at the end of the day, man, you know, just go out there and live it, man. Dude, if you really want to support man, just go out there, be the best you can.

[James]

Love it. Last thing guys. If you guys want access to hop on live calls every week with the eight, nine and ten figure entrepreneurs we interview on the school of Hard Knocks. Go down click the link in the description to check out the school of Mentors today where we give you direct access to all the entrepreneurs we interview inside the community. With that being said, we'll see in the next episode.