Alex Witt - From the Battlefield to Bars

On this episode, we’re joined by Alex Witt, Co-founder and CEO of Battle Bars, a fast-growing, veteran-owned protein bar brand known for its Rice Krispie-like texture and nostalgic flavors. 

A Navy veteran turned entrepreneur, Alex has taken Battle Bars from a side hustle to a multi-million-dollar brand with nationwide distribution.

Alex shares how he and his co-founder took inspiration from childhood snacks and Muscle Milk to create a new format in the crowded bar category. He unpacks the hard-earned lessons from their co-packer journey - including five months of production shutdown - and how they ultimately became part owners of their new co-packer to enable more control and to create aligned incentives.

We dig into fundraising, the evolution of their packaging identity, and how Battle Bars leverages gyms (including Alex’s own) as a launchpad and feedback loop. Alex also reflects on what brands get wrong about scaling and why he pulled back from Meta and Google ad spend.

Episode Highlights:

🍫 Battle Bars’ nostalgic taste strategy (and Muscle Milk inspiration)
🛠️ Surviving co-packer hell and becoming a minority owner
🥥 Reformulating with coconut oil and the cost realities
🏋️ Gyms as both a testing ground and a beachhead
🚀 Why growing too fast nearly killed the business
🎯 Lessons from breaking into traditional retail
📦 Packaging that stands out and signals “indulgence”
💰 Fundraising, paid media pullbacks, and retail velocity focus
🔥 The brand Alex is most hyped on right now (that’s not his)

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Table of Contents:

00:00:00 – Intro
01:19:19 – Battle Bars origin story
04:28:03 – The transition from the military to entrepreneurship
10:43:17 – Formulation and flavor, Muscle Milk as an inspiration
16:38:05 – The marshmallow crisp technology, navigating co-packer “hell”
21:18:10 – Becoming a minority owner in their new co-packer
22:25:06 – Vetting co-packers, trusting your gut
28:04:21 – Shifting from canola oil to coconut oil, evolving the formulation, cost implications
31:28:19 – Gyms (including the ones Alex owns) as a beachhead and a testing ground
35:34:24 – Selling into gyms vs. traditional retail
38:14:03 – Breaking into retail: learning lessons and recommendations
40:02:20 – Growing too fast is a problem
42:57:01 – Visual identity and packaging design
44:22:18 – Fundraising
48:07:12 – Backing off from Meta and Google
49:41:01 – The brand he’s most hyped on (that’s not Battle Bars)

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Links:

Battle Bars – https://www.battlebars.com
Follow Alex on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-witt-6a7a8b7a/
Follow me on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/
Check out https://www.kitprint.co/ for CPG production design support

Transcript

0:00

welcome to Shelf Help today we're speaking with Alex Whitt who's joining us from dear park Illinois Alex is the CEO of Battle Bars a better for you protein focused brand that primarily offers Rice Krispies Treat type bars in a in nostalgic flavors that are packed with about 20 grams of protein a Navy veteran prior to Battle Bars Alex helped grow a logistics business to 200000000+ in revenue also launched a A TEN FORTY 10 Fitness a training platform that eventually evolved into two gyms as well as a software platform called move that essentially provides visual aided programming to really kind of ditch the whiteboard making life easier for gym owners and and coaches so yeah thank thank you for your service by the way Alex but yeah first off just for the the listeners that aren't as familiar with battle bars maybe just give us kind of quick lay of the land in terms of origin story why behind the brand more flavors products you guys offer and then maybe just shout out a few places where people get their hands on them and then we'll start there yeah let's do it so thanks for having me on Adam you're uh it's pretty cool that you do this stuff it's a it's a good way to get get the brands out there and and learn a little bit and especially for young entrepreneurs so it's helpful I wish I could I wish I would have listened to some of this stuff beforehand totally yeah so battle bars we like to tell everyone we were born in the battlefield my partner Ian and I you know served Iraq he served in Afghanistan and Syria and we both shared this like same like sentiment that when we were overseas there was nothing good to eat like we were eating like cliff bars and MREs every day and I remember like we go out to the field and before you go out the field there was like this huge bin of all these cliff bars and no offense to cliff Bar guys right like they sold for $3 billion so jokes on me but like I would like I we'd all like go into this like pack like this bin and there'd be all these cliff bars like sitting there for free for us to grab yeah and we'd all be like ugh I don't really want to grab this right now so like I go in go to the bin stick it in our packs and no one wanted to eat it it was just like kind of sit in our gut and we're like man like whatever so anyways fast forward getting out and got into logistics base and logistics business but that's a whole another podcast but after getting out of that you know we I I wanted to uh after the exit we wanted to find something that actually tasted good and I was like I was investing into companies and and looking for better known companies to invest in and uh you know my partner and I kind of like were talking about things and we said like how do we how do we create what how do we create something that like actually tastes good like how come like every protein bar if I go down the aisle I get a quest bar and it tastes like I'm eating rubber and chalk and how is it that that they're selling and I look at all these like all these numbers and I look at like an RX bar that sells for almost $700 million and it's it's disgusting yeah it's super clean right like ex mother ingredients that's it but it's gross man like it's just so gross and then you have these other bars that say zero sugar all over them and all these companies like it's it's fake sugars right so it's like it's kind of like a lie but it's not really a lie it's just like you're kind of tricking the consumer yeah I remember like looking at all these and I'm like wait why like all these guys have sold for like 500+ million dollars all of them eventually right and I'm like there's gotta be a space for that so like we end up like hiring a food scientist and a chef from a co man that actually worked there and my partner's brother had a relationship with them existing so we like came up with the concept and and I talked to the chef and said like what's something nostalgic like I what what does everyone love to eat and everyone was like I I don't know anyone that didn't like a Rice Krispies treat I don't know anyone that doesn't like that so we're like let's make something similar to that and you know after about a billion iterations of trying to do it right you know we came with our first the very very first bar which is our our chocolate or the mother of all bars as we called it but now you know we've expanded we have 10 flavors which are shrinking down to just five core flavors that go retail but you can find us in you know over like 5,000 stores including like Lifetime Athletic Clubs Speedway which about 15 stores 7 elevens that's 7 11 owned company yes way all sips UFC gyms uh means chains you know thousand plus gyms golf courses things like that so yeah that's great from the military to the corporate life so I I don't I don't ask unless you want to dive into it in detail but yeah just for someone that's you know look that is looking to jump straight from a military career into on into entrepreneurship especially in the CPG space what are just maybe like a few recommendations or or things you kind of tell people who uh you might have for them that are and or things to watch out for I mean depends if you're gonna go into the creator space where you're gonna go full entrepreneur or if you're gonna like go work go look for a company to work for or learn certain skills so I think like my skill set like I was in logistics after the military so like I didn't even know what logistics was man like I literally got out of the military and I was like I'll do whatever so like when I got out I was working at GNC like a total meathead and like work there I would work there from like 8 until like six PM at night and then I would leave straight from there I ran like 8 stores and made like $32,000 a year by the way shout out GNC appreciate you guys right 32 grand a year to run 8 stores and just abuse me and then like I would leave there at 6 6 PM I would go straight to uh I would go straight to school and I was getting my fire science degree and EMT license and I you know I I was just trying to like work my ass off like I I was never afraid of hard work I mean I was you know in Iraq it was 24 7 there was no days off right and just sweating profusely no showers it was gross so like I get to go to bed every night like this was easy like I go I go to like like I go to school until like 10 o'clock and then when I leave there I'm like well I need extra cash on me so um I just go work at this bar so like I don't really care about hanging out and partying whatever so like I'll go work at this bar and I worked at this Irish pub down the street from my house until

from like 10: 6:16

30 until like 4 in the morning and I just get up and do it all over again and I did that for like a year and then realized it actually did take a toll on your body to do so like you know but you know man I said when you get out of the military there's a real fear Adam about like your your paycheck is there on the 1st and 15th of every month it doesn't matter if you worked a lot or you worked a little it doesn't matter and you know what you're getting you know exactly how much you know exactly how much you gotta save for your rent for your mortgage or whatever it may be you get out and there's no real there's a transition course but it sucks it's a joke right it's called taps but you get out and you're like wait the money just stops right what am I supposed to do with my life like how do I make money and there's a real fear and then on top of that you know like you just spent like you know years and like the most intense brotherhood possible of like having friends and and you played college sports right so like you know what that feeling is like it's I mean I know I won't try to say it's the same but I know you I know you mean for sure no but it is kind of the same right it's like you you share pretty intense experiences that not many other people can share together right and then you get out and those that like that camaraderie just it goes away and you have to go find that that tribe again almost you know so um you know unfortunately like I've had more friends I've lost more friends past military post military than during so it's like that that's a problem that we've still got to solve but I think that not not to go too crazy into but I think that you know for me you know I when while I was doing all that work right like the plan was all right I'll work at GNC I'll be the C either be the CEO of GNC one day or I'll uh I'll get my light my MT license I'll go be a firefighter or a cop whichever one takes me first so like leave leaving the military it's a it's a scary transition so like I you know I was gonna be a cop or firefighter or the CEO of GNC right so it's like which one should I choose I ended up like randomly meeting this guy um his name is Ryan Dobby I met him at this bar and he introduced me to this company called AFM and he was starting and I was like just meet as I just wanted to meet as many people as possible who didn't serve in the military that I could like use my skills and talk about my skills that I had in the military that maybe it would translate to something they're doing so this guy had a company he's like come in Monday for an interview I'm like okay cool so like I went in there and he's like who the fuck are you I was like met you you told me to come in for an interview and he's like oh alright well how much you wanna get paid and I was like what he's like how much you wanna get paid and I was like I don't know like 40 50 he's like alright I'll pay you 45 but if you make that next year I'll fire you I'm like okay and so I was like alright and it was like this kind of like it felt like like kind of like a boiler room almost atmosphere do you remember boiler room yeah I'm for sure yeah I feel like Boiler Room so we it was like logistics so like I was just trying to wing it so like I guess like that and that company turned into like a handful of us to 270 employees with me at the forefront right and we were like I got I came to like this crossroads where like I needed to I needed to understand like alright am I gonna go be a copper firefighter and be capped about how much money I can make and have to risk my life every single day or let's go take a risk and let's see if we can go make some money out of it you know yeah we can start making some serious money and then all of a sudden the police officers the police officer jobs and the fire department jobs started to kind of like become a real thing like I could I'm getting offers and I was like nope I turned it down and turned down my first offer and state of the company and there it was you know but I think I guess the point for me is for other young guys getting out of the military like and what I tell them is like man like everyone's got a plan to like get punched in the mouth like you all you can do is like meet as many people as possible if there's a networking event go to it if you're at a restaurant and you're sitting next to people that sound cool say hi to them compliment them talk to them and like be like everyone if you're an entrepreneur you have to be a salesman right so like I think when you get out you just gotta meet as many people as possible talk to them be a great listener learn about their business and if they end up like helping you someday because you're you guys have a friendship cool that's great and if they don't they can't do anything for you don't expect it then just accept that you got a great friendship out of it instead it's it's scary all all the progress you've done you've made for sure appreciate it like rewinding back to pre launch talking about formulation product development for for a second I know you mentioned how you kind of came circle around the Rice Krispies type form factor I also think I also read one of the big goals around around the product and the brand is making every flavor feel nostalgic what does that look like to you and how do you guys approach that to make sure you achieve that yeah well dude there's so much to this story but like do you remember do you remember muscle milk oh yeah of course but do you remember and I'm not talking about muscle milk the way it is now cause it sucks now muscle milk sucks for when Muscle Milk first came out man they're it it like exploded on the market oh yeah for sure yeah I remember remember like it was there and then all of a sudden it was everywhere it was like oh my god like this is the best tasting thing I've ever had in my life I was drinking like three of those a day I was I was obsessed I'm like this is like not a protein drink this is like a milkshake but it's got but the macros are solid I don't think I looked at one of the ingredients you know I was in my 20s but like it was incredible so that was like honestly my my true inspiration was like how do you get that you know part of the guys that did Muscle Milk are actually helping with the flavor company that makes some of the flavors that we make um and that was you know what's funny about that is that was actually by chance like we did we didn't even know that so it's pretty wild but like the nostalgia is like I don't know like everyone like when you eat something and like I was reading about this chef his name is Fabio Viviani in Chicago and he's very like inspirational chef guy and he's like he's like if you look you know what you're getting a good meal when you take a bite and you close your eyes and you're enjoying the taste because it takes you back to something so for me like I want every single every single person that eats our bars to like bite it and go that's like the ultimate compliment right it's the ultimate compliment now when you're trying to make a company that's like hundred million plus it's really hard to do because you have to make a ton of bars at a massive scale and you know you got guys like David Bar making millions of bars per skew at a time yeah where it's like cut and dry that's it right or it's like our our process our manufacturing process is a lot more tough so it's hard to really nail that down but finding that good flavor profile in our in our innovation lab that's the important thing is understanding that there's a process respecting the timeline and trying to do it in advance and not trying to uh rush everything but we test a ton of stuff man like ton of crazy ideas dude we made we made a Bourbon bacon bar once it was disgusting it was so gross it was so gross dude it was like a Rice Krispies treat less style but Bourbon bacon yeah the best part is like all these people try it they're like oh my god and I gave it to my son who at the time was like 9 and he's like dad this is delicious like you should make more of these I was like of course you should freaking meathead but yeah it was like like nailing down that flavor profile so like if you look at it like our s'mores bar has like a little smokiness to it so we want you to feel like you're sitting by a campfire and every bite you get you get a little chunk of a Graham cracker right and a little crispiness and you taste a little marshmallow fluff so everything is mixed it has a mixture of marshmallow fluff in there so we want you to bring it back to like a campfire or our cinnamon cereal bar that we just launched it's exclusive with lifetime cause they're just the best customer on the planet but it launches on our website at Shield Sporting Goods Speedway next month or in September but like that one is like we did that to like I love Cinnamon Toast Crunch I don't even care if I get sued like dude I love Cinnamon Toast Crunch Kudos to them it's incredible right when I was a kid like and that's goes back to nostalgia always saying when I was a kid you eat the Cinnamon Toast Crunch and what did you do afterwards like the best part was drinking the milk right and that's what I wanted to do I wanted to make like a bar that like brought me back to like my childhood days it is like that and that's exactly what we did it's incredible right like our coffee our coffee bar we make that's the we did a partnership with Stella Blue Coffee and Barstool Sports I was talking with Big Cat and if you follow Barstool but like I was talking talking with Big Cat and I was like I was like yo man like cause they make an incredible coffee Stella Blue coffee and they have it like very innovative uh cold brew pouches and they make like this like cinnamon Donut which is very similar to ours so him and I were talking I was like I was like man like why don't we make like an espresso bar like a like a Stella Blue bar and what we did was is we took Stella Blue's coffee and we sprinkled it all over every single the top of every single bar and with the coating on top of it with the dark chocolate coating and give it 100 mg of Stella Blue coffee caffeine but like every time I'm not I'm not kidding when I brought it into the Barstool Sports Chicago office everyone I watched for it everyone took a bite and the three people sitting across from their management team were just like this and they close their eyes and shoot it and I was like yes haha you know it was just like cause you wanna make something that people can like feel like alright I feel like I'm going back and drinking a cup of coffee but also I'm eating a ridiculously tasty treat and the macros are are solid on it you know so that's the idea is like every single bar like it sounds so silly and there's all these like different things you gotta jump through but it's like yo man just like what if we just make them feel like it's they're going back to a spot that made them happy you know yeah it makes a lot of sense and I mean nothing else matters so it's like that you spent the right a lot of time in the right area it could also be vice versa right cause there's a lot of products out there that are so disgusting that are selling like millions of dollars of products true it's true it's crazy and I'm not gonna call people out for their disgusting product but man there's a lot of companies that just raise a ton of money that their product is really gross yeah that's fair it's a fair point you talked about the the marshmallow crisp stuff a little bit from what I read to do my research it sounds like you co developed and or licensed that marshmallow crisp technology or something along those lines that's really the tech behind that Rice Krispies form factor with a partner assuming that is the case my research is correct how'd you go about finding that right partner in the first place well I mean you gotta have a good food scientist and a good chef and we had a great we had a great chef who is like very unorthodox but man efficient as hell sometimes I had like trouble understanding him cause like our our brains are just on totally different wavelengths and he's very good at creating that stuff I'm very good at tasting it and understanding it and marketing it right but just totally different wavelengths but we clicked so I think that for us to make a product that to make that product that's proprietary I don't think any product that you make is proprietary man like unless you're talking about like uh like some of the bars out there that have like a certain fat soluble solution right where they buy out their they buy that out and and now they own that whole process but for us you see what I'm doing there leaving out the names just trying to whatever I don't want a free market you know they don't need they can pay for it now so but like the you know our manufacturer we're fortunate enough to have like them on staff and we had this turnkey process to start which is so expensive to do but I'll I'll give you like a shortened version of the story man like we we went through hell dude like hell like we we're about to get this deal we're gonna go nationwide into 7 11 15,000 stores I worked at my ass off for it right and I had a great relationship with the 7 11 crew they're just awesome the buyers there so cool so supportive so the we tested in Texas we tested in on the East Coast and we use our guys with this proprietary marshmallow crisp right our fluff and uh the day of the production the day of no joke their enrobing line broke down so I'm like like I'm on top of the world right and my stomach just but you know I what I caught was is like the the company didn't they stopped they didn't reply to any of my emails they would only call me I was like alright this like your bullshit radar starts to go off and you're like oh man so choosing not to go too far into details but like choosing like the proper partner Packer properly vetting them man that's clutch you have to do that otherwise you're screwed because you're you're basically married to these people right it's like choosing the right person to get married to because you're for the life of your business that's they're gonna be a part of it or if they're not gonna be a part of it the exits gonna be crazy so when that happened like Adam we didn't make a bar or listen to me and then all of a sudden it's like what do I do but like at absolutely you know I raised money from investors you know there's like it wasn't at at that time it was like you figure it the fuck out that's like our company mentality that's that's literally our our podcast is called figure it the fuck Out Fitfo right because that's a that's what you just do as an entrepreneur and you know this from your days right and like your early days in your old space and now now I'm sure the same thing it's like you gotta figure it out man you have to hustle and no one's gonna give you anything so you know I went on the road I I've cashed out my kids K closed out my my or my kids college fund my foreign K I went on the road I didn't want to use investor dollars I wanted to save the company money and ended up uh and up going to like different shows and looking for a new co manufacturer and so I found a co manufacturer that's freaking fantastic and the short version is my partner and I we my partner Adam Wakefield and I we made a significant investment into the company so we have we have a bit of say I don't wanna say control but we have a bit of say into when the product can be made and and beyond that we actually own our own chocolate company now called funkoa wow I you know after you know when you are about to go like win the lottery per se for CPG and like in early on when you're just hustling and the rug gets pulled out underneath you I'm never going through that ever again dude like there's no way I'll ever go through that cause that was just the most miserable time of my life you know we control our own destiny we make our own product now we can make you know 150,000 units per skew per day our chocolate you know we can make is that we can make a ton of chocolate for not just us but for other brands as well so you know we're uh we're diversifying but like we're about as vertically integrated as you can be without saying we're vertically integrated yeah fully vertical and actually whether it's buying that entire car packer outright or building out your own manufacturing or you're kind of taking it one step at a time I kind of one step at a time but like I don't ever want to have to be in a position where I have to like say you like use my muscle per se you know and like say like I need it now because that's just not good because you want I'm we're minority owners of it so like we want to have a good relationship we want him to like want him to get as much business as possible not just say okay well we'll make battle bar stuff you know we want to be good partners and like anytime you do business with anyone like you want to have high integrity and like I've lived my life about like completely on integrity man and I feel like you end up like doing something like that and try to strong arm because hey I put money into the company it doesn't really matter like you still got to run a business right and that sooner or later that'll catch up with you so to answer and answer your question is like right now yeah basically we're gonna do that but like I think over time as we continue to grow and like you know this year next year is gonna be a big year for us so I think that like next year it's something we'll absolutely look at to expand that and have a little more control of the line yeah yep obviously you like them so much you put some of your own you as his own money into the company what looking back now what kind of recommendations might you have for some other up and coming brand owners that are starting that search for a co packer I think in any business it comes down to communication how easy like are are the people that you work with able to communicate with you because that's what it comes down to when you're a new brand nothing is cut and dry nothing is like okay I'm gonna make 100,000 bars in this day I'm gonna make 100 billion no dude because like you could have this plan and all of a sudden like a buyer gets back to you and says I want X y Z or you could have a viral video that Bam well shit you just sold 30,000 bars and now we gotta we gotta roll right like we gotta make a ton and you don't wanna be out of stock because out of stock sucks like that really sucks man like believe me we were out of stock for four months dude out of stock we didn't sell we didn't make one product for four months that's the death wish right so we survived that and um I think that like I was telling you earlier it's a battle of attrition you just you really just don't quit but when you're going to commands and you're trying to go find the right ones you have to you have to be able to get along with them I think like I think that like dude do you have a do you have a good vibe and you gotta trust your gut and there's only a certain there's a certain amount of people that have that skill and be able to say like alright like I trust this person like I'm gonna like let it loose right like I feel like Adam I can tell you I can talk to you like I feel like you've been through some shit business wise right and I feel like we can have a good conversation but like there's certain people where you'll be on the phone and they're like you can tell that you're a transaction to them as opposed to like a valuable relationship and those transactional relationships don't don't last they just don't and when you're a new business you might have to do some transactions for sure just do whatever it takes just to get going but you gotta find a great partner but also you gotta have product that actually can make you can make a lot of product of right yes there's not a lot of co mands which is a good thing for my business my partner's business is that there's not a lot of co mands out there for the small to medium sized companies that want to make snacks there's not a ton of them out there it's like Muscle Master Food Labs in Florida just great guys and like I met this guy and him and I just to the point about distrusting like we distrusted each other and we were both at this point where we're trying to grow we're trying to get our business off the ground and I was like look I need an enrobing line he's like well I don't have one but I'll buy one I was like okay you'll invest in one he's like can you commit X amount of bars to me and I'm like yeah I can do that and so he bought it we did it and now he's he's flourishing man I mean he's makes he makes an incredible product their communication is stellar they're on time their quality is there they they they they know like they kind of work around like some of the issues that we're trying like there's always production issues but they do a great job of making a great bar and and I I can't say enough about that but they well I work with their innovation team so like now what we do we had to we had to like kind of reformulate the fluff because like their old way wasn't working and like to be honest with you like I'm a weird guy like that on on like vibes is that I didn't want anything to do with the old manufacturer at all I don't want anything to do with it like I wanted us like so we we like tweak the formula a little bit so it's like completely ours so now it's like ours outright so like if the old co man's listing which they don't exist anymore but you can have it your old one but like the like to be honest with you man like everything is we can own it all we want but like it's everything is so easy to be tweaked that's why it's like dude if you have a great brand like that's what matters you can't you can't copy a brand you can try but you can't copy you can't copy right you can make everyone can make everything I mean I always give the example of like Black Rifle Coffee those guys I mean better known like us they sell coffee dude like they're not really they're not reinventing it I mean they used to sell those guys they would tell me that they used to sell t shirts and give away their coffee yeah it's like they came up with unique marketing strategies and not everything was like right to do and they made so many mistakes and they still make mistakes but like hey man like it worked and I think that that's like a page of the book that you should take out is like I I worry about like making sure our product taste great I don't give a shit if some someone's gonna copy and I'm sure someone already has and it's out there like we've seen other stuff and I'm not even saying they're copying us but if we have a great brand to go along with that and we get velocity in retail it doesn't matter totally I don't really care yeah dude out of everyone how many people have messaged me about like David Bar like are you worried about David Bar I'm like I'm not worried about David Bar but two they just raised 75 million dollars at a 750 million dollar evaluation that's great PR for any brand trying to raise money like ours because I promise you there's a bunch of rich people that miss that boat you know but in order for someone to 10 x their return that means they're gonna have to sell for like$7.5 billion which all investors want a 10 x right so like I'm not saying it's not possible because like you know like I know Peter and Peter's gangster man Peter Peter Ells he's gangster he knows what he's doing I've talked to him a bunch and like met him uh at at one of our co packers actually it was a funny running but anyway my point is that like it's you can't worry about other what other people are doing you can pay attention and respect it and watch and take a page out of their book but like you can't give a shit what other people do people are gonna copy you doesn't really matter you know if you're especially if you're doing something good right totally yeah at one point that was that how recently was that I'm curious was that a tough change to make from a formulation production standpoint or was that a pretty easy transition yeah so like it the the oil the the can oil we used in the past I mean like can oil wasn't like known as a bad thing from I don't know in the last few years whenever like everyone's staring at ingredients on social media all of a sudden everyone's a doctor and a food scientist nowadays got a dude sitting in his basement playing call of duty he's like what is this got can oil in it you know it's like uh like so same thing it's like we uh we we follow the trends and we listen to our customers and some customers didn't like it honestly I kind of disagree with it like I I don't know like we it's we the the amount we use is so nominal I think that like based on the research you'd have to use so much of it for it to actually have an inflammatory effect on you for sure but for me like you know like coconut oil is I don't hear anyone complaining about coconut oil opposed to like maybe it's not an allergen you know I thought it was an allergen at some point but it's not but that's it so I'm like let's just see if coconut oil works because it helps like keep the bar together a little bit and uh it did and actually it made it better made it taste better and it's it's a good look so it's a good look for us right yeah but there's a you know we look at we're always looking to improve the bar like we don't use like a sucralose or an aspartame cause what we found out as a sucralose or aspartame while it may you you may be able to say it gives you that zero sugar like claim that you can everyone loves to put on their ingredients but that's everything I hate about protein bars is it like everyone kind of feels like I'm getting bullshitted by some chemical that was in a lab so um we we do use like a a small amount of erythritol but in 2026 we're looking at monk fruit to switch that out nice I mean I I think sugar organic cane sugar the ones that like that we that we use in our bars for sugar is it's one uh sucralose is like 1/16 the cost of actual like sugar so we make an expensive bar our my No. 1 problem in our company is that we make an expensive bar and every day like we talk every time we talk on finance calls it's like what what can we do to to to reduce the cost yeah there are a lot of things we can do to reduce the cost I'm not willing to do it's like we're never gonna use like art like artificial flavors or colors or dyes things like that I think it's important to us that we that we stick along those ethos and you know one thing that stood out to us is like my favorite customer that we just that we started working with and I say favorite cause I love all our customers of course but like my favorite is Lifetime Athletic Club I don't know if you go to a lifetime at all they were one of the first customers to truly believe in us and when we went through all of our like all of our problems with uh manufacturing they stuck by our side they didn't get rid of us they could have easily dropped us and I probably would have because like I couldn't give them a good ETA and we're gonna make them product but like we're not gonna do it we believe in you guys keep it up and they did they stuck by us but anyway they when to get into lifetime you have to be free of the harmful 7 so if you go to like lifetime website there's like a they have certain like they have certain guidelines you have to follow if you want to be on their shelf and it's very important like we to the point where we like we even put that on our website that we stole it from lifetime we love the idea so much that it's it it sticks with us that makes sense on the topic of gyms I think it seems like one thing that that you have that most other CPG operators don't is that it seems like and you can correct me if I'm wrong that you got a bit of you have a bit of a testing ground to kind of validate product ideas and flavors IE those those two gyms that you own is that I'm curious how have you leverage your your members feedback to help drive product development decisions do you use this internal data in any ways to also like pitch retailers when you're we they are quite literally our testing audience and they love every bit of being the testing testing audience we have such a good relationship with these guys and girls and we have you know these 400+ members that we have um so like anytime a new product comes out anytime I get some new testing or anytime we're like in the innovation lab um you know I'll get excess amount of bars like sent to us and I'll have people test them out and um like just like coming up in September we're reducing our flavor counts down to five hero flavors and we put a survey out to all 400+ people and said tell me your top five of you to rank these so the five flavors that we come out we put a survey out to our members at the gym we put our surveys out to members of our like subscription club members and also our wholesalers and regular e commerce customers and we just like took all that data put it into one and said alright here's what they said the top five was and that's what we're gonna put out there so that's right I think you listen to your customers I quite literally have like the best like ground for telling me what sucks and what's not like from packaging to like would you grab this on the shelf what do you see about this like what what looks good to you people will give me great feedback and they're very honest about it and I also have like a you know people I think people buy brands not just products and I think that people wanna be a part of something and with our gym you know we sell to a lot of other gyms is that when they give me that feedback you know I make sure I take notes and that our our sales our sales girl for um director of nutrition for us that's looking to sell to gyms jiu jitsu gyms and boutique stores like that she takes notes on how we want the product displayed and what their feedback is and what they say about it so we can use that to have other gyms sell the product and have great velocity in those gyms yeah I think you got into like a thousand or so gyms before you I'm curious obviously we've got enough we're in enough of these gyms we've gotten enough feedback we feel like we've dialed things in enough or okay we're ready to start expanding into retail at this I just wanted to get into many gyms as possible because like I saw like I I read about like how RX Bar just expanded into a ton of gyms yeah I mean like cause I own gyms I work out every morning at 5 I love it I buy I drink the Kool Aid of all of it and I think that like I don't know I think everyone at some point copies someone kind of like to the point like someone's gonna copy battle bars and sure take their success and you try to make it better than that and so like we kind of just like I didn't really have a plan I was kind of like you ever see that movie Dark Knight it's like do I look like a guy with a plan like look at my mustache this thing's disgusting so I'm like I don't really have a plan no I have a plan now but I mean before it was like dude you're just trying to throw shit at the wall and hope it sticks and I'm like I know how to talk to gym members I don't know how to talk to retailers yeah they like when I originally started looking at 7 11 I like finally like cold called someone on the phone and all of a sudden I randomly got like a like this form to fill out I was like what the fuck does all this mean pallet what how big is this like what and then I was like man I need to stick to what I'm good at so I was like I can talk to gym owners all day long like yeah this is what we make it for this will sell to you this what you sell it for you know and then like your members will love it because it's better known and like Crossfit and boutique gyms like that they love veterans and it's an easier sell and our and the best part is that when they taste it they're like oh my god this is actually good so it's like a it's a it's definitely a bonus yeah what's what are the key things and I'm mostly curious in terms of the differences between traditional retail in terms of actually driving velocity and driving sell through and and in terms of strategies that work best compared to traditional retail you know you know what I Learned is like I Learned that in it for for gyms to turning velocity in gyms where you know like I can make the most margin when I sell wholesale direct right if I gotta sell it to a certain retailer I gotta pay a distributor and and I mean you know how the process goes but like so early on you wanna keep as much margin as possible so you can have positive cash flow and like for gyms what we've said is like alright we want velocity in these gyms we want to keep them turning so we like you we created like a a a community page where everyone's apart and we want want people to feel like they're a part of our journey so like I'm like man at our gyms that we own I have like private community pages where everyone's talking non stop everyone's communicating with each other non stop I'm like so why am I not doing that with other gyms that's by that buy and sell battle bars and if I'm learning out how to run my gym more effectively and make profits cause it's very being a gym owner is not for the faint of heart man it's freaking hard dude it's hard to make money so you know being able to connect with other gym owners talk about different ways that they can be successful a big thing we found is like pulling from my old GNC days is like a big step was like alright I want you to sell three items every time someone buys something at checkout I want you to sell three of them right I don't want you to I don't they should never walk up and just have like a fit aid right they should walk out with a fit aid and a battle bar that's what that's how it is we always push and Fit Aid guys are like my they're my boys and they're awesome people so we have a great relationship marketing wise so we're always saying like grab a battle bar and a Fit Aid I sell for example at a gym it's like you buy a battle bar for four bucks that's our suggested retail price and a Fit Aid is three bucks but I'll work out a deal at my gym I say just do a 2 for 6 and or buy two battle bars right or buy uh like 2 for 6 bucks of battle bars and they no one ever cause they know they're gonna buy it the next day so I'm like why would I buy just one that sounds silly so I'll just buy two you know if I see I go to the store and I see two and I'm like well shit I guess I gotta buy the other one cause it's a deal right but in reality it's like I don't know is it a greatest deal I don't know am I do I really need to save like 40 cents you know but I'm still gonna go do it but that's the way the consumer thinks and the idea is you just you you get them to buy as much as possible up front and that'll keep them coming back because they're used to that like they get like they get that buyer like consistency you know and that and that transits well so we have like the Faqs and cheat sheets we send over we're always constantly communicating about new flavors and then constantly telling them of what's new and coming up and making sure they feel like they're a part of our team cause they are yeah yeah before looking back now or they're just starting to approach retail what are like a few things that come top of mind that they should keep in mind as to give them the best chance of getting on the shelf know your margin like No. 1 know your margin because know your margin know your days to pay be strict on your days pay especially if you're great product but you gotta develop you gotta develop that community and that product first cause if you don't have that community and product then the more demand you have the more the more you can work on your contract with that certain retailer right sometimes like at the beginning I'm just like dude whatever if you want to take my product 60 days to pay okay you know 90 days to pay okay just put my product on the shelf being on the shelf doesn't mean you're winning right being on the shelf with positive cash flow means you're winning for us we've we're very strict I'm like who we do business with I'm like I'm not just gonna do business because it sounds it's good marketing you know to be very clear like very fair like Vitamin Shop they're fantastic customer for us they're fantastic I don't really know if we make a lot of money I mean I know but we don't make a ton of money off it but Vitamin Shop is such a respected name in the industry and and it drives a good velocity for us and it's good it's good cash flow but more importantly it's great marketing and I can't tell you how many customers I've got from Vitamin Shop just because they walked into of vitamin shop and the manager was like hey you guys gotta try this this is incredible I mean I got an interview with Walmart specifically because someone walked into a vitamin shop and loved the product so much and sent it to their buddy who's a buyer at Walmart or like same thing like H E B all these other people are going into H E B left and right but like with brokers or distributors or what not we got an H E B direct outside of the fact that I like slid into their LinkedIn and personal DMS about 10,000 times growing too fast is a problem and and I think that everyone wants to like win the World Series and not play 162 games I think that like or in your to your reference they don't want to play the 17 now which is weird 17 games is so used to saying 16 game but 17 game NFL season they want to play they want to win the Super Bowl but not play the full season it's like no man like you you gotta play the full season you gotta learn you gotta take your legs you're gonna make a ton of mistakes but if you don't quit you can't fail if you don't quit right so like you just gotta stay the course learn as much as possible but if you try to go too fast like you could have a day where you lose a half million dollars sitting in your checking account and you're and you're just like looking like this everything's cool your marketing budget where you wanna go up whatever and then three days later you could be down to like four digits you know and that that's scary yeah really going through it or having a great team around you that tells you don't do that right yeah so like for like for us I'm like you know man like I I I wanna uh I wanna be able to say that I'm like in certain stores but it's only cool if you're in those stores if you can stay in those stores you know so for us like I'm focused on driving velocity and supporting our partners you know yep like like H E B like I wanna sell a ton of bars in H E B and we honestly we don't have a massive marketing budget you know we're not like this huge company so like we wanna be able to sell to H E B and watch them move and do coupons with them and but like what we've relied on is like we haven't really marketed much with them because we just don't have the budget that they desire for that but dude they they it sells because Texas they only they're in Texas that was strategy for us because Texas loves military they love their veterans we're gonna go to Texas and we don't have this massive marketing budget but we know that if we keep emailing our customers in Texas they're gonna show up and they do and they show up and we get and the Po from H E B comes like clockwork you know the the invoice gets paid on time every time they're a great customer on that topic when you're going through that in terms of like kind of the key variables that were top of mind for you or another way to look at it I'm not sure if you work with an agency in terms of what you really wanted to prior yeah you know I'm not a graphic designer I I'm not you know I feel like I have a good eye for stuff I know what I like and I like I feel like I can point stuff out that works originally we had an in house designer you know I did with that with our it's funny in our headquarters it's here but in it's down uh downstairs we have like a big lounge area we have a golf simulator and like plunge and sauna and a full bar and on the wall is like all of our packaging in frames from the first packaging we created to the most recent packaging and like we just redid our packaging again and it'll probably won't be the last time because you have to always do something new you always have to keep it fresh right um you know we had something we had someone in house and then we put something out on LinkedIn that we were looking for someone to work for us on a contractual basis but like really dive into our brand and I work with this guy his name is Lucas Wetzel he's just he's a he's incredible like his communication is top like very very quick turnaround time professional incredibly professional and we to everything we said in the past is that like we have a great relationship so it clicks you know but like you know like as you expand like you always want to keep your options open and you want to be able to have a lot of keep those relationships with people like yourself right that um they know the space and they know regulatory like regulatory on how to create packaging you can't just have a graphic designer who has no experience and and and packaging right in CPG because then all of a sudden your nutrition label looks like shit but you're like wow this looks great but you have no idea that you're about to you can't go on the shelf like that right so um having good like co packing relationships as well you know we work with uh we work with core pack and they they handle all our packaging and boxes and they're great at like cross referencing everything making sure it's good communicating about timelines and understanding the quality and the sizing and they have great packaging engineers they bring out that works with us so that's great yeah it's an ongoing not problem but it's an ongoing thing that you're always having to pay attention to because you know you can't have just one option you gotta have backup options and you gotta have like a lot of great partners right I think you guys have raised you know million or two bucks maybe more at this point what have you found works well from a a fundraising process in terms of yeah and I think that like people there's a lot of people that have money that didn't serve and they want to feel a part of that early on and I think that like that early on like before you get into private equity before you're like putting your books together and looking at a true valuation of Ivada and all like your revenue and all that stuff right like everyone's like everyone wants to like I I talked to this one like founder not long ago he's they've been around for like a year but like they were doing like 50 grand or something like they just started but they it was like 50 grand like a couple months and I was like well they're like well like well what do you think you guys what do you what are you saying you guys are worth if you're going to raise money and they're like well we're gonna go get a professional valuation like what do you mean a professional valuation like dude like you guys are so new like your valuation is what an investor will pay right that is what it is because like at that early on like that multiple like really big investors they're not caring about that multiple they're caring about the multiple pass like alright when you're when you pass that like 2 to 3 million or 4 to 5 million revenue stage then like then like then we'll talk right but like for us like we were fortunate not fortunate because we made our own luck is that when we sold our last business a lot of people made a lot of money and they knew that I was a big part of that so um it was not easy but it's like it's a challenging process because we've had to go back and ask we've had to go back and ask for money a lot and you know I'm fortunate to have some pretty awesome investors including the old president of our ex bar Jim Murray great guy and you know he knows the space incredibly well he's become a friend and he's he's gives me great advice and you know I have you know my business partner Adam is our biggest investor outside of me but he's our biggest investor and you know Adam sold a logistics company you know did very well for himself and was bored and wanted to get into something new so like but he knows logistics and for anyone that's scaling their business when you get to that scale phase you're like alright well how can we tweak our how can we start shaving some things elsewhere without hurting the product transportation is No. 1 right can you cut your cost can you do that and he's he's been incredibly helpful with that so um so yeah I think I think you know our goal now like we're in this phase of growth where it's like everyone's like oh well you gotta go hit like go hit 5 million how come you're not at that right there yet and it's like wait a minute you can do that but it cost money to go do that right you gotta in order to make money you gotta go spend money on product you know goes go and your cogs right so for us we've uh we we've gotten to a point where like we're about to go nationwide with Speedway and after that 7 11 Walmart loves travel stops and beyond that right and we have and and we're focusing on with a very small team we're focusing on driving velocity within those so that I can take that data go to some serious investors and I you and by the way choose your investors like you choose your co packer or you choose your wife because you're married they they're in your brand they're on the cap table right so you're you're a part of their business and they are just as much a part of yours so yeah you gotta be strategic you gotta be strategic on how you take that money so so for me we're we're preparing to to go raise uh between four and 5 million bucks in our next round we have some great investors kind of lined up and to show cause we know we're like wait a minute like if we we go do this thing like we can make it big like we have velocity the bar selling right and you know we we've kind of backed off of meta and and uh Google a lot actually we're not really doing meta Google as much anymore as opposed to just saying I'm gonna start focusing on having success in our retailers and making them love us and then once they love us it we can trickle down whereas the traditional way is like it used to be before like all the other crazy stuff happened with with apple and and all that it was like you should you build your brand DC and then you grow from there and it's still alive some people can still do that but like we did that right and we did decent at it I think we did okay but then our velocity in stores is growing faster than our velocity in online so it's like you go for you go with what works and that's what's working for us so we we double down on it and you know that's that's part of our next fundraise is a big focus on that like you can get into these stores but you gotta go pay to get in these stores and then I think is insanely important yeah that's not talked about much but I think you're totally right on that front yeah why get rid of equity if you don't have to a bank just a bank is gonna give you money if you're profitable be profitable right don't don't be a loser be profitable yep right totally last question for you any brands or just trends in general across the CPG space that you've been kind of just tracking on the side that you're kind of excited about or feel like there's a lot of potential behind like in the competitive space like with mine or not competitive just anything you see on the the grocery store shelf that you all of a sudden brand new brand new discovery like I'm starting buying this every week or yeah anything that anything that jumps out I mean this is not an advertisement I don't have skin in the game have you have you heard of these guys what fit aid no dude I mean they make like it's just the the cleanest and healthiest like vitamins they they call it like vitamins you'll enjoy drinking like they make like they're big in like fitness like gyms Crossfit gyms are big in like what's the name of the brand it's called Fit Aid or Life Aid Beverage okay oh that's one you're talking about got it okay but like I'm telling you man like this thing if you like grape that is it's zero sugar it's a I believe it's sweetened with monk fruit um but there's you know encapsulated uh creatine my Kreav Bev right there's BCA's electrolytes turmeric vitamins B C whatever Coq 10 right glucosamine there's everything you need for recovery and I work out like a lunatic and when I when I'm done like there is nothing better like I can't explain it to you like Adam when you work out when you work out next you gotta like drink one of these afterwards it's so refreshing I can't even tell they have an energy drink line they have like a um like it's like I I think it's like a grape asi I but it's a or however you say that I screwed that up but what is it is it ASI I or how's that all the crap energy out there on the market that's just like loaded with crap OK dude so OK I'll tell you a story another reason why I like like Fit Aid so back in the day in logistics I'm not gonna call the company who it was but the company we used to ship for a very large now large very large energy drink company and I was drinking like three of them a day and you you know this brand that uh well the the we we had like a freight board we had to book off of and they the uh the company called us and said hi I need like hundred or 150 truck loads of of uh concentrate of our concentrate shipped to um some of our facilities across the country we're like okay like alright well they have to be the drivers have to have a certification for hauling hazardous materials I was like okay that's I'm like looking at my drink and I'm like what do you mean hazardous and they're like yeah it's it's corrosive and I was like well well right like I'm like what am I doing I'm I'm drinking corrosive like what am I doing but that's what it was and I was like never again I didn't I didn't drink one more of them I was done with it so anyway I find I look for brands like Fit Aid Fit Aid is not new man they've been around for a very like a very very long time they're uh they're they're just great guys if like really narrow down the space we partner with a lot of things together so I I just and they're good people so like I love giving them shout outs but they deserve it they make a great product they just came out with a a hydration stick as well I love the hydration space I don't know how big you are in the hydration space protect with a K they make so they're very unique in that the most hydration companies have powder these guys make it liquid it absorbs the absorption rates much greater it's delicious but they're also like a bunch of Navy owned rappers and that's nice kind of cool I'll check that one too yeah good guys and then in the THC space uh there my buddy uh who is actually the CEO of Kill Cliff do you remember Kill Cliff I don't think I remember that one no Kill Cliff is like a Joe Rogan partner drink um I if I saw the logo I'd probably recognize it you would you would know it but so the old CEO of Kill Cliff and the old uh one of the old uh founders of Kill Cliff they started a company called Athletic THC I'm gonna I don't wanna screw it up it's like Delta 9 but it's like they made like a pre workout a flow and it's like so it's microdosed THC with like B vitamins and things like that so like you can take it like like I give it to my girlfriend before she does yoga and she's just like like flowing through yoga and it just has like a good calming effect and then they have this power formula that if you take it before you work out and it's just like it just gives you a different style push interesting I'll definitely check that one out for sure yeah athletic THC I think they're just about to raise some cash too so good alright yeah cool I'll definitely check that one out yeah Alex this has been great really appreciate the time this has been awesome how are you man what's the best place for a people to follow along with you personally and then also what's the best place for people to follow along with with battle bars as well yeah so I mean obviously you can like follow me on LinkedIn just look me up Alex with and then you could uh um go to like an Instagram a with 3 3 and then of course battle underscore bars you find us there a lot of cool stuff on there we're launching a podcast called fitvo be on the lookout there we have some crazy cool guests including including like UFC champs uh guys like Ryan Baeder who's an investor of ours as well and other like cool entrepreneurs billionaires and like really learn from them and try to like learn how we can make money together and learn some good tips of the trade so we don't have to all make the mistakes that they've made and I've made and Adam you've probably made too right for sure hell yeah Awesome Alex you've been great really appreciate the time I think that's the pod I have to imagine you get asked about the transition entrepreneurship a fair amount I don't want to ask you too much about this and rehash yourself I was like shit like I just realized like man it's a it's a tough transition though man I commend I commend all what does that feel nostalgic do like talk about being on top of the world you're thinking about ultimately actually going like that first go back and you found this next one yeah I think um with our co packer now and I'll say their name we can't worry about other people it's a totally different product than ours yeah I read that you switched from canola oil to coconut oil so I think that you know it's crazy you're spot on that's we but like to your point like I it sounds like you really focused on launching can I be brutally honest with you so I don't even know how to give them like what jumps out in terms of what's different so you gotta have all your systems dialed in so for us like that was a focus of ours is like alright what was top of mind for you guys when you're creating that brief so it's I think it's always like an on the topic of fundraising stuff well I I think we have great branding it's whatever you convince someone to pay early on in order to make money in this business you know and then having a good banking relationship they it's incredible and it's clean energy right definitely try it another hydration company is called protect it's like it's like your Delta 9