
How Gym Culture & Fitness Influencers are Changing the Business Game | David Poole And Marc Fabiani DSH #1249
π₯ David & Marc on Building an Energy Drink Empire, Gym Culture & the Business of Fitness π
In this high-energy episode, we sit down with David & Marc, the co-founders of Old School Energy, to discuss their journey from gym ownership to launching a fast-growing energy drink brand. They share insider secrets about the supplement industry, gym culture, and how they built a business thatβs taking the fitness world by storm.
We dive into:
β
How they went from gym owners to energy drink entrepreneurs
β
The science behind their drink & why ingredients matter
β
How influencers and athletes are helping grow the brand
β
The future of fitness, wellness, and energy drinks
β
How social media changed business & brand-building forever
This episode is packed with business strategies, fitness industry insights, and the mindset needed to succeed in a competitive market!
π² Follow David & Marc & Get Old School Energy:
π Website: https://theoldskoolenergy.com/Β
π Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theoldskoolenergy/Β
π YouTube: Old Skool Energy
β± CHAPTERS
π 00:00 β How David & Marc Manifested Their Business
π 05:10 β The Journey from Gym Ownership to Energy Drink Entrepreneurship
π 11:25 β The Science Behind Their Formula & Ingredients Breakdown
π 17:40 β The Competitive Energy Drink Market & Big Players Like Red Bull & Monster
π 23:55 β How Social Media & Influencers Are Changing the Fitness Industry
π 30:10 β The Power of Gym Culture & Community in Brand Growth
π 36:25 β Why Clean Ingredients Matter in Energy Drinks
π 42:40 β The Business Side: Scaling & Expanding Nationwide
π 49:00 β New Flavors, Product Development & Future Expansion
π 55:30 β Advice for Entrepreneurs & Closing Thoughts
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π₯ Apply to Be on the Podcast & Business Inquiries:
π APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application
π© BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: jenna@digitalsocialhour.com
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Full Transcript
what's crazy is we talk about this all the time we have literally manifested this whole business so like meeting you meeting him right meeting everybody we met was literally just a conversation we had two weeks before it happened damn you know so we'll say something like wouldn't that be cool if and then it happens yeah that's so nuts yeah it's just and it's insane and it will from the very beginning so david was a member at my gym yeah and he came into my office and he said i don't know
what we're gonna do but i'm gonna do business with you someday and i was just like okay and
we just went to lunch one day and and then uh well we've known each other for what six years now
seven years yeah and we but we've finally started this business uh just just under three years ago words are powerful man yeah absolutely man all right guys got david and mark here from old school energy thanks for uh driving in guys nine hour drive absolutely man thank you for having us yeah that's a long drive man that's a that's actually no i drove from jersey to cali once so i was gonna say that was the longest drive I've seen. That's a little longer, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. But we did it in batches.
Yeah, of course. Yeah, we stopped three times.
Absolutely. But you guys had to bring the goodies, right? Yeah.
Can't really fly with liquids. Yeah, let's crack this open.
It's been a long day for me, so I need some more energy. Get you some old school, man.
Yes, sir. So how do you guys, oh, wow, that tastes pretty pretty good how do you guys create this and talk to everyone about what's in it and everything well start from the beginning we actually were going to start with a um a supplement line and um this just seemed to be a little bit uh easier to get started as far as sourcing ingredients and stuff like that.
And so, um, so my background, I coach professional bodybuilders. So I have like a knowledge of nutrition and stuff.
And I took, I read medical studies on ingredients and things like that. And I only put in here something that I would be okay with giving myself or one of my athletes right and so i just literally forgot your question basically how did you start the the company and oh well so once we got um put together like um where to get our ingredients how to um get our cans printed, where to have it manufactured.
Then we just started that process and did a really small pilot run and that went well. And then we did a little bit bigger run and then that went well.
And now we're doing a lot more. Nice.
Because I know it's a pretty competitive space. So the fact that you're having success is impressive, right? Yeah, man.
And that's, you know, it's, we're definitely having a lot more nice because i know it's a pretty competitive space so the fact that you're having success is impressive right yeah i mean that's you know it's uh we're definitely having a lot of fun i mean the drink is something distinct it's like its own type of flavor um people are always trying to guess what the flavor is because we don't tell anybody oh really it's just the old school original so tell us what you think the flavor is it's it's like something i've never had before i wouldn't even know what to put on it you know yeah yeah like i can't compare it to anything and that's the goal actually is for people to for it to become its own flavor right like so when coca-cola started out a hundred years ago it had its own flavor now we all understand what coke tastes like right so that's kind of where we're at with that and then the new flavors that are coming out they're more distinguished like uh have more of a flavor that's distinguishable yeah that's an interesting approach not to mention the flavor actually yeah i don't know if anyone else does that right uh well there's there's there's energy drinks that have kind of their own thing well like for instance red bull they, Red Bull, they started out, and who knows what that flavor was, but now everybody's familiar with what that is. Right.
Yeah, Red Bull's like, they've been around forever, right? Red Bull and Monster, those are like the two tacos. Absolutely, man.
They've been around 20, 26 years. Not only in that.
I don't know how long they've been around. But we love them.
They paved the way for the whole market, you know, the industry. There was one in Vegas that just sold for a lot of money.
Energy drink? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Ghost. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. It was a big exit.
I never tried that one. That was Dr.
Pepper bought them, right? I think so, yeah. So these soda companies are buying these energy drink companies, it looks like.
Yeah. And that's, you know, that's, I definitely foresee people coming at us, you know, for sure.
But right now, I mean, we're just having fun and living it up. Yeah.
You guys had a good network of influencers to send this to, right? Yeah. Yeah.
We have a really good network and a lot of people now that are interested in wanting to kind of jump. Because, you know, the way we do it over here is it's it's literally a family right so that's people want to join the family and you know kind of hang out and so we we're having a lot of fun i love it man yeah because uh you guys worked with some ufc athletes and fighters in the past right yeah i met you guys at power slaps you're tapped in the base right be cool to see you guys at power slap down the road yeah we're coming to...
Is Power Slap 12? I think it's Power Slap 12, yeah. Oh, yeah? We'll be there.
Let's go. That's the one in Vegas, right? Yeah.
Yeah, they're in Saudi right now and then they'll come to Vegas and we'll go there. Again, we're not trying to step on anybody's toes.
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The energy drink market as a whole is growing about close to eight percent a year so um you know like there's there's enough uh people to go around who was wanting energy drinks so we're just uh taking a little bit of a piece of pie of that that market and going crazy with it, actually. I wonder if that's because liquor sales are down.
Yeah. You know? Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I think people are looking for a healthy alternative, too, right? Like, ours has, you know, pretty healthy ingredients. It's only 20 calories.
You got L-theanine in here, right? Yeah, and thiamine. I mean, you knowiamine you know that's we're definitely going to you know we're not a health drink but we're a health conscience drink right that's what i always say so people that are trying to stay away from those ingredients they don't know what they are they turn to ours and there's 13 ingredients in the okay right yeah and only five grams of sugar i feel like i've seen some energy drinks have like 50 plus grams yeah some guys hit us up with 140 grams whole sugar yeah and a lot and a lot of companies they use uh high fructose corn syrup which is an alternative for sugar but um our bodies really don't process that very well and so just the fact that has just a little bit of actual cane sugar, our body can use that as actual energy.
I just don't want to put stuff in there that is not okay for your body to digest. For instance, we don't put any food coloring in it at all.
There's really no point because you can see the liquid anyways right so why why color it yeah 100 and a lot of people are really um conscious of like red 40 i i think that's one of the food colorings that people are kind of afraid of right now i don't i don't know why but we don't have any food coloring in ours well they just banned one of the reds i think that's the Red 40. Don't quote me on that.
It might have been Red 3 or Red 5, but who knows? There's so many. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. So many of them.
And our case is trying to ban high fructose corn syrup, I think, too. Right.
Yeah, and it's probably a good idea. Yeah.
It is cheaper than sugar, but it's just not good for you. It doesn't look like it's the healthiest.
No. Yeah, I don't think it's the healthiest alternative for sure.
Yeah. Which sugar do you guys use? Just regular cane sugar.
Oh, God. Yeah, cane's probably better than the cheap sugar too, I assume, right? Yeah, for sure.
And it's so little that's in there. You know, it's, we have to, because we have to round up, so it's actually a little less than five grams of sugar, but we have to round up just in case.
Round up to be safe. Right, just to be safe, you know.
And so it's only 20 calories in a 16-ounce can. I feel that.
And that's pretty reasonable, I think. Yeah.
What were you guys doing before this? You're both from Idaho, right? I'm actually from California um and um I so I do a couple of did a couple of things I coach pro bodybuilders but I'm also a retired policeman and uh so I was a policeman for about 23 years and um how actually how this kind of started is um one of the guys that I worked with at the police farm, we started a, a gym called old school iron and, uh, has the same exact logo. And, uh, so when we, when David and I started this company, we used the same logo and just changed iron to energy.
And because the, the gym was really kind of a cult following a lot of really professional like power lifters and strong men trained there and stuff so um we just and we just love the logo i mean it's kind of it's clean it's pretty cool yeah it's super clean gives me like gold's gym vibes yeah the old old school right yeah old school yeah i think the one by me where i grew up shut down actually are they still doing well gold's gym no i don't think they're around damn i think most of them have been sold off and now those gyms that were gold's gym are are named something else wow i don't think there's around yeah they were like an empire back they were massive yeah they were everywhere i wonder if they couldn't adapt to the changing gym culture yeah i don't know i don't know if somebody sold out i don't know how it happened i have no idea i just know they you know they were everywhere at one point and then gone the next well i'm part of lifetime and they seem to be killing it man building a third one in vegas in a year allegedly and um dude it's 400 bucks a month now wow for a For a gym. Isn't that nuts? That's crazy.
That is.
That's a lot.
In Idaho, people complain about $39 for a gym.
I wish, bro.
Dude, I wish.
And it's only going up.
When I first joined, it was $200, and they keep raising like $50 a year.
Yeah, that's insane.
But you have to remember in a gym, I don't know.
I've never been into that gym. But there's probably half a million dollars worth of equipment in there that you get to use probably and so you're basically renting time to use half a million dollars of equipment yeah they're also like more than just a gym i think they call themselves like a wellness center or whatever yeah because they got like the sauna the cold plunges yeah and like all of that costs money yeah you know it costs a lot for a for a real good quality um treadmills it could be like six thousand dollars just for one of them wow and some gyms have like 20 of those yeah some gym has like 50 of them holy crap yeah some of them have like the peloton bikes yeah and those you know those stair steppers yeah they're like stairmaster
they're like 10 grand for what yeah damn yeah lifetime has like eight of those i think yeah yeah it's a big investment up front holy crap so getting the gym business is not a appealing business i was like i mean i i own a gym and actually um we went we franchised it and um just bad timing the uh covid all the covid shutdowns um killed like six of our franchisees because they had just opened and then they just couldn't keep the doors open yeah i remember when uh bradley martin was yeah he had to get him out here right and he was staying open during covid taking those penalties oh yeah yeah he was taking A lot of them too. It was a mustard day or something.
Crazy. Yeah.
It was sad.
Wiped them out. him out here right and he was staying open during covid taking those penalties oh yeah yeah he was taking a lot of them yesterday or something crazy yeah it was sad wiped him out and i agree with what bradley said too you know like it's he's keeping it open because for him you know it helped with his mental focus it helped with getting him through that time and so i 100% agree to exactly what he said yeah you know keep the gym open you got people in there that are maybe suffering from mental health whatever and this is kind of helping them 100% of grief yeah yeah shout out to him for sticking it out I think he wants to build one in Vegas too so I love that and it's a new era of like uh content creators coming into gyms now and filming their workouts and everything oh for sure yeah than before yeah you're seeing a lot of people it's like getting healthy is the thing now right so you're seeing everybody do it you know yeah and uh it's really good to see yeah i think health is like the new wealth honestly absolutely like people care about how healthy their business partners are their friends are their family are before it wasn't as cared about i feel like yeah it seems like more people are more conscious about what they're putting in their body and what they're doing with their bodies well look at mr b's dav Beast, David Dobrik, right? They just lost a ton of weight.
They look phenomenal. Dobrik's was crazy.
Yeah, Dobrik's was crazy, dude. I'm seeing steroid videos coming out.
People are accusing him of taking steroids. Yeah.
I don't know, man. He looked good.
He looked great. It didn't look unnatural to me, but who knows? No, man.
He looked good. That was a lot of hard work for sure.
I haven't seen Mr. Beast yet, though.
I got to check that one out. Yeah, he looks good, man.
I just saw a video with him. He looks shredded.
Damn. And his face, he looks good.
Damn. I've been watching Beast games, but I haven't noticed his shirt's always on.
Yeah. You guys been watching that show, Beast games? I haven't seen it yet, no.
I haven't. We've been so busy, man.
Yeah, we've been all over the place. We stay very, very busy.
No time for Squid Game or Netflix or anything? I got kids, so my kids fill me in on what's happening. Yeah, Beast Games was nice, man.
He gave away $5 million. Yeah.
Wow. Crazy.
You can afford to do that. Yeah.
Mr. Beast.
It wasn't his meeting, man. He got investors, but still.
Content. He seems like a good guy, though.
Yeah, but content's like the new celebrity. Right.
Oh, for sure. These streamers and social media stuff.
We were in Power good guy though you know yeah but content's like the new like celebrity right oh for sure these streamers and social media stuff we were in power slap you know down in vegas there was a lot of kids i had no idea who they were they're like oh you know this kid has got this much and this kid's got this much i was like yeah i'm like sending pictures to my kids like who is this they were probably freaking out oh yeah for sure yeah bryce hall was there he has like 30 million yeah i talked to bryce hall when I was there um nice guy 30 million followers but you would never know if you're just like you know grown-ass man walking around like who is that you don't know yeah and they were all super friendly super nice so yeah do you guys even have tiktok no no not yet no nothing instagram youtube we have instagram okay yeah and and uh so we actually are starting our tiktok but this nine hour cancellation or whatever happened really put um kind of blocked us for a little while things had to get back up and going and so we're in the process of that yeah you can't even download the app right now no it's great yeah if you deleted it i saw phones were going for like 40 grand or something like that on ebay that's insane dude i think some sold for yeah like 10 20k yeah that's crazy i'm not paying that i might sell one of my old phones that has tiktok on it if i get 10k i'm down yeah wow people are obsessed with that app it's crazy i know it is crazy i remember when it was a dance i still think of it as like a dance thing that's how it started yeah. Yeah.
That's how they got a user base. Are your kids on it all day? I think, yeah, all my kids are on it.
All my kids are like grown up except for my youngest. Okay.
But they're all on it. Yeah.
My screen time is pretty bad. It's eight hours a day.
Is it bad? I mean, that's pretty high, right? Yeah. Third of the day.
Oh, yeah, damn. But I'm working on it, so that's how I make excuses for it.
Absolutely. you never scroll it i do scroll too i'm not gonna lie it's fucking a dick i i have a a goal i set for two hours a day and i always go over just a little bit you know that's solid though two hours well done man yeah because you know it's like i i before this business um i wasn't on it at all and but you have to be on social media now, right? And so I'm always kind of checking in to see what our growth is and stuff like that and what our engagement is.
So I still stay pretty close to two hours, but I don't normally make two hours. This is a little bit more.
Yeah, well done. That's love, that's love.
But yeah, these days you need it.
It's inevitable, right?
Oh, for sure.
I mean, look at how Power Slab grew.
Look at how companies are growing now off TikTok Live.
Yeah, and my background was business.
So I've been in business for, what, 13, 14 years?
And I was kind of pre that.
I mean, I remember when Facebook was, there was no way to,
I mean, you could advertise on Facebook, but nobody knew how to do it. Right right so it was all you young kids that knew how to do it not us but uh now i'm watching it just and now we're in it it's crazy well we have a 22 year old guy that helps us out you got a couple kids that help us out but no man it's it's an important thing and it's definitely very important in 2025 that you stay alert and um you know that you're on it and you're you're staying interactive right that's the hardest part is just to be posting constantly and keeping gaining cost 100 yeah even myself i mean i'm only 27 pretty young but i i hire these teenagers or kids in their young 20s to stay in the loop about trending in social media like or else i'll age out too out too.
Yeah, it changes. It changes quick too.
Dude, quick. Because, yeah, I'm 27, but I've been in social media for 10 years now.
So I'm considered like a veteran to some of these kids, which is crazy, right? So you're old school. In the social media space, I'm technically old school, yeah.
Because not a lot of guys make it 10 years on any platform. You've been on platforms for 10 years? Instagram, yeah.
Dang, man. It's a tight school.
Wow. That's crazy.
And that's super rare. Like if you years on any platform you've been on platforms for 10 years instagram yeah it's a tight school wow yeah that's crazy and that's super rare like if you go on youtube barely anyone has been around for 10 years well bradley martin's been around for a while right yeah he's out there but there's not many guys but like him and mr beast have been around for a while but a lot of guys fall out oh for sure yeah they lost they get like a year like the hawk girl, get a solid year, however long she lasted and they're done.
Well, it's like any business, you know, like people get tired of it. It's not what they thought it was, you know? And just like any business, people will start a business and then we'll just kind of fizzle out because they didn't make the money that they thought they were going to make, or it's harder than they thought it would be.
You know, so there's all kinds of reasons why people.
Yeah. A hundred percent.
Sure.
Yeah.
And some businesses aren't meant to last forever too.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You got to call it quits.
I'm on like my probably 10th one by now.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This one is finally doing well though.
There you go, man.
Got to just keep firing, you know?
Yeah.
Stay persistent.
Yeah.
Caught the podcast wave at the right time.
Yeah.
You like it?
I love it, dude.
It's a lot of fun. Yeah, man.
About 1400 episodes, some really cool conversations. I watched a lot of your content, dude.
You were really good. Dude, thanks.
Yeah, a lot of interesting people, man. Yeah.
And isn't that fun? You get to meet all these interesting people and sit down. 10 years ago, I would have never known anyone from Idaho or wherever.
Yeah. I've had people from Alaska, Idaho, other countries, all sorts of religions, political beliefs.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's cool. That's awesome, man.
I'm happy for you. You're killing it.
Dude. Thanks.
Yeah. But I just imply people watching this, stop living in a bubble, you know? Yeah.
You're talking to the same beliefs as you, you got to get outside the box. It's important.
Super important. Right.
I see that on Twitter. People are just arguing.
It's like, dude, get some new perspectives. Yeah.
You know? And actually take it in, you know, and listen to them and see maybe a tweeter, you know, a little bit of it maybe. Absolutely.
Who do you guys watch the most right now? On what? On podcast or YouTube or content wise? I watch a lot of the Nelk stuff. I'm a big fan of Nelk.
My kids are huge fans. They watched Nelk since they were staying in kids' apartments because they were traveling around the country.
Like pre-Steve and all that stuff. Nelk, Bradley, anything to do with fighting really and pay attention to.
My guy over there marcus marcus t yeah yeah i uh i i have to know i don't watch a lot of uh i i i would say i only watch supercross and motocross whoa yeah that's that's literally the only thing that i will sit down and actually take time to watch wow yeah i've. I've never heard of someone watching that, to be honest.
Yeah. And what's crazy is it's huge.
It's millions of people watch it, right? You know, and I remember when I was a little kid, my dad bought me my first dirt bike. I wasn't even in kindergarten yet.
And so it's just something I've done all my life life and i'm not very good at it compared to these guys you know but it's it uh i under at least i understand what it takes for them to do what they're doing and it's just fascinating for me to watch and that's a good point though you can't truly appreciate how hard something is unless you actually go out and try it yeah yeah i try it i got a lot of broken bones from doing it but yeah because all it takes is one bad fall oh yeah right yeah and these guys they don't get paid enough they uh they go out there and they're it's one of the most physically demanding uh sports there is and they're getting paid in my opinion a lot lower than they deserve because it does they do have a lot of fan base i know i look at risk to reward ratios i don't know what that one is but we were talking about power slop earlier it's like damn 5k to get potential concussion no thank you yeah yeah well i don't know what that is that sounds pretty intense though because they're high up in the air on these jumps right oh yeah like you're you're looking way up at him you know and then of course when you're
watching on tv it's it's hard to put a perspective put it in perspective yeah but it's it's a it's i love watching it you know and i do kind of go down the rabbit hole on on youtube videos you know and you like learn stuff you know and i i learned i learned a lot about um energy drinks just watching youtube really. Really? Yeah.
Wow. Yeah, YouTube University, baby.
Yeah. YouTube University, yeah.
I mean, I learned more YouTube than college. You know, like we were talking when we started this company, one of the reasons I've been so, like, all in is by watching YouTube videos and other entrepreneurs and stuff, it changed my mindset.
Right. I thought, you know, this big.
And now I think at a much massive level what I used to think, you know. So just some of those watching those videos of those guys that did it before us changed my whole mindset.
Yeah. And that's one of the reasons we're here.
And, and I think his mindset was always bigger than most people's. Yeah.
Sure. Yeah.
Cause you said you came from business, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And I saw this, I mean, I didn't foresee what happened like with us at all.
I mean, this was what's crazy is we talk about this all the time. have literally manifest this whole business so like meeting you meeting him right meeting everybody we met was literally just a conversation we had two weeks before it happened damn you know so we'll we'll say something like wouldn't that be cool if and then it happens yeah that's so nuts yeah it's just and it's insane and it will from the very beginning so david was a member at my gym yeah and he came into my office and he said i don't know what we're gonna do but i'm gonna do business with you someday and i was just like okay and we just went to lunch one day and and then uh well we've known each other for what six years now seven years yeah and we but we've finally started this business uh just just under three years ago words are powerful man yeah absolutely man yeah that's so relatable though i look at everything i've accomplished now and i'm like i had these thoughts years ago yeah yeah 100 yeah i'm sure you've talked it into existence as well right yeah especially certain guests i'm like when i first started the show i had a list of names i wanted to get on, you know? And I'm slowly crossing them off.
Oh, dude, that's awesome. I'm big on that visualization manifestation stuff, for sure.
And we're, you know, we're doing it every day, all day, and we're talking to different people. And it's just weird how, you know, like our friend Reese, that's our boy, man.
We love that guy to death. Yeah, shout out to Reese.
And, you know, he's always keeping us kind of in the forefront of everything he does so yeah yeah guys like that man that have come around that have been really like marcus reese you know that just kind of does the introduction and then from there people love to drink and bow we're off yeah so win-win because you're giving them a good product too yeah that's the key i noticed you need value to offer, whether it's a product, a service, information. Well, when we started, we were like, we want to make something that is cool to look at, tastes good, and actually works.
And we nailed all three of them. At least that's the feedback we're getting, you know.
And so, and it's just taking off like crazy i love it we we just today got done with another round of hundreds of thousands of cans and they'll be gone so fast yeah every time we do another run we're not just doubling the number we're like quadrupling the number damn so people are reordering oh big time yeah wow it's insane and the amount of stores that are reaching out and and just basically begging us to to carry our product is uh it's insane dude that's incredible and that's something we didn't like i for sure never foresaw you know like i mean i knew eventually it would happen i didn't think it would be because you got to think we've only been selling products since for seven months that's it since march yeah and and we're like so he'll call me up and be like hey i just talked to i'm not going to say who it is but it's a massive like massive accounts and i'm like and so i'm the operations guy and he's the business guy right and i'm just like how am i going to make all that you know it's like it's like i gotta i have to this, I have to do this in order to turn it into a product that people can drink. It's a tough space.
People don't know about the net terms with these retailers. You don't get the money for six days.
Yeah, and the other thing too is this can right here, it took us four months to get it. So when you start sourcing ingredients, you buy the can, you plan that out.
You know, you've got to wait for this company to do that. And so if someone wants to order, you know, 100,000 cans for their store, we have to have that on hand where it takes us three to four months to make it.
Holy crap. It takes that long to make cans? Well, it's not just cans.
It's making the can, printing the can, sourcing the ingredients. Oh yeah.
It's printed on there. Yeah.
And getting it run at a, at a co-packer, getting it and packaging it. And then you have to ship it, you know, it all, and everything takes time.
Like this, this, um, after this is made, it has to sit for a certain amount of time and they test for microbials and things like that to make sure that it meets the requirements. And this has a two-year shelf life.
That's pretty long, actually. It is pretty long with the minimum amount of preservatives that we have in it.
Just very minimum. There's brands out there that have a flavored water that has more ingredients than this has.
Wow. And that's including the caffeine, the L-theanine, and the thiamine in it.
And we can talk about what those are too if you want. Yeah, well, let's break down the thiamine because that's what you pride yourself on in this, right? Well, the L-theanine and the thiamine.
So thiam is an ingredient that is we need and we're almost all deficient in it and it reduces inflammation but it all in it but specifically in the brain and so it makes you think clearly when you have thiamine in your in your system so all the foods that are processed are stripped of thiamine and so we put it in the drink, and you think more clearly when you have it. Wow.
And so that's one of the reasons I put that in there. The L-theanine is, it calms the central nervous system down.
So when you take in 200 milligrams of caffeine is what this drink is, you can get jitter, and have a crash because of that. Well, the, the L-theanine counters that because it brings down like anxiety and things like that.
But, and, and it's becoming more popular, but I, I believe some companies that are using L-theanine, I probably shouldn't say this on the camera. They use too much much and it it kind of cancels out the feeling of the caffeine and so we have the right blend i'm not going to say what the blend is that's our side and um so you get a very focused energy without any of the jitters and the crash afterwards so many times so you guys really thought this out that's cool oh dude not we this guy so i mean people ask me all the time right like i always give this dude credit because it was months i'm not lying to you like i'm doing the business side getting everything set up right and he's calling me with hey man i think we should do this much l-theanine and this way i have no idea what any of this right so people ask me all the time like what does this do i don't know ask mark i have no idea so no this guy that's cool and then i actually like i mean this is how boring i am i uh i would read medical studies on every ingredient that's in this i've read medical studies multiple read uh medical studies on it and so i feel confident that this is something that i would regularly put in my body you you know.
That's cool, man. That's what it takes, though, to make it in this business, right? Yeah.
And then I was just as anal when it came to the flavor, too. I mean, those poor guys that it's like a lab, like a flavor house, you know.
And those poor guys were like, you tasted like 30 or 40 different variations of of it and i drank so much of it that i was like jacked going out it was because i had drank so much energy drinking the next the next flavors we'll do i'll spit them out like you're supposed to do with wine tasting that's so cool yeah is there a crash from this one there was no crash yeah i even after i drank all that i i didn't crash and i able to sleep afterwards too yeah that's always my issue with certain uh beverages right like certain coffees are really strong yeah yeah you just crash yeah and i mean you you come down obviously but you don't feel that that sudden crash it's just kind of like oh i don't have that i don't feel that energy yeah you know and so you do notice it, but it's not that sudden crash. Because what the crash is, is so caffeine sits on a receptor site that blocks adenosine.
And that's the tired hormone in our body. That's what makes us feel tired.
So caffeine sits on that receptor site. And so you have all this adenosine floating around with nothing to do.
And so as soon as the caffeine is done and leaves, then you have all this adenosine that just attacks those receptor sites. And that's why you have the crash.
And L-theadine kind of mellows that whole system out. Nice.
Man, you guys are a good duo because he knows the science and you know the business side. For sure, yes.
Yeah, that's what we talk about all the time. We talk about, on the way here, we're talking, like, we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him.
And we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me. Like, we just worked together so well.
Like, his strengths are not mine. You know, and so.
Definitely, his strengths are not mine. Yeah.
Like, that was so, dude. I was so dude i mean it was days months and months and months yeah months of i bet you were ready to go i was just like hurry up let's just do something and then i tasted it the first time and i was like oh boy we got one yeah we got it i love it man so yeah and then once it once the people started tasting it is when i got really excited because you know like us we're biased right it's our drinks right? It's our drink.
That's true, yeah. We're going to be kind of biased to it.
But once the public, because the first time a person tried it that wasn't with us, it was like some waitress at a restaurant. She was like, meh, it's not great.
I was like, oh, no. Yeah.
Well, so what happens is they send us samples, right? Yeah. And then when we get it really close, then you fly down to where the lab is and it's here in southern california and uh and then you taste it and then you mix it and taste it and and uh get it dialed in and then once it was dialed into the what the the flavor that i thought was good um we've had nothing but just like almost 100 positive of feedback it you know and i maybe some people say nice things because they're in front of you but overwhelmingly like people love the flavor of it and uh and they love how it how it reacts how the how it gives them energy for real like yeah i have a friend that she has a really boring business and she has a bunch of paperwork she has to do.
She says she'll drink one of these just to get her paperwork done. Wow.
Because she's so focused. Yeah, that's incredible.
Like you mentioned earlier, it's hard to balance the health side with the taste side with the benefit side. Because a lot of healthy things do not taste good.
Absolutely. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. That's why diets never work, right? It's like a scale healthier it is the worst it's gonna taste exactly man yeah and we do have two flavors that we're in the process of bringing out two more flavors that are absolutely amazing better than this one because this one's pretty good man i don't know it's it's as good or better we'll put it that way so um should we just tell them what the flavors are? Yeah, go ahead.
So nobody's going to know what the flavor this is. But we're coming out with a mango raspberry lemonade and a prickly pear coconut.
Damn. I've never heard that combo.
Yeah. And coconut.
I love both of those. So coconut can be kind of overwhelming, right? Yeah.
And so we use just a little bit of coconut to kind of soften the taste of prickly pear because prickly pear can be really, really sweet. And so it just balances it out so good.
I'm pumped to try that one. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm big on coconut water. And I like prickly pear juice.
The one at Panera, have you had that one? Uh-huh. Dude, that shit slaps there's yeah no i haven't had that one yeah that one's good but i'll have to go in there and try it now yeah try it i'm sure you guys are testing your competitors right seeing what it's yeah i i i buy stuff that i've never tried before just to see what the the flavor is you know and and usually i'm disappointed yeah but uh well you're biased too i'm super biased right yeah well yeah i'll test out like i'll study the top podcast and and I try disappointed.
Yeah. But...
Well, you're biased, too. I'm super biased, right?
Yeah.
But yeah, I'll test out.
I'll study the top podcasts and stuff.
And I try to stay objective.
But obviously, I'm going to be a little competitive.
Right.
Of course.
Yeah.
And we're very competitive by nature anyways.
Right?
Like, I'm sure you are.
You play basketball.
Yeah.
You're an athlete.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, it gets...
Like, if I do it too much, then I'm just like, I'm up till five in the morning.
How do we beat these guys? Yeah. Because you're never going to be Monster or Red Bull, right? Or any of those guys.
We don't even try. We just focus on what we're doing.
You guys could be the next ghost. $60 million exit, something crazy like that.
And I feel like Celsius crushes it, right? Well, Celsius, yeah, that was purchased by... I could be wrong, but I think it was Pepsi that purchased something right something like that but you know like those those companies are so massive and and we've had people say like how are you going to compete with Monster or Red Bull and like we're not yeah you know those guys paved the way for companies to come along and because the market is growing there's room for more people you know yeah so you your own lane right I got asked you this since you're a football player who do you got winning the Super Bowl next week I don't know if I'm betting I'm going Kansas City but I would love to see Philadelphia pull it off I mean come on did you watch that Bills game it was kind? It was kind of sketchy, right? Yeah.
If I'm betting, I'm with you, though. Chiefs.
Of course. That's going to make the storyline.
Absolutely. The NFL's going to love that.
They're going to make billions of dollars, and everybody will be happy. But, for me, I don't know.
If they're not on a dirt bike, I don't know. Eli Tomac.
I like him because he's like 34, I think.
He's one of the old guys for motocross.
But Jet Lawrence is going to be probably the champion.
Up and coming.
I wonder if you could bet on motocross.
Oh, for sure, yeah.
So like Jet Lawrence, him and his brother are from Australia.
They're just super young kids.
And Jet Lawrence, his rookie year in motococross won every single race and 22 races holy crap yeah so that you kind of have to bet on that right yeah sorry i'm not i don't watch a lot of football no motocross you probably can't really rig those so that's that's individual no way right there's no way you could do yeah i feel like with football there's a, there's a lot of allegations coming out, and it's interesting. I know, and that's sad because, you know, it's like the whole point of watching a sport is to see the best go at each other and fairly.
Well, the money's so insane now. Oh, man.
You know? It's crazy. Like, it's just nuts.
I mean, I don't know what Pat Mahomes is making. What is he? Is he selling out? It's got to be nine figures by now, right? That's like $450 million or something.
Yeah. And the sports betting market's even bigger than the actual sports.
Yeah, it's insane, man. And I don't know.
I watched Buffalo Bills game in sort of the rest of America. We just ate at Circa last night and walked through and watched their sports book.
Yeah, they have the biggest sports book. I was like, man, this place is huge.
And I think, weren't you saying that on the Super Bowl, that the whole screen is the game? Oh, that's cool. Yeah, shout out to Circa, like I'm Richard over there.
They got my favorite steakhouse, Barry's. Oh, yeah.
That's what I almost ate at Barry's yesterday. Oh, you almost ate there? We didn't get a chance to get it.
Ooh. Next time you're in Vegas, check out that spot.
Yeah, it's good. Shout out to Chef Barry.
Yeah, he's coming on the pod soon. Nice.
Yeah, I'm a big foodie, man. Really? You guys big in the food scene? Absolutely.
So I got to get your opinion. Best city for food.
Oh, man. Oh, man.
Where do you love to go to eat? Vegas, probably. Okay.
Let's go. I mean, if you're going buffet style, you got to go.
For buffets, 100%. It's not close on buffets.
And they got really good steakhouses, right? Steakhouses. We got to be up there in New York, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, Boise's got Chandler's, which is great.
It's independently owned. Shout out to Chandler's.
I got to try that one, too. Yeah, dude, it's really good.
So I've been craving a good steak, right? Yeah. And I've been to Las Vegas twice in a week.
Okay. And just things have happened.
i couldn't go to couldn't go get a steak right
known for steak and i know and that's what and that's what i've been trying to so i i i don't know i haven't been to vegas enough in the food scene yet to okay to know which one to go so i'll have to talk to you afterwards i'll give you some recommendations yeah vegas is high for me though i'm glad you said that you're the only person i've talked to that said vegas is number really really yeah where no more people pick where new york la um usually those two i'd say la's all right we don't we don't go to those two places very often for like italian and pizza oh yeah you can stuff for sure yeah sometimes people say like texas like if they like barbecue yeah i guess it depends on the cuisine you know yeah but i was talking overall i'd say vegas is up there we get a lot of good restaurants there yeah because look at how many people they get a year to visit and they have to have good food yeah you know oh yeah that's a good point and then even when you go off the strip right and you go into like what do you guys have we're sitting summerland yeah yeah you go to like off the beaten path places, right? Those are usually better to be honest.
Yeah. Well guys, it's been cool.
Can people buy this online yet or no?
Yeah, theoldschoolenergy.com
Cool. We'll link it below.
Anything else
you want to close off with?
No?
Well, yeah.
Get on there and buy it quick because it goes fast.
Yeah, it's going super big. We'll link it below.
We'll tag you guys up and everything.
Thanks for hopping on, gentlemen.
Absolutely, man.
Thank you for having us.
Thanks for watching, guys.
See you next time.