How Gym Culture & Fitness Influencers are Changing the Business Game | David Poole And Marc Fabiani DSH #1249

Speaker 1 What's crazy is we talk about this all the time.

Speaker 1 We have literally manifested this whole business, so like meeting you, meeting him, right? Meeting everybody we've met was literally just a conversation we had two weeks before it happened.

Speaker 1 Damn, yeah, you know, so we're

Speaker 1 saying something like, Wouldn't that be cool if and then it happens? Yeah, that's so nuts. Yeah, it's just

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 I don't know what we're gonna do, but I'm gonna do business with you someday.

Speaker 1 and i was just like okay

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 All right, guys, got David and Mark here from Old School Energy. Thanks for driving in, guys.
Nine-hour drive. Absolutely, man.
Thank you for having us. Yeah, that's a long drive, man.

Speaker 1 that's actually. No, I drove from Jersey to Cali once.
So I was going to say that was the longest drive I've seen. It's a little longer, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. But we did it in batches.
Yeah, of course.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we stopped three times. Absolutely.
But you guys had to bring the bring the goodies, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Can't really fly with liquids. Yeah, let's crack this open.
It's

Speaker 1 been a long day for me, so I need some more energy. Get you some old school, man.
Yes, sir.

Speaker 1 So how'd you guys, oh, wow, that tastes pretty good. How'd you guys create this and talk to everyone about what's in it and everything?

Speaker 1 Well

Speaker 1 start from the beginning. We actually were going to start with a

Speaker 1 supplement line and

Speaker 1 this just seemed to be a little bit easier to get started as far as sourcing ingredients and stuff like that. And so

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And I only put in here something that I would be okay with giving myself or one of my athletes right

Speaker 1 and so

Speaker 1 I just literally forgot your question basically how'd you start the the company and uh oh well so once we got um

Speaker 1 put together like um where to get our ingredients how to um

Speaker 1 get our cans printed where to have it manufactured then we just started that process and

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Because I know it's a pretty competitive space. So the fact that you're having success is impressive, right? Yeah, man, that's, you know, it's,

Speaker 1 we're definitely having a lot of fun. I mean, the drink is something distinct.
It's like its own type of flavor.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 It's like something I've never had before. I wouldn't even know what to put on it, you know? Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 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 100 years ago, it had its own flavor.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 have more of a flavor that's distinguishable.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's an interesting approach, not to mention the flavor, actually.

Speaker 1 I don't know if anyone else does that, right?

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 there's energy drinks that have kind of their own thing. Well, like, for instance, Red Bull, they started out, and who knows what that flavor was, but now everybody's familiar with what that is.

Speaker 1 Right. Yeah, Red Bull is like, they've been around forever, right? Red Bull and Monster.
Those are like the two topics. Absolutely, man.
They've been around for

Speaker 1 26

Speaker 1 years. It's not longer than 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.

Speaker 1 There was one in Vegas I just sold for a lot of money.

Speaker 1 Energy drink? Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Ghost. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it was a big exit. I never tried that one.
That was Dr. Pepper bought them, right? I think so, yeah.

Speaker 1 So these soda companies are buying these energy drink companies, it looks like. Yeah.
And that's, you know, that's.

Speaker 1 I definitely foresee people coming at us, you know, for sure. But right now, man, we're just having fun and living it up.
Yeah. Going to

Speaker 1 had a good network of influencers to send this to, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We have a really good network and a lot of people now that are interested and wanting to kind of jump because, you know, the way we do it over here is it's literally a family, right?

Speaker 1 So that's people want to join the family and, you know, kind of hang out. And

Speaker 1 so we're having a lot of fun. I love it, man.
Yeah, because you guys worked with some UFC athletes and fighters in the past, right? Yeah. I met you guys at PowerSlaps.

Speaker 1 You're tapped tapped into the base. It would be cool to see you guys at PowerSlap down the road.
Yeah, we're coming to

Speaker 1 what's is it PowerSlap 12? I think it's PowerSlap 12. Yeah, I'm not sure.
Oh, yeah. We'll be there.
Let's go. That's the one in Vegas, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're in Saudi right now, and then they'll come to Vegas, and we'll go there. And, you know, again, we're not trying to step on anybody's toes.

Speaker 1 We're just trying to make sure the fighters are taken care of and, you know, and they like to drink.

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Speaker 1 Yeah, and the energy drink

Speaker 1 market as a whole is growing about close to 8% a year.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 you know, like

Speaker 1 there's enough

Speaker 1 people to go around who's wanting energy drinks. So we're just taking a little bit of a piece of pie out of that market and

Speaker 1 going crazy with it, actually. I wonder if that's because liquor sales are down.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You know? Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I think people are looking for a healthy alternative too, right?

Speaker 1 Like, ours has, you know, pretty healthy ingredients it's only 20 calories you got l-theanine in here right yeah and thiamine

Speaker 1 you know that's

Speaker 1 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 and that woke in right yeah and only five grams of sugar i feel like i've seen some energy drinks out of like 50 plus grams you know

Speaker 1 some god set us up with 140 grams Holy sugar. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And a lot of companies they use high fructose corn syrup, which is an alternative for sugar, but

Speaker 1 our bodies really don't process that very well. And so just the fact that it has just a little bit of actual cane sugar, our body can use that as actual energy.

Speaker 1 Where

Speaker 1 I just don't want to put stuff in there that

Speaker 1 is not okay for your body to digest. And so like, for for instance, even we don't put any food coloring in it at all.
There's really no point because you can't see the liquid anyways. Right.

Speaker 1 So, why color it? Yeah, 100%. And a lot of people are really

Speaker 1 conscious of like red 40.

Speaker 1 I think that's one of the food colorings that people are kind of afraid of right now.

Speaker 1 I don't know why, but we don't have any food coloring in our. Yeah.
Well, they just banned one of the reds. I think that's the one, red 40.
Red 40, I think.

Speaker 1 Don't quote me on that. Might have been red 3 or red 5, but who knows? There's so many.
Yeah. Yeah.
So many of them. And Arthur is trying to ban high fructose corn syrup, I think, too.
Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and that's probably a good idea. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It is cheaper than sugar, but

Speaker 1 it's just not good for you. 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.
Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Cane's probably better than the cheap sugar, too, I'd assume, right? Yeah, for sure.
Damn. And it's so little that's in there.

Speaker 1 You know, it's um, we have to, they have to, because they have to, yeah, we have to round up. So it's actually a little less than uh five grams of sugar, but we have to round up just in case,

Speaker 1 right? Just to be safe, you know. And so it's only 20 calories in a 16-ounce can.

Speaker 1 And that's pretty, uh, pretty reasonable, I think. Yeah.
What were you guys doing before this? You're both from Idaho, right?

Speaker 1 I'm actually from California. Um,

Speaker 1 and um,

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 I do a couple of, I did a couple of things. I coach pro bodybuilders, but I'm also a retired policeman.
And so I was a policeman for about 23 years.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 actually how this kind of started is

Speaker 1 one of the guys that I worked with at the police department, we started a gym called Old School Iron and has the same exact logo.

Speaker 1 And so when we, when David and I started this company, we used the same logo and just changed iron to energy.

Speaker 1 And because the gym was really kind of a cult following, a lot of really professional, like powerlifters and strongmen trained there and stuff. So

Speaker 1 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. It gives me like Gold's Gym vibes.
Basically,

Speaker 1 old school, right? Yeah, the old school. Yeah, I think the one by me where I grew up shut down, actually.
Are they still doing well with Gold's Gym? No, I don't think they're wrong. Damn.

Speaker 1 Most of them have been sold off and now those gyms that were gold's gym are are are named something else wow i wonder what they're around yeah they were like an empire back when 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.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? Building a third one in Vegas in a year, allegedly.

Speaker 1 And um dude it's 400 bucks a month now wow for a gym isn't that nuts that's crazy that is that's a lot yeah in in idaho um 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 bucks a year

Speaker 1 yeah that's insane but you have to remember at in a gym you know probably 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and like all of that costs money. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It costs a lot.

Speaker 1 For a real good quality treadmill, it could be like $6,000 just for one of them. Wow.
And some gyms have like 20 of those. Some gyms have like 50 of them.
Holy crap.

Speaker 1 Some of them have like but the Peloton bikes. Yeah, and those you know, those stair steppers.
Yeah. They're like stair master.
They're like 10 grand for

Speaker 1 one. 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 appealing to businesses.
I was like, I mean,

Speaker 1 I own a gym and actually we own, we franchised it. And

Speaker 1 just bad timing, the COVID, all the COVID shutdowns

Speaker 1 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 Bradley Martin was

Speaker 1 out here, right? And he was staying open during COVID, taking those penalties. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, he was taking a lot of them.

Speaker 1 Crazy. Yeah.
It was sad.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 100% agrees. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Shout out to him for sticking it out.
I do. He wants to build one in Vegas, too.
So I love that.

Speaker 1 And it's a new era of like content creators coming into gyms now and filming their workouts and everything. Oh, for sure.

Speaker 1 Then before. Yeah, you're seeing a lot of people, like getting healthy is the thing now, right? So you're seeing everybody do it, you know? Yeah.
And it's really good to see.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think health is like the new wealth, honestly. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 Oyster Beast, David Dobrik, right?

Speaker 1 Like they just lost a ton of weight. They look phenomenal.
Dobriks was crazy. Yeah, Dobriks was crazy, dude.
I don't know if steroid videos coming out.

Speaker 1 Yeah. 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 but who knows? No, man, he looked good.

Speaker 1 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. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And his face,

Speaker 1 he looks good. Yeah.
Damn. Good job.
I've been watching Beast Games, but I haven't noticed his shirt's always on and that, you know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 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.
I've been. Yeah, we've been all the way.
We stay very, very busy.

Speaker 1 No time for Squid Game or Netflix or anything. I got kids, so my kids fill me in on

Speaker 1 what's happening. Yeah, Beast Games Games was nice, man.
He gave away $5 million.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Wow.
Crazy. Crazy.
You can afford to do that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Mr. Beast.
It wasn't his music, man. He got investors, but still.

Speaker 1 He seems like a good guy, though.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But content's like the new celebrity.
Right. Oh, for sure.
These streamers and social media stuff. We were in PowerSlap, you know, down in Vegas.
There was a lot of kids.

Speaker 1 I had no idea what they were. They were 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?

Speaker 1 They were probably freaking out. Oh, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, they were like, Bryce Hall was there, he has like 30 million. Yeah, I talked to Bryce Hall when I was there.

Speaker 1 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 have no idea.

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 yeah. And uh, so we actually are starting our TikTok, but this nine-hour cancellation or whatever happened really put

Speaker 1 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. If you didn't have it, yeah.

Speaker 1 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, it's crazy. I'm not paying that.

Speaker 1 I might sell one of my old phones that has TikTok on it.

Speaker 1 If I get 10K, I'm down. Yeah.
Wow. Absolutely, man.
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.

Speaker 1 That's how it started. Yeah.
That's how they got a user base. Are your kids on it all day? I think, well, yeah, all my kids are on it.
All my kids are like grown up except for my youngest. Okay.
But

Speaker 1 they're all on it. Yeah.
So 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.

Speaker 1 But I'm working on it, so that's how I make excuses for it. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Yeah. You never scroll it?

Speaker 1 I do scroll too. I'm not going to lie.
It's fucking addictive. I have a goal I set for two hours a day, and I always go over just a little bit.

Speaker 1 That's solid, though. Two hours, well done, man.
Yeah, because

Speaker 1 before this business,

Speaker 1 I wasn't on it at all.

Speaker 1 But you have to be on social media now, right?

Speaker 1 And so I'm always kind of checking it to see what our growth is and stuff like that and what our engagement is. So I still

Speaker 1 stay pretty close to two hours, but

Speaker 1 I don't normally make two hours. This is a little bit more.
Yeah. Well done, whoo that's low.
That's low. But yeah, these days you need it.
It's inevitable, right? Oh, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, look at how PowerSlap 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? So,

Speaker 1 and I was kind of pre that. Like, I mean, I remember when Facebook was,

Speaker 1 there was no way to, I mean, you could advertise on Facebook, but nobody knew how to do it. Right.
So it was all you young kids that knew how to do it, not us.

Speaker 1 But 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. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We got a couple of kids that help us out. But no, man, it's an important thing.
And it's definitely very important in 2025 that you stay alert and,

Speaker 1 you know, that you're on it and you're staying interactive, right? That's the hardest part is just to be posting constantly and keeping gaining constants. 100%.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Even myself, I mean, I'm only 27, pretty young, but I hire these teenagers or or kids in their young 20s to stay in the loop with trending and social media.

Speaker 1 I'll age out too. Yeah, it changes.

Speaker 1 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 for these kids, which is crazy, right?

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Since high school. Wow.
Yeah. That's crazy.
And that's super rare.

Speaker 1 Like, if you go on YouTube, barely anyone has been around for 10 years well bradley's martin's been around for a while right yeah he's up there but there's not many guys but like like him and mr beast have been around for a while but a lot of guys fall out oh for sure yeah they last they get like a year like the hawk tua girl yeah get a solid year however long she lasted and then they're 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 uh just like any business people will start a business and then they'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 100

Speaker 1 yeah and some businesses aren't meant to last forever too right yeah you gotta call it wits i'm on like my probably 10th one by now yeah yeah this one is finally doing well though there you go man you 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.

Speaker 1 It's a lot of fun. Yeah, man.
Like 1,400 episodes, some really cool conversations. I watched a lot of your content, dude.

Speaker 1 you're really good dude thanks yeah a lot of interesting people man yeah you know and isn't that fun you get to meet all these interesting people and i know like sit down and 10 years ago i would have never known anyone from idaho or you know yeah wherever yeah i've had people from alaska idaho other countries all sorts of religions political beliefs yeah

Speaker 1 it's cool then 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 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 And actually take it in, you know, and listen to them and see maybe it tweaks your, you know, a little bit of it, maybe. Absolutely.
So who do you guys watch the most right now?

Speaker 1 On what, on podcasts or YouTube or content-wise? I watch a lot of the NELK stuff.

Speaker 1 I'm a big fan of Nilk. My kids are like huge fans.
They watch Nelk since they were like staying in kids, you know, apartments because they were were traveling around the country.

Speaker 1 So, um, like Priest Steve and all that stuff. So,

Speaker 1 uh, Nelk, Bradley, um,

Speaker 1 anything to do with fighting, really, okay.

Speaker 1 Pay attention to my guy over there, Marcus. Marcus T.

Speaker 1 I have to admit, I don't watch a lot of, uh, I, I, I, I would say, I only watch

Speaker 1 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 never heard of someone watching that, to be honest.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I

Speaker 1 and what's crazy is it's boring. It's huge.
It's millions of people watch it, right? You know, and I, I, um, I remember when I was a little kid, my dad bought me my first dirt bike.

Speaker 1 I wasn't even in kindergarten yet. And so it's just something I've done all my life.

Speaker 1 And I'm not very good at it compared to these guys, you know, but it's it 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.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because all it takes is one bad fall. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and these guys, they don't get paid enough.

Speaker 1 They go out there and it's one of the most physically demanding sports there is.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 I don't know what that one is, but we were talking about power slop earlier. It's like, damn, 5k to get a potential concussion.
No, thank you. Yeah,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Like, you're looking way up at them, you know. And then, of course, when you're watching on TV, it's hard to

Speaker 1 put it in perspective, yeah. But it's, it's so, it's, I love watching it, you know, and

Speaker 1 I do kind of go down the rabbit hole on YouTube videos, you know, and you look learn stuff, you know, and I, I learned, I learned a lot about um energy drinks just watching YouTube, really, yeah, wow, yeah, YouTube University, baby.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I mean, I learned more YouTube within college, you know. I, I, like we were talking, um,

Speaker 1 when we started this company, um,

Speaker 1 one of the reasons I've been so like all in is by watching the YouTube videos and other entrepreneurs and stuff,

Speaker 1 it changed my mindset.

Speaker 1 I thought

Speaker 1 this big and now I think at a much massive level what I used to think, you know, so just some of those

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 I think his mindset was always

Speaker 1 bigger than most people's. For sure.
Yeah, because you said you came from business, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And I saw this.
I mean, I didn't foresee what happened with us at all.

Speaker 1 I mean, this was 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?

Speaker 1 Meeting everybody we've met was literally just a conversation we had two weeks before it happened. Damn.
You know, so we will say something like, wouldn't that be cool if, and then it happens. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's so nuts. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's just and it's insane and well 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

Speaker 1 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 Absolutely, man.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 100%.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm sure you've talked it into existence as well, right? Yeah, especially certain guests.

Speaker 1 I'm like, when I first started the show, I had a list of names I wanted to get on, you know, and I've been slowly crossing them off. Oh, dude, that's awesome.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And it's just, it's just weird how, you know, like our friend Reese,

Speaker 1 that's our boy, man. We love that guy to death.
Yeah, shout out to Reese, and uh, you know, he's always

Speaker 1 keeping us kind of in the forefront of everything he does. So,

Speaker 1 yeah, yeah, there's never 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.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a win-win because you're giving them a good product, too. Yeah, that's the key.
I noticed you need some value to offer, whether it's a product, a service, information.

Speaker 1 Well, when we started, we were like, we we we want to make something that is is cool to look at tastes good and actually works and we nailed all three of them uh at least that's the feedback we're getting you know and so um

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 yeah Every time we do another run, we're not just doubling the number, we're like quadrupling the the number. Damn, people are reordering.
Oh, big time, yeah. Wow.
It's insane.

Speaker 1 And the amount of stores that are reaching out and

Speaker 1 just basically begging us to carry our product is insane. Dude, that's incredible.
And that's something we didn't, like, I for sure never foresaw.

Speaker 1 You know, like, I mean, I knew eventually it would happen. I didn't think it would be.
Cause you got to think, we've only been selling products since for seven months. That's it.
Since March. Whoa.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 You know, it's like, it's like, I got to, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this, you know, in order to

Speaker 1 turn it into a product that people can drink. No, it's a tough space.
People don't know about the net terms with these retailers. So you don't get the money for stuff.
Yeah, it is. Yeah.
And

Speaker 1 the other thing, too, is

Speaker 1 that when I, this can right here, it took us four months to get it. So when you start sourcing ingredients,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 or 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.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, it's printed on there. Yeah, and getting it run

Speaker 1 at a co-packer,

Speaker 1 packaging it, and then you have to ship it. You know, it all, and everything takes time.

Speaker 1 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's, it meets the requirements, you know, and this has a two-year shelf life.

Speaker 1 Yeah, um, it's pretty long, actually. It is pretty long with the minimum amount of

Speaker 1 preservatives that we have in it. Yeah.
Just very minimum. Like,

Speaker 1 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-theonine, and the thiamine in it.

Speaker 1 And we can talk about what those are, too, if you want. Yeah, well, let's break down the thionine because that's what you pride yourself on in this, right? Well, the L-theanine and the thiamine.

Speaker 1 So thiamine is an ingredient that

Speaker 1 we need, and we're almost all deficient in it. And it reduces inflammation, but it all, and it, but specifically in the brain.
And so it makes you think clearly when you have thiamine in your system.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 The L-theanine is

Speaker 1 it calms the central nervous system down. So like when you take in 200 milligrams of caffeine, is what this drink is,

Speaker 1 you can get jittery and have a crash because of that. Well, the L-theanine counters that because it brings down like anxiety and things like that.
But, and, and it's becoming more popular.

Speaker 1 But I, I believe some companies that are using L-thean, I probably shouldn't say this on the camera, they use too much and it kind of cancels out the feeling of the caffeine.

Speaker 1 And so, we have the right blend. I'm not going to say what the blend is because that's our little side there.

Speaker 1 And so you get a very focused energy without any of the jitters and the crash afterwards. That makes sense.
So you guys really thought this out. That's cool.
Oh, dude, not we. This guy.

Speaker 1 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?

Speaker 1 And he's calling me with, hey, man, I think we should do this much healthy and eating and this much. I have have no idea what any of this.

Speaker 1 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's cool, and I actually, like,

Speaker 1 I mean, this is how boring I am. I, uh, I would read medical studies on every ingredient that's in this.

Speaker 1 I've read medical studies, multiple red, uh, medical studies on it, and so I feel confident that this is something that I would regularly put in my body, you know. And that's cool, man.

Speaker 1 That's what it takes, though, to make it in this business, right? Yeah. And then, and then I was just as anal when it came to the flavor, too.
I mean, those poor guys that, that, it's like a lab that,

Speaker 1 like a flavor house, you know, and those poor guys were like, You tasted like 30 or 40 different variations of it. And I drank so much of it that I was like jacked going out.

Speaker 1 It was because I had drinked so much energy during funny dude. Next, the next flavors that we'll do, I'll spit them out like you're supposed to do with wine tasting.
That's so cool.

Speaker 1 Is there a crash on this one? There is no crash.

Speaker 1 Even after I drank all that, I didn't crash. And I was able to sleep afterwards, too.
Yeah, that's always my issue with certain beverages, right? Like certain coffees are really strong. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You just crash. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I mean, you come down, obviously, but you don't feel that sudden crash. It's just kind of like, oh, I don't.
have that energy. I don't feel that energy.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, and so you do notice it, but it's not that sudden crash.

Speaker 1 Because what the crash is is so um

Speaker 1 caffeine sits on a receptor site that blocks adenosine

Speaker 1 and that's the tired hormone in our body that's what makes us feel tired so caffeine sits on that um

Speaker 1 receptor site and so you have all this adenosine floating around it 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 those um receptor sites and that's why you have the crash And L-theodine kind of mellows that whole system out.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 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 work together so well.

Speaker 1 Like, his strengths are not mine, you know, and so.

Speaker 1 And definitely his strengths are not mine. Yeah.
Like, that 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 like, hurry up.

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 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.
That's over. Yeah.
We're going to be kind of biased to it.

Speaker 1 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, man, it's not great.
I was like, oh, no.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, so what 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.

Speaker 1 And then you taste it, and then you mix it and taste it and

Speaker 1 get it dialed in. And then once it was dialed into

Speaker 1 the flavor that I thought was good,

Speaker 1 we've had nothing but just...

Speaker 1 like almost 100% positive feedback from 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

Speaker 1 they love how it reacts, how it gives them energy for real.

Speaker 1 Like, I have a friend that she has a really boring business, and she has a bunch of paperwork she has to do, and she says she'll drink one of these just to get her paperwork done. Wow.
Because it's

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 Because a lot of healthy things do not taste good.

Speaker 1 Absolutely fast. Yeah, for sure, right? Yeah.
That's why diets never work, right? It's like a scale. Like the healthier it is, the worse it's

Speaker 1 going to 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?

Speaker 1 Because this one's pretty good.

Speaker 1 Man, I don't know.

Speaker 1 It's as good or better. We'll put it that way.
So

Speaker 1 should we just tell them what the flavors are?

Speaker 1 So you're not going to, nobody's going to know what the flavor this is. but

Speaker 1 we're coming out with a mango raspberry lemonade

Speaker 1 and a prickly pear coconut. Damn, I've never heard that combo.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 I love both of those.

Speaker 1 So, like,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And so it just balances it out so good. I'm pumped to try that one.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm big on coconut coconut water. And I like prickly pear juice.
The one at Panera, have you had that one? Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 Dude, that shit slaps. Oh, at Panera? Yeah.
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.

Speaker 1 I'm sure you guys are testing your competitors, right? Seeing what it takes. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I buy stuff that I've never tried before just to see what the flavor is, you know.

Speaker 1 And usually I'm disappointed. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, you're biased, too. I'm super biased, right? But yeah, I'll test out.
Like, I'll study the top podcasts and stuff. And I try to stay objective.

Speaker 1 But obviously I'm going to be a little competitive. Right, of course.
And we're very, very competitive by nature anyways. Right.
Like I'm sure you are. You play basketball.
Yeah, you're an athlete.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
So

Speaker 1 yeah, it gets like if I do it too much, then I'm just like, I'm up till five in the morning. Just how do we beat these guys? Yeah.
Because you're never going to be monster or Red Bull, right?

Speaker 1 Or any of those guys.

Speaker 1 We don't even try. We just focus on what we're doing and just.
Yeah. You guys could be the next ghost, you know? Yeah.
$260 million or something crazy like that.

Speaker 1 And I feel like Celsius crushes it, right?

Speaker 1 Well, Celsius, yeah, that was purchased by,

Speaker 1 I could be wrong, but I think it was Pepsi that purchased

Speaker 1 something like that. But, you know, like those companies are so massive.
And we've had people say, how are you going to compete with Monster or Red Bull? And like, we're not.

Speaker 1 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 can carve your own lane, right? Absolutely.

Speaker 1 That's the goal. I got to ask you this since you're a football player.
Who do you got winning the Super Bowl next week? Man, oh,

Speaker 1 I don't know. If I'm betting, I'm going to Kansas City.
Yeah, but I would love to see Philadelphia pull it off. I'm with you.
I mean, come on. Did you watch that Bills game?

Speaker 1 That's it was kind of sketchy, right? Yeah. If I'm betting, I'm with you, though.
Chiefs, of course. Free Pete.
That's going to make the storyline. Absolutely.
The NFL is going to love that.

Speaker 1 They're going to make billions of dollars. Yeah.
Everybody will be happy. But for me, I don't know.
If they're not on a dirt bike, I don't know.

Speaker 1 Eli Tomak,

Speaker 1 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

Speaker 1 probably the champion. Up and coming.
I wonder if you could bet on Motocross. Oh, for sure.
Yeah. So, like Jet Lawrence, he's a him and his brother are from Australia.
They're just super young kids.

Speaker 1 And Jet Lawrence, his rookie year in Motocross, won every single race.

Speaker 1 22 races. Holy crap.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 you kind of have to bet on that, right? Yeah. Sorry,

Speaker 1 I don't watch a lot of football. No, Motocross, you probably can't really rig those.
So that's individuals. No way.

Speaker 1 There's no way you could do it. Yeah, I feel like with football, there's a lot of allegations coming out, and it's interesting.

Speaker 1 I know, and that's sad because, you know, it's like the whole point of watching a sport is to see them go the best go at each other.

Speaker 1 Fairly. Well, the money's so insane now.
Oh, you know, it's crazy. Like, it's just nuts.
I mean, I don't know what Pat Mahomes is making. What is he?

Speaker 1 Is he selling up? 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 African sports now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's insane, man. And I don't know.
I watched the Buffalo Bills game and so are the rest of America. Yeah.
We just ate at Circa last night. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And walked through and watched their sports book. Yeah, they have their biggest sports book.
They're like, man, this place is huge. And I think,

Speaker 1 weren't you saying that on the Super Bowl, the whole screen is the game? Oh, that's cool. Yeah.
Shout out to Circa. I got Richard over there.
They got my favorite steakhouse, Berry's. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 That's what almost hated Berry's yesterday. Oh, you almost ate there? We didn't, we didn't get a chance to get it.

Speaker 1 Next time you're in Vegas, check out that spot. Yeah, yeah, shout out to Chef Berry.
Yeah, he's coming on the pod soon. Nice.
Yeah, I'm a big foodie, man. Are you guys big in the food scene?

Speaker 1 Absolutely. So I got to get your opinion.

Speaker 1 Best city for food. Oh, man.
Oh, man. Where do you love to go to eat?

Speaker 1 Vegas, probably. Okay.
For sure. I mean, if you're going buffet style, you got to to go.
For buffets, 100%. It's not close to some buffets.
And they got really good steakhouses, right?

Speaker 1 Steakhouses, we got to be up there with 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 day. Yeah, dude.

Speaker 1 It's really good. So I've been craving a good steak, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I've been to Las Vegas twice in a week. Okay.
And just things have happened. I couldn't go to, I couldn't go get a steak, right? Known for steak.
And I know. And

Speaker 1 that's what I've been trying to. So, I don't know.
I haven't been to Vegas enough in the food scene yet to

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 You're the only person I've talked to that said, Vegas is number one. Really? Yeah.
Where do you know more people pick? New York, L.A.

Speaker 1 Usually, those two, I'd say. LA's all right.

Speaker 1 We don't go to those two places very often. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I stay only there. You know, for like Italian and pizza.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, 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.

Speaker 1 We get a lot of good restaurants there. Vegas is the up there.
Yeah, because look at how many people they get a year to visit. They have to have good food.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
That's a good point.

Speaker 1 And then even when you go off the strip, right? And you go into like, what do you guys have? Collectors in Summerlin. Yeah, yeah.
You go to like off the beaten path places, right?

Speaker 1 Those are usually better, to be honest.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, guys, it's been cool. Where can people, can people buy this online yet or no? Yeah, the old schoolenergy.com.
Cool. We'll link it below.
Anything else you want to close off with?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 well, yeah,

Speaker 1 get on there and buy it quick because it goes fast. Yeah, it's going super.

Speaker 1 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. Yep.
Thanks. Thanks for watching, guys.
See you next time.