#121: What's the Craze All About? Wyatt Ewing Founder of Ice Barrel

Speaker 1 What initially inspired you to jump in and say, man, I want to go and start an ice bath company?

Speaker 2 It was not popular back then. Nobody was doing it.
And it just sounds silly. I'd found cold showers as a way to help symptoms of anxiety.
And I had terrible anxiety from like childhood.

Speaker 2 And also the career that I was in was very anxiety-inducing. Somebody encouraged me to try a cold shower.

Speaker 2 I was reluctant and actually a little bit offended at the time too, because I was like, as if this is going to help. So I just kept taking cold showers.

Speaker 2 And for whatever reason, like my physiology responded so well. I made such a drastic change in my life.
Cold therapy is incredible, it boosts your mood and your energy levels.

Speaker 2 Two minutes a day, and you've reduced inflammation in the body. You have these incredible beta endorphins going off in your brain.
You're doing a full reset on the nervous system.

Speaker 2 There's not a lot of stuff that you can out there that you can do, like an ice bath, that gives you like that amount of health benefits in such a short amount of time.

Speaker 1 Hey guys, I'm super excited for this episode. We got Wyatt Ewing, founder of Ice Barrel.

Speaker 1 You want to know more about cold therapy, what it's like, how this guy has built this thing out of his garage to now doing over $50 million in revenue in a period of like six years.

Speaker 1 You're going to learn so much about the science behind it, the struggle, the building up, what really worked for him from a marketing standpoint, all the good stuff.

Speaker 1 Why you should be incorporating more cold therapy into your life. You're not going to want to miss this episode of the Founder Podcast.

Speaker 1 So Wyatt, dude, I'm super excited to have you on today because, you know, I'm a big, big fan of cold therapy, just health in general.

Speaker 1 I think, you know, it's the commonality that all entrepreneurs have. You may not be in the same industry, but you're all, everybody's focused on being healthy.
And so,

Speaker 1 man, you guys are doing, I mean, before this, we were talking about, you did 50,000, or you're planning on doing about 50,000 selling of this product this year

Speaker 2 that's the goal yeah that's what we're pacing towards that's pretty

Speaker 1 new partners uh costco best buy shields um they've helped us out a lot so they've been oh man so so tell us a little bit about the journey i mean getting into cold therapy like what initially inspired you to to jump in and say man i want to go and start an ice bath company i mean that that's not an everyday idea

Speaker 2 yeah that's true uh especially back back then. I was like the crazy guy in 2017 telling people to take ice baths.
Right. It was not popular back then.
Nobody was doing it.

Speaker 2 And I had found, I sound silly, I'd found cold showers as a way to help symptoms of anxiety. And I had terrible anxiety from like childhood.

Speaker 2 And also the career that I was in was very anxiety-inducing.

Speaker 2 Somebody encouraged me to try a cold shower. I was reluctant and actually a little bit offended at the time too.
Because I was like, as if this is going to help.

Speaker 1 It's like what you tell somebody that like is like drunk or something, right? Like, yeah, I'll go take a cold shower.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I can see how you'd probably interpret it that way.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I listened to them, though. I took a cold shower

Speaker 2 and did not regret it.

Speaker 2 That moment of presence after a five-minute cold shower was something that was like so sacred. So I just kept taking cold showers.
And for whatever reason, like my physiology responded so well.

Speaker 2 I made such a drastic change in my life that my wife was even like super shocked by.

Speaker 2 And I was like, I had like more people need to experience cold showers.

Speaker 2 And then I started taking ice baths. And I wanted to share the power of cold with everybody.
So I literally

Speaker 1 tell us about some of those initial changes that you were experiencing just from taking cold showers. Like what physically, emotionally, like what

Speaker 1 was being impacted?

Speaker 2 Yeah, a lot of it was my attitude and my emotions. Um,

Speaker 2 it was like anxiety and stress were just like melting away. I was showing up way more present for myself, the people I love the most, and the things I love.

Speaker 2 Um, but really, one of the biggest things was like I was always kind of known of being a really impatient person.

Speaker 2 And after about like three to five months of cold showers, like I was surprising myself with how patient I was like showing up in the the world and just peaceful.

Speaker 2 Um, I mean, I'm kind of like that A-type

Speaker 2 high-achiever, go-getter. Um,

Speaker 2 caffeine, nicotine, and a little bit of sleep get me through the day. And uh, like, just push really hard.

Speaker 2 And I mean, ice bows have had a way of just bringing me to a present moment and like calming me down. It's been an incredible practice.

Speaker 1 So, what were you doing at this point in life? Because obviously, it wasn't like you took a cold shower one day and then the next day you're like, hey, let's go make ice barrels. Right.

Speaker 1 So, what, what, uh, what was your career like, and like, how did you make that shift into, okay, let's go and start selling this thing and like be becoming like a true evangelist?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I was, uh, I was selling corporate aircraft, I was selling jets. Nice.
Um, nice. So, that, yeah, I was an aircraft broker, would have been my title.

Speaker 2 And I would help people either buy or sell their airplane. Um, that's an industry where you work like three to nine months on a deal, And if they go through, great.

Speaker 2 If they fall apart last minute, it's rough. Uh, eat what you kill, commission-based.
Um, it was a tough industry. And, uh,

Speaker 1 and you would have, you would have loved me as a buyer and a seller. So I owned a jet for a couple of years.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, I found the jet that I wanted online and just said, hey, I want this jet. And we closed on it like, I don't know, three weeks later.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. Let me know when you need another one.

Speaker 1 and then when we sold it we got an unsolicited offer and we're like sure yeah we'll take it and

Speaker 1 and uh anyways yeah uh we were we were definitely not your nine-monthers that's great what kind of jet was it uh phenom 300.

Speaker 1 oh i love those those are the best great great jet kind of a pain to own though as far as like not a lot of uh not a lot of pilots that are uh type rated to them especially well in the area that i live you know and and so we had to like

Speaker 1 our initial,

Speaker 1 we got our initial pilot trained and type rated to it, and then he quit two weeks after we got him type rated.

Speaker 1 And I was like, dude, we spent 60 grand on getting you, getting you trained only for you to quit. And now we have a jet that we can't fly.

Speaker 2 That's nice.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's such a like, it's such an operationally efficient jet, though.

Speaker 1 It is.

Speaker 2 You can get it anywhere. Their operating costs are low.

Speaker 1 it's such a good jet no you gotta find a pilot it's a fun jet so you're you're selling jets taking all of a sudden cold showers and life is starting to transform at what point did you say i'm gonna walk away from this and i'm gonna go all in on on this cold therapy

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, there was a little bit of overlap where I had like started the company, but I was still selling airplanes. I mean, with the company that I was working with at the time.

Speaker 2 I mean, I kept selling airplanes all the way through

Speaker 2 2021, like every time, because I bootstrapped the company. Every time we ran out of money,

Speaker 2 both personally or the business, I would go sell a plane. Let's go.

Speaker 2 That was the path to funding this thing. And

Speaker 2 yeah, so, but it was, I started the company in 2017 and I went all in by 2018. That's right.

Speaker 2 In the business. And I thought it was going to be one of those things where

Speaker 2 I knew people were going to buy the ice barrel.

Speaker 2 And I thought it was, at first, I thought it was going to grow really fast and then it didn't. And then I was like, I'm going to need like 10 years to like build this thing.

Speaker 2 And then it did the opposite. It then finally just took off, which was wild.
But yeah, I mean, started out in my garage in Denver, Colorado.

Speaker 2 And then by April of 2019, I convinced my wife we got to move to Ohio of all places and scale manufacturing and production and vertically integrate the business.

Speaker 2 And thankfully she agreed to come along. And it's been an incredible journey.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 two things I want to discuss. One is the business side, right? Like we've got a lot of entrepreneurs and whatnot that love to just understand kind of the behind the scenes of scale and that.

Speaker 1 But two, just like the actual product as far as,

Speaker 1 you know, the benefits and everything. So, you know, you're scaling this thing out of your garage and bootstrapping it on cash that you're, you selling jets to be able to float this thing.

Speaker 1 What were some of the initial breakthrough moments from a marketing, sales, manufacturing standpoint? Like, where did it start ripping?

Speaker 2 So, there's like two different versions of this

Speaker 2 product.

Speaker 2 Because we originally started out kind of prototyping, if you will, but like also doing a product market fit with an oak barrel, a white oak barrel barrel that we were custom making out of California.

Speaker 2 And that, but the idea was always, we want to create cold therapy and ice baths where you're in the upright position.

Speaker 2 Because nowhere in nature does a creature, a human or an animal, go into the fight or flight response and then lie down on their back.

Speaker 2 So I'm like, and at this point in 2017, nobody was taking ice baths except like professional athletes, right? Or in like your high school locker room.

Speaker 2 But I noticed that the people that were taking those ice baths, they were using the family bathtub or like a stock tank.

Speaker 2 And I was like, it's so counterintuitive to nature to take an ice bath laying down. And I took a big group of people out to this river.
I told everyone to get in. I watched.

Speaker 2 Nobody tried to lay down, right? Everyone just tried to stay upright.

Speaker 2 And so I was like, I'm going to create a very accessible, effective cold therapy solution that keeps the body in its natural position. So originally started out with the barrel idea,

Speaker 2 but had a whole vision and strategy for the company very early on.

Speaker 2 But yeah, started with the white oak barrel, proved that there's a fit in the market and that we can crank through these things.

Speaker 2 Then moved out to Ohio where I was ready to mass produce these.

Speaker 2 And I started buying the equipment and the molds and all the tooling I needed to actually produce this thing out of a very high quality plastic that I could also get recycled.

Speaker 2 So to date, we've recycled over 500,000 pounds of plastic, which I think is incredible.

Speaker 1 That is incredible. So tell me about like your go-to-market strategy.
Like was it, was it influencers, paid ads, organic marketing through TikTok?

Speaker 1 I mean, what was like the thing that worked and worked well and was measurable and scalable?

Speaker 2 So from 2017

Speaker 2 to the end of 2020, I actually didn't do any marketing other than like showing up at events. And so those were the years where it was like product innovation.

Speaker 2 I vertically integrated the company. So like we do all distribution,

Speaker 2 manufacturing, accounting, everything's in-house. So those were the years where I was building the foundation of the company.

Speaker 2 Once everything was ready to really scale, 2021, it was like January 15th, I ran our first ad.

Speaker 2 And then

Speaker 2 we had an incredible year. The next year, we 10x the business.
The following year, we 5x'd the business. It was just like huge growth.

Speaker 2 But the go-to-market strategy was obviously paid ads, influencer marketing, and event marketing were like our three top channels. And then we dabbled in podcasts and

Speaker 2 a couple other like smaller channels, direct mail, things like that. Once we proved out the DDC model, the game has been distribution.
And so how many dropship dealers can we get in?

Speaker 2 How many big retailer stores can we get in?

Speaker 2 Since we control the manufacturing and distribution, and we're not reliant on like China for manufacturing and we're not reliant on like third-party logistics, like I can scale this company in a really unique way.

Speaker 2 Um,

Speaker 2 and so getting in a big box retailer just like makes sense, right?

Speaker 1 Right. And uh, you know, obviously timing the market perfectly from a standpoint of getting involved in an industry that is just continued to thrive, right?

Speaker 1 Like, I mean, when you got guys like Huberman that are, you know, doing hour and a half long podcasts and he's top of the charts about cold therapy.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's where I really got like most of my education from was just, you know, guys, guys like him to guys like Rogan, who literally anywhere he goes.

Speaker 1 Have you heard about like his, what he does with ice baths whenever he travels?

Speaker 2 No, I have no idea. What does he do?

Speaker 1 Dude, it is wild. So he'll go to a hotel and he will buy the hotel a new ice bath.

Speaker 1 Like like he'll spend like ten to fifteen thousand dollars on it just so that he can get his ice bath in for the day right and then and then he'll like donate it to the hotel and and so like he has his assistant like call call ahead get it all lined up delivered whenever he travels and so like he's he's like a super religious you know and so so obviously like having those guys pushing just the general message is has been phenomenal so you've really ridden that wave.

Speaker 1 What are your thoughts? Like, where are we at market penetration? Is it going to be slowing down? Is it going to be something that lasts forever? What are your thoughts there?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 2 I want to stave off competition as much as possible. So

Speaker 2 we've arrived. There's no more,

Speaker 2 nothing more is happening. But no, I'm joking.
We went from early adopters. We're starting into early majority.

Speaker 2 There's 8 million non-commercial saunas here in the U.S. alone.
There's over 15 million non-commercial hot tubs here in the U.S. And we estimate right now there's about 250 to 300,000 ice baths.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's cool. There's a long way to go.
Long way to go. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yep. And I think the key is

Speaker 2 to success in this space is you guys like everyone needs to wean themselves off China.

Speaker 2 You have to wean yourself off the three PLs and you got to build a real business.

Speaker 2 That's going to be key because distribution is super important.

Speaker 1 Well, you've done some unique things. I mean, you were mentioning you guys have an app that with your product.
Like, tell me, like, how does that work?

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 is it to remind me? Is it to time it? Like, help me understand that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so there's five phases to the app. We've successfully launched phase two.

Speaker 2 The app is designed with four things in mind.

Speaker 2 Controlling your chiller. So we have a state-of-the-art cooling system that we've been building since 2019.
We've spent like $2.5 million building this chiller. It's the first of its kind.

Speaker 2 So you can control that chiller from anywhere in the world from the app. Additionally, there's a lot of great like tracking.

Speaker 2 So you can track your ice bath, not just for ice barrel customers, but for anyone in the cold therapy community. You can use your bathtub.
You can use any cold therapy unit.

Speaker 2 You can use showers, like anything. So you can track your ice baths.

Speaker 2 There's an incredible community within the app. So people can engage in the app and the community piece is incredible.
And then lastly, we have really incredible coaching in the app.

Speaker 2 Think like guided meditations, but for your ice bath, depending on why you're using it.

Speaker 2 So if it's for sleep or improving symptoms of anxiety, recovery, like things like that, you pick your category and then we have these guided meditations that are awesome.

Speaker 1 Awesome. So speak to somebody that's like just really,

Speaker 1 you know, has their doubts around this whole cold therapy thing, right? Like, I mean, there's, there's a lot of lovers out there, but there's also plenty of haters.

Speaker 1 They're just like, oh, you go take your ice path and meditate and, you know, do your

Speaker 1 whatever morning routine. So like, why, why should someone consider adding cold therapy? Like, tell us about some of the health benefits.

Speaker 1 And obviously, you've talked about like some of the emotional, but like maybe a little more of the science behind it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'll hit the science.

Speaker 2 But first,

Speaker 2 let's be honest.

Speaker 2 Life is hard. There's a lot of hard things we go through.
And you get to pick what that is, right? Like, making a lot of money is hard. Being poor is really hard, right?

Speaker 2 You've heard this stuff before. Taking an ice bath is really hard.
Being anxious is really hard. So pick what kind of hard you want to live with.

Speaker 2 And cold therapy is a great hard that you can add into your life uh

Speaker 2 some of the benefits i mean

Speaker 2 cold therapy is incredible it boosts your mood and your energy levels uh something like two minutes a day and you've reduced inflammation in the body you have these incredible beta endorphins uh going off in your brain you're doing a full reset on the nervous system there's not a lot of stuff that you out there that you can do like an ice bath that gives you like that amount of health uh benefits in such a short amount of time and what uh like what temperature So me and my wife have this battle, right?

Speaker 1 Like she hates the cold, like with a passion. She's always cold.
And

Speaker 1 so I like keeping my ice bath at the lowest temperature possible, which I believe the thermostat goes down to like 39.

Speaker 1 She's always trying to crank that thing up to 50. Am I am I losing benefit at 50 degrees that I could be getting at 39?

Speaker 2 So, yeah, I think there's when you put a lot of early or like early adopters in new space, they just say whatever to get business. And here's what like the science is saying.

Speaker 2 Anything under 60 degrees, like there are benefits, but the lower you go, it's diminishing returns.

Speaker 2 Now, there are like mental and resilient like practices of like, I right, that are helpful because you do build up a tolerance to the cold. I've been doing this for a long time.

Speaker 2 I have a very high tolerance to the cold. So I like the mental struggle of going to the lower temperatures.

Speaker 2 But at the end of the day, if you're starting out in cold therapy, between 50 and 60 degrees is a great starting point for 30 seconds to three minutes, whatever you can tolerate.

Speaker 2 Build up a tolerance to it, right? Get into the practice, find consistency in it, and then play with time and temperature down the road. So

Speaker 1 what does your daily routine look like with, I mean, at what temperature, how long, how often?

Speaker 1 What does that look like for you?

Speaker 2 So it's changed over the years. I used to be like the 5 a.m.
ice bath guy. I was also like the late night ice bath guy.
Middle, I've done it all.

Speaker 2 But right now, currently, I do 15 minutes in a sauna, four to six minutes in an ice bath at 45 degrees. And I'll do three rounds of that.

Speaker 1 So you say that again. So you start with the sauna for five minutes, you said?

Speaker 2 15 minutes in the sauna.

Speaker 1 15 minutes in the sauna, and you go directly into the ice bath afterwards.

Speaker 2 Directly into the ice. Okay.
45 degrees.

Speaker 1 How long?

Speaker 2 Four to six minutes.

Speaker 1 Four to six minutes. And you do three rounds of just hot and cold.

Speaker 2 Correct. So,

Speaker 1 what are the benefits of that?

Speaker 1 I've listened to

Speaker 1 the Humor Mint podcast goes into all kinds of scientific details of why you should do this and why you shouldn't.

Speaker 1 I'm always

Speaker 1 afraid to do an ice bath after workouts now because I'm like, oh, I'm going to lose all the benefit of my workout because I did that.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, I guess tell me the science between the hot and cold and why you do that, or what, what makes you feel good.

Speaker 2 Love to hear that. Yeah.
Yeah. And also the whole like losing muscle mass if you do it immediately after.
It, yeah, we're talking like sub 4%

Speaker 2 of the work that was produced that day. Like, it's nominal.
Like, if you take an ice bath immediately after a workout, you're not going to lose all your muscle that you just worked so hard for.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 if you are building muscle and you want to follow the protocol that's prescribed, it's four to six hours after a workout.

Speaker 2 And the benefits of the hot and cold, you get the vasoconstriction and then the dilation.

Speaker 2 So like it's incredible for like draining the lymphatic system and improving cardiovascular health, things like that. Sauna has a tremendous amount of benefits and it

Speaker 2 is incredible how it improves longevity in life, things like that.

Speaker 2 But it also feels really good. Yeah.

Speaker 2 At the end of the day, like it's a great way to melt away the stress to reset um one thing that we hear from our customers a lot and it's really interesting um we have a lot of like first responders teachers just like hard-working humans and they love to finish a shift or some kind of work and then the ice bath is strategically placed in their garage or right outside their garage so they go from their shift strip down into the barrel and then they show up inside and that like two to three minute reset for them just helps them show up so much better for their family when they come home and that's meaningful um

Speaker 1 i love that i love that yeah we uh we recently just relocated so i live uh uh i live out on a farm and i have my house and i have my shop the shop's like across the driveway and my ice my ice bath used to be on the back side of the shop right and it was just like such a mental fatigue to be like all right i gotta walk across my driveway, go through my shop, out the back door to there.

Speaker 1 And I can't do it after my work. So my gym's out there and I can't do it after my workout because I'm going to lose.
So I just go through like all this battle.

Speaker 1 So we finally relocated outside one of our. our house doors and it's like kind of overlooking this space.
And so just making it more convenient.

Speaker 1 I like the idea of what you're talking about with some of these clients that where it's part of their routine getting home. That's really cool.

Speaker 1 what are what are some other health best practices that you've seen coupled together with ice bathing

Speaker 1 that uh that you like or some clients say i mean what are your thoughts on like red light therapy is it is it just a sham to to sell you more expensive equipment what are what are your thoughts

Speaker 2 yeah i mean i obviously i like trying all the products like i don't think i don't think there's like a biohacking product or a peptide out there that i haven't uh tried um

Speaker 2 so i i mean i do like red light therapy uh i don't do it a ton but whenever i get a chance i like the red light therapy um but i also like the things that are simplistic that make us feel very alive and very human and

Speaker 2 Even when it comes to recovery, like just moving the body, stretching is such a great way to like get the blood flowing and help with recovery. I like going barefoot outside.
I like drinking water.

Speaker 2 I like meditation. I like getting some good sunlight in the eyes.
Like I like the basic human things.

Speaker 1 And have you always been into that or has it been just transition?

Speaker 1 Once you started taking cold showers, then you're like, what else can I do to really biohack and kind of go back to some of those basic things of grounding with the earth and all that?

Speaker 2 It was actually the other way. So I was very aware that I was in a very, very dark place mentally and emotionally.

Speaker 2 I had a pretty like wild upbringing coupled with like very high stress with the work environment. And so I was doing like crazy two, two and a half hour meditations every day.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I would do them on a concrete floor.

Speaker 2 And I got to the point where it's like my body became like,

Speaker 2 it was so wild. Like the concrete actually felt soft.
Like I got really good at meditating as a way to try and like manage this.

Speaker 2 Um, and it worked in the moment, but as soon as I was done meditating, I was like back into the like the spiral. Uh,

Speaker 2 but I had also tried a bunch of other uh modalities and diet, nutrition, exercise, and nothing was working like the way the ice baths did.

Speaker 2 Um, so I've always been uh really interested in like holistic living and uh

Speaker 2 yeah, just uh leaning

Speaker 2 into like what's human and what's natural. And

Speaker 2 nothing helped though, like the cold did. And the cool thing about like the cold is like, I felt like I got a reset on my nervous system after about like

Speaker 2 day 90 of every single day I'm in an ice bath or a cold shower.

Speaker 2 It was when I stopped taking them for a time when I was traveling.

Speaker 2 other than like in the hotel uh but there were days where i would miss it it wasn't like anxiety came rushing back right or stress came back like i was super balanced and peaceful and it was really unique.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's interesting. So, I know you build up kind of this tolerance to it.

Speaker 1 Is there any recommendations out there as far as like cycling on, cycling off, or is it something that we should be doing on a daily basis?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, I don't know how much research backs this up, but Huberman says you should try and get 12 minutes a week. Right.

Speaker 2 I personally, I am between four and six days a week taking a nice bath, anywhere from four to six minutes each time. So

Speaker 2 I probably do more than 12 minutes a week and I feel good.

Speaker 1 Are there any little hacks that you use when you're traveling? Do you go to like certain spas that like what do you do when you travel?

Speaker 2 Yeah, and thankfully it's getting popular now. And there's in all these cities, there's like these new sauna houses where you can go hit an ice bath and a sauna session.

Speaker 2 And the community is always cool. I feel like post-COVID, these sauna houses are like, it's a really like cool experience where everybody is there for a similar reason

Speaker 2 and the energy is good. And post-COVID, it's kind of hard to find big group settings where the energy is good.
You know what I mean? Right. And so I like that.
I like that sauna cold therapy culture.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's that's cool. Yeah.
It uh it's it's definitely it's definitely uh such a

Speaker 1 positive thing. Like I've I've enjoyed it a ton of my life.

Speaker 1 What are some of maybe the

Speaker 1 have you seen any new biohacking or new technologies that are coming out that may be like the next ice bath that could be paired up with that?

Speaker 2 I think it's

Speaker 2 that can be paired with it.

Speaker 2 That's a good question. Somebody was asking me the other day, like,

Speaker 2 sauna makes you sweat and you get depleted. And so

Speaker 2 the solution to that is like electrolytes, right? So, I think, like, in the sauna space, you're gonna see a lot more like electrolyte-type drinks come out for Sauna.

Speaker 2 Um, but the ice bath doesn't really deplete anything physically, other than there's like this, um,

Speaker 2 like, how do you test for resiliency? You know what I mean? Yeah, um,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 and so I think there's gonna be an effort to track recovery and resiliency through some kind of wearable. Yeah, of my ice bath did this for me.

Speaker 2 I think that's going to be a big push here.

Speaker 2 One thing that was really interesting, I was part of a study where they took 40 biomarkers, they drew our blood, and then we all sat in an ice bath.

Speaker 2 I think it was four minutes at like 39 degrees, all up, like right above the vagus nerve. And

Speaker 2 we then

Speaker 2 got out, waited 30 minutes, and then got those biomarkers retested. And it was like a thousand, 50%

Speaker 2 increase in like norepinephrine and a decrease in cortisol levels. Like it was insane data.

Speaker 2 So I think you're going to see a lot more research studies come out around the benefits of cold therapy and like how long the benefits last.

Speaker 2 And then everybody's going to try and track that through wearables.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Is there any science that supports the like an increase in testosterone or anything like that for men?

Speaker 2 There are a few things. We We actually have an article on our website that's fascinating about that.
But the one thing that's like

Speaker 2 really interesting is our customers report an increase in testosterone. And with all these hormone companies out there that are like testing for testosterone levels and things like that,

Speaker 2 they're starting to even like recommend cold therapy.

Speaker 2 And even if it's like a 5% lift, like consistent ICE baths, like 5% increasing your testosterone, that's meaningful.

Speaker 1 Right. Have have you gotten any testimonials regarding like certain health problems, whether it's like

Speaker 1 circulation or Alzheimer's or you know, uh, different uh, what's what's the one where you like you shake? I'm trying to, I can't remember.

Speaker 1 Have you had any reports along along those lines where people are seeing like drastic improvements in those type of things?

Speaker 2 Oh, absolutely. We get thousands of uh customer reports back on how cold therapy has changed their life, both physically and also mentally.

Speaker 2 We obviously can't say that it cures or heals anything like that, right?

Speaker 2 So it's just the customer's experience. But yeah, we've gotten some incredible ones back.
The ones that I think are really meaningful are

Speaker 2 moms that struggle with postpartum depression. I've seen incredible healing.

Speaker 2 People with fibromyalgia.

Speaker 2 And then also all the depression and anxiety stories. Like those are also moving and really awesome.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and frankly, we're going to need more and more of it. You know, I was reading a book the other day.
It's called The Anxious

Speaker 1 Generation. Have you had some of the books?

Speaker 2 Somebody gave it to me today. I literally just put it on my shelf.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
So do you have kids? I have three. Yeah.
How old are they?

Speaker 2 Eight, five, and three.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 1 I have a 17 and then just turned 16, 12, 10, and 6 and so uh i'm not sure if you've had a chance to dive into it yet but uh you know essentially the the premise of the book is that this new generation has had their brains completely rewired through technology right just like the access that they have the the self-comparison or the the comparison and just all the different things that social media spawns off and whatnot and so forth.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 really just the anxiety and the depression and everything that has been caused from it. Like we are going to need more and more solutions around

Speaker 1 things that help us get there, whether it's biohacking, whether it's controlling of our discipline around technology. Like

Speaker 1 I try to set up my life where there's just like, where I can be disconnected as much as possible. It sounds like you're not even on social media, right?

Speaker 2 I'm not. No.

Speaker 2 The only thing I have is a LinkedIn. And shout out to Olivia.
She runs my LinkedIn. Good for you.
But yeah, no social media for me.

Speaker 1 What's kept you off social media?

Speaker 2 Yeah, the idea like winners focus on winning and losers focus on winners. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Like I just wanted to live a very peaceful, focused, head-down life.
Hello. And

Speaker 2 social media just was a distraction

Speaker 2 for that. And so, yeah, I turned it off.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there's this

Speaker 1 little cheap invention that just came out. It's not anything

Speaker 1 intense at all. All it is is a 3D printed, like scanning thing that it's called brick, and it bricks my phone.
And what it is, is you have it like located in a certain part of your house.

Speaker 1 And so when you want to brick your phone, which only will give you access to like the phone and texting, you go over there and it'll literally shut down every other app unless I return back to that location.

Speaker 1 You know, and so I think

Speaker 1 there's just going to be more and more need for those type of things, whether it's ice baths or bricking your phone or what, like we've just become so

Speaker 1 like dependent on these things and creating like these crazy emotions and anxieties and stuff and depression inside of us that like more and more we're going to need, you know, more extreme solutions that are going to somehow like reconnect us with Earth and each other again.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. No kidding.
I also think it's like crazy

Speaker 2 the

Speaker 2 inability to retain information now. Oh, yeah.
Because like people don't actually remember like the reels that they watch. Right.

Speaker 2 And they like they can't recall them. And the information in there.
It's wild. I think.
Yeah. I think it's concerning.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah. I mean,

Speaker 1 we live in a day where you don't have to retain information, right? Like your smartphone has made you dumb. And

Speaker 1 you just have to know how to go and figure out where it was from, not necessarily what it was.

Speaker 1 It's a crazy world we live in. So if you don't have a social media, what is the best way that people can continue to learn from you or follow your journey or anything like that?

Speaker 2 Yeah. So the company has social media that's ran by our social team.
All right. So you can follow along at iceberre on Instagram.
You can go to our website,

Speaker 2 which is iceberrel.com.

Speaker 2 I'm also, you can find me on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2 I'm not, I don't actively reply to messages there.

Speaker 2 And then, yeah, just reach out to the company if you ever want to get in touch. And I'm always happy to have a conversation.
I love it.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 what does the future behold?

Speaker 1 What do you have new product mapping stuff coming down the pipeline is it to get into some of these other adjacencies health related like what what's the plan take this thing public i don't know what we'd love to know what the future for iceberrel

Speaker 2 yeah so we do have a very exciting uh product roadmap so over the next uh like 24 months we'll be releasing another uh roughly four products that are really unique in the cold therapy space so we're very excited about that uh

Speaker 2 we We do have our eyes on some international expansion.

Speaker 2 We're probably a little bit early to that, but we definitely see opportunity. And it also lines up with our vision of sharing the power of cold with everybody everywhere.

Speaker 2 So we got to get the rest of the world colder.

Speaker 1 So are you guys just currently shipping in the U.S.?

Speaker 2 We'll ship all over the world, and we have ice baths in every continent except Antarctica. And

Speaker 2 so we do a lot of distribution up into Canada, Mexico, but really just North American-focused.

Speaker 2 But I definitely want to open up a factory over in Europe somewhere.

Speaker 1 That's awesome. You know, frankly, it never ceases to amaze me how just much of a bubble we live in in the U.S., right?

Speaker 1 Like us as business owners, like getting outside of our borders just seems like so such a foreign concept. I have,

Speaker 1 so I'm a part of a Harvard group that where like 80% of my 160 group

Speaker 1 are outside of the U.S.

Speaker 1 And like it for them, like going over borders is nothing.

Speaker 1 And it's just really opened my mind to like the opportunity that exists outside where when we're here, it's just like, you know, so much centric. So that's that's exciting.

Speaker 1 There's the world is a big place and there are a lot of people that need ice baths.

Speaker 2 No doubt.

Speaker 1 That's good stuff. Cool, man.
Why? I appreciate your time, sharing your wisdom, your knowledge.

Speaker 1 Exciting to see what you're doing in the cold therapy space and just hearing your story is phenomenal.

Speaker 1 What are the last just couple pieces of advice from an entrepreneur

Speaker 1 perspective that you would give to a group that's wanting to go and run a roadmap like you, Rand?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 best piece of advice I can offer is

Speaker 2 there's never a better time to start than right now.

Speaker 2 And then the other thing is it's important to focus on your mission, your vision, and your core values.

Speaker 2 Get those laid out first because those will be your North Stars when things go crazy, as they always do.

Speaker 1 Amen. Do you mind sharing your mission, vision, and core values of Ice Bath with us?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 yep, our mission is to create the most accessible and effective cold therapy solutions.

Speaker 2 Our vision is we see a future where the power of cold therapy has enhanced the potential of everybody everywhere. And we have four core values.
The first one is to be wildly courageous.

Speaker 2 The second is to lead with the heart. The third is to live mindfully.
And the last one is to be playfully curious.

Speaker 2 I believe that the highest level of innovation and creativity comes from a spirit of play.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Awesome.
Well,

Speaker 1 there's no doubt why you've been able to be successful. I mean, just understanding that, that's something that we preach.
We consult all kinds of businesses.

Speaker 1 And just that aspect of understanding your mission, your vision, and your core values is, like you shared, the foundation to any great organization.

Speaker 1 And clearly, that's the reason why you've been able to have lots of success. So, thank you so much for your time, Wyatt.

Speaker 1 Until next time.