#97: Scaling Businesses From $0 To 8-Figures; Alex Neist; The Man Behind Hostage Tape

Speaker 1 People feel held hostage by their poor sleep or their partner and they don't know what to do. So we're tapping into this core emotion that people feel of feeling held hostage.

Speaker 1 So Chris, don't let bad sleep hold you hostage anymore. Don't let bad sleep hold your health hostage.
Don't let bad sleep hold your wealth hostage. Don't let bad sleep hold your family hostage.

Speaker 1 That whole concept.

Speaker 2 Hey, Founder Nation, I have a special treat for you, Mr. Alex Neist.
Alex is the founder and CEO of Hostage Tape. You've probably seen it all over social media.

Speaker 2 The black tape over your mouth makes you sleep better. We talk about brand and how he's able to take a commodity and go and charge a premium price.
You're not going to want to miss this one.

Speaker 1 I had to go through that low point to build myself back up in the right way so that now I deserved it all back again.

Speaker 1 And then I could actually take care of my kids, take care of my family, and now take care of all these millions of other guys and other people around the world and help change their lives just like it changed my life.

Speaker 2 Yo, yo yo, yo welcome to another episode of the founder podcast today i am joined by mr alex nice

Speaker 2 alex is the founder of hostage tape you've probably seen him all over social media maybe maybe a little bit uh with old andy elliott they they are pushing some incredible

Speaker 2 yeah he's got uh all kinds of cool products you know when you first see it you're like what in the world is this you got somebody with tape over their mouth i i think uh you know it's probably the initial reaction anytime anybody sees your product.

Speaker 2 But welcome to the show, Alex. Super excited to have you.

Speaker 1 Chris, it's trick to be here. I appreciate it.
Absolutely. And yes,

Speaker 1 it's quite polarizing, especially when you see Andy, Andy in the Nailed Army. He's already polarizing enough that then you're seeing hostage tape.

Speaker 1 You're seeing people wearing tape on their mouth or the nose strip. It's pretty, pretty crazy.

Speaker 2 Man, I love it. I love it.
So, I mean, where does, first of all, I mean, you've got an incredible story leading up to this, but like, how does a

Speaker 2 product like hostage tape even come about? Like, where did that idea even initially stem from?

Speaker 1 It's actually a pretty amazing story. So the story goes like this.

Speaker 1 So six years ago, I had it all. And then within two years, I'd lost everything.

Speaker 1 And mouth taping actually changed my life.

Speaker 1 So before that, I had a bold statement started. What's that?

Speaker 2 I said, that's a bold statement.

Speaker 1 It's a very bold statement. So let's get into it.
So

Speaker 1 I had a previous business that I bootstrapped, and I was doing millions of dollars a year. It was a software company.
And as you can kind of see on my wall, I've got some jerseys back here.

Speaker 1 I was an athlete. And so I had parlayed that into a video, sports video analytics company.
I had the, had the wife. I had my two kids.
I had the cars, houses, vacations. I had all of it.

Speaker 1 And within two years, I was divorced. I was living in my aunt's aunt's basement and I'd sold my business for a job I hated.

Speaker 1 So I sold it. I was vesting out the equity and I hit rock bottom, right? Every entrepreneur has that moment where they sell their company and they, they have these like illusions of grandeur.

Speaker 1 And then you realize a year in, you're like,

Speaker 1 they don't want me. They just want the thing I built and then they want to get rid of you.
And so in that moment, I'm like, oh boy. So I'm sitting in my aunt's basement, right?

Speaker 1 Because I had to sell the house with the divorce and all that. What am I going to do? So I looked into myself and I thought, I need to start working on myself.

Speaker 1 I need to make myself a better man, a better partner, a better husband, leader, all of those things. And I actually started with my sleep.

Speaker 1 My sleep was so bad that it forced my wife into the other bedroom for years because I snored like a chainsaw. It was that bad.
And as a result, the intimacy eroded over time.

Speaker 1 And it also caused me to be, I was burnt out. I was out of shape.
I neglected myself. And and I was neglecting my wife, my kids, you know, that whole thing.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so when I discovered mouth taping, that was this life-changing moment for me because I had read James Nesser's book, Breath. It's a best-selling book.

Speaker 1 If you haven't read it, you got to read this book. It's phenomenal.
Where there's an experiment that they do, they go to Stanford Medical Center, they plug their nose for 10 days.

Speaker 1 And over those 10 days, they develop sleep apnea. They snored like crazy, and they had dangerously low levels of blood oxygen.

Speaker 1 And then, after those 10 days, they unplugged their nose, they mouth taped, and everything went away in a day.

Speaker 1 So, the light bulb went off for me. And I thought, was it really this simple? Was it mouth breathing?

Speaker 1 And so, sitting in my aunt's basement, right, like four years ago, then I'm thinking, okay. So, I tried it, and I got the most amazing night's sleep that I've ever gotten.

Speaker 1 I felt like my 14-year-old son.

Speaker 1 And so, then from there, now

Speaker 1 I've had a series of life-changing sleeps that has now led me to here four years later. And four years later now.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So when you're, when you're at this point, right, you go and you test this thing with your sleep, like, was there a product like hostage tape at all in the marketplace at that point?

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 sort of, but not really.

Speaker 1 I mean, you, yes, you can go get. tape any kind of a tape and you can use a lot of people will joke they'll say why wouldn't i just use duct tape now you could just use duct tape.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't recommend it. It's pretty rough.
It's pretty toxic. You could just use scotch tape, right? You could use surgical tape.

Speaker 1 A lot of people who are mouth taping, they'll use like 3M microport tape, 3M surgical tape. In fact, that's what James recommends in his book, just to use 3M microport tape.

Speaker 1 And so when I went on Amazon, you don't really know what to get. That's part of the problem.
Nobody really knows because you don't just go mouth tape. Oh, here's 3M's mouth tape.

Speaker 1 Like, it doesn't exist.

Speaker 1 So you just find something you think is going to work. And then you get it.

Speaker 1 And everybody always has the same reaction like I did was before you're in bed, you've got the tape and you're like, wait a minute. Am I going to suffocate?

Speaker 1 Like, am I okay if I do this? Am I going to die? It's a perfectly normal reaction that everybody has.

Speaker 1 But then you go, I'll be fine. Come on.
This is my nose. My nose was meant to breathe.
I'll be cool. So you put it on and then you wake up the next day.

Speaker 1 And for me, I was a mouth breathe my whole life. I mean, look, being an athlete my whole life, my coaches never taught us the dangers of mouth breathing and the benefits of

Speaker 1 nase breathing, nose breathing. Okay.
They just, it's lost in Western culture for some reason, even though it's taught in yoga, it's taught in, you know, Eastern society, but not here.

Speaker 1 And so because I was a mouth breather my whole life, when I finally kept my mouth shut and breathed through my nose, it was, it was jolting, right? How that felt.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 from there, it was,

Speaker 1 all right, there's, there's a product here because I'm, I'm, again, I'm sitting in my basement and I'm going, I got to get out. I got to get out of this.
I got to get in.

Speaker 1 I got to start a business again. Like most entrepreneurs, we're cowboys, right? We love controlling our destiny and building things.
And that's what I wanted to get back into.

Speaker 1 And so I felt like, okay, I think I found it. I think I found something that I'm really passionate about that now was life-changing for me.

Speaker 1 And if this was life-changing for me, think about how life-changing it could be for other men. Right.
So I want to create a brand that actually inspires other men.

Speaker 1 And at the time, I was really into Liquid Death.

Speaker 1 And I love what Liquid Death did with they're selling the biggest commodity in the world, water. Water.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And they took it, they flipped marketing on its head to get your attention, to have fun, to actually build a brand, not sell water. Right.
Like that's their value.

Speaker 1 Like when you hear Mike, their CEO, talk about it, it's the value of what they built was something that nobody else can do. They built a brand that then happens to sell really good water.
Right.

Speaker 1 Right. And you can't replicate that unless you try to build your own brand.
And so that's what I knew we needed to do.

Speaker 1 And I also remember Moise Ali, who started Native Deodorant, he used to talk about this concept where if you're in the aisles of Target and you go down an aisle and you see a wall of blue or a wall of white for a product, there's an opportunity there to go,

Speaker 1 I can differentiate, I can create something because there's a big enough TAM and I can make something different than stands out. There's an opportunity.
So that gave me the balls to go,

Speaker 1 okay, I can do this. I can take a commodity that's tape.
Yep. Because

Speaker 1 there's so many people in the world that need tape.

Speaker 1 But I also knew that there's 128 million households in the U.S.

Speaker 1 Over 71% of them are mouth breathing at night. That means most people get terrible sleep.

Speaker 1 So think about how that's negatively impacting them, maybe even you on a daily basis, how that's hurting your health, how that's hurting your wealth, your relationships, all of it.

Speaker 1 So I knew that, okay, the TAM is there. And that I knew that this is going to be a billion-dollar brand.
And that's where we're headed.

Speaker 1 I'm building a billion dollar tape brand. Okay.
I love it.

Speaker 2 I love it. The, you know, the, the concept of taking a commodity and differentiating through brand, through culture, through experience, right? Like

Speaker 2 I'm a big proponent of that. Like that's, that's what I did in building, building my business.
You know, I come from the

Speaker 2 home. home service and product industry, right? Like

Speaker 2 my solar panels, there is nothing that differentiates my solar panels from any other solar installer panels, right? Like anybody, right?

Speaker 2 They're all at the end of the day, they're all the same, they all produce the same amount of electricity, so on and so forth.

Speaker 2 But it's like, how can I differentiate the brand, the experience, the vibe, the feeling of being a part of a movement, right? And so,

Speaker 2 and that, to your point, like liquid death, hostage tape, soul jam power, like that, that is, that is what a great business is built off of, right?

Speaker 1 Like Apple, you know,

Speaker 2 they solve a lot of the same problems that the commodities of home computing, you know, solve everywhere, but they just do it in a different fashion and do it with a different vibe and a different look and feel.

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 I love that principle that you're emphasizing there.

Speaker 1 Totally. And so let me explain the name because I'm sure anybody listening or watching to this going, Alex, why would you call it a hostage tape? Because that's a

Speaker 1 brilliant. It's very pole.
Exactly. It is brilliant, right? Thank you.
So

Speaker 1 here's the story behind it.

Speaker 1 So back when I was separated and I was divorced and my kids would sleep over at my place and I was mouth taping, I used to warn them and say, hey, guys, if you come into the bedroom and you see me with tape on my mouth, don't freak out.

Speaker 1 It's going to look like I'm being held hostage.

Speaker 1 And I didn't think at the time that I would actually use it just yet.

Speaker 1 But then I knew that that paired with this flip side of the coin that people feel held hostage by their poor sleeper, their partner, and they don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 So we're tapping into this core emotion that people feel of feeling held hostage. So, Chris, don't let bad sleep hold you hostage anymore.
Don't let bad sleep hold your health hostage.

Speaker 1 Don't let bad sleep hold your wealth hostage. Don't let bad sleep hold your family hostage.
That whole concept. Right.

Speaker 1 And so to bring this all around, the story that I was telling you, I'm going to blow blow your mind. Okay.

Speaker 1 So obviously now, four years later, now I'm sitting here. Right.
And in fact, at the end of the month,

Speaker 1 the limitless arena show that's going on at the Maverick Center. We're the title sponsor.
I'm going to be on stage in front of 10,000 people telling this story to everybody.

Speaker 1 Andy's going to be there with me at the end because he's going to help. pitch an amazing offer to everybody.
But the coolest thing is that, yes, now we're the official sleep aid partner of UFC, right?

Speaker 1 Two years ago, we didn't exist. Now we're partner with UFC.
We're partners with Joe Rogan and his podcast, with Limitless Society, with Andy Elliott and the Elliott Army. But here's the best part.

Speaker 1 So the best part is now that I'm actually the man, the father, the leader, the partner that

Speaker 1 I'm proud of today,

Speaker 1 okay?

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 a while ago, when we were doing curbside drop-off, because my divorce was so bad that we did curbside drop-offs, my wife and I stopped talking to each other, and I didn't see my kids half the time.

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 no father should have to go through that, and that's just the way it worked out.

Speaker 1 So, one day in curbside drop-off, my wife comes to the car for the first time in two years, and we had our first conversation in over two years, and then she invites me into her house, and then I'm able to see my kids' bedroom for the first time in also two years.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so now

Speaker 1 my wife and I sleep in the same bed again. Every once in a while, I'll forget to put it on, and she'll bump me and say, Honey, put your tape on.

Speaker 1 Because my wife, my kids, and I were actually back together now as a family.

Speaker 2 Wow. How fantastic is that? So you're telling me that literally Haas's tape saved your life and

Speaker 2 brought all the important things back

Speaker 2 to the table.

Speaker 1 Because that's one of those.

Speaker 1 It's one of those stories where, and I've heard you talk about it before, where

Speaker 1 you have to go through all these failures and difficulties to build who you're going to be

Speaker 1 to be able to become that person that then deserves all of those things.

Speaker 1 And I lost myself, right? Yeah, I was the athlete. I was the professional quarterback.
I was the entrepreneur who built the big business.

Speaker 1 And then I lost myself, right? Retired from playing, became an unexpected dad, completely lost myself, sold the business.

Speaker 1 And then I had to go through that. I had to go through that low point to

Speaker 1 build myself back up in the right way so that now I deserved it all back again.

Speaker 1 And then I could actually take care of my kids, take care of my family, and now take care of all these millions of other guys and other people around the world and help change their lives just like it changed my life.

Speaker 2 Dude, I love it. The passion, man.
I can feel it. Got tingles down my spine just hearing you talk about it.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, the fact that, you know, your product, not only are you changing the lives of others, but it's impacting your own in a drastic way, man.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that's part of the story there, Chris. Like you talked about with brand, right?

Speaker 1 This isn't just some, because a lot of guys out there go, oh, cool. I want to make a lot of money.
Great. I'm going to pick a product I can make money on.
You reverse engineer it, right?

Speaker 1 This isn't that.

Speaker 1 This was

Speaker 1 a brand built out of this personal journey.

Speaker 1 And so that's also why I think it's so powerful: is that nobody can replicate like what I went through to get to here, to build this brand that has such authenticity behind it

Speaker 1 while it's also solving a serious problem because a great business solves a problem, a serious problem.

Speaker 1 And we've now created this amazing brand that solves a serious problem. And it's also really cool, really polarizing.
Gets your attention. Yeah.

Speaker 2 No, I love it. You know, and I know you're on track to do millions of dollars in this product just two years into the business, which is absolutely fantastic.
So walk us through.

Speaker 2 So four years ago, you read this book. You launched this business two years ago.
Like, what was the bridge between deciding like, okay, this is... this is something that has traction.

Speaker 2 Like, how did you test market it? Like, at what point did you name it hostage tape?

Speaker 2 Was it originally named hostage tape or did later the light bulb turn on and be like, man, I got to go and do something like really polarizing?

Speaker 1 I know there's a lot of questions in there, but I'd love to hear kind of that whole bridge. So let's jump in the DeLorean.
We'll go back in time, right? Yeah, yeah. One of my favorite movies.

Speaker 1 So I think that's why I love the Cyber Truck. You know, the Tesla Cybertruck.
I'm totally on the list to get one. I think I love it so much because it reminds me of it.

Speaker 2 I get mine next week.

Speaker 1 I get mine next week. Oh, I'm jealous.
I want to get mine and I'm going to wrap it in hostage tape. Yes.
Yes. I love it.
So, okay, back in time.

Speaker 1 So when I was in my aunt's basement and I started mouth taping, there was a little bit of a period where

Speaker 1 I had doubt. Like any new business that you're going to start, you always have a doubt.

Speaker 1 And I doubted that I could take a commodity and actually sell it and make a big business out of it.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 there was probably a few months there that went by

Speaker 1 of me just massaging the idea, sitting on it, really thinking about it. And then

Speaker 1 when I finally went hostage tape,

Speaker 1 that's it, brand. Because I was really into, shout out to My First Million and Sean and Sam.

Speaker 1 I was listening to their pod and they really inspired me to think about starting the business,

Speaker 1 my second business, obviously.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I felt like I was listening to all these other pods, all these other people, and they were helping inspire me to get moving and to get started. So it was like I had my five people, you know,

Speaker 1 they say the five people that you interact with most is kind of who you become.

Speaker 1 And so I felt like the pods I listened to, the guys that I was listening to were the guys that they were my crew, even though they were podcasters, and they were inspiring me to do it.

Speaker 1 So they just kind of of helped me inch forward into the balls to actually get into e-commerce because I'd never done e-commerce. I was in SaaS.

Speaker 1 I was 16 years a bootstrap SaaS founder, which is completely different than doing e-commerce.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 then when I came up with that name, I knew I needed a business partner that I could own the media part in it. I wasn't going to hire an agency to do paid media.

Speaker 1 I wasn't going to hire an agency to make media, right?

Speaker 1 It's kind of like, you know, you hear Gary Vee, he's talked about it for years of you got to make content, make content, make content, make more content.

Speaker 1 So I knew in this day and age of social media that I was going to be doing Facebook ads, right? Meta ads. All right.

Speaker 1 That's all I was going to be doing out of the gate for the next few years until maybe we had a chance to get into retail.

Speaker 1 And so my biggest two expenses were going to be paid media, Facebook ads, and they were going to be inventory.

Speaker 1 So I knew, all right, I got to own all that. And so I went to the guy.
He's my business partner, Ben. In fact, if you go to the website now and you see the guy with the beard, that's him.

Speaker 1 That's Ben, my business partner. And he's the creative brain behind the branding of everything.
And he actually was the creative buying my first business that we had just kind of hired.

Speaker 1 My first business was a family business. So disclaimer, yes, probably not a good idea to get in business with your family.
I did it, I broke that rule. Fortunately, it worked,

Speaker 1 but he was a friend of my brother's, and so I went to him. I went to Ben.
I said, All right, Ben, I got this crazy idea.

Speaker 1 You're gonna think it's nuts, and it's mouth tape, and I want to call it hostage tape. And he went, Dude,

Speaker 1 I just ordered mouth tape on Amazon, and I've been experimenting with it myself. And the mouth tape you buy sucks.
And we were like, Whoa,

Speaker 1 this is like karma. Like

Speaker 1 throwing it together in this moment.

Speaker 1 And so, and he loved the idea of hostage tape just because he's a creative, he's a creative brain. So he knew, I love it.
I love this idea.

Speaker 1 And then I said, all right, make up some logos, create some stuff. He made it.
And really, one of the first logos he made was this was the original logo.

Speaker 1 that we came up with. It's it's evolved since this one, so it's a little bit different now,

Speaker 1 but I'm like, that's that's so it. It's very rugged, almost military in a way, but I knew that our target was me.
It was a guy that's middle-aged, I'm 44, that needs to get better sleep, right?

Speaker 1 And needs to be inspired to be a part of something that's cool, not medically. I didn't, I didn't want to look like a Band-Aid company selling Band-Aids.

Speaker 1 I didn't want to look like a company that was selling a medical product in any way because that wasn't inspiring. 3M tape doesn't inspire you to buy it to mouth tape.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. Not cool.

Speaker 1 Even a breathe right, right? You're seeing that I'm wearing a no strip. Even breathe right,

Speaker 1 it's pretty, pretty boring. Now they've done some, they're trying to, I think because of us, they're trying to refresh the brand a little bit.
and be cooler, but they've been boring. They look ugly.

Speaker 1 And so we said, let's take a breather right and make it look cool. That's what we did with this piece.
But we also knew that

Speaker 1 people were asking for, what about my nose? What about my deviated septum? So we thought, well, all right, well, let's add value. Let's increase order value.
Let's add a cross-sell with a nose strip.

Speaker 1 Makes perfect sense. So we did a black one and we're making it look cool.
And now Andy, he's really bringing.

Speaker 1 the nose strip into the like the mainstream focus of everybody because it's it's easy to have a nose nose strip on with everything he's doing and now you're going to see even more the all the stuff that he's doing he's going on stages now always wearing the nose strip it's crazy so so when you when you launched this um i mean whether it was the nose strip or whatnot were you running anything with patents i mean were are there patented items that that are involved here did you have to do a patent or was it all just kind of fair game yeah so certainly there are Some things like some competitors like Breathe Right has a patent on the way

Speaker 1 their

Speaker 1 it's more of a design patent, though. It's not like a functional patent.
Um, so they have a design patent on their design. And so, we just made our own design and have a patent on it, right?

Speaker 1 And then the same goes for the mouth tape, like you can't really have a patent on

Speaker 1 what that is, but we created IP around it. So we own trademarks around the shape, the color.
So we own the shape and the color.

Speaker 1 So anybody that's out there that's actually doing mouth tape that looks just like ours, ours, like they're trying to copycat us, which always happens, it's illegal because we actually own all the IP around it.

Speaker 1 But, so we tried to, I hired a top-notch IP firm to just basically

Speaker 1 get everything that I would need to be able to give me a big enough moat so that nobody could, you know, hurt us in any way or try to infringe on us or do anything.

Speaker 1 And part of that was hostage, like the word hostage. I own it.
Hostage. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 You trademarked hostage?

Speaker 1 I own hostage.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 2 how's that even possible? There was nobody named that had the trademark.

Speaker 1 Who wants to touch the word hostage? Nobody wants to touch that word.

Speaker 2 It's like trademarking the word slavery or, you know, something.

Speaker 2 I mean, you know, just like controversial, not necessarily a bad word, but still controversial. Yeah, that's crazy.
So you were able to go and trademark this name.

Speaker 2 Basically, nobody wanted to touch it. And that makes makes

Speaker 2 perfect sense. It's kind of like one of those social

Speaker 1 media. And it's also too, like when you think about it, like we didn't, we didn't know at the time, but now that the brand has evolved, where it's actually heading is,

Speaker 1 so we, I bought a couple months ago, I bought hostage.co.

Speaker 1 knowing that the brand is actually evolving into

Speaker 1 don't let fill in the blank hold you hostage. Don't let life hold you hostage.
So you start to think about all these possible products that we could be selling and providing to people

Speaker 1 that generally just help solve something for you that you can break free of life and not be held hostage anymore. Even merch, you know, like people love all the merch and the shirts that we wear.

Speaker 1 When we go to events, people are always like, man, that shirt's awesome. Where can I get one?

Speaker 1 So, I'm like, Well, I guess we could start doing what Liquid Death does, and we could start selling some cool merch.

Speaker 2 So, are you guys shifting into that?

Speaker 1 Well, we've got some, so I do it is on the website. When you go there, you can go down to the bottom and you can see the merch area.

Speaker 1 I've just got like a hat, a couple of variations of shirts, and like a

Speaker 1 hoodie. Yeah, but uh, it's not uh like until we get to be the size of Liquid Death, then I'm not gonna put too too much in a merch

Speaker 1 other than just for like my team.

Speaker 2 I can imagine like somebody that's willing to use a product like host that has a name hostage, right? Like they're going to become a brand fanatic, right?

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 2 because I mean, that's, that's the only reason you buy a product like yours is like, I love the brand. I love, I love what it stands for versus like, you know, I could just.

Speaker 2 like like you said, I can go and make my own with some medical tape or whatever else.

Speaker 2 But like becoming someone that's like, hey, this is a, it's more of like a movement that I'm a part of. And so, like, have you seen that quite a bit?

Speaker 2 Like, people that are like getting behind it, it's more of a movement,

Speaker 1 dude. It's exactly that.
And in fact, when I met Andy Elliott, so funny story about when I met Andy

Speaker 1 was

Speaker 1 we

Speaker 1 seed a lot of product. In fact, one of the early strategies that I used to really help

Speaker 1 implant us into this industry and just scale was I used to send a product out to everybody.

Speaker 1 Meaning I would find the guys that I knew needed to have it or people around them needed to have it. And so

Speaker 1 early on it was Mark Bell. You know, Mark Bell is a huge in the weightlifting community.

Speaker 1 And he would have on all these other health influencers, you know, the Hubermans of the world, the Ben Greenfields of the world, you know, the Peter Tia's, like all those kind of guys.

Speaker 1 And so then all these other people were getting it.

Speaker 1 they were talking about it they were telling other people about it and and then we would send product to other people right other organizations and his whole team and his trainer aaron were using hostage tape and then andy and jackie would be in the office like what the hell is everybody wearing what is all this what take that off

Speaker 1 and Then they invited us to come to one of their events.

Speaker 1 So they do these monthly events where everybody comes out, you do a workout, and you see the videos of being in the parking lot doing like, you know, workouts and stuff, different, you know, different things

Speaker 1 and very CrossFit level type stuff. And then the next day they go into his headquarters and they do sales training.
Right. Right.

Speaker 1 And when you're in this environment of what they do, it's really, really fascinating just to be, when you're in a room with 600 people, all with the same mindset, there's an energy in the room that you can't replicate.

Speaker 1 It's like going to a Tony Robbins event. There's an energy there that's just like, wow.

Speaker 1 So we went there, we set up a tent, and

Speaker 1 you know, we were giving everybody samples and

Speaker 1 all that.

Speaker 1 And then one of my guys was like, dude, Andy's in the cafeteria all by himself. And I hadn't had a chance to actually really meet him yet.
So I beeline it right for the cafeteria. I walk up.

Speaker 1 He turns around. I'm like, hey, Andy, my name's Alex.
I'm the founder of Hostage Tape. And I'm just like this.
I've got my hostage stuff on. He looks at me.
And it was like we had this moment

Speaker 1 where we both kind of knew.

Speaker 1 It's like, whoa. Cause if you actually hear Andy's backstory, it's very similar.
He and I have a very eerily similar backstory on what happened to our families and how we both failed as men.

Speaker 1 And then we rebuilt ourselves back up.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it was from there, boom, something clicked. And then it just started.
And he was like, the first time I met you

Speaker 1 and I saw your logo and your branding, I loved it because it fits so well into his Elliott Army. Right.
And I love your branding. I love your logo.
I love the word hostage. I love what it stands for.

Speaker 1 And he's always been, this is a movement. Right.
This is something to be a part of. This is something to inspire people.

Speaker 2 Right. It's not just tape.

Speaker 1 It's a movement. And so that's where you're seeing a lot of what he's doing too, is helping create this movement of hostage tape army, you know, people that are changing lives.
So,

Speaker 2 so yeah, I think any successful brand does it does a phenomenal job of creating a movement. And a lot of that is like the look, the feel, the like,

Speaker 2 and many times, you know, so one of the things that I have always been best at class is creating culture, you know, with the employees and the end users and everything like that and a lot of that is usually uh driven around like having a mission and something that everybody is bought into and the core values that we hire fire and um how would you say those type of things have played into building your business yeah 100 and so being

Speaker 1 being an entrepreneur myself before this right bootstrapping my own company for 16 years

Speaker 1 But where I really learned something was when I got acquired. Okay.

Speaker 1 Because every entrepreneur that gets acquired by a bigger company all of a sudden gets injected into this completely new corporate culture. So for me, being a, we are a virtual company.

Speaker 1 We all worked from home. Like the whole experience of COVID and everybody working from home and being on Zooms all day, like that was my life for over 10 years.

Speaker 1 So when that happened, I'm like, welcome to the show, everybody. I've been used to this for a while.
And because I was just status quo. So

Speaker 1 going

Speaker 1 into a big company culture was a shock for me because I never really, I mean, look, I was an athlete. I was a pro athlete.
And then I started my own company.

Speaker 1 So I'd never truly worked and been a part of a big company.

Speaker 1 So it was looking at all the politics that happened, the way they hired, the way they fired, the way they treated employees made me go, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do this.

Speaker 1 I don't want to do this. So it gave me a great perspective on how I'm going to do things of what not to do.

Speaker 1 Right. What not to do, and how I needed to lean into the things that I was really good at.
And

Speaker 1 any of my team members will tell you that I have what I call delusional optimism.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Where I am

Speaker 1 one of the most optimistic persons or people that like you'll ever met

Speaker 1 because, like, when we started this company, it was just the two of us, Ben and I.

Speaker 1 You're like, okay, how long are we going to have like under one ROAS? And this is going to work.

Speaker 1 Right. And I'm like,

Speaker 1 dude, you just got to trust the process.

Speaker 1 I have this mapped out because whenever I create a business, I create a two-year PL. So I know.
what the two years are going to look like.

Speaker 1 So I knew, even though maybe we had an under one ROAS for the first six months, I knew it was going to start to stack. Things were going to start to change.

Speaker 1 And once I really cracked the code with the Facebook ads, then it was going to start to turn. And it did.
Right. And so, but I'm also a big believer in manifesting and actually the law of attraction.

Speaker 1 And I get up every day and, and I visualize exactly what I want, where I'm going to be, you know, and I feel it. And so I just knew I had this delusional optimism of believing that this is who we are.

Speaker 1 This is where we're going to be. and this is where we're going.

Speaker 1 And so, when with that in mind, those are the kind of people that I try to bring to my team.

Speaker 1 I want an optimistic personality that is somewhat of an entrepreneur themselves. So, most of my guys, most of them, are guys who want to start their own brands.

Speaker 1 They might have a brand on the side that I encourage them, yeah, have a brand on the side, work on it, like have another passion outside of this, something that I can teach you, because you're not going to be with me your whole life.

Speaker 1 Maybe in three, four years, I can help you go branch off and then build your own $100 million brand. And those are the kind of guys that I want to attract because those are the best guys, right?

Speaker 1 Not the ones that I literally have to watch after and try to train from nothing.

Speaker 1 Although, yes, some of these guys don't know anything, but you can see potential in them. You know that this guy's got something.
He's got it, and I don't need to motivate him.

Speaker 1 He has his own motivation, his own internal, you know, drive. That then, all he needs is to be in the room and watch me while I negotiate a deal with UFC.
You know,

Speaker 1 you know, those kind of experiences that you're not going to get anywhere else.

Speaker 2 You know, it's interesting. So, I've studied a lot of different brands, right? I interviewed hundreds of entrepreneurs,

Speaker 2 studied from many different books, books, spent over a million dollars on my education,

Speaker 2 identified different common principles across different businesses. And, you know, the principle that you're speaking to is what I call trust, not loyalty.

Speaker 2 And where in a business, a common denominator of great brands, great businesses is that they create trust, not loyalty from a standpoint of like,

Speaker 2 You are providing value and in turn they are providing, they are bringing value, but there is no expectation of you're here forever, and I own you, right?

Speaker 2 Like that's, that's a slave master mindset, which too many businesses have, and they expect that

Speaker 2 this business owner, this employee is going to be with me forever. And so then they create this fear type of feeling.

Speaker 2 And so then when they do have an opportunity, whether it's an offer or a business to go and start, they leave in the middle of the night, right?

Speaker 2 They don't ever actually bring it up versus when you create a culture like what you're doing. And

Speaker 2 I strive to create the same type of culture, right?

Speaker 2 It's the expectation of, look, I don't like you could be here six months, you could be here six years, whatever it is, I want you to take the most value you possibly can and build off of it.

Speaker 2 If I can continue to provide an opportunity for you,

Speaker 2 then you will be a great fit and there will be this trusting relationship in which an exchange of value, right?

Speaker 2 And like if more entrepreneurs and founders would understand this one principle, they would create an incredible teams.

Speaker 2 And, like, the fact that you bring that up and like, we haven't even discussed this, like, makes me just like reinforces that this is like a true principle of like a successful culture and a successful business.

Speaker 1 So, I'll tell you, I'll tell you where I learned it. So, I actually learned it from football coaches.

Speaker 1 So, when you watch the great NFL coaches, we're talking the Bill Walshes of the world, we're talking Bill Belichicks. We're talking

Speaker 1 Mike Holmgren, like all of those great coaches. They all say the same thing.
They all say, look,

Speaker 1 it's my job to bring in these guys and prepare them to be able to go become their own head coaches someday.

Speaker 1 And so I'd always latched onto that idea of as a business owner, I need to take the same approach because then you're attracting the right kind of guy

Speaker 1 or girl or woman. You're You're attracting the right kind of person into your organization that's truly going to be amazing.

Speaker 1 And then you're going to continue to attract more amazing people because they want to be a part of what you've built.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I couldn't agree with you more. I think, you know, because as a visionary, which, you know, clearly you are, right?

Speaker 2 Like that's that you get people to like buy into the vision, buy into like, man, this guy really believes in what he's doing.

Speaker 2 He believes so much that he doesn't even like like he doesn't he doesn't want to hold me here like he believes in me believes in the opportunity you know there's just so much value to to to that man and once again i i think more business owners just need to understand that and i think that so going back to the big company i saw the other side of it what you just described of big company culture acts the other way they act like i own you you can't do anything else you do what i say or else You sound like this.

Speaker 1 Like these people hate it here. They hate their bosses.
They hate the people they report to. They just, they work out of fear.

Speaker 1 And then as a result, they do the bare minimum just to not get fired, you know, or they don't speak up. They don't actually do go above and beyond to make the company great.

Speaker 1 They just do what they need to do to not get fired. Right.

Speaker 2 Yeah, which goes back to like, you know, the five dysfunctions of the team, right? Because there's a lack of trust. There's a lack of willingness to conflict over certain situations.

Speaker 2 And if they don't conflict over certain situations, they don't buy in to the commitment and they're, they have inattention to results and details. Yeah, it's

Speaker 2 crazy, like what that, you know, when you don't establish on a foundation of trust, what that, how that breeds into our cultures. So, man, I'm excited.
What, what's the vision? Like, you said

Speaker 2 billion-dollar brand. Like, I mean, how long are we talking?

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 here's the ultimate vision, the ultimate vision of this.

Speaker 1 So, if I learned anything from my first business and selling it, it's I don't want to sell this company for a billion dollars and ride off into the sunset on a beach.

Speaker 1 It's not what I want to do because I've learned that I need a purpose. I need something that

Speaker 1 I love doing and I love building. I love building these companies.
So I actually created a holding company. So NICE Media is the hold company that owns hostage tape.

Speaker 1 And the idea is we're going to continue to build other brands. And so I do have another brand called QB Grip that's related to quarterbacks, grips, something interesting.

Speaker 1 We haven't launched the product yet, but we will within another year or two.

Speaker 1 So that idea is, all right, let's say, My CFO reminds me of this all the time, but let's say that CBG company or private private equity, somebody comes to me in another year or two and says, Alex, we want to buy Hots' tape or we want to do a deal of someone, right?

Speaker 1 And then my CFO is like, Alex, if a company comes to you and says, we're going to offer you $750 million,

Speaker 1 you have, you owe it, right,

Speaker 1 to take that seriously and seriously consider it, right? You have a financial obligation to you and your family to take that seriously.

Speaker 1 But the goal is not to do that. My goal isn't to build this to exit.
My goal is that this is going to be a billion-dollar brand. It is.
I know it is. I can see it.
I see where it's going to be.

Speaker 1 And I know what the TAM is. I know what the opportunity is.
And so the idea is we just want to continue to have it, to run it. It's a great cash-flowing business.

Speaker 1 And there's so much opportunity, not just in the U.S., but globally. And

Speaker 1 I don't want to get rid of it. I don't want to sell anything of it.
And then we just keep keep building other brands.

Speaker 1 I mean, the reality is, Chris, like, this could be a $5 billion brand when you really think about it.

Speaker 1 When you actually do the numbers and you look globally, this could be even bigger than that. But realistically, I realize that

Speaker 1 there's always a ceiling to everything, regardless of what the TAM is. That, you know, maybe it's a billion, maybe it's more.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 But either way, like, it's, it's amazing to think that we've taken

Speaker 1 this product, this kind of niche product that nobody was really ever giving the time of the day. And we've now thrust it into the mainstream.
And we are the largest mouth tape company in the world.

Speaker 1 It's not even close.

Speaker 1 Outside of 3M that makes tape, we are the largest mouth tape brand in the world. And we will be the first mouth tape brand in big box retail.
I love it. Dude,

Speaker 1 man,

Speaker 2 you're speaking to my soul, you know, having sold a business and

Speaker 2 feeling the loss of purpose. Right.
And so, you know, I know exactly where you're at as far as wanting to stay with it from a longevity standpoint.

Speaker 2 Do you ever see yourself taking a public?

Speaker 1 I don't want to take a public. I don't think that's

Speaker 1 in my eyes. You take a company public because

Speaker 1 you want the payday. You're trying to probably exit it.
Right. And because of the nature of the comp what the company is, I just, it doesn't, I don't think it makes sense.
And I would rather not.

Speaker 1 But here's the deal: never say never. Yeah.
When you finally do

Speaker 1 get to a certain point, your whole perspective changes. And right now, I'm just, I'm down here and I, and I know we're going there,

Speaker 1 and we're going to be there. So once I'm finally there, I'm going to have a whole new perspective.
And I could, I could have a completely different answer at that point. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Do you, do you ever see yourself doing like an ESOP or anything else?

Speaker 2 So in my mind, like the perfect, the perfect plan for somebody that doesn't want to exit, but potentially wants to take some money off the table and incentivize everybody around

Speaker 2 would be an ESOP, right? Like essentially, you know, the employees buy back a good chunk of the business and you're in it together.

Speaker 1 I think the only thing that I'd be open to would be, because there's some other brands that I know that have done this, where

Speaker 1 let's say there's a strategic company, whether it's against CPG or

Speaker 1 let's just imagine, for example, that there was a company that scoops up Liquid Death, right? That owns Manscape, that owns all these other types of brands.

Speaker 1 And they say, Alex, we want to roll HostiSape into this collection because it just fits, right? Right. Strategically, okay, cool.
That might make sense. And they might say, all right, we want to buy

Speaker 1 49% of it, okay?

Speaker 1 And then you'll own 51% and you're still going to run it. That way, then I can take chips off the table, still going to run it.

Speaker 1 We've got a bunch of cash in the bank that then I can use and, you know, build a bunch more other brands. So,

Speaker 2 well, dude,

Speaker 2 it's always fun like dreaming about the future.

Speaker 2 I don't know about you, but as a visionary myself, I love just imagining it for you and like, you know, trying to imagine myself in your place and what you're, what you're building, man.

Speaker 2 It's, it's exciting. It's exciting.
Obviously, upward trajectory is fantastic.

Speaker 2 And, man,

Speaker 2 what would you say are like some of the biggest books that have influenced you in building businesses that you could share with our audience?

Speaker 1 So shout out to Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference. Hands down,

Speaker 1 the most influential book I've ever read. And it's a book that I make all my employees read.

Speaker 1 And for any of the listeners out there that haven't read it, the reason it's so amazing is you might look at it and think, oh, this is just a book on negotiation, but it's so much more than that.

Speaker 1 It's a book that actually teaches you how to have difficult conversations, whether it's negotiation, whether it's how to negotiate for your salary, whether it's a conversation with your wife, whether it's a conversation with an employee.

Speaker 1 Every difficult conversation could be whittled down into the fundamentals that Chris talks about in this book. And then you can apply it everywhere in your life.

Speaker 1 So, hands down, Chris Voss, never split the difference.

Speaker 2 Love it. Appreciate the recommendation.

Speaker 2 Alex, where's a good spot that our listeners can follow or reach out? Because, I mean, you got a cool track record and everything else. I'm sure people want to

Speaker 2 tag along and

Speaker 2 watch the journey.

Speaker 1 You got it. So, I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter and Instagram as myself, Alex Neist.
So, at Alex AlexNeist.

Speaker 1 And then if you want to follow the brand, it's at hostage tape or hostage tape.com.

Speaker 2 I love it. I love it.
Who owns hostage.com?

Speaker 1 Somebody.

Speaker 1 Some nameless face owns it.

Speaker 2 Some X-rated.

Speaker 1 Honestly, I don't need it because I own hostage.co. So it's like, why would I pay an extra eight figures for the M? Right?

Speaker 2 Right. No, it's, it's beautiful.
Cool, man. Well, Alex, thank you so much for your knowledge, your wisdom, sharing your story today.

Speaker 2 It's absolutely transformational and just bringing us along for the journey. Super excited.
Wish you the best of luck as you go and build this billion-dollar brand. Appreciate you.
Until next time.