Fabio Zeppilli

The full conversation with Fabio Zeppilli, transcribed. Lightly formatted for reading.

What do you have to lose? You're gonna lose money? You can make more money. And even if you have kids to rely on, there's always an excuse.

Everyone has an excuse. It's just like, what is your excuse, right? Like, you have nothing to lose. Like, again, you have about 80 trips around the sun.

How do you want to spend that time? Everything I've done has led me to here. So if I regret something, that means I want to redo it. And if I redo it, maybe I won't end up where I am right now.

Yeah, time is weird like that. And what do you like about the city of Montreal? Everything. It is the reason we are where we are.

I swear to God, like, I love Montreal. It's just I find the people really get behind companies. I honestly don't even know of a— in Canada. So yeah, Montreal Amazing.

From what I see so far, there's a lot of good companies coming. All right, Fabio, so please introduce yourself. You need no introduction, but for those who don't know who you are, please tell us. It's very kind of you.

So my name is Fabio and I'm the co-founder and co-owner of Bad Monkey Popcorn. Yeah, I started as a lawyer. Now I make the best popcorn on earth. And tell us the story behind the name.

I'm sure everybody asks you that question, but Yeah, but I think it's an important story and it's a long story. But yeah, so it goes back into 2014 actually, and I was at a point in my life where I was working as a lawyer and I loved my job, but I just wasn't passionate about it. My brother who was in finance, we, uh, well, you know, he was looking for something similar too. And we just, you know, we always want to work together since we were kids and we wanted to build something.

I wouldn't say a legacy, but something that was ours, you know. And so one day, um, we're at my mother's house and, uh, typical Italians eating pasta and talking about the future. And we said to ourselves, you know what, like, what can we do together? You know, how can we build something together?

My mother said to us, uh, you know what, um, when you're kids, you always used to love popcorn. Like, growing up, what was your favorite snack? What did you enjoy growing up when you were— when you were a kid? Oh, me?

Yeah, popcorn was one of them for sure, and chocolate. But I'm more of a, like, a salty, uh, like chips would be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. And so that's the thing, like, we just wanted to get into something that we loved, right?

And so my mother, you know, when we were kids, we were always in trouble, so she would say— she said to us, why don't you call it Bad Monkey? That's what I used to call it, call you guys. So that's it. So when we're, uh, we're thinking about the name, we said, why not honor my mother and honor our favorite snack when we were kids?

So that's the name. That's where the name Bad Monkey Popcorn came from. So she actually suggested popcorn to you guys? Yeah, it was just like, it was one of those snacks that we had when we were kids, and we realized that there was nothing happening in the field at the time.

And so we said to ourselves, you know, why not go into a field where, you know, for decades there was no innovation, no fun, and pardon my pun, but it was a pretty stale industry. And so we had this envision of almost becoming, you know, the Red Bull of popcorn. And so very quickly we thought of this, this magic trilogy, So we said to ourselves, what if we had like the energy and the spirit of Red Bull and we had the price point of Walmart and then the quality of Starbucks? So literally, like, it was like these three things coming together to create what we thought at the time would be a really cool product.

And it was a bit crazy to think about, to be honest with you, like leaving our stable lives to like build this company together. But again, I think entrepreneurship kind of bit in our history. My grandfather, yeah, he actually, he started and ended up selling a company called Whistle. Basically, it was like a Coca-Cola type of drink.

And I think he even sold it to the coke, actually. This is back many, many years ago. So perhaps it's in our blood, you know. But it was just one of those things where we just want to work together.

We wanted to kind of have fun and be adventurous. So that's the origin of it. So now you have the idea. Yeah.

You're working as a lawyer. Yeah. You're stable in your job. Yeah.

And your brother as well, he works in finance. Yeah, he was in finance. And he was doing, you know, a lot of things— mortgages and all kinds of stuff like that. And he's really good with finances.

And for me, I was in law. I guess, you know, I was doing intellectual property law, so patents and trademarks and copyrights and things like that. And I was basically seeing a lot of really cool entrepreneurs come across my desk, you know, and I was helping protect their dreams, you know, whether it was a trademark or a copyright or whatever. And I was a bit jealous, to be honest with you.

I'm like, wow, these guys are like, you know, out there building their dreams and like doing cool, fun stuff. And I'm just like, okay, I helped you on that little mission that I had. And then I see another entrepreneur, and then after you see like 10, 15 entrepreneurs, you're just like, okay, maybe I should do this myself, you know. And at the time I was like 32 years old, so I said to myself, you know, if I don't give it a shot now, then when am I going to give it a shot, you know?

And my whole philosophy, I guess, in life is that what's the worst what happens, right? The worst that happens is, okay, I, I leave my job, I start the business, it doesn't go well, okay, I'll just go back to my job or I'll do something else, you know? But how did you make the switch? So did you do it part-time?

You said, okay, we're going to start this business, I'm going to do it on the side with your, with your brother, or— Yeah, it's a good question. Like, a lot of people ask me that, and to be honest with you, um, I— we kind of took the, the risky route, right? We literally just quit our jobs. Like, we just literally left.

Like, everything you're not supposed to do when you start a business is probably what we did. We didn't focus too much on the details. Okay? So you know, a lot of folks before they make the leap full-time will have like, you know, business plan set up and market analysis and this and that.

We just had like this blissful ignorance of reality. We're like, I think we have a cool idea. We're hustler-type guys. We'll get it done.

Let's just go figure it out. We always joked that it's kind of jumping off a cliff and then building a plane on the way down. Did you put some money aside? No, no, no, no, not even— no, I had nothing on the side.

I maxed out my credit cards. I used like the last savings I had. Like, it was pretty fiscally irresponsible what we did, clearly. But again, I, I'll say it like a thousand times, like, it went back to like our, our faith in our ability to execute anything.

So you knew that you could make it work? Yeah, I know these days it's like common to talk about like manifestation and all that type of stuff, but we really did. Like, we really had this like vision. We just— and it was like a shared vision.

And it was weird because we were both at points in our life where, weirdly, at the same time, you know, where we both wanted to kind of take that adventure together. And so we did the irresponsible thing of leaving our jobs, not having a financial— financially stable situation, just jumping into you know, but we just really thought that if we produced a cool product that people really enjoyed at a fair price, we felt like it would go well. And I feel like we had a good story too. Like the name Bad Monkey comes from like what my mother used to call us, but I think a lot of parents can relate to that.

Like I think most parents kind of see their kids as like little monkeys jumping around here and there, you know. There's a song like that. But it's the name Bad Monkey is more than just about like what parents call their kids. It's more like a philosophy for life in a sense, right?

Bad, not in the sense of like misbehaving, but bad in that thinking a bit differently, thinking outside the box, taking risks. Our whole philosophy is kind of like, you know, let's not ask for permission, let's ask for forgiveness. And so that's how we, that's how we roll, you know, we'll just do things and then like, if it doesn't work out, we'll figure it out. We'll pivot.

You know, if we did something wrong, we'll apologize. So that's kind of how we, we've moved forward. But I like the dynamic between you and your brother. You both have like the same vision and then you just went for it.

, but then they're at a stable job, they have a career. How do they do that? Yeah, I mean, to anybody else who's like reasonable, I would say probably make sure that you have some sort of financial stability in your life. And obviously if you have dependents like children and things like that, like it's, it's, it's pretty tough, right?

So to be fair, my brother and myself, we didn't, we didn't have kids, so it's not like we had people really necessarily relying on us. So I mean, not everybody could make that leap of faith. To most people I speak to, it's like, look, have your, your job and then on the side maybe you start building your business. And then when it gets to a point where perhaps you could see that it's viable, you know, if you full-time, then make that leap of faith.

But at some point you're gonna have to take a chance. At some point you're gonna have to jump off that, you know, that cliff. And maybe you have a plane already, maybe you don't. Like, we didn't have that plane, but at some point you're gonna have to be a bit risky and take that chance, or else just stay in your job.

What were some of the struggles at the beginning, now that you started the business, that you had to face? Yeah, I mean, I could probably talk to you for days about that, but, um, yeah, finances are always tough, right? Because like, look, I don't know whether you're making popcorn or necklaces or you're in some sort of other field, it requires capital. So what we did was really bootstrapped it.

Like, we didn't have fancy bags at first. We really had, uh, we had plastic like Ziploc bags, and then like we had little stickers that we printed out on our little printer at home. So it's like, it was like really like ghetto style bags. It didn't look great, but our thing was like, look, okay, we're gonna make a really good product, we have a really good message, and then as we make more money, we'll reinvest in the product.

And we did that. So we like, this is like, like version 20 probably of the bag, and we're actually going backwards in time in a bit because we're going for more of like a vintage retro look to our bag right now. But yeah, so it's tough at first because I think bootstrapping is easy for some people and it's not easy for others. I just think a lot of people want to get to the finished product right away, but in fact I think you have to start with some version.

And that's a whole other topic because some people are so obsessed with making the perfect item, whether it's a necklace, whatever it is, that they don't launch. Like, I think you should launch, make your mistakes, and then adapt. Like, when we first started, like I said, like, we had Ziploc bag. If you saw our bag, you're like, I'm not eating popcorn from that.

But, um, but yeah, yeah, but I think that's how you should start. And then what was the dynamic like between you and your brother? Because now you're in the trenches. Yeah, problems are arising, finance all these other problems that come with that?

Yeah, it's a good question. You know, I think working with family is a touchy subject, whether it's your husband or your girlfriend, whoever, your brother. You know, it's because like at the end of the day, it's a person you could trust. I think that matters, you know what I'm saying?

It's not like some random friend or whatever. I think I was very blessed in that I had my brother. And if some days you get to work and you're like, why am I doing this? I could be at a job and someone's paying me a paycheck and I'm here like making no money.

I mean, there was times where like it would be like midnight, I'm making popcorn My brother is like, we had like a little apartment, it was like 500 square feet and we make our popcorn from the apartment and like we literally couldn't afford furniture because we had sold everything. So he's like sleeping on a mattress. I'm making popcorn. He would wake up, I'd wake him up, he'd continue making, then I would sleep.

In the day we would both go deliver popcorn exhausted. So it's like without that person to like be like, hey bro, just you can do it one more day, let's go one more day. And that's how we really built the business is like if you think too far in the future, I think you get bogged down. So our goal was literally to survive one more day.

That's it. And so we still see kind of life like that, you know? And I think that people get overwhelmed because you can be like, man, like, how do I start? Where do I go?

Get a Ziploc bag. Next step. Okay, go buy some kernels, right? And then things will kind of get into place.

It's like, you know, for me, I run a lot of marathons and it's helped me a lot kind of see through life in a way, you know, it's like if you think about like 42 kilometers to run, you're like, oh my God, like, how am I going to do that? I'm like, screw that. 1 kilometer at a time. That's it.

Was there a time that you were both like depressed and said, this is it? Of, you know, we're done with that. Yeah, I think that if any entrepreneur tells you that they're like loving life and like everything's, you know, roses and whatever, I think they're absolutely lying to you. It's like complete nonsense.

Like, I would say like most of the time is stress, most of the time is like really like crappy situations, and then you have those moments of like, wow, that was cool, you know. But at the end of the day, I would still honestly rather be in those situations where I'm frustrated and sad and tired, this and that, than to be in a job where like I feel like there's no forward movement. I don't feel passionate about it. I always like said that to my brother.

My brother agrees, was like, I'd rather be like poor and happy than like well-off and miserable. That's completely true, you know? So there's like a billion times where my brother and I were just like, sometimes we're at festivals, we'd be at like, we went, actually went to an EDM festival, okay? Because we're like, oh, let's sell popcorn there.

I don't know if you've ever been to an EDM festival. Nobody eats popcorn, okay? Everyone has like lollipops and candies and stuff like that. And we're like trying to sell popcorn in the brutal heat and no one's buying our popcorn.

And at one point we looked at each other like, What are we doing? What is going on in life? So anyways, we ended up pivoting on the situation, but, um, we ended up actually going to a corner store and buying lollipops and coming back to our booth and selling the lollipops. And we did well anyways.

But yeah, so that was the situation we had to pivot on the spot. But I guess the idea is that like you're not always going to be in these optimal situations. I think like the ability to operate in chaos is probably the best skill of any entrepreneur. That's well put.

The ability to operate in chaos. Yeah, I think that if you assume chaos, I think you'll be better off. I think assuming things things will go well is probably not the best way to go. And everyone, like, on, like, LinkedIn and social media is like, you got to be positive.

And for sure, you got to be positive. You have to assume the worst, because then if you assume the worst, then it's like, it's— everything's gravy from there, right? Like, just assume you're not going to do well. Assume it's going to be a miserable success.

Hope it does well, right? But let's say for my popcorn, let's say honestly, like, if I hope— if I assume it's going to be a failure and then I'm in 100 stores, it's like a huge success. And so that's kind of how we, we saw it. That's pretty interesting.

Yeah. But was there a point that you, uh, were so discouraged that you said, you know what, I wanted to go back? Or maybe you had friends that says, you know what, Fabio, what are you doing? It's not working out, just go back to your job.

I was once at an event when we first started called Oceaga, and so we were providing popcorn for them. And at one point we were hawking popcorn, which means you put the popcorn in like these baskets and you go around asking people if they want to buy the popcorn. And so it was like, I think it was like 10:30 at night, it was pretty dark, it was like raining, it was like pretty miserable, and we couldn't see in the dark, you know, because it was— there's not a lot of light. So my my brother and I, we had glow sticks around our neck.

We were holding bags of popcorn. I'm like a former lawyer. My brother was in banking. And at one point I saw like former colleagues of mine who were lawyers, but they were there kind of like just for fun with their friends.

" 'Cause I hadn't told anybody I was doing it, right? I think they thought I had like a drug problem or something. I was like doing this side hustle or whatever. " I don't know.

I just, I guess I have this like, I don't know, I have this like faith in my brother and myself to like succeed no matter what, despite all the failures. And we had a ton of failures with like with our company. We had a lot of setback and everybody always wants to show like all the positive things. But there's a lot of setbacks too, right?

What is the biggest setback you would say? You know, it's— there's a lot of times where you work on a particular project, like you're trying to pitch a client, okay? And you're like, oh, or say a grocery store. I really want to be in this grocery store.

And you do everything you can to be in the grocery store and you're almost like about to be there. But then something happens and you just suddenly can't. Like that happened a lot. And so all of our time and effort was kind of like, I don't want to say wasted, but we could have probably put our efforts in another way.

And so it's very discouraging when that happens. You know, or maybe a partnership or something like that. So those are big setbacks. Or I would order some of my bags from overseas.

So let's say a client would be like, hey, we want 1 million bags. I'm like, amazing, I'm super excited. So we place this big purchase order with like our supplier overseas, but then our supplies get trapped in a boat and they're like, yeah, don't worry, we'll bring it in 6 months. I'm like, they can't wait 6 months.

So then the client is like, okay, you know what, we're canceling the purchase order. So that happens all the time. And my brother and I, we were just like, we're like, we have all these expressions, we write them on our wall. Like one of them is like, quit as many times as you want, but just keep moving your feet.

And we really like— I should probably do like put the tattoos or something on my body, but that's like, that's the idea is just like, just keep quitting. It's fine, it's all good, but just, just keep moving forward. And so when that would happen, we would just keep going. So the thing about entrepreneurship, I realize, and this is only over time, is that like it's really important to keep like an even keel, you know.

Some people, they want to be like fired up all the time, this and that. But like for me, it's like if we get a million-dollar contract, like we'll go to Tim Hortons and like have like a bagel cream cheese. If we— you and your brother? Me and my brother, yeah.

And then if we lose a contract that, we're still going to Tim Hortons, you know what I mean? I'm just using Tim Hortons as an example, but like, my point is that there's no celebrations. We're not popping champagne, like, and it's not about like not celebrating your success. It's about being realistic and being like even keel, you know?

And so I find that that's the best way to go forward. There's not too many highs and there's not too many lows, you know? What about your team? Like, you have a team of how many people now?

Yeah, so I mean, we're like, we have dozens of people who work for the company. Uh, administration-wise, we're pretty tight. We're like about 10 people administratively. Everyone else is of like folks who work in the warehouse and things like that.

I like to think that we have a pretty open-door policy. Like there's been so many situations where, you know, people who work on the line, meaning in the production line, have an idea about how to like optimize efficiency that I don't know because I'm not producing the popcorn. Exactly. So if like they don't have a voice and they're not able to like come to see me and be like, hey, Fab, I know that you're doing it a certain way, this, it'll be more advantageous to you for whatever reason.

If I'm not listening to this person, I don't know. I just, I don't think that's a good way to go about things. You know what I mean? I see what you mean.

Yeah. So it's not like we don't have like an open concept office and we're not sharing a space. Like, we've had people who've come to our business who've done those things, and then I'm like, you know what, I don't have space for you in my business, but I'll recommend you for a more high-paying job in one of my friend's businesses. Okay.

You know, so it's like, why not reward people who've brought, you know, uh, some sort of benefit to you? Why not reward those people? You know what I'm saying? And how do you make them understand, like, the people that are working in the factory, make them understand if there's something that they have, their new idea to make things more efficient, that they can always go to you?

I think it's by showing, like, showing people. Like, I'm in the warehouse all the time. Okay. Yeah, people see me there.

I'm not some sort of guy who's just like behind a computer all day. Like, everyone knows who we are. Like, we'll have lunch with our employees. Like, I don't see a division between us.

It's not because I'm the boss that I'm better than these people. They're just doing a different job than I am. That's it. And I feel like if you're just authentically you, I think people, that they, they can feel that.

And I don't think you need to tell people, hey, it's an open concept. Yeah, I think if you do that, it's even— that's probably like less genuine, right? So I'm just like, I don't know, when they come to talk to me, I'm like, that's cool. And then they'll tell the people that, hey, I had a great conversation with Fab.

Like, you know, so, so show them, don't just tell them. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. People talk too much. Yeah, I mean, I talk a lot too, but that's probably because like maybe like my former lawyer days.

They're just like, I'm, I'm paid to talk. And right now, what is your, uh, role in the company? Yeah, so, um, we sold, um, a large percentage of our company a couple years ago to a private equity firm. And one of the benefits of the private equity firm was that they put certain, you know, folks in place in key positions.

So my brother and myself were doing like multiple roles. And so they said, okay guys, like, what are you best at? You know, what are, what are you good at? We're going to put you in that.

And then the roles, like, like, for example, like, you know you know, my brother now is only in charge of marketing and e-commerce because he's a genius at that. And so before, he was doing some accounting stuff and doing some CEO stuff. And now we have a CEO of the company. Now we have a CFO, we have a controller.

So we have all these folks in place, and it allows my brother, myself to do what we're good at. And so for my, my role is I'm in charge of sales. So I will go out and I'll get the big clients for the US and for the Canadian markets. And so once we get those clients, well, then they're onboarded into our kind of our company with other folks from our team.

And, uh, what does a typical day look like for you? That's crazy. Uh, yeah, so my brother and myself, we're like, when we first started the company, I think we were so into the grind that we weren't like health conscious. So not that we were ever like overweight or whatever, it's just we did like, we— I think I would have like 8 coffees by 10:00, you know?

And we always joked that like no one fasted better than us. Like we would not eat all day long. It was not healthy. So we always start the day with like a run.

We run like 5-7 km in the morning. Yeah, every morning, super early. Then we work, like, we'll do client calls, we'll meet with our team downstairs. We're often on the road to go see different suppliers or different partners we have.

Then we do boxing at lunch. So we have a boxer, we box for like 30 minutes. Um, and so that's pretty, that's pretty cool. And then the rest of the day, we usually end around like 7, 7:30.

And it's the same thing, it's a lot of like connecting to people, you know. We try— before, we were like really involved with every process of the company, but as we've grown, we've realized that you have to delegate to certain people certain tasks or else you're just doing everything, you know. So now it's a lot of delegating tasks and overseeing that delegation. Rewind just a little bit.

Sure. So you said in the morning you run for 7 kilometers, like every day? Every day. You and your brother?

Yes. At what time? Oh, so we usually get to work— well, it's not crazy. I know some on, on the internet you see these people waking up at 5 o'clock.

At 5 o'clock I'm sleeping. Like, usually we'll meet up at about 7 o'clock. Wow. Yeah.

So we'll run. The run takes us about 35 minutes or so, 40 minutes, and then come back, shower, and then we start working around 8 30, so it's not that bad. So do you live close to, uh, work? Yeah, I live, well, close, 30 minutes, 35 minutes.

My brother too, so it's not, it's not that bad. That's very impressive. I don't know. Yeah, it's just, I find— no, I don't— I don't find it impressive.

I just find it like, I don't know, for us, like, we have a high-stress type of life, you know, and a lot of pressure on us and things like that. So for us, it's like a healthy way to decompress, you know. Some people like smoking cigars or having like a drink or whatever, or like, I don't know, retail shopping, like, you know, like, what's it called, the impulsive buying, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah.

So for us, we just chose to have of like an obsession that at least is, um, healthy. And then you're there to encourage each other. That's great. Yeah, no, no, trust me, there's days, man, where I don't want to go.

My brother's like, where are you? You're late. Oh man, you know. So yeah, no, no, we, we hold each other accountable all the time.

And then at during lunch you have the boxing. Yeah, the boxing is just fun because it's like, especially if I'm like, we're in an argument about something, we can just box it out with him. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we have a coach obviously, but like, nah, it's a good time.

It's like at lunchtime, I'm gonna show you. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, so then you got acquired and now you're focusing more on sales? And, uh, how are you enjoying being in that role?

Yeah, I like connecting to people. For me, it's like, I don't know, I find that I think if you're able to create a genuine connection to the person, I think the sale will come from that. Let's say I'm calling a buyer for a big grocery store chain in the US. They're not gonna become my friend, like, you know what I'm saying?

Maybe, I don't know. But what I mean connecting is like really understanding what they want, you know? I think if you understand what is important to the other person you're speaking to and what matters to those people, I think you can create a connection, you know? And you do that by asking more questions?

Yeah, I think, you know, it's funny, my, um, my grandmother, you always used to tell me that you need to, you need to like listen more than you speak. And I was like, oh man, and it's hard for me because I just, I love talking to people. But I think by listening to people and asking a lot of questions, I feel like you can gather what— and when someone feels like listened to and heard, I feel that that naturally creates a connection between two people. It's very good.

It's a very good skill to, uh, to acquire, for sure. It takes time though. It takes time to develop, right? Because you're always trying to sell, oh, buy my popcorn, buy my popcorn.

But then like you have to ask yourself, okay, well, one, like, do Do they want your popcorn? Like, is there a need for that? And if there's not a need for your popcorn, is it— do they want like chocolates? Do they want something else?

You know what I mean? I spoke to one company where they're like, yeah, you know, we're not in the field for popcorn. And I was like, well, what's important to you? Like, what do you want?

And he's like, well, we have a space, you know, in like in the candy section. And I'm like, well, what is your, you know, highest selling type of candy? He's like, well, chocolates do really well. And I said, okay, well, let me get back to you.

So I spoke to my brother and we're like, let's maybe— could we develop a chocolate for them? So we came out with Bad Monkey Chocolate Chunk. And we— I think last year, I can't divulge the numbers, but we did very, very well with the chocolates across the US. A conversation that could have went south ended up in like a pretty lucrative contract for us.

Just by asking a few more questions. Yeah. And then, I mean, obviously I could have went back and said, listen, we don't do chocolates. But then at least now he, you know, he knows I'm not trying to like shove things down his throat that he doesn't need, you know.

So your advice for those that want to have a career in sales, what would you say? Listen, salespeople talk too much. Like, what does your potential— I don't use the word target, but like the person you're trying to sell to, what do they What do they want? Like, what's important to them?

Like, you know, yeah, I think that's the key to it. I mean, there's a lot of keys, obviously, but that's what has led us, I think, to be successful. And there's a lot of rejection, of course, right, in sales, would you say? Yeah, I don't know.

I feel like I don't get offended by that. Like, I don't take it personally. Like, so for example, I mean, if I'm pitching my product to a company and they're like, we're not interested, it's not because the guy doesn't like— maybe he doesn't like my face. It's possible.

I don't know. I feel like I'm pretty friendly, but I don't take it personally. I'm like, okay, cool. For us, like, a no is always like like two things.

It's not right now or not like this. That's how I see it. It's those two. It's only those two options in mind.

So for example, would you like my popcorn? He goes, no. I'm like, okay, maybe he doesn't need the popcorn now. Maybe he'll need— he needs it in 6 months.

I'm like, okay, that's cool. Would you like me to call you back in 6 months? When's the time that we can reevaluate? Oh, 6 months?

Cool. Okay. So I put a note in my agenda. I'm gonna call him back.

I'm not gonna harass him, but I'm gonna call him back. So that's like not right now. And then maybe it's not like this, meaning like he doesn't want this format. Maybe he wants a bigger format, you know.

So that's another way to look at it. And so I don't know, I don't, I don't really, I don't really see nos. Like, I just see kind of like a weird opportunity for me. And how do you have access to those people to begin with?

How do you get them to, to be able to go and pitch your— Yeah, by being creative, you know. Um, so like, for example, when we were first in discussions with Disney, like, we were sending, I don't know, like a billion messages to them, and they were never getting in touch with us. So my brother and I, we said to ourselves, how do we provide value to them? What do they need?

All right. So Disney was selling, you know, subscriptions to their Disney+ channel. So I said, I think like, imagine if I was Disney, what would I want? Imagine if everybody who signed up a Disney+ subscription got a free bag of popcorn with it.

Cool. That's like a nice little upsell for them. Free, cost them nothing. But for us, it would be great because there's a good association, a good way for us.

Free popcorn for Disney+ subscribers in the headline when I wrote to them. Right away, we got a message back. Really? Yeah, right away after sending like endless amounts of emails where they completely ignored us.

Not that they— Yes, I mean, I'm sure they get solicited all the time. You know, anyways, in retrospect, actually, I'm glad the deal did not work out for the Disney Plus because my brother and I, we had not done the forecast. It would have cost us millions of dollars for sure. So, but what they did was they said, listen, we love the fact that you wanted to provide us with something.

They said, actually, that's not going to work for privacy reasons. We can't just give out addresses of everybody, but maybe we'll put you in touch with our marketing people. And anyways, that led to us having further discussions. But how did you get into contact with them in the first place?

Yeah, so we, we used LinkedIn, to be honest with you. And I think that, like, I don't know, I think more and more people are using LinkedIn, you know, it's not a new company, but I feel like more people are realizing the potential of it. And social media for sure, you know, like the old days of just like Googling and calling an office, it doesn't work so much, you know. So for us, LinkedIn has been vital.

Wow. Yeah, what a big contract just by contacting somebody from LinkedIn. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And again, like, it's one of those things where you're going to get a lot of nos.

Yes, for sure. But then, like, like I said before, is it a no or is it a not now, not like this, not in this fashion, you know? Just look into it more than just the no. What are some of the mistakes that you you made, you think— maybe you thought they were mistakes but then realized the upside of them after.

Yeah, mistakes are every single day. I feel like the most successful people just make less mistakes every day. Every day my goal is to make a little bit less mistakes than the day before. Like, I know that sounds weird, but it's so true.

Like, I feel like I'm always messing up, right? And I think that's normal because we're humans and there's no rule book on how to do this. Like, if there was— if there's a rule book on, hey, how do you build an, like, an international popcorn company, I would just read it and go through it and then just apply what I learned in that book, but it's not there. So we need to figure things out as we go along.

For us, like, I don't want to divert from your question, but I think pivoting is super important, and I think that should be talked about in the analysis of making mistakes. So for example, when we first started, we were doing bags that were very thin, okay? And the reason they were thin was because it was cheaper, okay? Right?

So we couldn't afford big fancy bags, and we're like, oh, these cheap bags are really good. What we didn't realize was that maybe it was off obvious, but whatever, is that it expired quicker, so it would have to leave the shelves faster. And as a new company, you know, you're not going to be like selling as fast as other companies, right? So we were getting like a lot of expired bags coming back.

Not a lot, but just enough, right? We said to ourselves, man, no, we have like so many bags we ordered, like thin that like that, you know what I'm saying? And so you can look at that as a mistake, but it's kind of a learning opportunity. You're like, okay, cool, like we want to save money but not at the cost of quality.

Like, so for us, like quality is super, super key, you know? So that was a mistake, kind but then we learned from that. We pivoted real quick. So our next order, right away, we doubled the size of the bag, like the thickness of the bag, which made the popcorn stay fresh longer.

So basically realize the mistake you made and then pivot right away. And yeah, I feel like a lot of people, like, they either get really down on themselves in terms of like, oh, I made a mistake. Okay, it's cool. You made a mistake.

Let's go. Let's move on. Let's move on from it. But like, what do we do from now?

You know what I'm saying? So learn from it. Yeah, I know it's obvious, you know, to learn from your mistakes. Is not really great advice, but a lot of people don't do that.

They, they, they harbor on their mistakes. Tell us about your experience on the Dragon's Den. Yeah, so when we first applied for that, um, it was like held in a giant auditorium, you know, and, uh, the way it works is kind of like a deli where like you get a number and then you get called to go down to like to do an audition in front of a bunch of producers. And so my brother and I were like sitting in this audience of like tons of people, super nervous to pitch in front of these producers.

And then like if the, if the producers like you, they choose you, but they choose a very few amount of companies. But we, it's at least got to the point where we can audition for these producers, right? So there's like, imagine like 300 companies waiting and they choose like— and so my brother and I are sitting there and we're thinking to ourselves like, man, like there's no food here. I bet you these people are hungry and nobody wants to get up their chair.

I said to my brother, and well, we talked about this, we're like, hey, one of us will wait here, okay? The other will go back to the office. And I dumped a bunch of popcorn and like our banner and our, our little kiosk into— we had like a broken down little van and we loaded up with popcorn and we came back because we weren't far away, about 20 minutes away. So we set up like literally like in the stands of the auditorium, like a little tiny booth, and we sold the popcorn for $5 a bag.

And we're like, hey guys, popcorn, $5. And then we had like a lineup of people buying the popcorn. And then at one point, like one of the people came up and was like, yeah, what are you doing? I'm sorry, who authorized this?

And they're like, ah, we're so sorry. Like, it goes back to like don't ask for permission. So we're like, I'm so sorry, like, uh, you know, we just wanted to maybe we, you know, provide some popcorn to folks. And then they're like, whose idea was this?

I was like, well, it was our idea. And they're like, okay, you're on the show. Oh, and it was— yeah, it was one of the producers. So that was really, really cool.

And at the end of the day, like, and we ended up making a few hundred bucks, so it's not like a lot of money, but we ended up making a good— like, we didn't— we didn't like do that with the intent of like, oh, we want to impress the judges. We just like— we're like, let's make some money. Like, let's just do this right now. Yeah, that's kind of like our philosophy.

I'm not going to ask like, hey, are we allowed to sell popcorn here? It's just like, let's just do it and see what happens. I like that mentality. Yeah, yeah.

Just— and what's the worst that's gonna happen? They're gonna kick us out? It's okay, whatever. Because I wasn't on the show, like I assumed the worst.

I assumed we're not going to get on the show. Yeah, because 300 people leave out. Yeah, at least I leave with like $300. Like we could pay our rent for the month, you know?

Oh my God. But being on the show was very positive for you guys. Yeah, it was really good publicity, honestly. We ended up getting a few offers from the Dragons, which was really cool.

It didn't end up materializing for like a bunch of different reasons, but had nothing to do with us, to be honest with you. And we're still in touch with the Dragons. And yeah, they've been really cool. It's just we didn't close the deal like after the show aired.

Okay, okay, I understand, all right. And we know that you're very involved in the community. Do you want to talk about that a bit? Yeah, for us, I mean, connecting to our consumer is really, really important.

Like these days there's so many options of like snacks you could eat in the grocery store. Like a person who like works really hard for their money spend their money on your product versus, I don't know, like 100 other items. And we feel like it's like if we support the community, we don't expect it, but we really think that the community will help support us. And so far that's been the case, you know?

So like we're a small company, but I don't think a company provides more free popcorn for like charity events and hospitals and schools and fundraisers than us. And we don't do it just because we want support, but for us it's like we want to be involved in the community because no other company is. They're just all like, you know, social media promoting themselves and this and that. But for us it's like, okay, you have a, you have a cancer walk, cool, we'll provide the popcorn, no problem, free, enjoy the popcorn, like it's all good.

And, and we just believe that one day it'll come back to us. I like that. Yeah. And both you and your brother, like, you're very confident people, like, when you speak.

Is that something that you were born with or something that you had to acquire? Yeah, I don't know. We come from, like, super humble, like, backgrounds, you know, like, really, like, blue-collar folks. And, like, we don't come from money.

So for us, we've always had to, like, kind of, like, fight for our meals in a sense, you know what I mean? And so for— we had no other way to be. Like, if we're quiet and, like, in the corner, we have no support. So it's like we have to kind of be the best reps for ourselves, if that makes any sense.

So that would be your message to other people and how they can build confidence. I don't know if that's my message, that's just kind of how we were. But for me, it's like, who's going to be a better supporter for you than you, right? I mean, you might have like a husband or wife who cheers you on, but then if like you don't support yourself and you don't believe in yourself, then like, I don't know, man, it's tough.

And of course there's times where I doubt myself all the time. Like, I'm always like, man, did I make the right move? Did I do this and that? I'm like, yeah, I think I did.

And if I didn't, I'm like, okay, I'll just learn from that mistake. What's the worst that can happen, right? Yeah, try and keep moving on. Yeah, no, no, like a lot of these like entrepreneurs are like— I feel like I'm hating on people— it's just like they're like all about like positive thinking, this and that, which is great.

But at the end of the day, it's like there's times where you're just like, it's tough, you know? You're like, what do I do? You're like maybe a bit discouraged, this and that. Just keep moving forward.

You can quit as many times as you want, but just keep moving your feet. And who do you admire as business owners? Like, who can you think of? My brother.

That's good. Yeah, yeah. Who else? We're the best.

Like, no, seriously, like I always joke, like you put me and my brother Joe on any— in any country, $0, just throw us in the street and, and, and see what happens with any other two entrepreneurs. I'll go head-to-head with anybody. So I don't know, I don't— I— yeah, my brother for sure. He's the, he's the best entrepreneur other than me.

Wow. Yeah, you guys are very close. Yeah, for sure. I mean, like, that's it.

We built like this company, like, he's had my back, vice versa. I don't know. Yeah, I, I put all in on him for sure. Yeah, I like that.

Yeah. And what is the best piece of advice that you've ever gotten? I won't say who it is, but a very like well-known guy who's extremely successful, who built his company from nothing, he said something to me once that was really important, and I think it's really important that other entrepreneurs hear this, is that you don't need to be everything to everybody. So for example, like my popcorn, I don't care if everybody likes my popcorn.

If 10% of the population is obsessed with us, I'm good. You know what I'm saying? Like, people try to appease everybody. You don't need to.

Like, if you have— I was— I was always like my go-to, but if you have like a necklace company, you know, there's an expression, it's like, if you know who you are, you know where you're going. And so who are you? What do you represent? What is your brand?

Represent, you know. So for us, for example, Popcorn Company now seems to be catering to like the yoga mom, like health nuts, right? Hey, no, no, low carb, low this. Our demographic is a soccer mom.

It's like the family who wants to enjoy like a really good snack at night. I know who my demographic is, and I'm targeting 100% of them. And they might be only 10% of the population, but that's who I care about. So 10% is still a lot of people.

Yeah, it's just I feel like every— like a lot of people are just focused on being like liked by everybody or admired by everybody, you know what I mean? Like, if you have a YouTube channel with like only, let's say, I don't know, 15,000 followers, but like the engagement level is super high, isn't that better than having a million followers with nobody liking your stuff? Exactly. So that's kind of how I see it.

It's more like quality over quantity. Yeah. And if you could go back and redo things over, what would you have done differently? I mean, there's like a million things for sure, but it's one of those corny things where it's like, I feel like if I changed one thing in the past, I wouldn't be where I am day.

Yeah, but like, yeah, like I'd go back and like win the lottery maybe, you know, but like, or like something silly like that. But like, yeah, invest in Bitcoin. Yeah, but like, you know, in crypto. But like, I remember when I was in, in law school and I was applying to these big law firms, and like I had to work full-time when I was in law school, so I didn't have like the best grades in the world.

So when I applied to some of these big law firms, I was rejected cuz I didn't have the best grades. Cuz I mean, when you're working 45 hours a week, it's tough, right? And I was always, I was discouraged and I was like really down down on myself. I'm like, oh man, I want to be in these big law firms.

What if I had gotten those, those jobs? Then I wouldn't be where I am right now. It's weird, like, how this, like, this kind of, like, seemingly like a failure in the past ended up being something that led me to do what I'm doing now, which is being happy. It's good.

And what is your biggest fear? Not being happy. Yeah, seriously. Like, I really, I, I, I, I value that above all else.

Like, at the end of the day, we don't live a long time. Like, you have, like, maybe 80 trips on the sun. Like, how do you want to spend that time? You know what I mean?

So it's like, for me, if I'm happy, I'm good. Obviously I don't want to be like impoverished, but anything where I can have a decent meal, I have like running water— most of the world does not have running water, does not have food. I can open a fridge and have anything I want to eat. I don't care about a big house.

I don't drive a fancy car. I don't care about this. I could buy anything I want. But at the end of the day, if I'm just happy and like walking my dogs in the park, I'm good.

Peace of mind, being grateful. Yeah, it's undervalued. Valued. Yes.

Yeah, it's always— everyone's chasing like dollars, and it's like, that's cool, but like you don't need a lot of money to be successful. And what do you sell— you see yourself in the next 3, 5 years or so? I want to replicate this. I want to do this again and again and again until I die.

Like, I literally want to keep doing this again over and over. Not like— not a popcorn company. I feel like I've eaten enough popcorn for like 5 lifetimes. Yeah, but I feel like I could do this again, and I just want to keep doing it.

Like, I don't— the idea of retiring to me is just like completely crazy. Like, retiring to what? Into like, I don't know, I don't even know what that means. Because you enjoy it so much that you don't even see that, you know.

Yeah, I enjoy the process. And some people go, well, yeah, you enjoy it because you're making a lot of money. I'm like, I enjoyed it when I was like on a mat in a 500-square-foot apartment in a really bad neighborhood. And, uh, do you have any regret?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like I said, like, it just, it's everything I've done has led me to here. So if I regret something, that means I want to redo it. And if I redo it, maybe I won't end up where I am right now.

Yeah, time is weird like that. Do you have any books you could recommend to entrepreneurs? Yeah, The Purple Cow by Goddard. Yeah, it's a very famous book, but a lot of people haven't read it.

It's kind of like it hasn't been talked about in a while. The concept is super simple. I mean, the name says it all. Purple Cow, right?

How do you distinguish yourself? Right? What makes you different? Right?

So it's like, I go to my necklace company. There's a billion necklace companies out there. Why is yours different? Is it just because, like, you're popular?

I mean, I don't know if that's enough. I think you need to have a product that's unique. You don't need to be obsessive about the uniqueness. And to go back to what I was saying before, if only 10% of the population population is obsessed with your unique product, you're good.

Yeah, you're set for life for sure. Yeah. And, uh, you seem like you're a very disciplined person, you know, wake up early, you go run. How do you stay disciplined like that?

Yeah, because I feel like a lot of people focus on motivation. So I'm like, I don't feel motivated today. I'm like, I don't care. There's days where I literally do not want to work.

I'm just exhausted. Like yesterday I worked, I think it was like 17 hours, and today I was exhausted. I'm like, I'm gonna sleep in. I'm like, no, no, I'm just gonna do it.

It's like whether I'm tired, sick, happy, sad, doesn't matter. I'm just gonna do it. Like, go through the motion of it, you know. Some folks are like, oh, I don't really feel motivated to go to the gym.

Doesn't matter, just do it. Just do it. It's like Nike's slogan, right? It's like, it sounds corny, but it's so true.

And then over time, if you're just like, you do those micro disciplines, it'll end up into a behavior, you know what I mean? And then your behavior will just, it'll create results just by the nature of repeatedly doing something over and over again. And if you had one last message for the audience, yeah, I know the last thing you just said was really good, but is Is there something else, one last message you want to tell the people? What do you have to lose?

You're going to lose money? You can make more money. And even if you have kids to rely on, there's always an excuse. Everyone has an excuse.

It's just like, what is your excuse, right? Like, you have nothing to lose. Like, again, you have about 80 trips around the sun. How do you want to spend that time?

Well said. And what do you like about the city of Montreal? Everything. It is the reason we are where we are.

I swear to God, like, I love Montreal. It's just I find that people really get behind companies, especially like homegrown companies. They're super supportive. I honestly don't even know if we would be able to have our company like we, you know, if we were in some random city in Canada, you know what I'm saying?

Okay. So yeah, Montreal is amazing. And I don't know, from what I see so far, there's a lot of cool companies coming from Montreal. Yeah, me too.

I noticed that. Plus good food. Well, it was really nice to have you on the show. My pleasure.

Thank you so much. Another time we'll see each other again. All right. Sounds great.