Will Nitze: It never gets easier. Just go faster.

James Lacey: This week on the Fulfilled Podcast, we sit down with Will Nitze, the innovative founder of IQBAR. Discover how his dedication to brain health inspired the creation of nutrient-rich, keto-friendly bars designed to Nourish both mind and body.

Will Nitze: I'm Will, that's who I am. I just moved to Miami about a year ago. I'm married of a couple of years, was in Boston for about 10 years before that, went to college in Boston. What IQBAR is, it's really the only brain and body pro-plant protein bar. We also sell hydration products that have that same brain and body value proposition, and we also sell coffee as well, but about 85 percent of the business still is our hero product line, which is our plant protein bars.

James Lacey: Awesome. I know, you know I've touched on, or I've seen a little bit of your story, but you went through Harvard, graduated from Harvard, and then you experienced some health challenges. Is that right?

Will Nitze: Yeah. Nothing like crazy, but I just felt terrible on a daily basis. I was eating a high carb diet and it wasn't like a weight gain thing or anything like that.

I just felt lethargic. Which I think a lot of people do, maybe most people do. So, I quickly learned that was mostly due to my diet and so I started obsessing about diet and read a book called Grain Brain that really changed the way I thought about diet. It was really covering the intersection of nutrition and cognition and not just in the short run, you know, if I eat a pizza at noon, I'll feel terrible at 3 pm, but also the long term. What if I eat a pizza every day for 30 years? What's my brain going to look like? Turns out I'm far more likely to get Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, garden variety, cognitive decline. So that was a wake up call. And then I always kind of wanted to do my own thing. So all those kind of like variables collided and I was like, all right, I'm going to start a brain food company.

No background in consumer goods. no background in entrepreneurship, just sort of put one foot in front of the next and here we are eight years later.

James Lacey: Eight years wow, that's impressive. And now you can find IQBAR at Sprouts and a bunch of other grocery stores. And I know you guys are selling very well online too.

Is there for somebody that you've, you had no background in entrepreneurship, it, I don't know if it was always a plan for you or always on the cards, but to dive into something that is especially the consumer goods market, there is a fair amount of competitors in the space. It's like, it's a pretty overwhelming task to take on and with no background in it, what would you say to, to somebody that's kind of similar place, like has a dream or experiencing a problem?

And they're like, man, I feel like there's a solution to this, but they have no idea how to jump that gap.

Will Nitze: It's like that saying like, “You don't eat an elephant in one sitting” or whatever. It's like, you just have to figure out what the next problem is and just sequentially solve one after the next.

So, you know if you start with like, okay, what product do I want to make? Period. Okay. Let's say it's a protein bar. Great. The first thing I always do is go find someone who owns and operates a protein bar company and ask them what they did for a second, third, fourth, and what they wish they did differently.

So I, I was in Boston at the time and I, there were a couple actually, luckily protein bar startups there. And I, one of them agreed to meet with me and I was like, how do you manufacture? Where do you manufacture? What should my cost of goods be? What should my gross margin be? Just ssk a hundred questions, right?

and then you get, do that as with three, four people, and then you can triangulate a path for yourself. Don't just take their advice at face value, use your own judgment and use their advice, and then you know what step one is, step two And so for example, one of the bar companies I talked to, connected me with our first contract manufacturer in Spokane Valley, Washington of all places.

And that was how we started manufacturing, right? And then, and then it was like, okay, how am I going to start? How am I going to start getting sales? Well you know, I don't have money. Kickstarter is great way to get free sales. Cool. Who's run a successful Kickstarter campaign, called five people who did that to ask a hundred questions, got a bunch of notes and triangulated the path forward on Kickstarter.

And so we've just. I've kind of done that, or I did that across all aspects of entrepreneurship in year one. And then at some point you become the experienced one. And you're also in parallel doing a lot of trial and error right, where you're just trying stuff and you could go ask 10 people how it worked for them, but it wouldn't even really help you and so you're parallel pathing, like great advice from people who are one, two, three, four years ahead of you.

And then your own trial and error and data gathering. But yeah, eventually let's say three years in or four years in or whatever. You're like, okay, I actually have a sixth sense for how this business should be moving and you rely less on, on advice.

James Lacey: That's good. There's a, the hearing the balance of almost like learning theory and experience from people who have already gone before you, but then actually you're implementing at the same time. Whereas I think a lot of people kind of YouTube university world, a lot of people are able to access a lot of information, but then maybe miss the step of action.

And, and so it's interesting to hear you talking about the tandem there of just actually having to implement as you receive that learned experience from others.

Will Nitze: It should be at least equal parts. Trial and error and following someone else's playbook.

James Lacey: Is, do you have any, you said you're eight years in now to, I imagine a lot of trial and error, a lot of learning. And, yeah. Is there any, anything you've learned over the course of almost 10 years that you say each and every day I've learned to just do this, to stay focused or to stay consistent?

Will Nitze: I would say you got to get your own personal life in order. The entrepreneurial lifestyle is not compatible with like, partying and going out a lot and spending a lot of money. Make sure that you have your house in order, you have a very, very, very low personal burn rate, you have stability at home. I think everyone should be married. Like, have a good partner with you,who's going to be supportive. Like, check all of those boxes because the entrepreneurial side is going to be utter chaos. And so I just don't think you can juggle two different realms of chaos in your life, I think you only have room for one. So that, that'd be the first thing. I would say the second thing is, you have to chart a path eventually to profitability. Today especially, that wasn't always the case in consumer goods.

You could burn, burn, grow, grow, grow and sell your company even before you turn a single dollar in profit. That's just not the case today and so, even if you're not going to get to profitability for four years, it took us, six years to, to become profitable. But we only burned a small amount of money each year.

And so just like Chart out, you'll be wrong, but do it anyway. Chart out how you're going to get to break even for consumer goods. For us, it was always. We need to get to a certain volume. That is what unlocks profitability is volume, certain number of units, we're moving out the door. And so that was the North star.

Everything's working backwards from that. And then ultimately we got there, but, you know, when I started IQBAR, that was not profitability was not a focal point and now it's like, it's everything. I would say, I’m in, I mean I could keep riffing, but like on the hiring side, I have a strong bias for hiring only people you know, or a direct referral. Basically everyone on our team, it falls into one of those two camps, one person out of the whole team does it.

but like making bad hires can really kill you and having people who aren't super motivated for you to win, will just drag you down. My wife works in the business. It's like, you couldn't get better buy in than that. I think that's just really, really, really critical. And then the last thing I would say is you as the founder have to be the product engineer, in my opinion.

Now, obviously there are exceptions, but like, I see in consumer goods, so many, so often, like someone will have an idea, I want a low sugar muffin, whatever it is, and they'll go find someone else to make it. But they never really got up the curve, the technical curve around product, because they didn't obsess over it.

They weren't literally making it in their kitchen over and over and over again. And so they don't have a really intimate familiarity with the technical side of the product because you will have to keep iterating your product and do product line extensions and this and that, and have someone who's on the founding team, not really understanding that, I think is bad because ultimately you're going to get to a good enough product and then you're going to try and commercialize it and scale it and it's just like good enough does not, you cannot win in today's market with good enough. You have to get 5 percent better and 5 percent better and 5 percent better. so I guess a shorthanded way of saying that is someone on the founding team needs to be truly obsessed with product, because product improves all downstream metrics.

Everyone obsesses over customer acquisition costs and conversion range, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. guess what makes all of those better? A better product. so that'd be  the last thing I would say. 

James Lacey: That's great. Yeah. Obsessing of a product. I think that has become like, increasingly important. Like you said, Oh, maybe 10 years ago you could have something that's half decent and just market it really and you'd be okay.

There's less competition in generally most spaces. And, but now, yeah, I think people are so well-versed and everything is very, It's like under a microscope. And so unless your product is excellent, it's harder I think. So sounds like you guys are excelling at that based on results and also what I've experienced just as a consumer. Do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice that you've received?

Will Nitze: I think probably my favorite quote of all time is, cyclist, Greg Lamont.

And the quote goes, “It never gets easier, you just go faster.” It never gets easier, you just go faster. Which is so true. I'm eight years in, it's actually not easier than year one. You're just better. You're just like, you have more scar tissue, you have more muscle memory, and you will just always, the equilibrium is like stress and grinding and how do we get to the next mountaintop.

But you just get so much better. But like it's, maybe it gets a little bit easier, but it's more or less just as hard now as it was at the beginning, because, you get so much more ambitious each year.

James Lacey: I've seen you say before that you believe that the correct me if I'm misphrasing this, but, you believe that the correct way startup should move nowadays is ops first. Is that right? And if so, what do you mean by that?

Will Nitze: Yeah. I, so people, again, like there is a, something that a lot of people said to me when I started out and they're like, you just want to be a sales and marketing organization. That's what you should be. Get a formulation dialed in, get a manufacturer, get them on a turnkey model, which means they handle all the ingredient procurement.

And then they make the finish good and they just deliver it to your doorstep. And then you should just be focused on sell, sell, sell and market. I think that's a horrible advice today. Frankly, I thought it was always horrible advice. I think it's the literal inverse. And here's why, the at least in our category, price is unbelievably important, what you learn as you get scale bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, is you need to deliver value to the consumer.

And you need to hang with the big boys and you need to be able to price with the big boys. There is just no way to do that other than to be operationally excellent. So like, instead of doing a turnkey model, we buy all our ingredients. We're incredibly obsessive over costs. We work with our manufacturing partners to get labor costs on the product.

Now, the tricky part is you also have to be excellent at the sales and marketing side. So it's not like this or that, but it's just, it was so lopsided in the sales and marketing direction. You know, and whatever, call it 2018. And I just think now, first of all, like all those businesses, they would grow, but they would lose money all along the way.

Like you have to get to 15 to 20 percent EBITDA. You need, you have to get to really meaningful net profit. And there's just no way to sell and market your way into that. It has to be this big, big chunk of that. I think part of the challenge is a lot of people when they start consumer good companies, is they're not an office person, right?

They're like, I just had this idea and then I can make a prototype. And I just want to get it in as many hands as possible. And they don't think about, no, you need to be nerding out over all the COGS line items. And if you're not going to do it, hire someone to do it. But I really do think it's why so many consumer good brands go under is how they just obsess more on, on ops earlier, they would have been all right but they just never did.

James Lacey: It kind of feels like the equivalent from a brand perspective where people establish such reputable brands that it's hard for them to go under because they have such a strong IP. And then at that point, it's like, you said, at that point, they just need to manage the line. And so, you know, make sure that your costs are lower than your income. 

And, but yeah, so I, I think now in a way that you establish by the sounds of what you're saying, you establish such a valuable product and operations are aligned, and then you can scale and build brand from there. Whereas before I think it was just like, just build a great brand IP and then from that point, we can do whatever we want. 

Will Nitze: the other thing too, is literally just being able to make product, deliver product. So once you get into these like big retailers, The volume swings are so big. And so the demand planning side of the business becomes really challenging.

So think of that as the umbrella, and that needs to trickle down to how many bars we need to make for across nine different flavors, which then trickles down to how many ingredients you need to buy for across all of those. That's the other operational thing. It's not just like your gross margin, It's demand planning.

How do we make sure we're always making product that can get to the end destination and I would even layer on a final thing, you want the product to be as fresh as possible. So we're, we’re working in like you know, date-coded products, right? These are not lasting 5 years. So that's just add the whole other thing.

How do we time it? We make the product and we get it in the distributors hand within a month and then the distributor gets into the retailer within 3 months, and then it gets consumed within 4 months. No, it's very complex.

James Lacey: That is, they sound like a large sum of mathematical equations that you're having to work.

Will Nitze: It's all simple math, but it's, there's a lot that can go wrong.

James Lacey: What inspires you or motivates you during challenging times? just what you're describing, this constant headaches, I'm sure. But what, what keeps you going?

Will Nitze: Winning. I want to win. Like especially now that it's like the saying, we didn't come this far to just come this far. I mean, that's how I feel. You need that W and for us, that's like exiting the company. For others, maybe it's, I don't know, maybe they want to do it for 30, 40 years or whatever, but. And for us, it's how do we build a big, really valuable asset and sell that asset, for better or worse.

I think it's always weird when founders are coy about that. It's like, no, that's 99 percent of people's goal. If I spent eight years getting us to where it's got and then you don't get that W. I mean that'd be devastating, right? So I'd say that more than anything fires me up.

James Lacey: Is there anything that you are maybe connected to that I don't know. Anything that you're super excited about for what's next with IQBAR or What you're leaning towards?

Will Nitze: 2025 is going to be a monster, monster year for us. We're going into at least a thousand, maybe 1200 targets. We're going nationwide with Costco. I think we're gonna go into a bunch of new Walmarts.

Like there's just this explosive Q1 that's going to happen and it's terrifying, but it's really exciting at the same time. And it's like very much the big leagues now. It's like, okay, can you hang? Can you? Can you,  can you again, operationally be excellent and deliver on all that and make sure the trains are running on time.

And so I'm fired up about that challenge. On the whole though, just it's frankly, nothing new. It's just more of the same. It's like, how do we push, like in past years, it was, we were coming out with entire new product lines. And that's super exciting but at some point you we have three product lines and it's like, all right, that's our, those are the horses we're riding in on.

More horses will not help us. We need to train those horses to run faster and so it's just more of the same, It's just amping up what we're already doing.

James Lacey: Leadership can be a lonely place sometimes. I think the role of a CEO, the role of a founder, you, I mean, being married helps. but It can often, yeah, you can often feel isolated, right? I think when you're leading people, and you're leading a movement, how do you stay connected to either people around you, the world outside, like is there anything that outside of the business that keeps you just connected to the world and not immersed in being isolated and leading what you are.

Will Nitze: The way I think about leadership is you need a benevolent dictator. I believe,

James Lacey: I agree.

Will Nitze: Actually, I think solo-founded companies are much cleaner than co-founded companies. So you need that person and there just is no two ways about it. You, if you are, that person will be lonely in many respects because the box stops at you.

And so I think this dovetails with what I said earlier around. You need to make sure that your home life is in order. Fitness is in order. Your health is in order. So that you can withstand the burden of being lonely in that context, because there just is no way around that. So like, again, entrepreneurship, even more broadly is not for everyone.

But sometimes some folks can't handle that. That being said, there are ways, I think, to mitigate that, in that for us, I want everyone to be the CEO of their department. So we have a pretty flat hierarchy. There isn't, there's no like middle management. The best idea should always win. And so you, as that benevolent dictator. need to check your ego and make sure that the best idea is always winning.

Like I know when I'm out of my depth on e-commerce or marketing or ops or whatever, and my sort of lieutenant in that realm will tell me that. And I'm like, okay, yeah, like you know better than I do. And so I think it's that balance. But you really want everyone to feel like they are the owner of their domain and they aren't being insanely micromanaged or whatever. But at a high level, I do believe you need a benevolent dictator and, and so that just is what it is.

James Lacey: I totally agree with that. I've actually heard God defined, like the biblical God defined as a benevolent dictator. And, and that's if you were to study his character, that's how he would lead.

and you're really just basically saying you should be like God, which I think is a good,

Will Nitze: don't develop a God complex. Yeah. Don't think that you're infallible and everything you ever thought that you have is smart and right and like you need checks and balances for sure.

And you also need to re underwrite your ability to lead the company every year. Let's say you're doubling every year. everything changes when you double the go to market changes, what's needed to run the company changes. So are you still the best benevolent dictator for that company in year two, year three, year four?

And you need to like, learn rapidly and adjust rapidly to be able to keep up with your own company. Most entrepreneurs are great at 0 to 1 and not great at 1 to 2. So either be humble and realize you're not the guy or rapidly learn and get better.

James Lacey: Is there any mistake that you've learned from, like any main mistake that you've learned from in either a specific one or generally how you've learned from mistakes over the past eight years?

Will Nitze: I think generally brands are ready before they think they are. For a variety of things, if you're like a small brand and you're doing two, three, four or five million and we keep growing within like smaller retailers and online and this and that, and you're just, you're not ready. What I've found is we were ready, before everyone told us we were for retailers like Walmart and Costco.

And so I think there's just people are kind of gun shy to take big swings. and they wait too long and but the reality is just like starting a company. The time is never right for anything. And it's a question of can you succeed despite not having name brand recognition for your brand?

Because there's 10 other things you can do. You can price your leg competitively. You can have a great product. You can have great packaging. You can have tailwinds of a macro dietary trend, blah, blah, blah. And then you can win at Walmart, even though nine out of 10 or 99 out of a hundred people don't know who your brand is.

So I would say I often usually wish we moved earlier. Versus regretting that we moved at all. And you're not going to be perfect. So the one caveat I would say is don't take big swings that will put you out of business. Like always be mindful of that. Don't bet the farm, but if you can take big swings, take them generally earlier.

James Lacey: Do you think that has anything to do with yourself or the team? Like because I'm thinking about, I think that's actually brilliant advice. I haven't heard somebody say that before. Usually it's more on hearing on the side of, like you just said, caution or like you're not ready yet kind of thing. but I also think that probably is largely connected with, Team talent mindset, and actually being able to handle what comes with that

Will Nitze: and money can't forget money, right? You gotta have the balance sheet to be able to take swings, but yeah, those other variables too.

James Lacey: Do you have a, do you have a biggest roadblock to scaling right now? Is there anything that you guys are like, this is the rock that we need to move to, to go to here.

Will Nitze: No, execution. Execution risk. That's it. It's all there for us. We need to execute on it. There are no, the roadblock is our ability to execute. That's it.

James Lacey: That's awesome. I'll jump into, our favorite and final question, seeing as it's connected to the name of the podcast. What does real fulfillment mean to you?

Will Nitze: I think it's, I think fulfillment is different than happiness. which is a key distinction. A lot of people say I want to optimize for happiness. I would much rather optimize for fulfillment, which is basically like feeling like you're working towards something meaningful, at all times. Like per, like purpose is what I'm doing.

Does what I'm doing matter? Everyone has a different definition of matter, but I would say matter, meaning I'm challenging myself. I'm improving society. I'm improving consumers' lives. all those things aggregate into mattering and purpose for me. And then again, the challenge thing is so key. Like never stop challenging yourself.

I would say boredom is like the inverse of fulfillment. So if ever you're feeling bored, that's a big problem. Boredom is worse than pain, in my opinion. And so if ever you're feeling bored, something went wrong, something went wrong. So how do I avoid boredom and run towards challenge and purpose.

James Lacey: That's awesome. That reminds me of things like hearing things that just Jordan Peterson would say of like life is suffering, or basically, and you just got to embrace it and learn how to deal with it. And different people saying similar things. And at least that's definitely what I'm learning as an individual.

And I think your answer is fantastic. Boredom is worse than pain. That's a statement. 

Will Nitze: There you go, put it on a bumper sticker.

James Lacey: Will, thank you so much for making time to be honest. Is there any final words that you'd like to share? And also where can we follow along with IQBAR?

Will Nitze: No, nothing further. IQBAR.com, Amazon, you can find us. Costco, if you want to go to a store, Costco, Walmart, soon to be Target, Wagman Sprouts, H E B Publix. We have a store like a locator on our site. I'm Will Nitze on LinkedIn, I put out harebrained ideas if you're into that and that's all I got.

James Lacey: That's awesome. Thank you so much for making the time to be on todayThat is it for today's episode of the Fulfilled podcast and we'll see you next time.

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