Podcast appearances and mentions of alfred coffee

Today on Sagittarian matters! We're over the moon to welcome Morgan back to the show to  talk about Cafix, CELERY, Trader Joes Vegan Fish, TJ's Bird Nest, signs of aging, the smell of trader joes, Alfred Coffee, Outstanding Cheeseballs, Lagusta's cheese powder, Lagusta's turtles, Molasses cookies, Moku mushroom jerky and SO MUCH MORE.    PLUS! An unsolicited food review from Dawn Riddle, with special guest Megan DIneen. 

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If you think today’s episode is going to be filled with boring legalese, think again. Not only are many entrepreneurs reticent to involve a legal expert, but they tend to think of them merely as risk-mitigators. But stop to consider – your business could attract bigger initial financing, celebrity partners and endorsements, and maybe even a higher exit sale/acquisition price if you have a CPG legal powerhouse like Ryan Lewendon on your team. Ryan’s firm, Giannuzzi Lewendon, plays an active role over the life span of a consumer product company, from the beginning of an idea to growing the company to a successful exit, and beyond. Their firm has served as counsel to a vast array of industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and founders in the food, beverage, lifestyle, beauty, and wellness sectors, helping them clear day-to-day hurdles and navigate opportunities toward an acquisition. Ryan’s clients run the gamut from young brands to mature companies – first-time entrepreneurs and recent MBA graduates to seasoned, serial entrepreneurs in the CPG space. Ryan has overseen the growth of hundreds of brands in the consumer section, including VitaminWater, BodyArmor, Suja, Four Sigmatic, Recess, Coconut Cartel, Alfred Coffee, and Your Super. We’ll talk about trademarks, protecting secret recipes and formulas, finances and financing, celebrities and how their involvement has evolved from taking a few photos with products to being full partners working the booths at trade shows, and the U.S. cannabis market that is poised to explode once there is federal legalization. The “NexxtLevel Brands Podcast’ is hosted by G. Steven Cleere, Founder and “Chief Pot Stirrer” of NexxtLevel Brands. This show focuses on disruptors and thought-leaders from the Entrepreneurial Food, Beverage, and CPG Industry, but we also share tips from veterans and key suppliers that may help fellow CPG professionals achieve their goals. Discussion Points Ryan got hooked on CPG after running a bar in New Orleans Ryan doesn’t go to court for you, he is an expert in the operations of CPG companies There is a pressing need for attorneys who understand the industry Trademarks– when, where and how Protecting secret formulas and recipes When should you start working with legal experts? Investors look more favorably on companies with legal experts Celebrity endorsements– what do they look like these days? Celebs and mission-based companies Working with “Re-founders” – they sold but want to buy back CBD, FDA, and cannabis Words to grow by: “Grow intentionally, and cautiously, over the next 12-18-36 months.”

There is a lot of talk in pop culture and the news these days about buzzwords like narcissism, love-bombing, and gaslighting. But what do those terms truly mean? How can you know if you are in a relationship or friendship with a narcissist? What are the signs to look for? How do we get out safely? These are the questions we seek to answer on today's episode of Food Heals.   I've brought together three Food Heals OGs: Whitney Lauritsen, Nicole Dersweh and myself, Allison Melody, who all have various experiences with narcissism. Our goal is to shed some light on what being in a narcissistic relationship means for your health, your safety, and your sanity.   If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, please seek immediate help at: www.thehotline.org Tune Into Learn:   The difference between a narcissist and a sociopath What the heck is gaslighting? Was Brain Laundrie a narcissist? Did Whitney see Brian and Gabby's van when she was in Grand Teton? How to know if you're being love-bombed How to stop ignoring those pesky “red flags” How to handle a narcissist within your family What to do if you think you are in an abusive relationship Resources to help you heal And more!   Thank you to our Sponsors!   Renude Chagaccino Renude launched the Chagaccino in 2018 in Alfred Coffee shop in Los Angeles on Melrose Place, one of the trendiest coffee shops in LA where you may run into a Kardashian, Harry Styles, or even Larry David on any given day. (Alli ran into Jeremy Piven there and their doggies played!) If you drink coffee everyday, why not supercharge it in both the taste and health benefits? The Chagaccino is your coffee's new BFF with benefits! Just add one packet of the Chagaccino mix into your regular coffee or latte and transform it into an adaptogenic, superfood, mushroom-based mocha! It is delish AF, vegan, keto and has no sugar or calories!(And it's delish!) Plus it's vegan, keto, paleo friendly, gluten free, non-gmo, no artificial or natural flavors, sustainability harvested, no sugar and no junk! Visit drinkrenude.com and use the promo code FOODHEALS at checkout to get 15% off Chagaccino orders!   Just Thrive Health Probiotics  Did you know probiotics are for our furry friends too? Introducing Best Dog Probiotic: Just Pets Probiotic: A clinically proven and powerfully effective spore probiotic to help your furry friend feel their best!   I sat down with Tina Andersen, Founder of Just Thrive to find out more! When something's wrong with your dog's gut, you can tell. Smelly gas takes over the room. You pick up foul-smelling poop (much worse than usual) on your walks. Or your dog has diarrhea that's virtually impossible to clean. Any of these issues point to an imbalance in your dog's gut microbiome, the trillions of bacteria in your dog's gut. When their gut is in healthy balance, beneficial bacteria (probiotics) vastly outnumber harmful bacteria (pathogens). And when your best friend's gut is out of balance – a condition called dysbiosis, where pathogens outnumber probiotics – it can affect much more than gas and poop. In fact, it could be the source of other health and behavioral challenges.  Probiotics can't work their magic if they don't get where they need to go. And that's where spore probiotics make all the difference for your dog's gut microbiome. Unlike other forms of probiotics, Just Pets Probiotic spore probiotics were designed by nature to survive extreme temperatures and stomach acids so they always arrive in the gut alive. Once they reach the gut microbiome, spore probiotics activate and quickly get to work clearing out bad bacteria and encouraging the growth of new, beneficial bacteria. This rebalancing process can support the optimal health and protection of your dog's gut, resulting in numerous health and behavioral benefits.  A clinical study involving healthy dogs and dogs with severe GI issues showed that a unique blend of spore probiotics made a dramatic difference. Be sure to visit their website www.justhrivehealth.com, use the coupon code foodheals15, get 15% off your first order, and add a spore-based probiotic to your healing and detox routine today.   Food Freedom Are you ready to end emotional eating, drop the body shame, and lose the weight for good? Then, Food Freedom is for you! In this comprehensive 3-week course you will learn: The Most Effective Healing Tools For Your Emotional Healing Toolbox The EXACT Step-By-Step Process For When Diet & Exercise Don't Work A Process For Identifying, Shifting & Changing your Core MisBeliefs Around Your Body How to Integrate Trust, Ease and Self-Love into Your Daily Practice How to Stop Over-eating, Stress-eating and Emotional Eating for Good The Exact Healing Meditations, Tools and Processes I USED to LOVE MYSELF and LOVE MY BODY! From now until Dec. 31st, 2021, you can get Food Freedom for 70% off! Go to DropTheFoodShame.com and get the tips, tools, strategies, and practices to finally find food freedom.

Do you believe in ghosts? Are curses real? What about angels and how do we talk to them? Can we help a tortured spirit cross over to the other side? We answer these questions and more on our latest spooky Halloween-themed episode with all my favorite peeps like Jason Wrobel, Whitney Lauritsen, Nicole Derseweh, Lisa Thomas, Roxy Flo, Laura Powers, Suzy Hardy and Elizabeth Tripp! Enjoy and Happy Halloween, Food Heals Nation! Thank you to our sponsors!   Sovereignty  Sovereignty creates amazing supplements that will help take your workout to the next level by giving you that extra boost to get you through your workout and provide you the motivation you need to keep moving throughout the day. So, have the best day every day with Purpose Plus! Purpose Plus is their blend of CBD and CBG, and they also have 7-clinically derived ingredients with the world's best adaptogens that provide fast results. Can't sleep? Does the anxiety monster keep you up at night?Don't forget to check out their Dream Plus! Along with the CBD, CBG, and powerful adaptogens, Dream Plus helps you fall asleep and stay asleep longer and help heal your body from the inside out. Go to Sov.Live and use the coupon code foodheals and get 30% off your first purchase.    Renude Chagaccino Renude launched the Chagaccino in 2018 in Alfred Coffee shop in Los Angeles on Melrose Place, one of the trendiest coffee shops in LA where you may run into a Kardashian, Harry Styles, or even Larry David on any given day. (Alli ran into Jeremy Piven there and their doggies played!) If you drink coffee everyday, why not supercharge it in both the taste and health benefits? The Chagaccino is your coffee's new BFF with benefits! Just add one packet of the Chagaccino mix into your regular coffee or latte and transform it into an adaptogenic, superfood, mushroom-based mocha! It is delish AF, vegan, keto and has no sugar or calories!(And it's delish!) Plus it's vegan, keto, paleo friendly, gluten free, non-gmo, no artificial or natural flavors, sustainability harvested, no sugar and no junk! Visit drinkrenude.com and use the promo code FOODHEALS at checkout to get 15% off Chagaccino orders!   Timeline Nutrition One thing we don't talk about enough is keeping our mitochondria functioning optimally. Mitopure by my friends at Timeline Nutrition aims to slow aging and continuously looks for new ways to optimize cellular health. After years of research, Mitopure has launched a new class of nutrition that helps address age-associated cellular decline by revitalizing mitochondria and powering muscle cells. It comes in powder form, and you can mix it with your favorite plant-based yogurt or smoothie every morning. Check out TimelineNutrition.com and use the coupon code foodheals to get 10% off your first purchase.    Global Healing Center The mission of Global Healing is to guide you on your journey to a healthy, balanced life through cleansing, nutrition, exercise, and a happy mind. They have a global vision to create a world where everyone has the power to live healthy. Global Healing's stringent manufacturing techniques are unheard of in the supplement industry, like triple-distilling water and using cold process extraction so that heat does not disrupt the raw nutrition of herbs. They extract the raw essences from herbal ingredients in our industry-leading Raw Herbal Extract™ products. Before anything goes to production, all ingredients are tested to ensure purity and potency. The final products are also tested with industry-leading equipment by third-party organizations.  Use coupon code foodheals21 to get 20% off all your supplements at www.GlobalHealing.com Food Freedom Are you ready to end emotional eating, drop the body shame, and lose the weight for good? Then, Food Freedom is for you! In this comprehensive 3-week course you will learn: The Most Effective Healing Tools For Your Emotional Healing Toolbox The EXACT Step-By-Step Process For When Diet & Exercise Don't Work A Process For Identifying, Shifting & Changing your Core MisBeliefs Around Your Body How to Integrate Trust, Ease and Self-Love into Your Daily Practice How to Stop Over-eating, Stress-eating and Emotional Eating for Good The Exact Healing Meditations, Tools and Processes I USED to LOVE MYSELF and LOVE MY BODY! From now until Dec. 31st, 2021, you can get Food Freedom for 70% off! Go to DropTheFoodShame.com and get the tips, tools, strategies, and practices to finally find food freedom.  

What do cancer, autoimmune disease, allergies, mental health, and fertility all have in common?  The Gut! Did you know that the microbiome in your gut does way more than just digest your food?  It also…   Helps you absorb nutrients and minerals Helps regulate your immune system (kick flu season in the butt!) Plays a big part of regulating your hormones.  Can help improve brain health and function AND… It may also affect your weight. All disease begins in the gut… so that's where healing begins as well! On today's episode we've got four incredible guests who deep dive into where the core of most of our health problems lie and give tips and tricks to get you back to feeling your best and trusting your gut once again!  Tina Anderson worked in the pharmaceutical business because she wanted to help others. She quickly realized that medicine was just making people sicker and that the best way to heal your body was to heal from the inside out. She founded a probiotics company called Just Thrive that carries a unique strain of probiotics that focuses and assist in naturally healing the gut. Now it's her mission to help others thrive and feel their best.  Dr. Will Bulsiewicz (also known as Dr. B) is an internal medicine doctor and expert gastroenterologist.  Dr. B discovered the untapped potential of a healthy gut. Having witnessed amazing results with his patients, he decided to spread the word beyond his clinic. Thus, the Gut Health MD was born. Dr. Marvin Singh is an integrative gastroenterologist. He lost 40 pounds of his own by making lifestyle change to help heal his gut. He realized he could help people heal themselves by taking a comprehensive approach – one that brings together nutrition, genetics, and meditation. Katherine Maslen watched a close friend suffer from and autoimmune disorder and realized her meds were doing more harm than good, thus, she created the Shift Clinic, an international wellness company that is changing the way we view health and empowering people to take control of their own health journey.  Tune in to learn: The major impact our microbiome has on our health What a leaky gut is, and is it compromising my immune system? How your gut can affect your mental health How we are destroying our guts with antibiotics How to use food to start healing your gut How lifestyle, sleep, and activity can affect your microbiome.  Swap the sugar for the fiber How toxins around us are impacting our gut health and things like infertility  Steps we can take to make our guts healthy again. And more!

Elena Hansen, CEO & Founder of SWIM SOCIAL is the woman behind so many of your favorite high profile social media accounts. SWIM clients have included: Selena Gomez's Revival Tour, LL Cool J, Jay Ellis, Phoebe Robinson, Alfred Coffee just to name a few. We talk all about how she bootstrapped her company starting with her first client who she took from 1,000 to 140,000 followers and has grown to be a wildly successful, sought after company by major celebrities, brands, movies, world tours and more. Elena shares her 6 tips for growing your social media and other social strategies to help grow successfully and authentically. Social media can be overwhelming, but Elena cuts through the noise with her sincere approach- rooted in community, creative, and storytelling. She shares her tips for negotiating, what she thinks is most important when creating a pitch deck, the smartest decision she ever made in business and what she's learned about herself along the way.  Produced by Dear Media.

The rumors are true. Yes, you heard it here first... Arielle has her period!! Oh also, Riled Up is back for another season. The two cuties are coming at you from Hawaii to catch you up on what is new in their lives and answer the important questions such as, should teens be allowed to dance to the Thong Song? When was makeup invented, and more importantly, why? Should Arielle fight Manon Matthews in the UFC ring for all to watch? On a more serious note, Matt and Arielle are so excited to officially be back on the mic catching up with their incredible listeners. You truly all mean so much to them, but especially you, sweet server from Soho House, and you, man at Alfred Coffee on Melrose Place. You two are the ones who brought Riled Up back to the podcast apps. After the first episode of Season Three, we thought about renaming it “Not The Smartest Podcast” but thought we'd keep things simple for you guys. Hope you're ready to get riled!   You can find Arielle on the 'gram @Arielle and Matt @MattCutshall. Please be sure to rate, review, and follow so we can continue to get riled!    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Josh Zad opened his first Alfred Coffee location in 2013 on tree-lined Melrose Place with the trademarked catchphrase, "But First, Coffee.” With his knack for eye-catching design and innate understanding of customer wants, Zad has developed Alfred into the standard bearer on how to successfully marry a brick-and-mortar offering with an enduring, memorable digital presence. After successfully growing to 16 locations now across the U.S. and Japan, Josh has more recently shifted gears and launched his newest concept – Calidad Beer, a Mexican-style lager with a laid-back, California attitude. Less than one year after launch, Calidad can be found in over 900 locations across Southern California, from Whole Foods to Disneyland. He has his B.A. in Economics from Yale University and his M.B.A. from UCLA Anderson in Finance/Real Estate. In this episode of How Do You Do? Podcast, Ben asks Josh to share how he comes up with the vision for his brands and ensures that his visions are reflected in branding & design (2:23), how Calidad's pre-launch campaign built excitement around the brand before its product was available to enjoy (23:05), the story of how Alfred almost appeared in the Entourage movie and what the mishap taught Josh (29:52), and more. Follow us! Josh Zad: @joshfromalfred ( https://www.instagram.com/joshfromalfred/ ) How Do You Do? Podcast: @hdydpod ( https://www.instagram.com/hdydpod/ ) Ben: @benhannani ( https://www.instagram.com/benhannani/ ) Website: www.hdydpod.com ( https://www.hdydpod.com/ ) Our guests' jams can be found on the "HDYD Jams" playlist ( https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4tBdUz3kXb1T5im2CzSBUV?si=qc_DgVSCR1W65phsuv6vVQ ) on Spotify!

But first, coffee. That’s not just a cute Pinterest quote, it’s the trademarked tagline of this week’s guest, Josh Zad, who is the CEO and Founder of LA’s iconic Alfred Coffee. Josh is an architecture and design nerd, and he intentionally infused his eclectic personality into the creation of his coffee shops and tea rooms. You have most definitely seen pictures of people gleefully posing with their fancy drinks at one of his fabulously outfitted cafes. Hear how social media helped turn this coffee shop into a global tourist attraction.  What’s in this episode: Is it Alfred, or Alfred’s? Josh spills the literal tea.  How social media made this cafe a tourist destination  How Instagram played into the design and creation of the cafe experience  Yes, they really do own that phrase “But first, coffee” The Pink Drink - who made it first? We say it was Alfred. Can you guess the secret ingredient in the Pink Drink? The most popular drinks at Alfred Coffee and Tea  What makes their Iced Vanilla Latte world-famous?  Do you know what boba is? I just learned: it’s tapioca.  Wait until you hear the celebrities that have visited Alfred coffee  HINT: Presidents drink Alfred coffee  The famous TV show that shot an episode at Alfred. It will make you want to Curb Your Enthusiasm … how’s that for a hint?  Larry David wears silk socks. Josh shares the whole story. It’s classic.  How does the owner of a famous coffee shop take his coffee?  Why coffee is pandemic-proof And much more! Links from the show:  Alfred on Instagram: @alfred. Alfred's Website: www.alfred.la Dear Food on Instagram @DearFoodPodcast Dear Food on YouTube Be on the Show Tell us your food stories!  The first time you remember tasting food, your dream dinner, or just a food that you can’t stop thinking about. Call in to leave us a voicemail at 626-709-6551 or send your messages to dearfoodpodcast@gmail.com  PLEASE SUBSCRIBE to Dear Food on Apple Podcasts. It's totally free to subscribe, and it makes a huge difference for independent podcasters like me. Thank you, I love you. 

But first, Coffee. Maybe you’ve seen the phrase hanging above a picture in a coffee shop or cafe, or maybe you first saw the phrase on Instagram. Regardless of where you noticed it, those three words resonate with coffee drinkers around the globe — but it’s also the mantra that drives Josh Zad. Josh is the founder and CEO of Alfred Coffee, a coffee shop less focused on the actual coffee and more on the customer experience. Josh joined Marketing Trends to discuss everything from building and marketing the Alfred brand, to his new adventure with Calidad beer. Plus he talks about how to approach advertising investment and connecting with customers. Main Takeaways Make it Pop!: Your brand is your image and it’s how your consumer connects with the product. Work hard to create something iconic and something that stands out on the shelf so that when the consumer sees the product, it’ll instantly resonate with them. Invest Like the Best: Invest in advertising that fits your distribution needs and find channels that make sense for your brand. When it came to marketing Calidad beer, digital and social advertising didn’t make sense for the industry because there was no way to push consumers to an eCommerce store. Instead, the Calidad team bought physical billboards near locations where people could purchase the products. Change Isn’t Always Good: When Josh was building Alfred coffee, he was constantly tinkering with the brand’s image, its colors, font, and website. When you change your imagery for the sake of change, you make it hard for your consumer to keep up. Find something that is powerful and resonates with your consumer and build off that. --- Marketing Trends podcast is brought to you by Salesforce. Discover marketing built on the world’s number one CRM: Salesforce. Put your customer at the center of every interaction. Automate engagement with each customer. And build your marketing strategy around the entire customer journey. Salesforce. We bring marketing and engagement together. Learn more at salesforce.com/marketing.  To learn more or subscribe to our weekly newsletter, visit MarketingTrends.com.

Learn more about Sweet FlowerDue to COVID-19 we are no longer asking for financial support for the show, instead you can now join free mentorship group calls with Fabian to get through this together. Join here.Full Transcript:F Geyrhalter:Welcome to the show, Tim.T. Dodd:Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. First off, I hope you're safe during what is being seen as the peak week of the coronavirus here in LA, I guess. Thank you for taking time-T. Dodd:Yeah.F Geyrhalter:Yeah. It's crazy right now. It's crazy.T. Dodd:It's frightening. It's alarming for us all. We are safe. Thank you. As an essential business, we remain open, which has been great. We've done a lot of things in the store to make sure that people... In all of our stores that people are safe, and our customers and our team. We've gone through lots of different training. We've done lots of different things in terms of providing people with safe access to supplies, and gloves, and masks, and of course we were I think the first actually in Los Angeles, or even in southern California to instigate curbside pickup and contactless delivery.T. Dodd:We've been rolling that out, and it's been going very well. There's a strong demand for people. People are at home. They're stressed out. They're scared, et cetera, and they feel the need for the products that we offer, for cannabis, and so we're really trying to provide that in the safest and most responsible way that we can here until the social distancing guidelines, et cetera as well. It's been I'd say a pretty challenging few weeks, but I look at the good side here.T. Dodd:We are still open, which is great. We're still providing jobs for our team, and we're still providing an essential service to our customers. How crazy is it that this is now an essential service?F Geyrhalter:Yeah, yeah. Just think about that two years ago.T. Dodd:I've always thought that, but it's pretty cool that that's now part of this. It's interesting. It's been a really fast evolution in our customer behavior and our store behavior. We've pivoted really quickly, so my hat is off to our wonderful team of Sweet Florists in all the stores.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, absolutely. How difficult was it to fully embrace the home delivery system? Was that something that you already worked on prior? Being in LA, I'm pretty sure you're pretty tech forward.T. Dodd:Yeah, luckily we had. We had started delivery several months ago. It was not a core focus of our brand. Our brand is really about providing the high-touch service in-store, but we had decided luckily to move into delivery Q3 of last year, and really to have that as an expansion of our brand footprint beyond the stores to people's homes. It's asking the ultimate permission. You're coming to someone's house to provide them a service.T. Dodd:You're coming to their front door, and they're giving you their gate code, and all that stuff. Particularly in Los Angeles, we have all that stuff. We have a lot of things that are... There's a lot of permissions involved in that, social permission that's unusual. You're basically bringing drugs to someone's home. Obviously when you think about that, you're like, "Okay, we do really want to do with our best foot forward." We started that last year, at the back part of last year.F Geyrhalter:That's very forward thinking.T. Dodd:Yeah, and we had the tech tools in place. Most of us have got some tech backgrounds, either from the business side or from actually on the dev side. We worked with [inaudible 00:03:52]. Someone actually put a company called Onfleet in the middle of all that. Onfleet allowed us to... Which is an app that's used by lots of different delivery services, but it allowed us to provide a much higher touch.T. Dodd:Customers can text the driver anonymously, "Hey, I'm here. How far away are you?" Et cetera. The driver can text back or call back, even. Or people at home base can do that. We put that all together. It's a very good system. It's worked really well. Frankly, we were, I want to say prepared, but we obviously had a leg up as this all started to unfold the way it did. We quickly took everything that we had in place, and we simply amplified it. We brought on more drivers. Investing in the human capital here is really important.T. Dodd:We brought on more drivers. We made sure that the drivers were safe, first and foremost that they felt secure in what they were doing, provided them with gloves and masks and hand sanitizer inside the car. Hand sanitizer is still a really hard thing to get, so that was difficult.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, absolutely.T. Dodd:Just give me one second. Just [inaudible 00:05:09], okay? Matthew, I'm on a call, okay? Please. Thanks. Sorry. My son was [inaudible 00:05:20].F Geyrhalter:That's okay.T. Dodd:Those things are still difficult to get, so we did all those things. Then since then, we've seen a marked increase in delivery. We've probably seen a 500% increase during the surge of coronavirus panic buying that we saw. We accommodated those orders, and then since then it's fallen back somewhat, which is understandable, and I think frankly reflects people are now staying at home a lot more, but they're not panic buying or surge buying. They're thinking, "Okay, I've got a few days or weeks of supply left, and I'll go and get some more soon."T. Dodd:We see large basket sizes for delivery, and we also see the need to expand our zone, so we've done that. We've expanded our delivery zone from... Initially it was around a five-mile radius per store, but if you think of Los Angeles, we're well spread out. We've got Studio City, Melrose, and the arts district locations working right now. We were also about to open up the Westwood location. Obviously with COVID, we're going to push that back. It's very hard to launch a store in a pandemic, and very hard to know how that looks.T. Dodd:I think optically it also has some problems. I don't think s appropriate right now to do that, so we're looking at how to do that just as soon as it's safe, and we think we can market and launch the store correctly. Even with the current footprint, the five-mile radiuses that we had worked really well. We expanded those very quickly to ten-mile radius from each of the stores, and then we're now delivering basically to all of Los Angeles, so from the Palisades on the west side all the way to Pasadena, deep into the valley, and then deep into south LA.T. Dodd:We're looking at further expansion of that, as well. If there's a silver lining on this horrible situation, it is the fact that traffic has died down so we can now reliably service all of these large areas with more staff, obviously, and more drivers quickly. We can get around the freeways pretty quickly. We're averaging about 50-minute delivery times right now, despite wherever they are. At certain peak times, we might get up to about 80 minutes if we have to do a lot of deliveries around the same time.T. Dodd:We're able to now service a very large part of, almost all of Los Angeles from the stores that are open, all the stores in that time frame. That's been I think a benefit of this horrible situation.F Geyrhalter:Right, right. If one can say it that way, but it's true. People are creatures of habit, so I'm sure people will also get used to getting delivers from Sweet Flower now, and then once-T. Dodd:[inaudible 00:08:14].F Geyrhalter:Yep. Say again?T. Dodd:Okay. All right, I dropped you for a second there. I'm sorry.F Geyrhalter:Okay, okay. What I was saying is that people are creatures of habit, so I'm sure that they get used to during the pandemic to start ordering from Sweet Flower, and then later on they might just keep it up because it's already in the system, it's easy for them to get used to it. Some positive things are coming out of this, as well.T. Dodd:Yeah. I think we're seeing, it's always as I think someone else smarter than I said, necessity is the mother of invention. We're seeing that. We're really now, we're making sure that all the staff is safe. Business continuity, which is really staff and customer safety, has got to be first and foremost right now.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely.T. Dodd:These are really challenging times.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely.T. Dodd:Secondly, just remembering who we are as a company. One of our values is community engagement. Last week, after I made sure that... We made sure as a team that all their staff and team had gloves and masks and sanitizer. We had a number of supplies left over. We approached some of the teams that we work with, particularly in Culver City, where we're based. We went out to the local charities that are in need and donated masks and gloves to them.T. Dodd:We also made some charitable donations to local food banks. That's really important, because we're also moving into a... Right after this crisis, there's going to be, or there already is an economic crisis, and we need to be reflective of that, and thinking about how we fit our company in this emerging new new. This new, not normal situation that we're going to be in.F Geyrhalter:Right. Absolutely.T. Dodd:If food banks are getting hurt, everyone is getting hurt. We're trying to help out, and we're doing that with money, and also with some time. I was driving around on Friday afternoon basically seeing some people that we know around our neighborhoods who are elderly and vulnerable, and making sure that they were safe. Then as I said, we dropped off a bunch of different supplies to some of our local charities, as well, to help them out. We're trying to do our small bit as a local business.F Geyrhalter:Right, right. I think it's everyone's responsibility as a business to just start with community. Even the community is at the heart of your brand. Let's take a step back a little bit.T. Dodd:Sure, of course. Yeah.F Geyrhalter:You have a successful track record as a VC, as well. You're investing from C to series C stages, and you had acquisitions from the $100 to $600 million range. I could have actually had you on as a VC guest, because I only have founders and VCs. Today you're wearing your founder hat.T. Dodd:I am, yes.F Geyrhalter:When I first read about Sweet Flower, I was immediately attracted to it because there is one and a million cannabis shops that actually differentiate, and that create a brand atmosphere, as I like to call it, around them that is specific, that actually stands out, and that sets them apart. For Sweet Flower, it's about being curated by and for Los Angeles. Heritage and community is really your brand story. You were quoted in Forbes saying, and I quote you here, "Souther California brands are some of the most recognized in the world."F Geyrhalter:We're talking about obviously the Googles and the Apples. "Within cannabis, I believe that we can build a best in class retail experience and brand." Tell us a little bit about how you have no background in the cannabis business. How did this came about? How did you set out and say, "We're going to create this LA-first brand?"T. Dodd:While I don't sound like it, I call LA home. I'm from New Zealand, but I moved to the States 26 years ago. Now I've spent over half my life here, and most of that has been in LA. I've been lucky enough to live here for the last couple of decades. I'm really focused in this amazing part of the world that I've grown to love and call home. Beyond that, we take a very non-mythical approach to cannabis. We think it's an industry, it's a business. It's a highly-regulated business. My cofounder and I have got a lot of experience in dealing in high-regulated business environments.T. Dodd:We're both actually recovering attorneys. I haven't practiced for many, many years, since 2003, I believe. That training is still part of it, and we take compliance very seriously. We also are both from relatively humble backgrounds, and so we do believe in giving back. That's, as I mentioned, part of what we are about in terms of the company, and that's part of that our ethos. Beyond that, in terms of California, we believe that California is still the largest legal market in the world. Potential legal market.T. Dodd:There are lots of issues in California which I'm sure everyone's familiar about with respect to illegal operations, and over-taxation, and the complexity of the regulatory environment. I won't agree or disagree on those, but they are definitely things that people talk about. We looked at this and said, "Okay, is there a space here for us to participate in this market?" We looked at that as really taking a classic, I want to say McKenzie approach, because I don't have that background, but just looking as a straightforward business approach, strategy, et cetera.T. Dodd:What is the market size? What is our potential entry point? We decided there is a huge... There is a large amount of people going after a core demographic, the stereotypical cannabis user. A young male in a certain demographic in Los Angeles. There were very few brands, and there were really no retail brands other than potentially one that was out there that was focused anywhere else. In fact, that brand was really focused in lots of places.T. Dodd:We were like, "Okay, let's see what we can do in terms of focusing a brand on a customer that is cannabis curious, has not maybe got into cannabis, but is definitely leaning into trying to understand this." My own experience with this was I ride bikes. I cycled for charity. I had a really bad bike accident cycling, broke my pelvis in many places, and my head pretty well, and walked up... I was medevaced off the top of a mountain in a chopper, woke up in hospital, was released a few days later with a big jar of Oxycontin.T. Dodd:Didn't want to do that, decided to go down to get some cannabis, went to a store. I'm on crutches hobbling around with my head wrapped up. I look like a real mess. It was like, "Well, do you know the difference between Indica and Sativa?" I was like, "Well, sure, I do, but what is the point of that question?" Then I thought about the customer journey that I was having, which is a really bad experience. I was hoping for a wellness experience. What I received was basically a transaction.T. Dodd:Sweet Flower was based on the premise that we can provide a wellness experience to all of our customers, not just a transaction. We want our customers to come to be loyal, to enjoy the experience they're having in the store, to receiving very high service component, and to receive education and engagement. I think we're getting the feedback that I was hoping for. We're receiving extraordinarily high reviews, anecdotal and data-driven reviews that are saying, "Hey, we really enjoyed the experience we had at Sweet Flower."T. Dodd:"We really enjoyed the peace, the experience we had. The products were really good. The service was great. We will come back." Really moving away from deal-driven behavior, we are saying, "Hey, we still do deals." Moving away from people who are trying to sell product cheaply, whatever, and deal-driven behavior. Transactional-driven behavior to loyalty-driven behavior and service-driven behavior. That's really what we're doing.T. Dodd:I view our product, what we're offering is not cannabis. We're offering a wellness experience. I think what we're seeing today is actually some vindication of that. People are selecting us because they want to spend time with us, either on a website, or if they come into the store even today, they're coming into the store because they want to understand the effect they can get. Not just, "I want THC, whatever component percentage flower." What I'm looking for really is, "I can't sleep, or I'm really stressed, or I'm in pain, or I'm anxious, or I want to be social with either, given the constraints of the current environment. I want to enjoy myself."T. Dodd:That's important to people, and that's what we're providing. I've always viewed Sweet Flower as providing a wellness experience. That's what I was hoping for when I hobbled into the store on crutches. That's what I didn't get, and that was a big part of me and my partner in Sweet Flower deciding that we would build this company. In terms of LA, I just believe southern California has a certain creative spirit. I've been lucky enough to work in large, creative organizations in California most of my career.T. Dodd:Warner Brothers, and then Technicolor, and at both places I found a tremendous amount of people who had incredibly engaging careers that were driven from their creative spirit, their creativity. That's a big part of Sweet Flower. We celebrate where we're from. The Sweet Flower love mark, our logo is the California state golden poppy. We have the sun in our logo. People move to LA partly because of the weather. That's part of who we are. It drives our activities and drives all of our engagements with each other, because it's such a great place to live.T. Dodd:We wanted to celebrate that. Then last, the name. We deliberately didn't call it anything too heavy, too dank, too cush, too 420. We didn't really want to have really obvious callouts to cannabis. The flower is not a flower, it's a poppy. It's a golden poppy, but the name itself is Sweet. We're not saying this is a brand for women, but certainly I think a lot of our customer base are female, and enjoy that, and certainly I do think part of marketing is to...T. Dodd:You can put out your brand, you can put out your marketing material. It's how people receive that, and then feed it back to you that's important. You know if you've missed the mark if what you intend to do, your intended audience is not actually what you get.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. Yep.T. Dodd:Yeah. I think in most cases, we've been very successful in terms of defining who we think our audience is, and having our audience say, "Yeah, this fits. This fits us." I think the biggest learning experience I had so far is the cannabis curious. People I think assume that they have a lot of knowledge, and it's been interesting. We've had a lot of people coming in with knowledge about some things, and actually we've educated them. We do have some extraordinarily experienced Sweet Florists, sales associates, in the stores.T. Dodd:That's been a very good experience for us. We're trying to just engage people as they are. When they walk in, they can have a lot of experience with cannabis or not. Initially we did call out the cannabis curious notion a bit more than we do now. We're I think... It doesn't really matter. People are super experienced with cannabis or not at all. There's always something to learn, and there's always new products in the market, particularly in California. Rather than talking about cannabis curious, we're really now talking about cannabis curated.T. Dodd:We have a fantastic buyer, Michelle Mendoza, who has been involved in cannabis here in Los Angeles for I think for two decades, and has ran the original California dispensary in West Hollywood way before any of these other stores came in. She has a tremendous background and a fantastic reputation in cannabis circles here in Los Angeles in particular. With Michelle's help, and then working with Kiana [inaudible 00:21:50] joined us as our CMO. Kiana also has a long history of engagement in cannabis, and before that in fashion.T. Dodd:Kiana and Michelle have really helpful us curate I think a fantastic selection of brands in-store, and then working with those brands, we've been able to curate... Sorry, to create a number of fantastic events and activations. Obviously now in this new engagement we have where we're socially distancing, a lot of it is influencer events that are happening online and on Instagram rather than elsewhere, but we're really doing that at the moment as a reaction to COVID.T. Dodd:With Michelle and Kiana, we're really now focusing on this cannabis curated moment. That, though, is congruent with the brand. It fits the brand. The notion of calling your customers cannabis curious, we backed off that a little bit. I think that that is... I don't really want to call our customers anything. I think all of my customers are fantastic. We're honored to have them in our store. We respect where they're all coming from, whether they have a lot of knowledge of cannabis or zero. Doesn't matter. We want to provide them with that same level of engagement and service.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, you meet them where they're at, right?T. Dodd:Yeah.F Geyrhalter:And people come in with different backgrounds, as you nicely stated. Talking about the community again, and you talked about these events, because to me it's super interesting to think about how you actually activate a community. Do you currently, or will you in the future when things go a little back to normal, or maybe like you said virally, how do you collaborate with other brands? Do you collaborate with other brands? What's in store for your community growth?T. Dodd:Yeah, so we've actually I think been at the forefront of brand retailer partnerships. I just think it's very interesting to have walked into the cannabis industry when we did. A lot of the foundational structure of the industry was getting set up, and some of it was antagonistic. There was a lot of, "You're going to have to pay for shelf space to be on my stores," and all this kind of stuff. We never did that. We never did that. We didn't think it was the right thing to do.T. Dodd:It might have provided us with some extra revenue, but the [foreign 00:24:23] of that is that we're now just leasing shelf space to brands. Instead, I think we actually got a lot more value, realizable value, not just soft dollars, but actually revenue from customers because we decided to partner with our brands. We see our brands, our core brands are partners. Obviously COVID versus pre-COVID, it's a hard cut, almost, because we have not had any events in the store, in any of the stores since this even became a potential threat.T. Dodd:Before that, before COVID, we were working very closely with brands big and small to do activations in the store. We launched a number of products in the store, particularly on our Melrose store, which is a great location, across the street for the Improv, and there's bars and restaurants all around there. We hope that neighborhood comes back quickly once this horrible situation is over. That said, at has always been a core part of our base. Frankly, that allows us to tag our brand's customers as our customers, or as our brands tag our customers as theirs.T. Dodd:It's collaborative, and that's the key here. I don't think anyone gets ahead of this by trying to get around each other. Post-CO, or now that I guess we're in COVID, we're not post-COVID, but in the current situation we are, we launched a very strong influencer engagement campaign with our brands to push delivery just last week. The week before, we had somewhere in the range of 45 to 50 different influencers all based here in Los Angeles that we worked with. All of them got a Sweet Flower branded bag that contained products from our core brands, our core brand partners.T. Dodd:Our brands and us worked together to do that. We worked with the influencers to do that. This is not a paid campaign. This was organic and really came from a similar point of entry, which is, "Let's make sure we do something responsible for push delivery as the new way of receiving and getting cannabis products." That was great. Through that campaign, 50 influencers with a total reach of around 20 million followers-F Geyrhalter:Wow. That's impressive.T. Dodd:A lot of whom... Yeah, obviously some of them around outside of our geographic reach. They're not here in southern California, but a lot of those people are. The ones that aren't are still now seeing Sweet Flower as a brand. They're seeing Sweet Flower as something that's enabling people to be safe at home, and it's also enabling their favorite brands to work with a delivery service like Sweet Flower to drive traffic and engagement, and frankly sales, which is fantastic.T. Dodd:We're now pivoting from being a dispensary that offers delivery to being both, to being just a chain of dispensaries, a chain of retail stores, and also a very robust delivery service. That campaign we did really was all about delivering, and it was all about working with these brands. That was great. That I think will continue. We see a lot of demand for that. On our delivery service, we currently offer everything. Everything in the store is available for delivery. That's really important, so people can get the same products they could-F Geyrhalter:Totally. Yeah.T. Dodd:If they walk in and they can get that to their home, and that's super important. I think going forward, we want to expand that. We want to expand the reach of the delivery. We want to expand obviously its robustness in terms of the tech underneath it. Then if we have more brands to work with, because I worry a little bit about what's going to happen in the brand space given COVID, and given California overall, even before COVID. We want our brands, our core brand partners to have a good foundational business.T. Dodd:We believe that we remain the best channel for them to do that. We're really looking forward to working with some brands on some exclusive launches, some more exclusive promotions, et cetera, yeah, in the coming months.F Geyrhalter:We talked about expansion for a second with the potential... Well, with the Westwood location when the time is right. What are the plans, and how would a brand that is positioned so uniquely for LA ever expand outside greater Los Angeles without losing its authenticity? Would it be online? How do you see that? Or would you ever go outside of LA?T. Dodd:We've already announced we've got Westwood coming, Culver City next, and then we also were a successful applicant... We're one of the top six applicants in Pasadena. That's the current forefront. Beyond that, obviously we are looking at new opportunities outside Los Angeles, but probably staying in southern California for the moment. That's probably not a brand decision. It's more a decision around capital allocation. Where is it smart to allocate capital? I think that those are more at the moment, more about capital allocation and brand fit.T. Dodd:I think California brands play really well everywhere. I look at Vans, Levi's. I look at some of the really strong retail brands that we have here, and frankly the California lifestyle-F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. Absolutely.T. Dodd:Seems somewhat universal, so I think our brand plays well in northern California. I think our brand could play well in neighboring states. I don't have an aspiration at the moment to go beyond or out of state too much. I think when we started this journey, what seems like a long time ago, it was all about being a multi-state operator. That time has changed in the industry. Investors were asking, "When are you guys going to go out of state? You need to be in different states." My pushback was always, "Why?"T. Dodd:LA county is 26% of the population of California, and by far away the most cannabis-leaning and attending population of California. Los Angeles County, if it were to be a state, is the eighth largest state in the country.F Geyrhalter:Plenty of opportunity within, yeah.T. Dodd:It's like saying, "Well, I can see that if I was starting someplace else, you'd be asking that questions, but I'm not. I'm starting here." What's the rationale for that? Is that just a canned question? Lots of people are asking these kinds of... Investors and et cetera.F Geyrhalter:It's a typical question, right?T. Dodd:Yeah, sure.F Geyrhalter:The reason why I ask it was because Sweet Flower, the entire tagline is it's curated by and for Los Angeles. It seems to me like it is so positioned to be not only an LA brand, but also only for LA, right?T. Dodd:Sure.F Geyrhalter:Which obviously you can pivot the brand whenever you start reaching outside of LA and more into southern California, but that's where I was heading with that question, because it has LA at its heart, and right now it is catering specifically to LA. Which I think a lot of people in LA love that, because quite frankly, there is not much in LA that is born in LA for LA, because everything is very global, and everyone in LA is an immigrant. You're from New Zealand, I'm from Australia.F Geyrhalter:We both lived here for half of our lives or however long. I think that there is something really special about a brand that is positioned from a brand positioning point of view just for Los Angeles.T. Dodd:Yeah. I lost you there for a second, so I apologize. I'm not sure what happened. [inaudible 00:32:54] came back on. It's an interesting challenge I think for us to think about it. I do think that there's a great New York City surf wear brand called Saturdays.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know them. Yeah.T. Dodd:It opened up in New York, and now LA, and now everywhere. Still very much a New York City brand.F Geyrhalter:True.T. Dodd:That's the kind of stuff where I think we're not a clothing brand. We're a retailer. I think New York City, where I lived for quite some time before I moved to LA, same thing. Wide acceptance of core brands from other places. I think we're a core brand. You can define a core lots of different ways, but I think we fit. I think we play well in different parts of the states. I don't know where this goes, if we're ever going to be in a shopping mall in the midwest. I don't know.T. Dodd:I think the idea, it would really be that this brand is for now, at the moment, for the next foreseeable, the near future, and frankly prognosticating about the near future is probably really silly given what's going on. The idea is we are a really strong fit for what our vision is for a cannabis retail here in California. I think we fit well elsewhere, but we'll be selective. We'll have to make decisions about... Just I've been very selective, we as a team have been very selective about our locations.T. Dodd:Where we are set up in Los Angeles. I spent a little bit of time in commercial real estate when I was at Warner Brothers, looking at at the time the Warner Brothers real estate portfolio. We looked at 100 locations for these stores. There are six stores currently, and we passed on most of them. Some of them would have been cheaper, and some of them would have been different. Obviously different. A different vibe, a different location. We weren't just going, doing it based on scarcity or density.T. Dodd:We were also doing it based on what we felt was the right building to have, the right province for the brand. Some of these buildings that we've got required a lot of TI, tenent improvement, but they're also really good branding opportunities. They're big with big locations, good locations. We can put the flower on the front of the store, and it's cool. That was really part of it. We've been very selective about these things.F Geyrhalter:Design is super important for you guys, right? The store layout, how it feels, how people enter it, entire customer journey.T. Dodd:Yeah.F Geyrhalter:Overall, your brand design and language, it feels very authentic, down to Earth. It's balanced. It's also gender neutral, even though you hinted at the idea that it's female forward, in a way, but it feels very neutral. You've got this highly curated custom photography, you've got these pastel colors, and that's all key to a very specific visual language for Sweet Flower. All of that is underlining your mission to set a new standard for modern cannabis retail that is inclusive, diversive, and approachable by all.F Geyrhalter:I know branding was super important for you guys from the get-go, but how early on did you invest in branding? How was that journey when you said, "Okay, we got to start thinking about the visual and verbal aspect of our brand at this point?"T. Dodd:That's a very straightforward question to answer. It was immediate. The first thing we did was, "Okay, so who are we? What do we stand for? What's our brand? What does our brand... ?" Once we decided to do this, and then decided roughly, a rough sketch of what Sweet Flower could become, and before we really had the name, and it locked in our heads, I sat down with a design team that I had worked with previously a little bit in a prior career, and came up with who is our customer?T. Dodd:We started with that. Who is our customer? Then what do we offer that customer? Then why does that customer want to come to see us? Simple, basic questions. That helped us frame the central question, who are we? I think we did that, if we started on a Sunday, we did that on a Monday. It was basically the next thing that we did. We invested in the brand, and we invested in the logo, the water marking, the brand ethos, the design, the look and feel of the stores. It's all congruent. The door has to be congruent.T. Dodd:We did not want to do anything that was going to turn off, because we're also in a really interesting situation because we were applying for different licenses in different cities. Some of those cities didn't really, like Culver City for instance, which has been fantastic. That is a forward leaning, thorough application process run by I think a very sophisticated group of people. Again, you're applying for the permission to basically sell a drug in someone's neighborhood. You have to be thinking about that.T. Dodd:You don't want to come in and say, "Okay, this is a right. California has adopted this, and you guys have to do it." That isn't the case. Anyway, it's always the local municipality gets to decide. We've always been focused on who we are, where we're from, and where we fit in that community.F Geyrhalter:That's part of your audience, right? You have to cater to all your different customers, and you wouldn't have the customers if you wouldn't get licensed within a certain city. That is important.T. Dodd:Yeah. You want to have your customers feel comfortable going to see you. If I think of the over... If I could sum up Sweet Flower in one word, it's trust. We want to grant people the right to trust us. We want to have people feel that they feel... To feel good about going to see us, that we're going to provide them with a good experience. They're not going to pay some crazy ripoff prices to staff. They're going to feel good about leaving the store, and going home, and trying these products.T. Dodd:If they don't like them, they can come back, and we can... Obviously, there's certain regs about returns, but we can always work with people about other things. We want to provide them with their trust, and extend that trust to delivery, extend that trust to our community, extend that trust to our drivers, and our delivery people, and our staff in the store, and our store managers. That's really important. I think that's where we want to come to. It's a trusted environment. Safe.T. Dodd:Beyond just being safe, it is an element of trust. That's hard to do. It's really hard to get people to trust you.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. Especially in that space, yeah.T. Dodd:Yeah. You start frankly in cannabis with three or four feet back from anywhere else, right?F Geyrhalter:Yeah.T. Dodd:It's a stigmatized business still, and probably rightly so. We just to have decide that it's not a right, it's a privilege to operate a store in these communities, and you've got to build that trust. If we've messed up, we want to fix things up quickly. I'm not aware of anywhere we have, but people often... These people just stigmatized bad cannabis operators, so they all think we've got green hair and piercings, and we get high all day. That's not who we are. A lot of that is just being visible.T. Dodd:Frankly, when we went to Culver City, the first thing we did was put our corporate office in Culver City. I work out of Culver City, at least I did until just recently.F Geyrhalter:Yeah.T. Dodd:Yeah, every day. We're around. You go, "Okay, there's the... " I'd go to the Starbucks and meet the, you run into the cops. They'd say, "Oh, are you the weed guy?" I'm like, "Yeah, I'm your friendly neighborhood drug dealer," and they're all going to crack up. If you do that 100 times over the course of a few months, I guess, people are like, "Okay." It becomes a little bit more normalized, and you're approachable, and not from some... What they think of as a cannabis person is not who you reflect, and that's important, too.T. Dodd:I think it comes down to trust. That's, like I said, you don't get that overnight. You don't get that over a year. You need to just work at that all the time, and it's super easy to lose, too. We just want to make sure we're that we're always trying [inaudible 00:42:09] as best we can.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. No, and that is the number one thing that people seek for these days in cannabis stores, anyways, is trust. If you amplify it the way that you do it as a brand, it makes a whole lot of sense. Usually as an investor, when you had your investor hat on, let's switch your hat for a second, how early on did you ask startups to invest in branding? Because usually for startups, it's all product, product, product, right?T. Dodd:Yeah.F Geyrhalter:For you, because you're a knowledgeable industry veteran, you understand what it takes. You started with asking all these right questions. Most cannabis businesses never do that, they don't even know what they're about. They just want to sell product.T. Dodd:For a second there. Can you hear me?F Geyrhalter:Okay. Yeah, I can hear you. Shall I repeat this?T. Dodd:Yeah. Sorry. It just dropped for a second. Not sure why.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, yeah. No worry. Look, the Internet, there's...T. Dodd:Yeah. There's ten million more people using it.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, exactly. Exactly.T. Dodd:It's probably not built for this, yeah.F Geyrhalter:Let's put on your investor hat for a second. When you as an investor, how early on did you tell your startups to invest in branding? Because most startup founders think it's a ginormous waste of time, because for them it's all product, product, product. Most investors, for them it's a ginormous waste of money because for them it's all about speed to market, and let's keep the money for the product for later on, and for marketing. How did you advise your startups?T. Dodd:Most of the startups I was working with were tech, and so it was product oriented. There wasn't a significant amount of focus on branding. Some of the companies I was working with or looking at were creative services companies that was more of a B2B player than a B2C player like Sweet Flower. The B2B players did require branding. A lot of that was built around talent. It was their own talent, and so they did invest early in branding.T. Dodd:Particularly when you're dealing with creative services, creative people, you can't stop them. They're very focused on that. I think for us, we had to invest in branding early, because one, we wanted to differentiate ourselves from the pack, and I think we've done that very well. Secondly, we were also in the middle of... We quickly started to apply for licenses in competitive license markets. Having a branding pack, having a design pack, having the look and feel that distinguished us from everyone else is, in those markets, in those races super important.T. Dodd:Now we've gotten not just the branding. We also now have a very strong operational backbone. We feel good about that decision. I think branding is critical for a retail outlet. A lot of people say, "Why do you guys have to brand these stores at all? Why don't you just take whatever name they had originally, and when you move them, just reopen them as that?" My philosophy here was really simple. You follow what works. What works for people is a very, again, building trust.T. Dodd:You have to have a common backbone. You have to have a standard look and feel. When you go to a Starbucks, or an Alfred Coffee, or a Sephora, or a Lay Labo, those are the brands that we were looking at. Analog brands in different sectors. It's very important to say, "Those brands have a common look and feel." We felt the same way about cannabis retail. No different. That was a core part of it, so we invested in branding early. I would not change that decision. I think it was the right thing to do.F Geyrhalter:What does branding mean to you now, now that you've gone through this process yourself? What does branding mean to you, Tim? It's a big question. Big loaded question to finish things off.T. Dodd:Yeah. I'll try and give the simplest answer. I think we're all... I'm not a Jungian psychologist, but we're all kind of powered by iconography. We're all powered by things we see that basically make us reflect on who we are and the situation that we're in. Branding to me is assembling those icons, color, logos. A flower, the sun. Simple things, and assembling those in a way that makes you think, "Okay, that's reflective of something that I like, that I want to engage with." It's possibly just that simple.T. Dodd:We're all basically fairly limbic. You can take away a lot of the cerebral cortex, but really at the end of the day, we're fairly basic animals. I think we reflect and response to things that are appealing to us different ways, right? For us, it was like, "Let's have a very simple brand. Let's use a cool gray palette. Let's apply a little bit of navy for bold." Nothing too shocking. We didn't want to be some super-dynamic motif. We wanted to be very straightforward. Let's use powerful iconography, powerful typography, good fonts, big fonts, and just keep it simple.T. Dodd:That allows people to apply their own feelings to the brand, I think. The brand icons are important, and the love mark that we have with the flower and the poppy... Sorry, the sun and the poppy are really important. I love that. I like seeing it. Every time I see that in a different way, that people are thinking about it, to me, it feels good. There's just something I like about it.F Geyrhalter:Yeah, it's so simple, but yet it tells a story, right? It also tells the story of what you actually want to feel, and that relief, and that kind of a space.T. Dodd:Yeah. Just selling wellness. Yeah. We're selling wellness. We're selling something. It has to stand out a little bit because it's a commercial brand. We're obviously, as you drive down the street, we want to make sure that you see Sweet Flower's logo, and our bold icons on the side of the stores. Yeah. I think it really just comes down to that trust, and that this is about wellness. Beyond that, I think people apply whatever they want to the brand. That's the cool part.T. Dodd:It's like, having people tell you what it means to them when they come into Sweet Flower. We've had some really amazing feedback and testimonials from people. That's really nice to see.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. Where can listeners get to know your brand? Mainly online, because there's a small, small, small part of our listeners from LA, but a lot of international listeners. Where can they get to know you?T. Dodd:SweetFlower.com is the website. We're constantly retooling the website. It also has a transactional component, ecommerce platform on the back of it. The website itself tells a story. I think the best way to think about us, though, for people who are outside of our community is on Sweet Flower Shops on Instagram. Sweet Flower Shops is really a nice component of that. That's non-transactional, obviously, and that really is much more about our brand story.F Geyrhalter:Totally agreed. Yeah.T. Dodd:And our partnerships and other things. That's where we see [inaudible 00:50:25]. I think Sweet Flower Shops is a really nice way for us to get our brand messaging and story out there, as well.F Geyrhalter:Awesome, Tim. Listen, I'm looking forward to following the journey. It's really-T. Dodd:Thank you, Fabian.F Geyrhalter:It's crazy times right now, but it's amazing how you guys are dealing with it, and how you're pushing forward, and how it is all about your community first, your employees, and then the people that you can currently help. Really, really appreciate you taking the time in these busy times. Stay safe out there-T. Dodd:Of course, yeah.F Geyrhalter:For most, be healthy, right?T. Dodd:Yeah, you, too. Stay safe, be well, and we'll see you soon, I'm sure. I much appreciate the time today. It's been great. Thank you so much.F Geyrhalter:Absolutely. Thanks, Tim.

In this episode of Tag Me Podcast, we’ll be learning social media tips from social media marketing manager and influencer, Jordan-Risa Santos. She has worked with brands like Rose Inc, Boyish Jeans, KKW Beauty, Alfred Coffee, and Fame & Partners. She’ll be sharing tips for brands and influencers. If you are interested in learning how to build a following on social or how to start working in this industry as a social media manager - stay tuned. Jordan's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanrisa/CONNECT WITH US ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/tagmepodcast/

Founder of Alfred Coffee and Calidad Beer, Josh Zad joins #Adulting with Zack Peter and Abigial Fraher to spill his insight on building a business, savvy social marketing, and why Starbucks shouldn't mess with him! We tackle: The intention behind Alfred (it wasn't about coffee) Scaling the business into a cultural phenomenon  Marketing a brick-and-mortar with the power of Instagram How to handle other brands trying to rip you off  Transitioning from coffee to beer  Finding mentors  This episode is brought to you by Trust and Will and High Beauty Get ahead of the game with future-planning and give Trust and Will a try. Get 10% off now at www.trustandwill.com/hacks Try our favorite cannabis skincare High Beauty. Get 15% off your first order with code ADULTING at www.highbeauty.com Keep up with Josh at @joshfromalfred Keep up with us @theadultingpodcast on Instagram and don't forget to subscribe and tune-in every Tuesday! (A 5-star review wouldn't hurt either!)  Keep up with Zack @justplainzack and Abigail @abigail__af.

In just six years, Josh Zad has built a beverage empire as the founder of LA’s cult-favorite coffee shop chain Alfred Coffee, Alfred Tea Room, and Calidad Beer. In 2013, he opened his first Alfred Coffee location with its social media-friendly catchphrase "But First, Coffee.” on the idyllic Melrose Place. Since then, Zad has successfully scaled to 16 locations across the U.S. and Japan, and has recently expanded his beverage empire with a shift to his Mexican-style beer concept – Calidad Beer. Less than one year after launch, Calidad can be found in over 900 location across Southern California, from Whole Foods to Disneyland. In this episode, Josh tells us the secret to building a brand-first business, how to overcome indecision, and his next business venture that will have people lining up in West Hollywood yet again.

Seven years ago, Josh Zad opened Alfred Coffee, a stylish cafe nestled among the luxury boutiques in the Melrose Place neighborhood of West Hollywood. Conceived with the intention of creating a comfortable space and “Instagrammable” moments for its customers, the store quickly became a popular destination among social and celebrity influencers. Alfred has since established itself as a prime example of how to marry brick-and-mortar retail with a memorable digital presence, having grown to 16 locations across the U.S. and Japan. In an interview included in this episode, Zad explained that Alfred’s success and appeal is derived from its foundation as “a creative platform” focused on customer experience, rather than as a coffee brand. “It’s about the lifestyle,” he said. “We have a broader message that goes in many different directions. The personality is there, and we try to reflect that on social media. It’s not about ‘Is this the perfect latte art, yes or no?’” Today, Zad is aiming to replicate Alfred’s success with Calidad Beer, a brand of Mexican-style lagers that, like his coffee company, lives at the intersection of design, storytelling and consumer experience. As part of our conversation, Zad spoke about how, despite no formal training in coffee or branding, he’s built one of the most beloved coffee chains in Southern California, why he believes that the company isn’t “doing anything groundbreaking,” the secret to Alfred’s “customer-first” focus and how he defines success for Calidad. Show notes:  2:46: Interview: Josh Zad, Founder, Alfred Coffee/Calidad Beer -- Zad met with Taste Radio editor Ray Latif at Alfred headquarters in West Hollywood and kicked off their conversation with a brief chat about Alfred’s unusual “ban” on NBA star Kawhi Leonard, Alfred’s average customer and how he became an expert in delivering unique consumer experiences. Zad also spoke about why the company invests heavily in culture, why being nimble is key to being consistently better than its competitors and why he views himself as Alfred’s “creative director” and not its CEO. Later, he discussed why he wants Alfred to be synonymous with L.A., why he’s not interested in launching a cannabis brand, how he views Calidad as a direct offshoot of Alfred and why he wants the can’s color to be the most eye-catching element of its design. Zad also spoke about key mentors in his career and what he likes most about being a boss. Brands in this episode: Alfred Coffee, Oatly, Blue Bottle, Stumptown, Starbucks, Sugarfina, Vybes, Calidad Beer, Corona, Pacifico Beer

Having a ton of followers can get you a lot of free stuff if you know how to work it, but one ice cream truck is fighting back against these free handouts. Joe Nicchi, owner of L.A.'s CVT ice cream truck made waves this week when he announced he would not only reject any requests for free ice cream in exchange for an Instagram photo, but would actually make "influencers" pay double. On today's Katchup episode we're joined by Stephanie Breijo, the Time Out LA editor who interviewed Nicchi, as we talk about influencer culture, and if it has a place in the marketing world. We also dig into Alfred Coffee's bold decision to ban Kawhi Leonard, along with the Los Angeles Clippers players from its shops, and Starbucks' new Tie-Dye Frappuccino. Come Katchup with us on the most important news of the week. --- Thank you all so much for listening! All the Tweets and Instagram tags of you listening mean the world. Reviews you leave on iTunes are also incredibly helpful, if you enjoyed an episode, please do drop us some love on the Apple Podcasts App, and anywhere else your beautiful ears are listening from.  ---- Your Hosts: Elie Ayrouth (@bookofelie) Geoffrey Kutnick (@geoffreykutnick) Your Guest: Stephanie Breijo (@breij) Produced by: Isai Rocha (@isairocha) ---- Follow us! Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/foodbeast Instagram: instagram.com/foodbeast instagram.com/foodbeastkatchup Facebook: www.facebook.com/foodbeastkatchup/ www.facebook.com/foodbeast

Today on Group Chat Dee's got a big announcement! We're also talking about a biracial rapper who pulled out of a festival because they were charging white people $10 more than people of color.  We're talking about about Justin Amash, the investigation of Bumble, Richard Branson, the brawl at Disneyland, Aziz Ansari, the billion dollar Yeezy empire, Alfred Coffee ban and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ben Craw joins the pod to talk about the OTL's corporate independence (2:20), reactions to Kawhi and PG13 getting traded (6:20), Kawhi as the #1 alpha in Los Angeles (11:50), The Town w/ Ben Affleck (13:00), expectations for the Lakers (15:30), paint-by-numbers GMing (17:20), Alfred Coffee (20:20), Jerry West's place on the rankings of all-time greatest Lakers (23:50), Magic Johnson embracing Kawhi to the Clippers (25:00), Russell Westbrook (27:20), OKC is rebuilding (28:30), Chris pitches Ben some hypothetical Westbrook trades (31:20), Russell Westbrook: asset vs. liability (36:00), teams mortgaging their futures for the immediacy of a superstar (49:20)—ENJOY!On The Line is hosted by Chris Wendelken, Ben Craw and friends.Love the show? Got a fantasy hoops question? Deep dive you wanna hear? Let us know! Web: OnTheLinePodcast.comEmail: onthelinepod@gmail.comTwitter: twitter.com/ontheline_podInstagram: instagram.com/onthelinepodFacebook: fb.me/onthelinepodiTunes: apple.co/2G9K1cbStitcher: stitcher.com/s?fid=342861Spotify: spoti.fi/2T7ZmjY

Over the past seven years, 37-year old Josh Zad has built a coffee and tea empire with a dozen locations and 180 employees spanning from LA to Japan. He’s also the brilliant creator/owner of popular trademark "But first, coffee.” Another cool accolade? He’s our podcast host’s former landlord. Yes, it’s true! Do not miss this episode where the old pals powwow about how Josh went from landlord to budding commercial realtor to culinary genius cashing in on both good bites and good vibes.

If you love coffee (and we know all of our PRIV Babes do), you need to hear this one! Michelle Zad, brand director of Alfred Coffee and Tea Room, is joining Donni, Leah, and Bailey (Hunter) to chat about the super successful company that was founded by her brother, Josh Zad. We're talking about what it's like working with family, the power of partnerships, and the importance of trusting your gut. Plus, hear how Alfred is changing the game by collaborating with other industries! | #PRIVtalks

Alfred Coffee has become a global phenomenon and a multi-million dollar company. I sit down with the creator Josh Zad and learned how he used Instagram to build his coffee empire!

Josh Zad is the founder and CEO of Alfred Coffee & Kitchen, Alfred Tea Room and the new Calidad Beer. The former real estate developer opened his first Alfred location on Melrose Place in 2013. He has since opened several coffee locations and tea rooms around Los Angeles, as well as locations in Austin and Tokyo. Alfred has become somewhat of a cult-favorite LA business for social media influencers, celebrities, and really, anyone in need of a caffeine boost. Serving Stumptown Coffee, Alfred's brick-and-mortar stores are known for the uniquely designed interiors and the trademarked catchphrase "But First, Coffee." Josh is the mastermind behind the company's memorable branding, retail space and social media presence (#TeaYesYouMaybe). Scrolling through Instagram under #AlfredCoffee leads to more than 33,000 posts of hip customers, aesthetically-pleasing coffee pictures and cool neon signage. The Los Angeles native is now taking what he's learned with Alfred to launch a new brand, Calidad Beer -- a Mexican-style lager made in Santa Barbara, California. He joined me on Olympic & Bundy to talk about his background in real estate, what led him to open a coffee shop, famous customers, his skill for branding and design and a lot more! Share this story: https://bit.ly/2Sp9WDs Thank you to Josh Zad! Subscribe to Olympic & Bundy on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify and Stitcher. Connect on social: Facebook.com/OlympicAndBundy Instagram.com/OlympicAndBundy Twitter.com/OlympicAndBundy OlympicAndBundy.com

COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO! It’s time to wake up because today’s guest, Chef Rouha Sadighi, is an over-medium egg perfectionist, a fierce competitor on Chopped, a Cutthroat Kitchen champion, and the woman making breakfast dope (again)! Chef Rouha brought a breakfast revolution to LA when she rolled out The Rooster food trucks, and now the revolution is coming to Austin!     Soon, Austinites will be able to enjoy items like the infamous Rico Suave (yes, named after the 90’s jam from Gerado), a breakfast burrito filled with eggs, bacon, tater tots, avocado, cheddar & cotija cheese blend, house made salsa, and cilantro crème; the Chor-acos, two tacos stuffed with chicken chorizo, cotija cheese, sunny-side-up eggs, cilantro, and salsa; and the fan-favorite Basic Bitch, Chef Rouha’s version of avocado toast served on a thick slice of brioche and topped with a fried egg. We also discuss: The Sadighi dinner table Competing on Cutthroat Kitchen & Chopped Meeting Alton Brown Loving breakfast The surreal experience of launching The Rooster What an over-medium egg is Chef Rouha’s Vans collection The Rooster’s menu The future of The Rooster Resources: Connect with Chef Rouha: theroosterla.com | Instagram | Facebook Find when The Rooster comes to Austin: theroosteratx.com Community Healing Gardens: communityhealinggardens.org Learn more about the Adopt a Box Community Program: communityhealinggardens.org/adopt If you want more info on sponsoring Venice’s Raised Bed Boxes, click here to Contact Debi directly Listen to episode 19 with Nicole Landers, founder of Community Healing Gardens: justforkingaround.net/019 Contact Jules Exum: jules.exum at gmail dot com / 310.388.7998 Shout outs: Union Pasadena | Knead & Co Pasta Bar + Market | Chef Bruce Kalman | Friends & Family | The Rooster Chef Rouha Sadighi’s Bio: Sadighi comes to Austin with over 20 years of restaurant industry experience under her belt and has worked at a number of highly acclaimed L.A. establishments, including Joe’s on Abbot Kinney (one Michelin Star) and Thomas Keller’s Bouchon of Beverly Hills. You may also recognize her as the spunky competitor on the Food Network shows Chopped and Cutthroat Kitchen. After years of working with some of the city’s finest, Rouha decided to take her obsession with over medium eggs and love for all things breakfast to the next level and launched The Rooster in the Winter of 2016. Since then, her truck has taken over the streets of L.A., while also partnering with popular coffee brands like Blue Bottle Coffee, Philz Coffee, and Alfred Coffee to sell her choice breakfast burritos.

Michelle Zad, the branding guru behind Alfred Coffee.