006: Kat Thomas - The Harsh Reality of Entrepreneurship
The Nick Bare Podcast
Nick Bare
5 • 5.9K Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2023
⏱️ 122 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today on the show, I chat with Kat Thomas and unpack her inspiring yet challenging entrepreneurial journey thus far. Kat opens up for the first time about her struggles as a founder and shares lessons about starting a company and finding your identity outside of work.
Kat earned her BA from Duke, started her career at Goldman Sachs as an algorithmic trader of European equities, served as COO of American Health Associates, and co-founded MUSH, a ready-to-eat refrigerated oats brand. She even secured funding from Mark Cuban on ABC's Shark Tank and helped scale to thousands of retailers nationwide.
Her decade of business experience has shaped her into an incredible leader and operator today as CEO of Bare Performance Nutrition. Enjoy the episode!
Topics:
(00:00) - Intro
(00:55) - Reality of being a founder
(04:30) - What would you do if money wasn’t a concern?
(08:30) - Problems in the food industry
(13:30) - Kat’s founder story
(28:26) - Being your own boss
(34:57) - Asking for help
(41:00) - Scaling MUSH
(49:30) - Appearance on Shark Tank
(01:05:53) - 4 Phases of Founder
(01:12:41) - Emotional attachment to your business
(01:16:29) - Finding our identity
(01:26:23) - Kat’s health struggles
(01:54:55) - Why you need strong relationships
Follow for more:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@nickbarefitness
Keep up with Kat here:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Entrepreneurship has been so romanticized. |
| 0:03.3 | You have to be careful with entrepreneurship. You can get hurt. |
| 0:06.0 | Today on the show, we have Kat Thomas, the CEO of Bear Performance Nutrition. |
| 0:10.9 | And we are unpacking the harsh realities of being a founder. |
| 0:14.2 | We do not talk enough about the trauma and the struggle of being a founder. |
| 0:19.6 | And we talk about the Lamborghini's, the mansions, the exits. |
| 0:24.1 | You will get absolutely annihilated day after day after day. |
| 0:28.9 | Kat has a decade of founder and operational experience, |
| 0:31.7 | growing a consumer brand to thousands of retail stores, |
| 0:34.7 | and securing funding from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank. |
| 0:37.7 | Mark, we love to... |
| 0:42.2 | But her story has been far from easy. |
| 0:44.2 | I did want to talk about some of your health issues that you experienced. |
| 0:48.5 | I was getting these very weird, shooting chest pains. |
| 0:52.9 | You immediately know when something's wrong. |
| 0:54.7 | They found like a small hole in my heart. |
| 0:56.7 | He was like, we got to put a pacemaker in you. |
| 0:58.2 | I was like, when? He's like, now. |
| 1:02.0 | You like 100% took decades off your life to try to build something. |
| 1:08.5 | And there are some things that you just can't get back. |
| 1:13.8 | Kat Thomas, when you hear the word founder, what do you think? |
| 1:18.8 | And I'm going to give some more context to that. |
... |
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