From Software to Candy w/ Ben Hindman

Ben Hindman

And we got, I don't know, was actually, remember it was about 40 people per tour. And we did two tours a day and it was all free. It was only tip based, but if you like what you heard, we'll appreciate your generosity. If you don't like what you hear, just write your complaints on the back of a $20 bill. Hand that to me. I'll make sure it gets to my boss and it worked. We ended up, man, every single day we would show up in the national mall empty handed and we left with, I don't know, about 135 bucks on average.

And that's what I did for two years before selling it. And it's actually still around. You should check it out. tours by foot are still free tours and now they're all over the country. So that was the first business I did. That's how I kind of learned about entrepreneurship. And then, I mean, the next thing, man, the next thing was maybe the second coolest business was a summit series. I linked up with some guys in Washington, DC. I was doing those tours and these other guys were like, Hey, we should start a big conference for, for tech CEOs. And so that.

And right, was right when tech was getting sexy. So it was 2008. This is before your time, Jeff, an old man here. And it was right when like all the cool media kids were coming out of New York and all the all the Facebook guys were coming up. And so we got about 80 entrepreneurs to Mexico for the first summit series. And that was 20 years ago or so. And now they do, gosh, summit series that takes over cruise ships and mountains. And they're all they're one of the biggest tech conferences or entrepreneurship.

creative conferences in the world. So I was one of the founding members of that. I did that for a little while. And then I got a job up at Thrillist in New York City, which at the time was like a very cool like email magazine. And that's where I learned how to throw events. And that led me to, after throwing events for myself, I realized I needed my events to look very cool online. So I built a piece of technology that allowed events to look as cool online as they did in my brain. And that was Splash. That turned into Splash.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Okay.

Ben Hindman

And so I went from event planner to event marketing software guy and did that for about a decade.

Jeff Albaum

Okay, so pardon my naivety here, but what does it mean to make an event look cool online? Like, what is...

Ben Hindman

Oh man, you know, gosh, so much of an event was about getting people there, right? And so you needed, at the time, it was really hard to create websites. mean, back in the day, I nowadays, you can use AI to make things look very cool. I think it's so, you know, our big innovation was to allow designers without a line of code to make it look pixel perfect on a website. And so we would create these beautiful websites for events, we call it splash pages, and splashthat.com was the URL,

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

You know, before we realized before long that the cooler we allowed people to make these things look, the more design heavy, more movement animation, cool hover states, whatever it might be, the more they shared it. And so we actually found a viral loop in there and yeah, splash became one of the cooler at the time, one of the cooler event marketing software. People were sending invites, getting RSVPs, selling tickets. we were doing that. Gosh, we processed millions and millions of RSVPs through that system. Yeah. Yeah, it was cool, man. I'm so proud of it.

Jeff Albaum

Dude, that's awesome.

Ben Hindman

I mean, built, we built the business up to like God at our peak, had like 130 people and like, was a lot of humans. we had the coolest office in New York. had the top floor of the Woolworth building and we designed it to look insane. And man, it was, it was such a cool experience. The people we worked with, just somehow hired just insane technologists and insane kind of marketing party scientists. And we had a whole squad and we were, we powered the events for.

Salesforce, Facebook, Amazon, Spotify, like insert cool brand here. They used our software. Yeah, I mean, it was nuts. It was nuts. I missed it. I love being CEO. mean, no, what ended up happening was COVID. COVID made events go away. then, you know, after COVID software was a really hard game. And so, you know, we did it for a gosh, as I said, I it for about a decade, but those last couple of years were tough.

Jeff Albaum

Dude, that's nuts.

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

It was tough to make the business grow. You know, when events went away, we had to go online and it's just, wasn't the same. It wasn't the same kind of energy in the business. So, you know, we ended up having a great outcome. found a great buyer. They're doing a great job with it, but it kind of reached its end. It's logical end. Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

Yeah. Have you always felt, like just hearing about like your work history, you can tell you're fired up about everything you've done. Like you're not like, you know, I did tours and was like, like, dude, I did tours in Washington, D.C. Like there was have you always felt like work is an extension of you or like, how do you how do you see work?

Ben Hindman

Yeah, man.

Yeah, it's honestly, it's a little bit of like a blessing and a curse because like, yeah, each of these businesses has been like a full body expression of who I am, which is amazing when you're in it and it's working. But when it's not working, it can feel really burdensome. can feel like, you know, when someone doesn't like it and you're doing user testing, it's hard to, it's hard to not take things personally when you have my kind of personality. But yeah, it's, I, I love thinking about business like art and like a full

Jeff Albaum

Mmm.

Ben Hindman

you know, expression of what I'm putting into the world and each of these businesses has been, yeah, every, every part of me goes into it. By the way, it's, it's it's another reason why a lot of people are good at multitasking, like doing two businesses at once or working across multiple projects. That's something I've learned about myself. I cannot do that. I go all in and I make it. Yeah. As you, I'm glad you can tell in my voice, I make it a full part of me and it's amazing. It feels really good when it's working and it feels so terrible when it's not, you know.

Jeff Albaum

Sure, sure. And then I imagine, like I wanna talk about the sale a little bit and like, I can imagine if you have this part of you that's like, this is this full body extension of yourself and then all of a sudden it's gone. Like on one hand, cool, you exited, that's amazing. On the other hand, like I'm sure there was, yeah, talk to me a little bit about that. Like what was that like?

Ben Hindman

Yeah.

Yes, I mean, the quick story is I stepped down as CEO during COVID because candidly, just don't think I was, I wasn't meant to be a virtual CEO. I'm really good at like, you know, I designed the office. I'm like in person juicing people up. Being online was hard. It was taxing for me. So at some point I was like, you know what? There's definitely somebody better for the job. So smarter, more talented CEOs took that role and I stepped back and yeah, man, it was, it was incredibly painful to not.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Ben Hindman

Honestly, the sale was a lot less painful than the years leading up to the sale. We, just, to watch a business that, was a big part of my life and a big part of who I am or who I was, to not have the ability to impact it and to really want to, to want to like push it in different directions or help it grow or find new ways for it to become what it's supposed to become. But really not being able to, I was the chairman at the time.

Jeff Albaum

Mmm.

Ben Hindman

It was hell, man. was those last couple of years were really challenging and disappointing. You know, yeah, the sale, ultimately, actually, the sale, if I'm being real, was a relief. It was like the story of the business was kind of sad towards the very end. was, you know, as I mentioned, COVID made it really challenging to grow. There's like the software apocalypse that made it challenging to grow. We never shrunk. I got to be real. That's something we got to be really grateful for. We got it to a pretty darn high revenue number and it never shrunk.

And so that's, you know, that's something to be really proud of. and it was, you know, it was growing a little bit, but it wasn't growing fast enough to be like a real software return business. Anyway, we ended up selling it for a great return. And so that, at least for me, it did help kind of put a bow on what was at the very end, a challenging last quarter of our, of our business. where is the first three quarters where I couldn't have been more alive and more expressed and more just proud of the stuff we did. So yeah, it's,

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

I don't know that I'd recommend my style of doing business to people because it's a really taxing way to go about business. I imagine there's much more straight lines than what I do. But yeah, when I get in it, I find a way to make it every part of me.

Jeff Albaum

You

Yeah. And so that brings us to your current project. So tell us about this new venture. How did you think about, like, talk to me.

Ben Hindman

my gosh.

I'm so excited about it. I so we haven't launched yet. So I don't know when this podcast will come out. We would have either just launched when this came out or like is about to launch. Okay, so then it's out. Then go check out enjoylelick.com. It's pronounced le, but it's no, it's French because it's very fancy. We have built what we think is the world's first functional candy. So we asked the question, like, I love candy. I've loved candy my entire life. My mom used to...

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

We're going to we're going to wait until it until it's out. It's out.

Okay.

Ben Hindman

Bride me to go to cultural events with candy and I would collect it. Love candy. But at some point when I had kids, I realized candy isn't just like not good for you. It's like actively bad for you. Like the stuff that they put in candy in America are like terrible dyes, chemicals, high fructose corn syrup. It's just like poisoning yourself. And so, you know, we started asking the question like, hey, what would it look like to like flip that on its head? What it would look like to like, not just make like quote unquote better for you candy, but actually candy that's like

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

actually good for you. And so yeah, we started. So our first product is Le Lique. It's an electrolyte lollipop. We packed a lollipop with a full dose of electrolytes, so about 400 milligrams of electrolytes. then everything else in it is just organic, organic cane sugar, organic honey. It Himalayan pink salt. We did a prebiotic fiber in there. So it's only about 25 calories per life, which is like less than half of most lollipops.

And yeah, it's like, it's meant to give you real energy. You know, it doesn't use any sugar alcohols, which often can ferment in your gut and leave you bloated or just like give you a sugar spike with no energy. Like it doesn't do any of that. It's real food that's meant to be processed by your, by your body. And then, and then it's a lollipop. It's a lollipop that hydrates you, you know, like it's supposed to remind you to like,

Jeff Albaum

You

Ben Hindman

Have fun and play. And one other thing I should mention is we put no dyes in it. So all the lollipops are natural colors. It looks like honey. And the flavors are represented in the sticks. So the colors of the sticks are the different flavors, which is so fun. It's meant to be something that's meant to remind you to keep on playing. And of course, electrolytes help you keep on playing because it keeps you hydrated, keeps your body being able to soak in water.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Ben Hindman

Yeah. And so that's, that's our ideas. This is our first product is this Electrolyte Lollipop. We hope to launch this well and then launch more good functional candy for you. Right now we're just, learning all the ins and outs of building a candy brand and manufacturing candy. And my gosh, it's been one of the hardest experiences I've ever had, but it's been so rewarding working with, with atoms and not bits, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Mm-hmm. Okay, so a couple couple questions. The first one that just came to mind is what are the flavors? So what are the what are the different colored sticks that we're gonna see?

Ben Hindman

Oh yeah, okay. So again, go to enjoylelec.com. You'll see all of our flavors. I'll read them out. They're my, we spent, so, okay, so I'm a little bit of a crazy person. And one of the decisions was, could we launch with at least seven flavors? Which like most people who like launch, it's usually a three flavor thing. We wanted to get to 10 within the first couple of months because like part of the narrative is different tastes. And I'll tell you this, it's a good thing we did because everybody's taste buds are different. Like,

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Okay.

Ben Hindman

Something we say internally and the company is like, my purple is not your purple. Everybody's purple is different. I see a different purple than you, turns out. And so like, okay, so OG cherry is the first one that's meant for those people who like that old school medicinal cherry vibe, right? So OG cherry, pink lemonade, little citrusy. Then we've got watermelon, which is the fan favorite. Everyone wants a watermelon, but man, it has been hard to make watermelon with no chemicals.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Yep.

Okay.

for sure.

Ben Hindman

you know, to make it a natural watermelon, the organic watermelon, but also tastes like candy. That's been a challenge, but we think we nailed it. Wild berry, that's like a raspberry and strawberry mix. Chocolate milk is my kid's favorite. They love it. And that's, think that's going to be a winner. That thing slaps. Spicy mango, most adults reach for the spicy mango first. And like, it's crazy. People who like spice, they like spice. And so,

We were inspired by like Mexican candy and there's a lot of spicy candy in that. And so we went spicy mango. My personal favorite right now, orange coconut. It is weird, man. Put a little bit of orange and like a blood orange like flavor and then like a coconut, like the sweetness of coconut milk, but it's dope. love that one. Salted honey is like no flavors. It's just our base, with like extra salt. So that kind of hits you with that like almost like I forgot like a sore throat. You really want this one. And then

Jeff Albaum

Okay?

Ben Hindman

we're gonna release with this launch, this one's been like striking like oil or something. It's it's Le Latte. Le Latte is a coffee flavored one that has 50 milligrams of caffeine. So this is our second function, right? We put in our electrolytes. This has electrolytes and caffeine. So this one's for adults, not for your kids, but it's good, man. Le Latte is gonna hit, I think. So.

Jeff Albaum

You

Ben Hindman

Those are our first couple, you know, and our hope is to keep on going. We've partnered up with a small batch manufacturer in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and they're amazing at like ideating on and actually manufacturing real cool organic flavors. Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

Dude, this is amazing. I'm I'm stoked to try all of those, except for the cherry. I'm not a cherry fan, but every other flavor sounds epic.

Ben Hindman

Right?

So we've learned 60 % of people not cherry fans. 60%, yeah. But 40 % of people love it. They're cherry people. I mean, if you think about it, glow pops and Tootsie Roll pops, hardcore cherry flavors, yeah. So we were like, we gotta do it. We gotta go, and we went OG cherry. We called it that, because we wanted people to know, this is that old cherry. I also find, people who are not from America don't,

Jeff Albaum

I put myself in the 60%. Yeah.

They go hard with cherry.

you

Yeah.

Ben Hindman

They're not as like when they taste that like medicine, you cherry, they're like, Oh, I kind of like it, you know, so it's either you kind of like it or you don't, but I hear you. Yeah. Not a cherry guy. get it. So dude, some other things we found. So 25 % of people, not honey people. I didn't even know you couldn't be a honey person. Did you know? Like, isn't that crazy? Yeah. There are a quarter of the people in the world, not honey people. They don't like honey. was like, wow, I didn't even know it was a thing. 50 % of people, not coconut people. Turns out people do not like coconut very

Jeff Albaum

Yeah, not for me.

Huh?

I could get that, that makes sense to me. The honey's surprising.

Ben Hindman

Yeah, it's very controversial. Honey is surprising. I was like, wow. And then again, watermelon. That's where people reach them. Any box you put watermelon in, best seller. People want it.

Jeff Albaum

Yeah. you, is the, is the gold, like, you gonna sell it in boxes and like, you can get a mixture of flavors? It's all one flavor? How does that, how's that gonna work?

Ben Hindman

Yeah. just to test, least this is, eventually we really want to make it pick and pack. So like you can build your own box, but what we did at first is we're launching a creamy box, a tart box, and a juicy box. And there's three flavors in each, 10 of each flavor. So you got to get 30, 30 flavors, you get, sorry, 30 pops, but you get 10 of each flavor. So.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Ben Hindman

It's been, mean, honestly, just figuring out how to merchandise this to launch. Cause we don't think this is where we're to land. And we really wanted to test out what would people resonate with? What would they go to? And yeah, again, that creamy box is getting about 25 % of clicks and the juicy box is getting like 75 % of clicks. you know, yeah, it's been, it's been fascinating. Taste buds are wild. Everyone's taste buds, totally different.

Jeff Albaum

Interesting.

Okay, so from the outside, least looking in it, it's like, this feels very different than your historical businesses, right? Like you've been always like in person with people doing stuff and now to go to like a consumer, what was it? CPG, consumer packaged good? Like how did you think about that? Like that's a crazy, it's seemingly crazy transition, but do you see it as that or is it more like a?

Ben Hindman

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's insanely different. And I'm, I keep on getting slapped in the face with how different it is. Yeah. CPG. mean, I've always just had such a romantic obsession with CPG. It's just such a fun intersection, right? Like it's like part like behavior change and psychology, right? It's part like design and branding, but it's also this like very intimate thing. Like when I was building software, I was like, does this fit your need? Did we solve your problem? Yes, no. Cool. You know, fix.

This is like, put this thing in your mouth, right? Like lick this thing and tell me your like opinion that is totally subjective, right? And if you like it, my hope is, is that you will somehow find a place for this in your pantry shelf, you know, or in like the depths of your purse, right? Like, you know, or in your car, like you will take this and like give it to your child.

Right? It is such an intimate experience and it's totally different in that way. So that's like one thing that like I've always just, I don't know, to super respect to the people who are able to like build these parts of our lives. think back to like my childhood and like cereal boxes and how like just they have just imprinted in my brain. I've always kind of had this romantic obsession with it. So, so yes, very different in the way it's approached, but also just in the way it gets built. I I did a short scene in Shopify and the thing that I was just so like,

impressed with at Shopify is their obsession with shipping. They really honor those who are able to ship products fast and people who are able to push things out. And that's the deal with technology. You got to push something out. What I'm finding with real life products is there's a couple of things. Number one, it's not always the best thing to push fast. Sometimes it makes more sense to go slow.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

And a big reason for that is, gosh, you're dealing with like longer iteration cycles and technology. You get something out, it doesn't work. You patch that bug. You come up with a new idea. You push that product quickly. Look, just, we talked a bit about the sticks and the stick colors. I'll just be real. I have spent $11,000 in China on different sticks, buying them, coming up with the colors. And it took.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

a month more now to ship them to Michigan. And I'll just be honest with you, the first sticks, they're not perfect. They're not perfect. I'm livid that these sticks are not perfect, but that's like the, and I have hundreds of thousands of them. And so I got a launch with it, but like for me to update these sticks requires, you know, like capital, time, energy. It's just like that. I mean, we're talking about, I don't know, 45 day iteration cycle.

And so, you know, there's a lot of reason to have purchased a smaller amount of sticks or, you know, just, and I use that as just a small example. We're talking about like everything from the formulation to the packaging to the, um, gosh, like what the, the, nutrition, you know, facts, you know, like the littlest things you change at once. So many dominoes fall and that's, that's just not the same as in technology. So yes, I would argue this is a full 180 flip in terms of like what I'm doing, but

Man, was just so sick of not having an intimate experience with my customers. know, something so nice about this where I get to like, yeah, be part of their lives. And I don't know, man, I just can't tell you how exciting it is to like walk around handing out lollipops. It's just like, what else am I doing with my life? You know, it's just so much better.

Jeff Albaum

And did you join up with people? Did you bring people together? Is there a team? Is it just you? Who's the team?

Ben Hindman

Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. you know, yes, the answer is yes. I was, I had an interesting idea that, you know, it was not so dissimilar from how I built my other businesses, which was to find really talented people and to offer them a pretty significant amount of equity in the business and with no cliff. So just for those who don't know, a cliff is basically like, you have to be in a business a certain amount of time before you get any of the equity. And then you have a cliff for how much equity you get.

Instead, said, look, there's no cliff. So every month that you're with us, you're earning equity. And if it doesn't work, we'll just stop and we'll cut you there and you'll get whatever amount you get. Hopefully that will feel good that you, you know, contributed X. We got Y from you and awesome. So as such, I've gone around and found like really, really talented marketers and advisors and field marketers and people who know how to make retail stuff. I've just, yeah, offered them equity and said, like, you know, look,

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Ben Hindman

earn it, stick around, and I'm going to be really real with you if it's not working out. And so far, yeah, we've had to break ties with people, but a lot of people stuck around. And so I have really talented marketers and operators right now who are putting in their sweat equity and helping push this business along. And hopefully one day there's money where we can actually pay them and get them full time. Everyone's kind of part time right now. But yeah, I'm really excited about the team we've built here. It's a really solid squad.

Jeff Albaum

Yeah.

Ben Hindman

athletes and people who really share my affection and passion for saving the soul of candy. these are, I probably should make that like an interview question. Like, do you agree candy is critical? If so, let's go. Cause all these, all these people share that vision and that mission.

Jeff Albaum

Hahaha

What do you think as a founder, as a CEO, what do you think as a person? What do you think is one of your biggest strengths from a business perspective?

Ben Hindman

Right? Cause like, what exactly would you say you do here, Ben? It's a great question. No, it's true. I often ask that it's hard. Cause I worked at a business, I worked at Shopify and like, it you it wasn't clear exactly always what I was doing in the rooms that I was in. But what I did find, and I found this at Shopify when I was pushing products and I found it at Splash and I find it here. I actually think momentum is my thing. know, lovingly call it, say I have Benergy, which I

Jeff Albaum

No, no, not in that way, I'm just...

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

I take that as a compliment, it's, bring it man. And I don't stop. It's, it's a, I think that momentum is really the only thing you have as an entrepreneur. You know, if momentum is promise, momentum is speed and you know, taking one step and putting it in front of another. And so I think a lot of what my job is, is to keep track of that momentum, to help people understand where they're at and are we creating enough momentum to eliminate things that get in the way of momentum.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

It's really the only thing I do. it's, you know, it ends up sometimes looking like project management. Sometimes it looks like creating visions. Sometimes it means communication. Sometimes it means hiring. It's just, it's finding a way to move things forward. I would say I'm world-class at that. Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

Yeah. Can I, can I give another strength just from the outside perspective? I think you're a one of one, a category of your own of bringing people together. So I wouldn't say it's necessarily momentum driven, but like, I, I hundred percent believe what you're saying with momentum, but I think you're an amazing community builder and like epicenter of movements. I think you're really, really world-class at that.

Ben Hindman

I love that, please.

That's really sweet. I mean, I guess for those listening, Jeff and I weekly study Torah together. We've been doing it for six years. mean, God, that's been incredible. we have, I, know, Jeff and I, I'm going to take this compliment because it really is true. We have gathered a group of, don't know, on any given day, it's between 20 and 30 people who just show up on a call as we read an ancient text in a very matter of fact way. Now I would not describe it as a religious way. I would describe it as a, let's, let's have, let's almost read it like Shakespeare's.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

And yeah, man, I really appreciate that. have taken a lot of pride in both from a business standpoint and yeah, certainly in our weekly talking TORAs of gathering humans together. And I feel really grateful. Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

But dude, outside of tour, with the, it sounds like from everything you've done, like the DC tours, building summit, building Splash that now, I'm gonna pronounce it right. Yes, okay. Yeah, man, it seems like that's like the center of everything. Like you just bring people together and you can bring a team on, which I feel like is one of the best strengths to have in business and in life.

Ben Hindman

Mel!

Yeah, it's an interesting thought. mean, Jeff, I will share with you and I saw, I definitely appreciate the compliment and the reflection. And I do agree. I'm really fun. I'm a great recruiter. I get you hyped. there is, there's a shadow to it that I think, you know, if other people are thinking about themselves in business, something I'll just share, which is that often I, I've, I've made decisions for the team for, and to meet the needs of what I'll describe as the stakeholders.

often and sometimes over the customers or the health of the business. And yeah, as somebody who's like, would describe myself as an empath, someone who really cares deeply about those around me. I often let that get in the way of leadership. It's something I'm working on is like, when am I actually making the right call for the business, for the customers, for the investors versus making sure the team is happy and feels taken care of.

Now, again, it can be really helpful to make sure you got great people and they feel taken care of. You know, it's an important thing. It's also something I really, I work with is to not over rotate on gathering the right people almost for the sake of gathering the right people. Like right now I have like some of the best advisors for the company in the world. Like these guys are amazing. But you know, I imagine a lot of people would say, Hey man, you don't need to your time on that. You spend your time on getting customers. You you spend your time on getting investors or

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Hmm

Mmm.

Ben Hindman

or getting the product out there. And so yeah, it's definitely something I keep an eye on, is like how focused I am on people gathering versus, yeah, but I appreciate the, I'd rather be surrounded by great people than not. So I appreciate the reflection for sure.

Jeff Albaum

Gotcha.

For sure. So do you have, how do you, how do you hold yourself accountable with that kind of stuff? Like, do you, do you have people that do, or is it just like a self reflection?

Ben Hindman

Wow, man.

What an important question. Man, I've been getting...

This is gonna sound, mean, gosh, I hope she's listening to this. I've learned something pretty important in my life, which is that my wife is actually my best advisor. she just, she, the other day I got really mad at her because she like spoke truth to me. She always like, she'll just never sugar coat stuff for me, And it's really almost always her who just shines a bright light on when I'm doing the wrong thing, really in any category, but certainly when it comes to people pleasing.

She's very well aware of kind of my codependency, if you will, on my staff and my teammates. And so she'll shine a light and say, hey, is this the right thing for the business? Is this the right thing for X, Y, Z person? She's really, really sharp in that way. I would say, so I'm 42 now, and I would say I learned that lesson around the age of 38 that Julie's more often than not right. And I just kind of need to listen. So that's, I to help.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Ben Hindman

Tough answer, man, but that's what's going on in my life, yeah.

Jeff Albaum

Dude, that's amazing to have that kind of person in your corner with you. Like, that's awesome.

Ben Hindman

Yeah, it is. She's awesome, man. It's been really fun. Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

That's really awesome. What lessons have you taken from your personal life and incorporated them into business or taken from business and incorporated them into your personal life?

Ben Hindman

Whoa. huh.

Jeff Albaum

Or do you even think about it like that? Like, do you separate personal to business or vice versa?

Ben Hindman

Yeah.

I wish I did. I wish I had that kind of brain. I don't know how to do it different. Well, something else here. I went through a pretty dark night of the soul when I was in between businesses, kind of for this exact reason. I just don't really know how to not live a personal life that is also associated with my business. You know, when I was doing event software or throwing events,

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

I was throwing those events for me and having a blast doing it. know, like being those events were all I thought about every single day. Nowadays, all I really work on is like finding a way to give away lollipops and get people to try them and get taste tests. It's just kind of all day every day. I mean, even to the point I had my kids, I got an eight year old and a five year old. I took my eight year old to the factory the other day. I took my five year old to like a trade show where she's like pushing lollipops. So I don't know.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

you

Ben Hindman

I'm trying to use this as a hack. It's so fun to like live and do work, like make your life work. It's a really fun thing. So I love that part of me. And even gosh, man, the thing that me and my wife do that we love more than anything, we chase Skrillex around the world. Skrillex is our favorite DJ, musician. yeah, I mean, similarly, you know, gotta bring lollipops wherever we go. But yeah, it's just, it's kinda, I don't think I, I can't say that I separate these two things. The lolly, yeah, the personal and the.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Ben Hindman

professional, for better, for worse. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but yes. Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you. hear you. What's all right. So you have you have two kids you said eight year olds and eight year old and five year old. What is what is some advice you'd give to a new new parent? What have you learned about life from having kids? Small question.

Ben Hindman

Small question. Okay, a couple things here.

Man, one thing I'm learning recently, cause I got two kids, is that solo time is way more important than I thought. That's something I would have, I wish someone had told me. Another one is that you just should almost never have your phone on you when you have a kid. It's just, especially nowadays, you gotta get your phone out of your, out of your hand. That's something I worked on and I'm psyched about moving through. Yeah, I'd say.

Jeff Albaum

Hmm

Hmmmm

Ben Hindman

You know, I read this somewhere, I'm forgetting where, but just I've really focused on the first three minutes of the day and the last three minutes of the day with the kids. That's been important. Just like waking up, being real present for at least the first three and then making sure right before bed, really super present. I know it's small, but that has been really helpful. Similarly, car time. Gotta recommend like spending like use the radio, but

that you got them in a seatbelt. You might as well like dig in with kids in the car. That's like one of the best times. Let's see what else I got for you here. I mean, man, it's been a wild trip because I never really wanted to be a dad. wasn't something I was like psyched out. My wife really wanted it. I was never excited about being a father. And yeah, even up until they were like five, honestly, I'm only recently like turning on on this. It's only only now getting interesting and good for me. I've always kind of been bored by it.

Jeff Albaum

Really?

Wow.

Ben Hindman

I'm just not interested, but now it's pretty darn fun. They're teaching me lot of lessons. It's a sharp reflection and yeah.

Jeff Albaum

I'm sure. Dude, that's crazy. I feel like you're like you give like, and this is the biggest compliment ever, like very much dad energy.

Ben Hindman

Thank you. And yeah, no. I always thought I'd be okay to die, but I never wanted it, man. It's so hard, so hard and boring. For like five years, just so obnoxious. There's these monkeys that yell at you all the time. But now it's getting cool. I mean, we're having a fun time. We're learning a lot together.

Jeff Albaum

That's so cool you're involving them in the business and taking them to stuff and what a great way to balance everything.

Ben Hindman

Yeah, dude. Yeah, it's fun.

Jeff Albaum

As we start to wrap up here, I wanted to ask you, what do you take as input? So you're a very high energy person. like, you said you're an empath. Like you're always feeling and like giving, I know you said Skrillex is a big part of you and your wife's life, but like, yeah, what kind of stuff do you allow in? Like what's your input, either podcasts, books, people you listen to?

Ben Hindman

Yeah, yeah. mean, what I think I'd share that might be more useful to people like me. So I, I don't sure if I was ever like diagnosed with dyslexia or if it's just like hardcore ADD, but reading has always been quite elusive for me. I've always wanted to be a reader. I can read a little bit, but I, I, I take in all my content audit, like through audio. Um, and I do, I crank podcasts for sure, but honestly, the best way I've learned how to learn

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

has been to create regularly scheduled book clubs and meetings with people I think are smart. And I just tap into what they're reading and what they're saying. I'm able to like, my brain really turns on when that happens. know, what we were discussing earlier, talking Torah is one way I like to do it, you know, like listen to people talk there, but I have three or four other groups of people that I have very regularly meetings with that is all about learning.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

And so that's been a great forcing function, but also just I've just learned how to hack my own brain in that way. Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

Did you start those other four?

Ben Hindman

Three out of the four.

Jeff Albaum

Dude, that's awesome.

Ben Hindman

Yeah, it's fun. Book clubs. I didn't make up book clubs here, Jeff. know, that's a thing. But yeah.

Jeff Albaum

Yeah, but it's like, what's that thing? If information were the answer, everyone would be millionaires with six packs, right? Like, everyone knows that, but you were like, cool, I'm gonna go do it.

Ben Hindman

That's great. Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

Really, really cool. Really cool. The other question I have for you is what's something you've changed your mind about recently?

Ben Hindman

Oh man. mean, honestly, kids, I think kids can be great. It's just been like, really, as I mentioned, I do not like, I did not like having kids. was, and I thought it was also like, if anyone asked me like, Hey, should I have kids? Or like, what's it like? I was like, Oh my God, no, stay away. I babies to the worst. Um, sorry to all the baby lovers out there. I feel like starting a candy brand and I'm

Jeff Albaum

Yeah

Was it kids or was it babies? are you not a fan of babies?

Ben Hindman

just like anti-baby. I feel like this is not a good look, Jeff. We're gonna have to edit this out. No, look, it's just, it's always really hard for me to like stay present and yeah, find reward in the baby process and toddler process candidly. But I've really, I've come around to the fact that like, I will become my best self through the learning through the eyes of my kids. And that's gonna be really fun.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Ben Hindman

And it also has been just like a really important project for me and my wife to get good at and to you know to learn from her and like how she handles their energy and what I can learn from that has been critical. So I would say I am pro kid now Jeff says the guy who's starting a candy brand. I'm pro children.

Jeff Albaum

Dude, all I could think about was when you saying you brought your daughter to the trade show of like talk about a better salesperson Like this cute little girl going up like do you want a lollipop like who would say no?

Ben Hindman

yeah, she crushed.

Who's going to say no to a kid offering them an electrolyte lollipop, Jeff? I don't know. I don't want to meet that person. You know? Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

Yeah. Zero people, zero people, zero percent of people. Well, Ben, thank you so much for doing this, man. I appreciate you. You're you're a beast. Where can people go to find more? Where can they order lollipops from?

Ben Hindman

These lollipops, Jeff, you can go to enjoylelick.com or check us out on Instagram at enjoylelick. It's le, L-E, but it's pronounced with a And yeah, man, and if you have any flavor recommendations, requests, or if you want more or less salt, send those requests my way.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Amazing. And yeah, where is the best place to reach out to you if they do have those, that feedback.

Ben Hindman

Yeah, I'll be on Instagram, benny.events, benny, D-O-T, events. So you can hit me up on Instagram for sure. Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

All right. Amazing. Well, thank you so much again, man. I appreciate you. You're the best.

Ben Hindman

Great to see you, Jeff. Thanks for the time.

Jeff Albaum

Thank you. Bye everybody.