Mr. Operations: Perspective, Delayed Gratification, Mindset - Janzen Eagler: Beverage Entrepreneur

Garrett Elconin (00:00:00) - Hello. Welcome to the pod with Garrett Elconin. And this is where I interview local entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, ranging from business founders and entrepreneurs to creatives and artists, to peel back the curtain on on their success and their stories so that hopefully we can extract some tools, tips and tactics that they use to become successful. And through that, I hope to inspire you, the audience, as well as hopefully give you some tangible things you can apply to your personal or professional life so that you can grow and live the life of your dreams. So without further ado, we got, uh, Janzen Eagler here for the first podcast. Welcome, Janssen. Welcome. Absolutely. So, uh, yeah, I guess a little brief intro into Janssen. Um, Janssen is a proud Texas Christian University horned frog. Janssen, uh, dove headfirst into the alcohol business world during college, getting world class exposure alongside experienced beverage entrepreneurs. He started as a first hire at Helmsman Imports and alcohol importer at the age of 22, where he moved over 3 million uh goods in and around the United States while setting up trade routes in Italy, Mexico, Brazil and China.

Garrett Elconin (00:01:22) - Then in 2021, Janssen, along with two other partners, co-founded Driehaus, a Philadelphia based co packing facility that specializes in canning and bottling. Drayhorse boasts over 30 clients worldwide that range from the number one bar in North America to celebrity brands like Sweet Chick and Juice Runners. He is also the co-founder of Choco Smooth, a new, uh, milk chocolate and white chocolate liqueur. And Janssen prides himself on being the face of the operations behind the entities and brands he works on. He's got tons of war stories being the trenches that I'm easy to, that I'm eager to uncover. Hey, it's pretty good. Yeah, pretty good start there. That's pretty good start. Yeah. So this, uh, operations role, tell me a little bit more. What do you do for all these brands and companies?

Janzen Eagler (00:02:09) - Yeah, I mean, operations in the early stages is really just everything. I mean, it could be running legal compliance one day, getting licenses. Um, actually physically being in a facility one day, producing product, you know, creating pricing strategies, managing vendor relationships.

Janzen Eagler (00:02:28) - Um, really just the unsung like here, it's kind of like the linemen to the business or to the, uh, the football team pulling a lot of weight but a little bit behind the scenes. But yeah, operation just means a lot of titles. And, um, day to day's, there's no set day. It's just whatever pops up, whatever fire you need to put out, you're there.

Garrett Elconin (00:02:47) - So expert problem solver.

Janzen Eagler (00:02:49) - I would say.

Garrett Elconin (00:02:50) - It's.

Janzen Eagler (00:02:51) - Uh, getting there, but yeah. Problem solver, the professional problem solver of the organization.

Garrett Elconin (00:02:57) - So absolutely, that makes sense. And then, uh, you know, thanks for sending over that bio and that, uh, brief entrepreneur journey. Of course, that was a great to get into. So something actually really stood out to me. And, uh, that's kind of where I want to start. It sounds like there were several instances in your early childhood where you completely latched on to an idea. What I mean by that is, uh, apparently when you are around 10 to 12, you're watching Shark Tank, and that's when you knew you wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Janzen Eagler (00:03:29) - Yeah, yeah, I would say that was probably the earliest memory I have of wanting to be an entrepreneur, or at least somebody that was doing something out of the ordinary. Um, you know, the place where I grew up, it was like Midwest, very central part of Illinois, a lot of industrial giants there, a lot of like soy, corn, agriculture or businesses to do with that. So basically, when you live in that kind of place and you grow up, it's like you've got a couple career paths, you're going to be a farmer, you're going to be somebody that works in one of those factories or um, just kind of a day job doing something within, like the local community. And, um, you know, a lot of my family does things like that. And I just kind of knew that that wasn't really for me. I wanted to get out and do things and see things. And, uh, the cornfields just were not calling my name. So, yeah, I think I was probably 12 when I saw Shark Tank and I saw people on there, like pitching ideas and products and raising money and discussing equity.

Janzen Eagler (00:04:27) - And I just think the, the idea of bringing something from your brain into your hand is really what enticed me. And, uh, just so happened that the route that I took kind of got me to a place where I can take ideas from your head into your hand and, uh. Yeah, that's that's when I really discovered what I wanted to do. And, uh, the path that I kind of wanted to go down.

Garrett Elconin (00:04:50) - That's awesome. Did you have any business ideas while you were growing up as a kid? Trying to. Trying to make something?

Janzen Eagler (00:04:56) - I actually, I did. No, I was never the kid that, like, started a lemonade stand or like, I was never grinding and hustling and, like, flipping baseball cards and whatnot. But, uh, when I was in high school, I had a friend named Jake shout out Jake! I wasn't even going to shout him out. But him and I both wanted to be entrepreneurs. And, um, we decided we were going to start a auto detailing business.

Janzen Eagler (00:05:19) - Call it Zinc Enterprises. You know, little, little name combination. So we started that, did a couple cars, and then we were like, you know what? Let's start a card game. I don't know who came up with the idea, but we came up with this idea to start a card game that was called Master Debaters. And there's a there's a story here. So we started this card game and the premise was like, let's have cards where you have topics to debate, and then you have to debate them. And like a funny accent, that was the original idea. So we we started it, we prototyped it, went online like found a place where we could print the cards, send them out. And I've got I can document all, I've documented all of this. And, um, you know, we're like 16, 17. At the time we had this game, it was cool. You know, play it a couple of times with your buddies, but never took it anywhere past that.

Janzen Eagler (00:06:12) - But we blasted it online like forums, like, hey, how do we do this? You know, just stupid 16 year olds. Like, how can we make this a business? Well, about four years later, I was at a target at TCU. I mean, the idea had like fallen off. I walk into the toy section and I'm looking at the card games and my jaw just drops. Master debaters from Smosh. Exact same game. Exact same name. Everything to the tee. So I took to Twitter. This was back when I was on Twitter. I'm not on Twitter anymore, but I was like Smosh store, our card game, and I called my buddy. I was like, you wouldn't believe this. And, uh, that was the very first, like, business. It was the auto detailing and the the card game. And then really, um, other than that, didn't start anything. No side projects, no side hustles. And then, you know, went to college and did all that jazz.

Garrett Elconin (00:07:04) - Absolutely. I guess it was a good idea if someone ran with it, you know that.

Janzen Eagler (00:07:08) - And that's what we took from it. It was like, it's really sad that we had an idea taken from us, but we're like, and we don't know if it was like 100%. They took it from us, but it was pretty uncanny that everything was on the money, the same, but it just validated, like who we were. I was like, okay, we have good ideas, we can do this. So yeah, that that was the that was just a funny story.

Garrett Elconin (00:07:30) - And then you, uh, casually met a man named Leonard at the pool on vacation. Yes. And, uh, tell me about that.

Janzen Eagler (00:07:37) - Yeah, that was a, uh, that was kind of a crazy experience. So we were down in Florida on vacation. It was myself, my mom, my aunt, my brother, and, um, the hotel pool. It was like one of you rents a condo.

Janzen Eagler (00:07:51) - It wasn't like a hotel. It was like, you know, you rent out somebody's timeshare, go spend the week. And, uh, I was by the pool and, like, there was somebody there that was bringing drinks from, like, a local bar. And this guy had ordered a drink and, like, sat next to us. And I don't know how the conversation started, but we ended up talking about just who he was, like, he he had a timeshare there and he was asking who we were. And, um, one thing led to another and he started talking about like, Texas and all these things. And growing up, I always knew I wanted to end up in the South, like the idea of Texas to me was like, oh, dude, that's where the people are like, It's Texas. I want to go there. And, um, when he said he lived in Texas, Fort Worth, he went to Texas Christian University, studied business, all these different things.

Janzen Eagler (00:08:34) - I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. And up to this point, I had never given any thought to like what college I wanted to go to, what I wanted to do. And so that was like the first window I had looking into colleges and what they offered. Uh, I think it was like 14 at the time. And he said, oh, you know what? You're like you're you're a bright young individual. If you want to come visit, you know, you should come down and I'll take you to a baseball game and show you around. So months later, I did that. Uh, my mom and I flew down and went to a baseball game, and he showed me around, and, um. Yeah, just fell in love with the TCU campus. It's beautiful place. It's just like it was a it was a perfect fit for me because I'd grown up in such a small town. But TCU was like that small school with a big school feel and, uh, just everything kind of aligned.

Janzen Eagler (00:09:19) - And that's the only school I wanted to go to, the only school I toured, and the only school that I applied to. So.

Speaker 3 (00:09:25) - Wow.

Garrett Elconin (00:09:25) - Yeah. It seems like you just kind of have this conviction or something speaks to you. Can you elaborate? Has that always been the case? And and does that continue in entrepreneurship.

Janzen Eagler (00:09:35) - For better or for worse? Yeah, it's kind of, um, once I've made my mind up about something, I'm going to do it. And it's it's just, uh, maybe like the spiritual side of me where it's like, this happened for a reason. So, like, don't ignore it or don't don't neglect it. But, um, a lot of times if I have an idea or if some thought pops into my head and then I come back it up with some logic, I'm like, okay, yeah. TCU good school, entrepreneurial program. Texas like checks all the boxes. Like that's it. And to me there's there's no reason to waste time exploring other options.

Janzen Eagler (00:10:06) - Just like let's just do it. But uh, yeah, it kind of held true in my life. I find something and I stick to it pretty, uh, pretty tightly.

Garrett Elconin (00:10:12) - It seems to have worked out well.

Janzen Eagler (00:10:14) - See?

Garrett Elconin (00:10:15) - Absolutely. All right, well, I have, uh, some quick hitter questions just so the audience can get to know you better. Okay, uh, no pressure, no wrong answers. Kinda. Um. All right. Having been in Dallas for a while, you know, pre-college, post-college. What's one thing you absolutely love about the city?

Janzen Eagler (00:10:33) - The one thing I love about Dallas, besides how nice it is to. Have somewhere to park because, you know, I've lived in Philadelphia and there's nowhere to park. Um, I love the, the the culture here, like the food options. And just like, being able to go out and find places where you can hang out and do things because there's there's some cities that are just too much of a city where it's like everything is built very closely.

Janzen Eagler (00:10:57) - It's very it's cramped. And I feel like the planning they went behind Dallas, people actually thought through the city development. It's like, okay, like there's a park here that's a good idea. Like, okay, like these buildings are not over casting the other buildings. So, uh, I just like the way that Dallas was developed as a whole. I think it was it was built very well. It's like it's a weird answer, but I just like that about Dallas.

Garrett Elconin (00:11:20) - I totally agree. And it's like the 20 minute city before people thought of it. Yeah. You know, and they say how you can get everywhere in 20 minutes and, and each little neighborhood, you have everything you need. Mhm. Uh, and it's a, it's a great place to be.

Janzen Eagler (00:11:32) - Yeah. It's also it's, it's weird the 20 minute city. It's like my, my family lives out in Rockwall which is only realistically like a half an hour drive. But it feels like they're really far. Like you know, they're far from me.

Janzen Eagler (00:11:45) - But it's just crazy how far yet close you are in this whole DFW metroplex.

Garrett Elconin (00:11:50) - Interstates are great. Yeah, absolutely.

Janzen Eagler (00:11:52) - Sometimes.

Garrett Elconin (00:11:53) - And then, uh, reflecting on your, you know, your early years in the education, uh, is there any particular aspect that seems to foreshadow or provide insight into your current interests?

Janzen Eagler (00:12:05) - Yeah, I mean, TCU had just one hell of an entrepreneurial program. I actually I don't know if we're gonna talk about this later, but I went to TCU and left and came back specifically for the program they introduced, which was entrepreneurship and innovation. So, um. The old program had been entrepreneurial management, which was like a business degree with some sub categorical entrepreneurial focus. And, um, when they introduced this new program, it was just it was focused on not so much how to do, but how to think. And a lot of the curriculum that we had was, is this a good idea? First off, how to come up with ideas like how to how to recognize a gap in the world and then come up with an idea to fix it and then take that idea and break it down to many different ways and say, like, is this viable? Is this feasible? Is desirable.

Janzen Eagler (00:12:59) - Um, but that part of the curriculum is what really helped me and what I do now, because it didn't so much teach me, like I said, what to do or do in the business world, but really just how to think about it. And I think that was just a skill that is you can't put a price on it. Yeah.

Garrett Elconin (00:13:15) - Be adaptable in any situation with when you can think through problem solutions or ideas. Mhm. Super valuable. Another quick hitter is uh morning person or night owl and what your secrets are starting your day or winding down.

Janzen Eagler (00:13:30) - Uh so I've been both. I worked in nightclubs for a long time and I've when I wasn't working in nightclubs, I was like up 6 a.m., you know, I did a I did the whole ROTC thing at TCU for a while and did the early morning running. I prefer being a night owl just because, like, that's how my days lined up and to me it's just more comfortable. However, if you want to function with the other members of society these days, you kind of have to get up early and go out and do all those things.

Janzen Eagler (00:14:00) - But, um, getting up early for me and kind of the routine that I follow is I typically wake up, chug a bunch of water, and especially now because I'm on this like 75 hard program. So I wake up, I want to get a lot of my water out of the way, start making breakfast pretty consistent on my breakfast. I do, uh, this is my this is my recipe here. Three eggs, three slices of turkey bacon, two buttered tortillas from the Central Market. If you have not had buttered tortillas from the Central Market, you've got to get them. They'll change your life. But, uh, that's my breakfast. And then I'll do some, like, random fruit juice. Like, right now I'm on like a passion fruit cold pressed juice binge. So, like a little shot of that. And then on to the coffee bar where I'm doing either like a cold brew or, um, I like my cold brew like black. So I'm always trying different brands to see who's making the best cold brew or, uh, I'll bust out the old espresso machine and whip up something that takes a little bit more time.

Janzen Eagler (00:15:02) - But, uh, yeah, typically food, coffee. And then I go straight into working and just work until I have to go to the gym. So that's how I wake up. Winding down is typically like. A lot of my partners are based around the globe, whether they're in Ireland or Madrid or wherever, and a lot of the work we do is at odd times. So sometimes, like I'll have a 7:00 at night meeting that lasts till 9:00 and then it's like, okay, now it's time to wind down. But uh, typically just grab a book, maybe do some musical things and then, uh, just hit the hay.

Garrett Elconin (00:15:39) - Get ready for that delicious breakfast. You're making me hungry. When you were mentioning that.

Janzen Eagler (00:15:43) - I'm telling you, it doesn't miss.

Garrett Elconin (00:15:44) - Absolutely. I'll have to take a look at that. And then, in the realm of productivity, any quirky habits or rituals or that seem pretty normal? Nothing. Nothing too fancy. Just get up, get after it, get some, get some energy, some food and you're ready to go.

Janzen Eagler (00:15:59) - Yeah. Pretty much. I mean, uh, you know, I, I follow a lot of, like, the Andrew Huberman protocols. I just, I love his podcast. A lot of what he says I try to do in my life just because I know he's put thought into it and I haven't. So I might as well just take his his word for it. But, you know, like, sunlight is as quickly as I can just it just wakes me up. And sometimes I'll even position my blinds in a way that the sun peers in when it rises, just to make it easier to get out of bed. But, um, nothing like too weird and just pretty typical straightforward, pretty vanilla process here.

Garrett Elconin (00:16:33) - That's pretty strategic with the blind placement. I like that I'll have that that one in. Yeah, I.

Janzen Eagler (00:16:37) - Try to do it. You got to get it just right through. Because living at like an apartment complex or some kind of, um, like a place where there's other people living, there's always a lot of lights.

Janzen Eagler (00:16:47) - So you have to find that balance of, like, what can I let in right now at night? Versus what do I want to get in in the morning? So it's, uh, it's like a fine line of pulling those cords. You got to get them just right.

Garrett Elconin (00:16:58) - Yes. That. Or if you wake up too early, then you're not going to get any light. So you have to figure that out a different way. Um, and then you mentioned, you know, reading at night. So what what's a book that has had the most significant impact on your life or way of thinking?

Janzen Eagler (00:17:11) - A book other than like, the Bible would definitely be, uh, The Traveler's Gift by Andy Andrews. It's like just a book that I have. I was gifted to me by one of my mentors that has since passed, and I have. I've read it probably 20 times. It's it's a book that he used to give out to all the entrepreneurs in his life, and it's now a book that I give out to all the people in my life that want to do big things or want to perform.

Janzen Eagler (00:17:37) - But, um, the book itself is just it's a wonderful book. It's about a guy who basically wants to end it all. He's kind of been in a rough business situation. He's ready to go, and he gets taken back through the past, and he meets an influential leader like King Solomon or like Anne Frank, uh, Harry Truman. And each leader has an important message for him. And the messages that are given to him are messages that have stuck with me in my life. And the main idea around the messages that I've embodied is just perspective, perspectives, a lot of things. And that book does an incredible job of giving you the knowledge to kind of think about perspective and and treat it as it should be treated.

Garrett Elconin (00:18:20) - Perspective.

Janzen Eagler (00:18:21) - Perspective, man.

Garrett Elconin (00:18:22) - That's huge. And then going back and continuously reading it and making sure it's top of mind is super impactful.

Janzen Eagler (00:18:29) - Yeah, I've probably read that book, uh, two times a year ever since I was like 17. So I mean, it just sits on my shelf.

Janzen Eagler (00:18:37) - I've got a lot of books on my shelf, and that's one that kind of sits out a bit and I just pull it and read. I don't read all the old the beginning part where you're leading up to the story, because I've read it so many times, but when I get into the actual lessons, I'll go back and read them. And it's just it's just one of those books that I feel is applicable to any part of my life. I could pull it out and read one rule, but, uh, yeah, yeah.

Garrett Elconin (00:19:00) - And then the different stages that you're in in life, you know, some things can hit differently or you think about something differently and, uh. Yeah, always looking looking for that. Yeah.

Janzen Eagler (00:19:09) - He's he's definitely my favorite author. He's got a he's got a lot of books out there, but they're all he's one of those authors where when he writes a book, the stores have a hard time putting it either in like self-help or fiction or business development. But a lot of his stories have great messages behind them.

Janzen Eagler (00:19:27) - It's just The Traveler's Gift is my favorite, but I've read all of his all of his pieces, and I highly recommend reading all of them.

Garrett Elconin (00:19:33) - Good stuff. All right, well, now we'll kind of, uh, switch into, you know, you being a co-founder and of, you know, multiple businesses and brands. So first off, with, um, you know, Dray Horse, you know, how did that business opportunity come about?

Janzen Eagler (00:19:48) - Yeah, everything started from Helmsman Imports back in 2020 I think 2020. And we just began to develop an ecosystem within the alcohol world, uh, really pioneered by my partners, Nate and Jeff. They started this company to really fill a lot of needs that small brands have. And, uh, Helmsman Imports is a whole different discussion. But Dray horse that I'm a co-founder of now, the idea came in 2021. We had an opportunity to go out and build a manufacturing facility for beverages, contract manufacturing facility. And that idea came from our trials and tribulations of trying to find a co-packer when we create a drifter, can cocktails, um, really traveled all across the US and went to these facilities and, you know, some facilities had things that we liked, some had things that we didn't like.

Janzen Eagler (00:20:39) - And some were just too big or some were too small, and it was just like finding that perfect facility that can do all the products have the lowest minimum order quantity to get your brand in the door. Uh, it was almost impossible to find. We ended up finding one in, um, California, like Northern California. The name will come to me and then, uh, like Philadelphia, kind of like Northern Philadelphia. But it was just so hard to find. And the opportunity came where we could do it. So we got the funding. We began building the project back in 2022. The, uh, the, the January 2022, really going out to the facility, uh, laying out all the diagrams and the MEP, just a lot of planning. And the project is still ongoing right now. Just a lot of issues with like delays and construction and cost overages that are just really common with what we're doing. But we've been in that project for a while, and given the situation we were in with kind of, um, a landlord issue with wanting to build a part of our facility, we knew that we needed to get nimble and find some other ways to bring in some revenue.

Janzen Eagler (00:21:48) - So we pivoted the business a bit and began focusing more on product development to make bring products to market and, uh, consulting work. So that is what we've been doing for the last year and a half. And that's kind of where our client list comes into play. But, um, yeah, that's that's Driehaus, just a contract manufacturing facility. You know, we were the brand guys who wanted to create a place for brands. And, uh, we wanted to basically create the beverage maker's Paradise, where it's like, oh, I want to throw nitro in a drink. Sure. Like I want to pasteurize it. Sure. You know, and, uh. Yeah, that that was it's been a lot of fun. It's been a blast. And we're really excited to open up this year.

Garrett Elconin (00:22:25) - And your partners are are a little bit, uh, senior than you.

Janzen Eagler (00:22:29) - Yeah, both my partners are, uh, a little older than me. Um, I'm significantly younger than them, and I think it works well that way.

Janzen Eagler (00:22:39) - You know, they know. I mean, they're both way smarter than me. Um, both Nate and Jeff have skills that I may never, never obtain, but I bring a little bit of youth to the table, and, you know, it's it's a good, really good balance of them and myself.

Garrett Elconin (00:22:57) - And then how did you get connected to them? And then, you know, how do you work your way in and what did they see in you that said, all right, this is a guy we want to find, you know, start companies with?

Janzen Eagler (00:23:08) - Yes, sir. We, uh, when I was a junior in college, going into my senior year, I was bouncing at one of the nightclubs in Fort Worth. So one of my professors had known that he also runs the entrepreneurial department at TCU. And he always was wanting to introduce this new program called the Entrepreneurial Intern Scholars Program. It sounds really complex. It's basically just you get an internship with a startup and you get some college credit for it.

Janzen Eagler (00:23:38) - And Nate, my partner now came to him and said, hey, like, I love a like a young intern that I could throw into this importing company just, you know, help, help with some of the back end work. And, um, so Rodney started this project. He knew he had enough startups within the Fort Worth community to really bring students into it. And he knew that I was working in the alcohol world in a sense, because I had bartended down in College Station and came up and bounced here. So he was like, you know, it's a good fit. Alcohol, guys, alcohol guys. And so I started working with Nate. Uh, we would meet like once a week. He would teach me different things. And looking back at the time, some of the things he was teaching me were just so high level, because he's just so smart that a lot of what I was doing is just playing catch up, trying to understand, you know, I'm 2021 at the time, trying to figure out like, what is this guy talking about? I didn't even know what Helmsman Imports was until my internship was over like that.

Janzen Eagler (00:24:34) - That's how difficult the business model was to understand. But Nate introduced me to his partner Jeff, because they also owned a craft liquor portfolio together called Drifter Spirits, and they were releasing a canned cocktail. So this was like coming off the wave of Covid. I mean, still Covid, but, you know, we were wearing masks and whatnot. Well, in Texas, we never really wore masks. But coming off that wave and during that wave, their company, Drifter Spirits, decided to start a canned cocktail side of their business. And that was mainly because they couldn't get on premise. They couldn't get into bars to sell their spirits, and a lot of their spirits are very high and they belong in cocktails. So, you know, they're not going to do well in the retail front. So what they did was I said, hey, you know, we're stuck here. We can't do anything about it. Let's just take our spirits and put them into cans, make them into cocktails, use our distribution network and get them out there.

Janzen Eagler (00:25:30) - So they brought me into that, uh, just helping with the operations and that Petaluma, California, that's what it was. So they brought me out to Petaluma, I started. Working with Jeff. Jeff was the operations guy, and Jeff really took me underneath his wing, taught me everything that I know. Um, really just acted as his shadow for years and times. I still am just his shadow. You know, he's always teaching me, but, uh, so they kind of double dipped me from Helmsman Imports to Drifter because it was all owned by the same people. And, um, we decided just to continue my internship, per se, and I kind of became a contractor. So I continued to work for helmsman, really helped transform that company out of. We were just operating out of like Gmail, Google Sheets, moving products all across the world. And we're still operating out of like, Google Sheets. And, uh, we ended up getting a system built. And that's kind of where my, my roles ended.

Janzen Eagler (00:26:25) - There. I was just there's nothing else that I could really do. Uh, from that, that job title and during all that is when they had the opportunity to do Dray Horse and they just said, you know, we've got Jans and we don't really have anything for him to do right here in this importing company, because we'd set it up in a way where you really you just needed an entry level people to come in and just fulfill orders or whatnot. And now those people that started with us at the entry level have blossomed into just really awesome employees, and they own their part of the business, and we don't even want to touch it. They've become experts at it, and that's just who they are. But the opportunity came for Dray Horse and Jeff calls me up. I was actually driving on I-30, coming back to Rockwall. He's like, hey, I want to build a canning facility. Remember what we did for drifter? Canned cocktails? Like, let's start one of those. And in my mind I'm like, let's go.

Janzen Eagler (00:27:15) - At first he was like, we're going to put a new new Jersey. I'm like, okay, I don't know anything about new Jersey other than like, Uncle Joey Diaz lives there. Okay. Kind of cool. And, um, you know, we searched New York, new Jersey, and we ended up on Philadelphia. You know, looking back, maybe we should have gone to New York. We like we just they live in New York. They love New York. I love New York. But we ended up doing Philly, and they just decided to bring me on as a partner because, you know, we like we just like working together. We all kind of complemented each other in the right ways.

Garrett Elconin (00:27:43) - That's great. And I think mentorship is huge, especially at a young age, to get that and and learn and absorb, I mean, just drink it from the fire hose is huge, hugely important. And uh, and the growth and the knowledge that you get from them.

Janzen Eagler (00:27:58) - Yeah, yeah, that that was uh, that's been the biggest part of it all is just Jeff and Native Torch just giving me knowledge.

Janzen Eagler (00:28:04) - And, you know, even when I haven't asked for it, that's just like they're giving it to me. And it's been the best thing for me because I could have paid more money to go get another degree to learn it. But Jeff just handed me the knowledge and, uh, you know, I will forever be thankful for that. And it's a really good relationship where we're partners, we're friends. But on top of that, you know, they're teachers to me and mentors to me.

Garrett Elconin (00:28:25) - So I got lucky. Takes a little bit of that, right?

Janzen Eagler (00:28:28) - Yep. A little bit of luck.

Garrett Elconin (00:28:29) - Absolutely. On the job training, personal MBA. Well, now let's, uh let's go. You know, I know you touched on it. What Driehaus does, um, and and so let's dive a little bit deeper into that. And so, you know, the problem that they're, they're solving, and obviously, it seems like your partners were kind of, you know, quote unquote, the first clients or customers, and they kind of built this because they saw a need in the market based upon their own experience being beverage entrepreneurs.

Janzen Eagler (00:28:59) - Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was a huge supply and demand mismatch to begin with, with, uh, canning facilities, especially with the Covid situation. Everybody wanted to do what we did, which was introduce an RTD format of their whatever they had. And at the time, we everyone was thinking the same thing, like, who are we going to use? You know, we have a product that needs a specific thing done to it. And the only guy that does it in America, I have to do 500,000 cases to get in the door. And that was the first like, okay, we should do this. There's a supply and demand mismatch there for the audience.

Garrett Elconin (00:29:34) - RTD yeah.

Janzen Eagler (00:29:35) - RTD ready to drink. Ready to drink, also known as like canned cocktail beer or canned coffee, RTD is just jargon in the the beverage world.

Garrett Elconin (00:29:44) - And it's super popular. As many people know, celebrities are getting into it, leveraging their personal brand. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that and kind of the client base and, and who's approached you guys and how?

Janzen Eagler (00:29:56) - Yeah, uh, we have been approached by a lot of people wanting to do something within the liquor world, whether it be an RTD with their personal brand, leveraging that to really push sales or, uh, starting a whole liquor brand and just utilizing like, consulting services and product development.

Janzen Eagler (00:30:15) - But some of the the cool guys that first came to us, it was Sweet Chick, which is a gourmet chicken and waffles place up in New York, and I think they have a location out in maybe LA somewhere, Southern California. But they came to us and they were already serving bottled cocktails, like out of a plastic bottle. They just made them in the back, give them with maybe a meal of chicken and waffles and. They're all about brand. They are a celebrity hotspot. I mean, it is. If you ever go to New York, you've got to visit it. It is. It's an awesome place, but a lot of visionaries in that company. And when they came to us, they said, you know, I think there's an opportunity here to create a canned cocktail. And we formulated it, created it a lot of crazy stories with it from the operational end that I could get into. But yeah, we did that. And that was like the first restaurant group, you know, in the.

Janzen Eagler (00:31:08) - United States. We have the three tier distribution system, which doesn't allow retailers to really own their own brands. So we have a way that we legally bring them their product. And because of that, it's opened the door to a lot of potential, you know, partnerships with restaurant groups, hospitality groups. Uh, Run the Jewels is a it's like a hip hop group out of New York. They came to us and said, you know, hey, you know, we don't really want the whole nine yards, but could you just make us a product and we're going to take it? So, uh, developed that product, gave it to them, and they're doing well. They take it on tour with them. So, you know, and our decks and our investment decks and pitch decks, we always say like Dray horse on tour with Run the Jewels and it's it's a cool thing to say, but yeah, those are like the celebrities. We've had some other celebrities that have come to us, but, um, didn't pan out.

Janzen Eagler (00:31:56) - We had a conversation with. T-Pain group, not T-Pain himself. I wish, but there was an opportunity there that didn't end up happening. But he had just written the book. Can I mix you a drink with, uh, famous bartender Maxwell Britton, who's a part of our ecosystem. And they came to us and just like, hey, hey, what would it cost to do this? And we just kind of gave them the rundown, and it never came to light. But maybe one day, maybe we'll get a T-Pain cocktail one day. But yeah. So as far as celebrities go, they're just they're in alcohol right now. That's the big thing it is.

Garrett Elconin (00:32:29) - And there's lots of money to be made, which is probably why they're headed there.

Janzen Eagler (00:32:32) - Yeah. And that was the big the big thing with Sweet Chick. It was like, look, you can take your whiskey peach tea and store and here's your margin. Or we can formulate it and here's your margin. And when you see the numbers, it's it's a no brainer.

Janzen Eagler (00:32:46) - So you.

Garrett Elconin (00:32:47) - Uh, spoke to me about a story about investors and and showing off a property, um, in a, in a better light, you know, and, uh, making sure that it's done and, and even though, uh, yeah, it was a horrible entry to it. But talk to me a little bit about the story about, you know, making sure that the investors were happy and you had to, uh, quickly improvise with, um, a project and, and. Yeah.

Janzen Eagler (00:33:15) - Yeah. So we had this facility in Philadelphia. It's a, it's an old historical building. So the construction on it, I mean, you're in this world, you know, construction as well as anybody, but building on a historical site or within a historical building is quite difficult because you have to get approval essentially at every step where it's like, hey, can we tear down this wall? Like, no, you can't do that. That was built in the 1800s. Don't touch that.

Janzen Eagler (00:33:37) - So, uh, construction was delayed quite a bit coming into it all through 2022. But we finally got the concrete floors laid, which was like a huge milestone because we never thought it was going to happen. And we ended up getting the facility basically ready with a floor, a roof, all of our walls, all of our doors. And our investor basically took that as we were open. Like, he wants to come and see it. So we're not going to tell him, no, it's not open. So Jeff calls me. He's like, we need to get everything in there. And at the time we probably had like a month to do it, but some of our equipment was in hard to reach places. And, uh, so within a matter of like two weeks, I had called all of our vendors. I said, hey, schedule this truck to show up at our facility, and we're going to move in all the machines. Well, my my buddy Wes and I, we ended up renting a tele handler, which is like an outdoor forklift with that boom arm that extends.

Janzen Eagler (00:34:37) - And what are we going to do? Because we didn't have loading docks yet. So what we had was this like a big hole in the wall that was built over with wood, and then it had these two wooden garage doors that would swing open, and then you could shut them and lock them with like a master lock. But it was huge. I mean, it was like a ten foot ten opening. So what we were going to do was open that up and we're going to put all the machines just like slide them in through there. And then we bought a pallet, like I showed up to Harbor Freight that morning. I went and bought a pallet jack somehow fit it into my car. Everyone is like laughing at it. It's like you're not going to get you're not going to get it in there. We got it in there. Uh, brought the pallet jack to the facility and the idea was, okay, we'll get everything in there, drop it down, and then use the pallet jack and drag it to its respective place.

Janzen Eagler (00:35:22) - And then the engineer for the actual canning company will be there, and he'll put everything together, like, we're just going to move like a fluid machine. Well, all the trucks show up and everything is just like ten times bigger than I had imagined, which I knew the specs, I had, the dimensions, I made, the plans. I'm like, okay, but when you see it in person, it's like, wow, because everything is created. So what you think is a five foot five machine is actually like a ten foot ten machine because it's protected. So what we did was Wes and I, we were like, okay, we got to figure out how to drive this, tell handler we're not licensed. And. I hope this doesn't get out, but we, uh, we watched a YouTube video, figured it out, and you're like, dude, all of our buddies back at home, we're from the Midwest. Everybody can drive these things, so we're fine. So we, uh, just hopped in and started unloading all this equipment, you know, driving it up a hill, getting it up there, sliding it in, and, uh, yeah, we ended up getting it all in.

Janzen Eagler (00:36:20) - Got it all set up. The engineer from the canning company was just amazed. He's like, I've never seen anybody do this. You you guys, you kids are clearly just like psychopaths or like, we just got to get it done. And then we had to get actually a real forklift for the indoor portion. I don't think I might have showed you this part, but we had to get a forklift for the indoor portion because what we needed to do was, um, stand up this thing called a depot. And what the depot does is it takes your pallet of cans like an elevator, takes all the way up and pushes the cans off so that they fall down into the whole assembly line, as you can call it. But what we had to do was use a forklift to actually tip the machine up. Well, we're like, how are we going to get a forklift in this building? So we rented a forklift and just Wes and I said, hey, we're going to figure it out.

Janzen Eagler (00:37:08) - And Wes is my dog. He he problem solving to the max during these couple weeks and was just I couldn't have done it without him. But we got the forklift and mind you, we don't have a loading dock. We don't have a parking lot. It's just like a mud hill. It wasn't mud at the time, but before they delivered it, it starts pouring down rain and there's indoor tires on this forklift. So we're like, oh, here we go. We're going to try to get it up here. So, you know, we hop in the forklift, we drive maybe an inch and we are sunk in the mud. So what we did was we went and contacted some local people that I knew, and they came out and we basically got a crew of like 4 or 5 dudes. And for almost three hours we. Problem solved. On getting this forklift up this hill, up into the facility. And what we ended up doing was we used some truck mud flaps like big old mud flaps, like, I don't know, five feet long.

Janzen Eagler (00:38:06) - We would place it in front of the forklift, and then we would use a backhoe that my buddy was in. We would chain the forklift to the backhoe, pull it, pull it onto the mud flap, and then get another mud flap. And we basically did this like domino thing one after another until we got it up to the door. And then we realized once we got to the door. We didn't have a way to get it up, so we went and built a ramp out of one of the crates that was there for the machine, built this ramp, and then we got the forklift to the. We were going to launch it up this ramp into the facility, and lo and behold, we got it done. And yeah. And then of course, they ended up building the wall afterwards. So the forklift was stuck in there. We had to pay extra storage fees, but it was an awesome time, you know, awesome story.

Garrett Elconin (00:38:53) - That video of you with your hands up celebrating once it it didn't break the crate to get into the to the hole there in the facility was hilarious.

Janzen Eagler (00:39:02) - It was a great feeling. I mean. At first thought it was like, we're never going to get this. And then it was like, we have to get this. There's no option. We're getting it in there, like one way or another. And, uh, yeah, when we finally just like it hit a thresh, what we thought was going to happen, it was going to snap through the ramp. So we had built up bricks underneath the ramp to support the weight because, I mean, forklifts are thousands of pounds. And we ended up getting it like over the hump that we thought, and it was just like everything just washed through. You're like, okay, we did it. But it was it was a long day.

Garrett Elconin (00:39:36) - I love that story because it just it just shows your character and, you know, your commitment to your boss saying, you know, the best is coming. I'll get it done. I'll figure it out. And you just took it in your own hands with your help of Wes and some other buddies and just, you know, we're determined to get it done.

Garrett Elconin (00:39:51) - And you did.

Janzen Eagler (00:39:52) - Yeah, I mean, that that's been my my title in these companies is just just get it done. You know, I always tell people, you know, you're either the person who gets shit done or you're the person who asked the person to get shit done, to get shit done. So just just get it done. And, uh, that's just what we did.

Garrett Elconin (00:40:08) - In entrepreneurship and startup world. There's not many people to ask. So you got to look at yourself and look in the mirror and get on with it. Now let's, uh, let's ask some a little more entertaining questions. Do can you share a challenge you face in your professional journey that taught you a valuable lesson?

Janzen Eagler (00:40:26) - Yeah. I mean, moving out to Philadelphia was that was the challenge. You know, I was leaving my family, my girlfriend at the time, and it was probably the hardest thing that I had done in my life because I'm moving across the country all by myself. Uh, even my partners didn't even move to Philadelphia at the time.

Janzen Eagler (00:40:44) - It was just me out there trying to figure things out and managing the business and the build, as well as having no friends out there and trying to manage my girlfriend in Texas at the time, it was really hard because, you know, you always feel like you're letting somebody down. It's like, if I'm talking to her, I'm not focused on this or if I'm focused on this, I'm neglecting her. And it's not fair to her because I'm only 1200 miles away. And you know, when you have that kind of long distance relationship, it's like. You only get to see each other every 12 weeks for like a week. And so, I mean, it was really hard on her. But moving out there, it just reinforced this idea of like delayed gratification. It's and that that was the biggest lesson from it all. I moved out there, I knew it was going to suck. It did suck. I moved back to Dallas and probably May of 2023 and, um, yeah, you know, delayed gratification, just knowing I was out there for a reason, you know, there's a good project came out of it and, um, yeah, that that's probably my best answer for that.

Janzen Eagler (00:41:43) - Uh, that's makes sense.

Garrett Elconin (00:41:44) - It's nice to know that you have a an end goal or there's a, there's a deadline or there's, you know, something around the corner. So you know, you're not there forever. Um, all right. I got a bunch of these. So what's a must have app or tool that is significantly improved your personal life?

Janzen Eagler (00:41:59) - I use this dieting app called carbon. I think it's called carbon Diet. It's kind of like My Fitness Pal, but the UI on this app, so much better. Uh, just keeping my. My diet in check. You know, always scanning my foods, making sure I'm hitting my macros, not exceeding. And you know, when I can stay true to my diet, it's typically with the help of this app. So that's the one app that I know that I open on the daily.

Garrett Elconin (00:42:24) - I like that one. I haven't heard of that one. Can you share a personal productivity hack or time saving tactic that you swear by?

Janzen Eagler (00:42:33) - I mean, productivity to me is a lot about just organization.

Janzen Eagler (00:42:37) - You know, you can't know what you're not going to work on anything if you don't know what to work on. So before you kind of hit the ground running, working, knowing what you want to work on and having things lined out, you know, between my partners and I, we have a lot of entities that. They're all very similar. You know, they're beverages, they're all related with the alcohol world. So I like to have this little dashboard that I have on my desk, where it's got all the different entities and all the things that need to get done between the entities. And before I get to working, I sit down and I think, okay, this has to get done. I've got to call this person, I've got to check in. And then once I actually open up the computer and get going, I just check them off, go down the list. And so yeah, organization is probably the biggest productivity tip that I can give. But I don't have any like weird, you know, do this instead of that.

Garrett Elconin (00:43:25) - Planning is key. I would know where you're going when dealing with a challenging day or seems like, you know, a nice fire drill. What's your go to strategy or monitor that helps you stay positive or navigate through those difficulties?

Janzen Eagler (00:43:39) - There's a lot of firefights that pop up. I think winning that battle has to be won. Years prior to that battle. I think, you know, you just got to understand that a lot of things are going to pop up in life, and how you react is going to determine everything you know and the operations world. Things can get destroyed. People can fire, people can do terrible things. And it's just like, do I want to stay here and cry about it? Or do I just need to just do it and not have an emotional attachment to it? So for me, I don't really have any bad days. Just I just do things and it is what it is. But for the couple of times that I'm having a really a hard day and I'm struggling, I'll just get my mom a call because we're super tight and I'd be like, mom, you wouldn't believe this.

Janzen Eagler (00:44:23) - And then we'll just go in and you know, she'll be all right. She'll talk me off the edge. She's like, you're fine, you'll be okay. Like, yeah, you're right. I'm just being a baby. So that's probably the only thing that I do when I'm maybe really stressed or have a lot of things on my plate.

Garrett Elconin (00:44:37) - Yeah, that's great. And mindset is key. I mean, like you're saying, just all goes through that filter and, and better in your mindset and staying strong to that will help you with whatever is going on in the world and in your life. They're fun, one for one. Your task is to come up with a creative and absurd tactic or strategy you would employ in this situation. Okay, you're canning and bottling facility has the opportunity to collaborate with a renowned artist who wants to turn your beverage packaging into collectible art pieces. Each can or bottle becomes a canvas for a unique artwork. How do you integrate these artistic designs into your production process while maintaining the integrity of the beverages inside?

Janzen Eagler (00:45:22) - That's a very layered question, because typically what happens when you do a beverage? The client will come to you with the artwork and then you pass it off to your canned vendor.

Janzen Eagler (00:45:32) - So you're saying if every can had to be different. Honestly, it wouldn't fall on my plate. It would actually fall on the canned vendors. I would feel bad. But, um, you know, the beverage is always going to be the same if, if, let's say somebody wanted to do like. They did a run where they wanted to just do like a crazy. Something that's never been done before. You know, there's a lot of ways you could do it mechanically, you know, shutting off pumps, plugging new pumps in and cleaning the machine, giving it a quick reset, purge the machine. But, um, you know, as far as, like, hypothetically, if every can could be different and they would make it would be a struggle on the team, I would just tell the team, like, look, this is an opportunity to do something really cool. No one's done it before. Here's how it's going to be. It's going to be tough. We're going to have to tough.

Janzen Eagler (00:46:19) - We're going to have to manhandle every product. You know, everything's going to have to be done by hand. And it may take us three days to do, but you're just we're just going to do it because you only get one chance to do something important in life. And um, especially with the values of what Dray Horse is, is it's hard working integrity. Like, we're the one that we we pull the boat, we pull the ship. And, uh, so it's really just that that's how I would do it, you know, have a conversation with the people that are doing it on the ground and say, hey, we've just got to do it. But, uh, yeah, I mean.

Garrett Elconin (00:46:49) - Man, I just got to stop and say, that was an inspirational speech. I'd want you in that halftime locker room. You guys, you get the guy, the guy's going inspiring right there. The team will will break through a wall on that one. Yeah.

Janzen Eagler (00:47:01) - Hopefully. Hopefully maybe the Cowboys needed that last week too.

Garrett Elconin (00:47:05) - Soon I think. Um. All right. Time to predict the future. So envision yourself as a fortune teller predicting the future of your industry or business.

Janzen Eagler (00:47:16) - Mhm. Yeah. The the beverage industry. It's, uh, like like all industries and all things in life. It probably works on a pendulum where people are going to push the boundaries as far as they can until it doesn't make sense, until, like, they're probably selling empty cans of air, like like liquid death is out there, you know, like they're selling canned water. If you told somebody that ten years ago, like, hey, the biggest brand on the market is going to be water in a can, and we're going to call it liquid death. People would look at you like, you're crazy. So I think the beverage world will continue to innovate and just push that boundary. There's going to be flavor innovations, but that's probably not going to be the key. I think they're, you know, new brand collaborations like can we sell a t shirt with this can or, you know, what's the new canned format? I think format is probably going to be the biggest thing.

Janzen Eagler (00:48:09) - You know, what? Can we put a beverage into? What pouch, what cardboard box? It's going to do that until it bust, until you walk into a store and you're like, what are these? You know, you've got you've got like, I have a pouch of passion fruit juice in my house. It's literally like it looks like a purse. And I think the formats will continue to change until everyone just gets tired of it. Or what's going to happen is a brand is going to come up with a really cool packaging concept. They're going to have one vendor that can do it. They're going to get popular. That vendor is not going to be able to keep up, because when you introduce new packaging formats, you've got to have a facility to make them, and that's a whole nother business. So you're relying on somebody to run that business too. So if that packaging company can't get the raw materials they need or the labor or they're going to fail, and then your brand is gonna run out of product, and then that pendulum's going to swing right back and we're back to glass and bottle Coca-Cola.

Janzen Eagler (00:49:04) - So back to the classics. Back to the classics. But, uh, yeah, I mean, I think just the boundaries are going to be pushed in that format realm.

Garrett Elconin (00:49:12) - Yeah, it's almost a marketing play. I mean, for a little bit, at least.

Janzen Eagler (00:49:16) - I think so.

Garrett Elconin (00:49:17) - Embrace your inner superhero. Imagine yourself as a superhero with unique powers related to your entrepreneurial skills. Describe your superhero persona and powers.

Janzen Eagler (00:49:29) - Related to my entrepreneurial world. Uh, something to do with time where I could pause time and just work. Um. Time and teleportation. Because the one thing that I don't like about my situation with my partners in our businesses is that I don't ever get to be with and physically, and I think that that is a key part of, you know, forming relationships is physically being with the person and seeing how their body language is, how they interact with others. And I wish I could spend more time with my founders, but everybody is out doing their thing, and it's just how it has to be.

Janzen Eagler (00:50:01) - So I wish if I had a superpower, I could teleport and probably slow down time so that I could plan better, have more time in the day to work, have more time in the day to have better relationships with people. But I think a lot of entrepreneurs probably have those too.

Garrett Elconin (00:50:15) - Yeah, that would be pretty neat.

Janzen Eagler (00:50:17) - Yeah, that'd be pretty cool.

Garrett Elconin (00:50:18) - Yeah. Play some pickleball.

Janzen Eagler (00:50:19) - Play some pickleball.

Garrett Elconin (00:50:20) - Get out.

Janzen Eagler (00:50:20) - There. Get out there. Hey, if we can teleport, we can play both sides of the courts. Hit it back and forth.

Garrett Elconin (00:50:25) - That'd be dangerous.

Janzen Eagler (00:50:26) - That'd be dangerous. I would hate myself.

Garrett Elconin (00:50:30) - All right. And then the last one here, give an elevator pitch for one of these three products. Okay. Get creative. Okay. Elevator pitch. Keep it cool. Keep it quick.

Speaker 4 (00:50:41) - All right.

Garrett Elconin (00:50:42) - Okay. The sock saver clip. You know, you always lose socks in the laundry. Okay, okay. Yeah, maybe you don't. I do. A lot of people do things.

Garrett Elconin (00:50:51) - Okay. The sneeze guard 3000 or the instant sunshine generator.

Janzen Eagler (00:50:57) - Instant sunshine generator.

Garrett Elconin (00:50:59) - Yeah. Pick one and elevator pitch. Get creative.

Janzen Eagler (00:51:02) - Oh, there's all such good ideas, man. And it's crazy because I lose my socks all the time. Um. I mean my pitch. I would do it for the sock one and I first off, I would come to the pitch and I'll give the pitch, but I would come to the pitch with actual data on like how much money you spend a year buying new socks because you're losing them in couches or, you know, whatever.

Garrett Elconin (00:51:27) - I thought you were going to say you were going to come to the pitch with one sock on, well, that's where you're going with that.

Janzen Eagler (00:51:31) - I could do that too. But I would show the data and show like, this is what you're spending per year. And. All right, where's the pitch?

Garrett Elconin (00:51:38) - Here we go. I'm your investor. All right. Shark tank for Garrett.

Janzen Eagler (00:51:41) - So let's say that we have let's have a whiteboard here.

Janzen Eagler (00:51:44) - And the whiteboard has got $50,000 on it. It's red. It's blinking minus you know. Hi sharks. Are you tired of spending $50,000 a year losing all the valuable assets in your home? And then they're going to be like, oh, what's this guy talking about? Drop the thing, socks. And then I go on to say, did you know that the average American loses 47 socks per month? Do the math. You know, many pairs. That is. It's a lot. Bring out the product. Give it to Mark. Give it to Mr. Wonderful. Introducing the sock saver. And then I'd need to come up with, like, a cool little slogan like. The best feature of your day? I don't know, something to do with, you know, the wordplay. The the sock. Was it the sock saver clip?

Garrett Elconin (00:52:33) - Exactly.

Janzen Eagler (00:52:34) - The sock saver clip.

Garrett Elconin (00:52:34) - I'm. How much do we need to write? That was brilliant.

Janzen Eagler (00:52:37) - That's my thought. I'm sold. It needs to be sat down and written, written out and thought through.

Janzen Eagler (00:52:41) - But that's how I do it.

Garrett Elconin (00:52:43) - That's wonderful man, very creative. On the toes. That's great. A couple stories in there. Um, and then we have, we have a few minutes left. And so I know you and I connected on, um, obviously a couple, a couple of weeks ago at that entrepreneurial event and I mentioned about the social club that I'm starting. And so, I guess, you know, in your opinion, you know, what excites you most about a social club? Um, that's for high performers, that's, you know, experience base where it's not just, uh, you know, open networking. It's, you know, purposeful socialization where it's, you know, social activities or personal development workshops. What excites you about that?

Janzen Eagler (00:53:22) - I think the most exciting part about that is the intention of meeting, uh, you know, like you said, something other than networking or social hour. There's a time in place. A lot of times we'll meet as entrepreneurs as, like a networking event and say, I'm, I'm so-and-so, I do this, I can help you this way and vice versa.

Janzen Eagler (00:53:39) - And a lot of meaningful connections are made through that. But I think if the intent is to just say, hey, we're all entrepreneurs, we're all founders, we're all high performers. We just want to be social, uh, and give somebody an outlet to go and hang and whatnot. I mean, the alternative and this is, you know, I know you and I have talked about this is like nowadays you're just kind of making friends with who's around you. And when you're doing things in life that are fun and important, and other people around you are doing things that they either don't like and they're not doing exciting things in their own words. You know, they come and complain about it. It's almost like when you talk about yourself, it comes off as like bragging or it's like, dude, I'm not bragging. I'm just telling you what I did today. And I think by creating a group or a format where the intent is like, we're all doing this, so like, let's just hang out.

Janzen Eagler (00:54:28) - Uh, it's very appealing to a lot of people that are probably in that entrepreneurial journey or in that position.

Garrett Elconin (00:54:33) - Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you hopping on. Uh, you know, the vision, seeing the vision and coming on this podcast. My, my first guest here, of course. So Janssen's been a pleasure. Excited to see what other beverages and brands you, uh, you run with and create. And, uh, maybe next time we'll have a few in store for for the guests so we can do a little, you know, taste testing.

Janzen Eagler (00:54:53) - We'll do a live taste test here. I'll bring some in in the studio.

Garrett Elconin (00:54:56) - There we go. Well, thank you so much.

Janzen Eagler (00:54:57) - Yeah, well, thank you very much.

Garrett Elconin (00:54:59) - Absolutely.