7 FIGURES SELLING CANDY!? - An Interview with Maxx Chewning

gentlemen welcome back to the alpha m podcast today i've got a very special guest a fellow content creator entrepreneur extraordinaire and somebody that i've actually interacted with quite a few times over the years we've never officially met hopefully i'll get to texas soon and see you and and all your empires down there uh we've got max tuning with us today and i cannot wait to talk about your story because it's really inspiring to see what you've done max over the years you started youtube like nine years ago when you started it was all about you know powerlifting and you did a crazy amount of content over the years and in the past few it's really taken a different spin and twist more towards like a personal vlog and really you've you've sort of allowed people to come into your life a bit more in terms of your business your entrepreneurial you know sort of happenings you've got two incredibly successful businesses ever forward to power apparel along with sour strips which are candies that are candy that that is a a really interesting story as well and so max thanks so much for being here man absolutely i'm excited to uh excited to connect man i've been listening to a lot of the podcast so it's cool to to be on man and tell uh tell the story to the people all right so let's start there why don't you tell us and take us back a little bit to the beginning of sort of like where where and how did it all start for you being where you are now so i think like a lot of people i was a consumer of content before i ever created content i i actually tried to make youtube videos at one point i tried to make these fitness videos where i would just be shirtless and show recipes and i think i made three videos and it wasn't for me because i wasn't really showcasing my personality and then the the first thing that ever triggered me to make a video was i used to buy these lifting belts so it's called an enzor belt it was lever belt and when i would buy them i'd be like oh i watched youtube video reviews on it and then after i had mine for a little bit i was like you know what it'd be cool for people to watch a video about my thoughts about the enzo belt so that was my first ever piece of content i i created that and then i just kind of uploaded video clips here and there of personal pr's in the gym and someone that i was i watched a lot amongst a lot of other people was this guy named nick wright who lived in rhode island who was a fitness youtuber and then one day he put out a tweet that was like i'm moving to virginia for the summer specifically richmond virginia um and i was like wow that's where that's where i live that's crazy and it was a lot easier to kind of reach out to influencers back then because it was there they they weren't as big and established and they got to all their messages and everything and i hit them up and i was like hey you know i'm i live in that area i train at this gym you know if you haven't had anyone reach out to you like i'd love to we could train together i'm a power lifter and he made videos he had like 30 000 subscribers which blew my mind at the moment at that then that was a huge number and still is a big number and then i i started being in his videos and he was like hey you know you're you're a skinny guy who can deadlift a lot you kind of have a unique personality with just who you are and i think you should make videos as well and it was one of those things that that just kind of started it all and it's i always say that if i i never if he never moved there to where i lived i don't think i ever would have started or if i did it would have taken a whole different path and the rest has been kind of history so you uh you went to college correct yep i went to i graduated from virginia commonwealth university vcu in richmond virginia i did took me five years to do college uh two and a half was at the community college because i wasn't a i was not a i didn't do well academically in high school i was always a class clown always getting i would get like seasoned gym class because i'd be running my mouth and getting points off so i only applied to one school vcu didn't get in without my friends are gonna go i was devastated i was like wow everyone's gonna think i'm a loser everyone's gonna think like i didn't get into college so i ended up going to the community college but it worked out because you know in the long run you realize like how much money you save and all that jazz but also the campus they had for this community college was actually they had one downtown right next to vcu where i wanted to go so i still had the decide i saw the exact same college experience because even if i'd gone to vcu i would have moved in with my buddies who were great above me who went to vcu so i didn't really miss out on anything and i i really had a easier experience going into college and uh just you know saved a lot of money as well so how did so so after you graduated from college what was your job what was your job what i'm trying to get at is you started posting youtube videos what were you doing at that point were you in college when you started posting youtube videos i kind of started youtube right at the end of my college career so right i think right after i graduated was right around when i met nick and started making those videos which was 2000 and i think my first video was either late 2012 or 13. i'd say early 2013 was when i truly started i had a couple clips before that on my channel um but i graduated with a business administration management degree and then i got a job i actually worked as a personal trainer for a little bit at a gold's gym and then i got a internship at like scottrade doing stockbroker stuff and i ended up getting my full-time job at um a company where they did like staffing like it staffing recruiting where i'd basically be like a headhunter and hire people for other jobs so what did you want to do like when you were younger in college or or even in high school like what was the dream like what was the max dream like if i you know is it a personal trainer because you were into fitness no well i started with when i got a gym member or uh personal training membership personal training job at gold's gym i was like but this is the pinnacle like i'm a trainer at gold's gym baby an hour and then you would make eight dollars an hour for this session so i was like 16 an hour but if the person didn't show up you still had to just stand there for an hour to even make the eight dollars so if you didn't if there was a lot of things you learned about it um but it's a good experience and then to be honest as weird as it sounds me and my buddies always joked when we were growing up that like we didn't care about the job we didn't care how miserable we were at the job we're like we just want to make a lot of money you know because i i'm fine if i'm miserable for eight hours if i'm making you know stacks baby like i was um i we always joked i just want i want a corner office with us with a briefcase and i my goal in life when i was in college was i want to be in a position at a company where when i call someone into my office they're like oh man like what did i what did i do like like like i was in a power up power position i wanted a secretary i i didn't care what the job was i just wanted a briefcase in a corner okay you just wanted a briefcase that was it so so so you get out of college you you get a job you're working the job you're making youtube videos how long into your youtube sort of journey did you make it a full-time thing three years i made videos for three years while working a full-time job and it's a i call condensed a story but i actually got fired from my first job out of college because of youtube um they this was again when i started youtube which you know you're probably familiar with like it it's still kind of a weird thing but it was very much a weird thing back then and people didn't accept it it wasn't normal to film out in the world it was maybe you are in a studio you're in your room that's one thing but essentially i i used to make these dave eating videos and i filmed one clip at my job where i was eating like a gummy worm and you couldn't even i didn't have a badge on i didn't you could there was no logos anywhere you would no one would have known where i am and it was like a five second clip in the middle of my video and three weeks later after that video i got pulled in the office and they're like you filmed in the office you can't do that and i was like oh god okay and and they're like you need to sign this thing or warning you can never like you can't film at all ever and i was like okay it was like first of all i don't know how y'all even saw this this was weeks ago in the middle of a video for five seconds and then flash forward three weeks later and i was like you know okay i'll never film in the office again three weeks later i got fired because of a video that i made before that video where i'm talking i'm filming with like a potato camera at that time like a camcorder i'm talking about my thoughts about alcohol in the gym in college and i guess i absolutely grabbed my id badge i'm like spinning it my hand but the quality is 360p you wouldn't have been able to make out whatever and they're like yeah because you showed the logo we have to let you go you should have deleted all videos i'm like so essentially what happened is i think they didn't like me having a youtube channel i was a lot more raunchy and vulgar with my language and because they even said like hey you know we're not telling you what to do but we would be careful about making videos because if someone looks you up and you know gets a an idea of who you are before even meeting you but i think basically they didn't like my youtube videos for whatever the content i made and they probably hired someone to like find a reason that they could let me go because of that and when i got fired from that job um i thought my world was over i was like wow everyone's gonna think i'm a loser and i almost contemplated just never making videos again because i was like i need to focus my career like i wasn't making any money from youtube but then i ended up getting a job like a week later doing the same thing down the street actually and i just kind of that was a turning point for me to clean up my content not drop f-bombs every third word and um to just realize that the balance between the two and you know it was like the best thing that ever happened to me because it it made me change my content and it also just like made me realize how passionate i was about making videos because i didn't want to give it up but i almost was like so this is dumb so how did you so how did you first start making money off of youtube was it sponsorship was it um you know adsense you know what was it in terms of how did you i use that to make money i see i don't even know when i started making money from like google and what it was i think you had to hit like 100 threshold or something you know crazy and i was super stoked about that but i guess i started getting like little affiliate stuff and there was actually this company that uh would they did they did it with a lot of influencers in the fitness space they would pay you fifty dollars a month and give you like fifty dollars worth of supplements and again i was college i was like 50 bucks sure man and and all they wanted all they wanted was you put their intro in the beginning of every single one of your videos and i was like sure five seconds whatever and it wasn't until my friend was like and i didn't believe him he was like you idiot like you're branding their image across all your videos for fifty dollars and i was like it's whatever it's two seconds fifty um so that's when i started making a little bit of money and then just i guess over time i started working with other brands and started doing kind of uh you know the fitness space you you work with with supplement companies and then you kind of most fitness people go down the path of creating you know merch yeah yeah yeah and so you started and started making t-shirts you didn't you um you also had like a a style channel for a while right is that i think i did it was right it's called max max lifestyle it was very i i don't want to say it was similar to what you did but i i i haven't made a video on there in years and years and years and it was a you know three things every guy needs in his closet and through all these different tips and i got a lot of inspiration from from you and a lot of other people because i was like okay you know he has you know it's kind of like with any video you you're interested in other people's perspectives on fitness on you know lifestyle fashion but i got kind of and i here's where i give major props to you for continuing to to keep innovating but after a while i was like man i feel like i've i've given a lot of tips i'm like what else can i tell people what like like how many times can i tell people to like use wooden hangers instead of plastic hangers in their closet you know like here's different ways to roll up your sleeves and i just i guess i didn't really like i didn't enjoy just standing in a certain spot and filming one piece of content like you're been doing for a long time and that's why you know different people enjoy different stuff but it just wasn't for me and um i realized that it was too hard to balance multiple things and i was like i'd rather just incorporate you've always been in you've always been in the style you have a brown leather jacket that i've seen in a video or two it was a while ago but i loved your brown leather jacket and i'm like that looks like that's nice is it i have a cole haan one and that's the light brown one and then the dark brown one is a uh coach jacket okay it was it must be the coach one because i saw that jacket i'm like damn like the jacket's so sexy right so so anyway you are a fellow uh uh fashionista you don't you don't wear many of those leather jackets down in texas right i i don't was too little too hot here but i would definitely think i have a very east coast style i like button downs i like you know polos i like i love chinos and and um you know chucka boots and things like that and i like funky socks and it's funny you can tell the difference like in texas for example not only i don't do the the the holy clothes and all the rips and stuff but i'll get so many comments that people be like like why are you like rolling your pants up they're too short i'm like it's called a cuff like it's just it's this style i'm doing it on purpose like and like people just have never seen a cuffed pant before i'm like it's so i can show i can see my sock like so people it's like they can't wrap their heads around it i'm like this is why i needed the fashion channel so talk a little bit about about the evolution of of your entrepreneurial sort of journey you ended up leaving obviously your your job and then you moved from virginia to texas you had a friend christian i believe was was in texas um you already had did you already have the apparel company prior to moving to texas and then it was like so so explain okay when did you start ever forward apparel was that that was your first business that you kind of started right it was the apparel yeah it was i technically had these shirts called people would call me the deadlift bra and you know this was back in the bro bra days you know and i had this silhouette of me deadlifting and people called me the deadlift bra because i could deal deadlift a lot and i made merch that just had that logo and it said deadlift broad i sold a bunch of those and then i wanted to create a clothing line this was in 2014 is when i created ever ford apparel um i wanted to create an apparel line but i was like i kind of want it to be a next level up i want to import it from china i want to have like custom you know details custom fabrics custom measurements and i wanted it to be a little bit separate from myself that didn't have me on it or my name or my image so it could kind of grow beyond me and you have a story about the name that's really you know yeah so inspirational so would you mind sharing a little bit of that yeah so when i was going down the clothing path i was like okay like what should i call it like what should the name and most people would you know okay like let me think up either a cool name a cool logo you know and then whatever name they think up they have to kind of like develop what that means and they kind of tell the story of like you know this means to find your whatever right and for me i was like okay ever ford has been a mantra that has been kind of in my family for a long time it originates from the military really and my dad really everyone in the male side of my family besides me has been in the military specifically the army and my dad got that phrase from his time in the military and kind of instilled it into our family's kind of credo and our you know our lifestyle and our um with my my brother my sister and you know my whole family and it was just something that he always said and kind of live live by of that kind of you know always pushing yourself forward the ever forward literally kind of what it means um and so he passed in 2015 from als which he got diagnosed like two years before that and i was super young i was 15. which is one of the most horrible diseases out there i i've had a loved one that passed from that as well and that is absolutely one of the worst diseases out there it it truly is man and you see people just deteriorate as a person and it sucks because they're like they're inside their body and they just can't you know talk and walk and but like their brain is still working and it just and when i was when i was 15 it was hard for me to understand that i was losing my dad and it affects me way more now when i talk about it um then when i was 15 like when my mom came in my room was like you know your dad passed it's like i didn't break down in tears i just didn't impact me and i was really close to my dad and i just i could never understand why and then i you know now i'm always like i you know i wish i had spent more time when he was sick and um so that was it was easy for me to give the reasoning why i chose ever forward because of just the direct hi i didn't have to kind of develop there's a line going on in the background we're good keep keep rolling max i kind of just told my story i didn't have to kind of make up anything um not that there's anything wrong with it i just was like hey this is why i called it this here is what it means to me and you know and hopefully a lot of you can maybe instill this phrase into your life and i didn't create it to be like a motivational clothing brand i was just like you know this is why i called it that and that was in 2014 and you know we've been going strong ever since and i started building that in 14 and then remember i started youtube early 13 so for three years i did youtube and clothing for you know all by myself i did i did every everything every possible aspect of the business i did it was packing out of my my bedroom and then it was july of 2016 when i finally decided to quit my job and pursue social media and the clothing thing full time because i felt like i was not only did i track my finances for an entire year to make sure that i could make the kind of like right around the same amount of money each month for a year to make sure it was consistent um and then i july i was like i was like i think i'm missing out on opportunities to grow what i'm doing even more by traveling collaborations like you know i only get x amount of days vacation i was like i'm missing out on collaborations back then were not that they're not important now but then they were so they had so much impact when you put someone on your channel i mean it would be thousands and thousands of subscribers and growth and you know this network and that's when i started traveling a lot to these expos like i'm this i was like i can't travel if i'm working and all i'm doing at work was the minimal amount i could to like make sure i'm doing okay at the job and to not be on the radar and every other second i'm thinking about social media i'm thinking about clothing and it was a big leap and what's funny is when i called my boss every day i was like just pick up the phone max call your boss pick it up because i was working in dc when he was in virginia and when i when i told him that i was quitting he was like i knew this was coming you know he's like best of luck on everything you're doing he's like i i would do the same thing if i were you in your position he was very supportive of it and i remember i called my mom the day before i was like i think i'm thinking to quit she was like i don't think it's a good idea i was like yeah of course i was like i'm more telling you that i'm doing it not really asking if you're a blessing so what is with with an apparel company i i talk to a lot of people that you know have this the vision of of them creating like an apparel company and and because clothing is sexy don't do it and that is that is kind of the next question is like you know it sounds great what are the biggest i guess hurdles that you have had to overcome in terms of apparel i mean for one you know i yeah i have a sunglass company and just right the returns the sizing like it's the shipping it is just a and it's kind of a nightmare kim as opposed to a grooming company and i'm assuming that that you have a lot less returns with candy than you do with with yellow um so the apparel industry could you talk a little bit about sort of maybe maybe your best piece of advice for somebody that's thinking about starting it you know what to do how to how to do it how to do it smarter or better than you did when you started um because you you know you do these drops right a lot of the guys that are creating these these apparel brands are doing drops seasonally or whatever create that hype you know yeah it's it's all about the hype but you you drop it you do crazy sales in like one or two days or three days or four days but then the with that with that increased volume all the other problems increase and escalate as well in terms of customer service in terms of shipping in terms of you know you know hey i can't track my package where's my package so talk a little bit about about about the apparel industry if you would so it's it's a beast and i a lot of people want to go from you know i have an idea to starting a clothing company to a full-fledged company and they don't want to kind of they think it's a very quick jump and i've been doing it for five years and i have done every possible facet of my business at some point in you know i've with manufacturing samples packing you know i've done it all customer service for years and years and years and most people that want to start an apparel company they always ask me hey how to find a manufacturer and whenever someone asks me a question like that i'm like i don't even think this is right the path for you because if you're asking a question that you could simply google um i'm like you know you need to be obsessed with the research and learning about it before you can go down the path of managing an entire clothing brand and it's just it is such a interesting beast because not only you have so many sides of it because not only do you have to deal with the constantly evolving trends and color palettes and what's good and that's what with everford i try to focus more on these staple pieces rather than to keep up with trends because you know you know nike's always five years ahead of you you know these lulu is always so it's like you're gonna always be playing catch up and for me i focus on just kind of the essential stuff but um you just gotta take it one step at a time and understand the the time it takes for clothing to get to like you know get into the consumer's hands and that's why a lot of people get angry whether it's like oh my gosh like you must have had only five pieces that gets sold out in five seconds i'm so angry oh my gosh like my packaging gets shipped out until five days after and until you have that business you can't understand the frustration and the uncertainty of everything um is extremely as you scale it's an extremely cost intensive business because you know you need especially when you launch a completely new product you have no idea how it's going to do so you're like how much inventory do i have you know you you know and then you have to store all of it you need all that overhead you have to always have so much product on hand or else you're going to be you know not making any income for months and months people when you launch something in the in the in october you need to be ordering that in january so you have to be so far ahead of yourself it's just you need to be obsessed with it or i wouldn't go down that path and again and a lot of people also have the assumption that clothing made overseas is made for a dollar and it's super cheap it's only cheap if you use cheap you know and that that i same ques same thing with with glasses yeah go ahead i'll let you explain it well no p it's it's funny i'll get comments that'll say like oh this like cheap chinese clothing i'm like are you typing this on your cheap chinese phone or your cheap chinese laptop like you know um just because something comes from overseas doesn't mean it's cheap quality and it's also not a penny to make these t-shirts especially as you evolve and you're increasing the quality you know the the type of zippers you're using the type of details are you doing laser engraving you know and you're trying to do the best you can and continue to scale and people also had the expectation that you should be at version 10 of your product you know at version one and when there's a something you know off about it like this sucks this is crap and you're like you know it's it's such a learning process and you have to be able to handle all that criticism and then just just handle it at all and it's again anyone that wants to go down the path of clothing specifically like you were in for a wild ride a lot of learning and get ready to spend a whole lot of money because it's it's a beast yeah and and the one thing i say to people when when they say oh your your sunglasses are are cheap or whatever it's china it's only a cheap product if you use the cheap components right but if you are what china does incredibly well is assemble things and they assemble things quickly and they assem assemble things accurately but it all depends on the the components that you're actually using and so if you're using you know for me it's zeiss lenses you know that are coming from the zeiss yeah if you're getting you know matsutroli acetate from italy they're importing it they're you know and they're assembling it it's a high quality product that's just happened to be assembled in china another another thing that people also don't understand is when you're trying to build a a brand or a company and people are you know let's say a t-shirt cost you throw it a number like eight dollars and you sell it for twenty-five dollars thirty dollars you know they're like oh my gosh you're making all this margin you're like it's not just so i can sell this t-shirt to make the fifteen dollars it's like you need to make enough to grow a company and grow a brand and have overhead and have employees it's not just so i can sell something to take that money and immediately put it in my pocket it's like you people don't understand like just people think that everything should be a a dollar in cost because it costs 75 cents to make you know and it's like i'm not i'm not trying to rip you off i'm trying to create a brand and to create do that like i have to make money like i have to grow to pay employees how many employees do you have with your two companies so in-house we have four four full-time employees and then i have a lot of people that are kind of on contract or that are they're all remote most of my graphics and designers are all remote all of the on the clothing side we have a whole kind of design team that you know we pay i pay them basically by like they design everything blah blah blah and then when i'm ready to order they just take a cut of like if they're like hey a t-shirt is ten dollars it probably actually cost you know nine dollars and they're taking the dollar um but they design and you know and they don't make any money until i order something from them rather than just paying design fees and design fees so that's the way that kind of works but i i don't even know because i i have so many kind of moving parts with all the things that i do but in-house for full-time but i have a whole lot of part-time people a whole lot of contracted workers 1099 people just across the country across the world for sauerkraut for example i have people in the uh like the guy who makes all my characters or is in the philippines the guy who does all my bag design is in chicago let's let's talk about sour strips okay so i remember the video you did where you said something about i'm investing or 50 000 or something of that effect right and see and so i said i was thinking i'm like what is he doing talk about being in the candy business why did you get into that and talk a little bit about that because that is very different than the the apparel and then we're going to talk a little bit about which business is a more profitable which one has the ability to grow and scale faster and because i also saw a video that you did where you hit some uh i think it was a target number of bags one millionth bag or something of that we've surpassed that by a lot now we'll get we'll get to that one we'll go back to the beginning i so i've been a die-hard sour candy fan like it's hard for me to even describe how much i love candy if you would ask my entire family member if my dad was here he could tell you i've just been obsessed with candy and sugar my entire life and i have not even exaggerating probably since i was 10 years old every even to this day every gas station every convenience store i have i have walked down every cane dial every store i've ever been in every time i go because i'm just obsessed with it i've always been eating sour candy so i've seen everything right and i got really motivated by my friend christian who started an energy drink company with a consumable i was like you know this is something that people are gonna you know consume and then repurchase so not only is a good business idea for me i was like why does all sour candy suck that was my big my big thought and also i was like all the branding is is so old school because these companies are so they're huge conglomerates but they've been around for ages and they just they don't really need to do wild innovation and marketing because they have the the awareness right you know um you know you don't need to tell anyone what haribo gummy bears are you know they they just know what they are you know trolley gummy worms and so i remember it was 2017 or 18 i told like my mom was like i'm start a candy company and i think i can i think i can really do it and i started actually with two partners at the time and because i didn't think i could do everything myself you know i've done it for clothing but i was like i need partners because i can't do the business of distribution and all that like i need i need people to do all that for me i just want to be the face of the brand and for probably six or seven months we kept just trying we kept hitting roadblocks and trying to find manufacturers and getting samples and working with different co-packers and we just i knew exactly what the product needed to taste like and feel like and the experience because i knew what i hated with candy whether it be you know super sticky in the bag and it's all wet or it's all stuck together or you know it's not sour when it says it's sour or the branding is made for like little kids and then we hit a bunch of roadblocks and i actually almost like shut down the idea because i was like maybe this is why people don't make crate cranny candy barons because it's just so difficult to start and um so then about six months went by and it wasn't until i moved to texas that i was like i can do this i can i can create this brand and i finally found a manufacturer that had a product that was amazing and i developed a relationship i found a co-packer and then i started on the branding and then i remember sitting in the office where i was trying to think up a name because i was like okay i found the candy now what's the name going to be and i thought up the sour strips and i was like it's so simple right it's so such a simple name and i realized that there had been other sour strips but the idea behind the name was it's a descriptive name right so really anyone could create a sour strips but what's been done was it it's always been like the the company and then like the candy is just sour strips of candy right i was like what if you kind of reverse that and did the i always compare it to like a kellogg's where if i was like hey aaron pick me up some frosted flakes you know exactly that i want kellogg's frosted flakes even though there can be frosted flakes of any brand because it's literally describing what the product is but if i if you brought that back i'd be like no no i wanted frosted flakes and i was like what if i did that with candy and just created this super simple catchy name sour strips and made that so that everyone wants sour strips the brand and then i i went on instagram and no one had sour strips on instagram blew my mind i went about the domain no one had it and what's with wild is is godaddy had i guess uh just decided that it was a premium name so it was like 250 bucks instead of the the two dollars or whatever it was yeah but no one had the domain no one had the instagram and i was like this is it and then actual candy is the parent company name i was like okay let me call it that in case i ever do something besides sour strips and and the reason behind actual candy is because uh my thought was always like why can't any brand make actual sour candy and then actual candy came and no one had actually don't had actual candy.com and then the rest is kind of history and i you know it did the hype thing and here we are and so so talk a little bit about where you are with it so we i i launched the brand i like to think i did a somewhat flawless execution with the rollout and that's what had the created this growth trajectory i launched it on my 30th birthday uh so so september of 2019 and i hyped it up for so long i got this list of like 200 influencers where i was like okay i'm gonna send you a box it's a secret project and i kept typing it up and i was like don't open it i want your reaction and i made this whole video and then i launched it we had 20 000 units on launch which is we had three flavors so or 21 000 so we had 7000 bags of each and we sold out in like an hour and what's funny is is when i launched it i told myself i was like this has to sell out in the first day or it's not gonna work like it has to have that demand and it did because i was i almost like was begging people like hey it's my 30th birthday i told people what the price was going to be before i even drove the project i i said it was it was 20 for the product to 20 for the packet for the bundle you got and uh five dollars shipping at the time so i was like it's 25 bucks i'm not telling you what it is but i was like on my birthday i need all of y'all if you've ever watched any of my videos this is where i want your support 25 like i'm asking you to buy something um just we need to blow this out of the water and my goal with it was i was like direct to consumer candy online is not like that's not a thing people do not think right yeah it's not sure so that was never the the long-term plan i was like i just need to grow the brand online to be able to roll it into retail so we started september 2019 so we've been going for about a year and a half now almost two years and i wish i could tell you uh we've moved i want to say close to three million bags uh maybe definitely over two million absolutely maybe maybe even three i should probably know this number but basically the whole first year was a very huge success with online and direct consumer and building the brand and building the awareness and my model with it is even to this day we send out probably 20 boxes through these little influencer boxes 20 boxes a day which is filled with like 12 bags for free to a to 20 new influencers every single day every single day we're sending out 20 boxes easily and we could even send out more but we've kind of throttled it but every day for the past year and a half i've sent out to 20 to 30 per day new influencers and i'm like my mission is get this product flood the world with it give it away for free give it to every influencer under the sun anyone who has any sort of following give it to them and just get the brand out there and now now it's now it's in retail yeah and and it was super exciting when we first got into our first couple gas stations and slowly but surely and then really the biggest thing that happened in retail was when heb reached out to us in like maybe like all right actually right around september they reached out to us and hbv is a very for those who don't know is a very popular grocery chain in texas they have about 300 locations and when they reached out i was like it's happening this is like a big big deal and what's interesting is when they when they set it up they're interested whatever and then after we were in their system i thought we would just get into the stores but the buyer was like no now you're in the system now you need to go you need to go get the stores to want to buy your product so i i went into like five or six i put on a nice and ever ford actually uh little henley and i i went with i went into the store with the box like with a little pamphlet and went into the managers i was like hey we're in your system you know i like to tell you more about this product i think it would do really well blah blah blah and i literally was selling to these managers myself and i drove to five we got into like three right out of the gate and then it just started exploding and then uh heb has been a huge success for us to show that it can because i was worried when i went into retail that i knew that if i was like hey following you know hey guys it's at this gas station it's at this and i knew that i could immediately sell out a product but i was like will it continue to sell after ever after it sells out because i can impress you in the first 24 hours but it just it kept selling and it kept doing so well and um and then the then what happened in october actually the same day on it was it was right before halloween walmart and target both emailed me within like an hour of each other it was super wild and they were both interested in bringing us in and this is how i've learned about consumer packaged goods into retail is they reach out to me in october to bring me in around june or july that's how long it takes from like when they reach to you to when it actually goes into stores and we're actually rolling out into 200 walmarts probably this month the products already at the distribution center and we roll out into target actually said they wanted to put us in 300 stores as a test which i was already like wow that's amazing yeah and then we did one store because they directly ordered it and it did so well that at that store and then the candy buyer is such a believer in social media that it went from 300 stores for the initial rollout which is going to be in june to 1300 which is 77 of targets like it's been wild and and now you know and my biggest thing was like now it becomes a real brand now i'm i'm not only am i taking shelf space from these other brands is it's becoming a real thing the online was the was the play to be able to turn it into a real thing yeah so so talk a little bit about before i before i let you go you've been incredibly gracious with uh telling us your story it's been really fascinating and this is really exciting i didn't know all this with with the with the trajectory of the company so which company is is uh sort of your your baby right now i mean i know that i know that ever forward is is you know something that you started and that was the first one but which one do you think is is the long-term play it sounds to me like something that is easily more scalable is the the sour strips as opposed to the absolute line well so with ever ford over the five years there our growth has been almost you know one and a half to 2x each year and it's been a very consistent growth growth growth and we've been doing extremely well and then what's interesting is 2019 was our best year ever by far with everforward we did some massive numbers and we actually last year did almost 50 percent less because of sour strips coming in and me having to put so much focus on that i had to put the clothing on the back burner because so much my attention needed sour strips and we have the i have done like five or six x what it took me five years to do with ever forward in the first year with sour strips and this year i think we can even double or triple what we did in 2020 and it's just the thing with sour strips is that with everford it always has a tie to me i don't have to create a clothing brand that is beyond you it needs to get massive with the candy it has already done that that i would say that 50 i would say 50 of people that are consuming or buying sour strips have no idea who you are absolutely no idea who i am and that was the goal it was like this can be beyond me this can be bigger than me and like i want it to be a household candy name so so so max tell me this with the trajectory of sour strips what is sort of what is it what is a scenario that can happen a you just continue to grow and you dominate and you're worldwide and you're in every convenience store every grocery store every gas station and you're you know making hundreds of millions of dollars a year right what is the other alternative could somebody potentially see the growth see you guys taking shelf space from them and actually come in and offer to acquire you like any other you know brand that gets traction and that has started and a would you do that because of of you being tied to it i know that you know a lot of entrepreneurs were like oh no i never sell but then i can ask this a lot no i i have some interesting thoughts on it and so i think that a lot of the and i don't know for sure but i think a lot of huge brands like multi-billion dollar brands is i heard this on a shark tank and it was a really good um explanation of it is like that big brands don't innovate they let the entrepreneurs of our time do all the innovation for them and then they just bring them in under their under their wing because you know let the people who are in the like modern space like these that's what i think happens is the the big brands let the entrepreneurs they innovate um was that who said that because i remember that episode right i think it was the guy from ba bali um yeah was it him was it the uh i think it was either him or it was mark cuban it was one of it was somebody that that said that or maybe even chris sacca but yeah i remember exactly and i thought about that and it was it was like you know what that is exactly what happened so go on i think with with candy what you have is companies either i don't know the size you need to get before you start getting on their radar but people don't want to give up their shelf space and that's essentially what i'm kind of my mission now is to just consume shelf space right and markets more flavors more you know correct and and i'm not growing the brand to sell it i think i don't know if that's the best way to think about something because then you're kind of like you have this exit strategy and well the other thing that happens when you when you grow a brand to sell it it's it looks very different from a from a profitability standpoint because you are basically just dumping money in order to scale and grow at pretty much any cost in order to make the big you know number super sexy but when you're actually growing a business like a you know like a not a lifestyle business but a business that is you know has you know you're looking at the bottom line and the profitability of it and all that it looks very different in terms of how you grow the business yeah so i i i don't know what i would do if i was approached and it's actually very interesting timing because yesterday i won't say the company name but i got an email um from a very large company that wants to talk to me next week and what's interesting is the people that are on the call are in the merger and acquisition like they're like the director so it's very interesting of why those people want to talk to me um so we'll see what what what kind of the path goes but i think for me like i haven't taken any i don't have any partners will you will you send me an email and let me know what that calls about yeah yeah i'm super invested in the story now max when i got the email i was like whoa and i looked up the people that were on the call i was like whoa why would they why would they specifically want to talk to me um and let's see where was i go oh so with sour strips again i don't have any investors i haven't taken any money i you know i i don't say i bootstrapped it with fifty thousand dollars which is a lot of money but that fifty thousand dollars um which i spent almost a hundred percent of that before i even launched like that was like launched i was like i'm at zero and then i just took off and i've dumped every dollar back into it and i don't have any partners um but what i've found is as i scale not only that's why i have to do re online because the margins online are significantly more than retail and that is what's able to help fund the retail if if i just tried to do what i'm about to do with retail in the first six months of my business i would i would have had to take money absolutely because i wouldn't had the cash or i would have had to dump money from my own personal into it and keep investing so at what point will you have to because that's a that's something that that yeah one of my companies is dealing with right now is okay if we get this this deal with target you know and we're going to have to because we just don't have the the the free cash flow compare you know to keep our our business sustainable and growing and doing what it needs to do here quickly here about the fees that come along with all the retail stuff you wanted and so so so it's something that we are in the process of yeah so can you fund can you fund a purchase order from walmart and target and everybody yes without taking money okay correct but i can absolutely fund us for the near future but the thing is like as we grow i'll need to throttle my my growth and you know it's like is doing 15x in one year and is that better or should you just do 2x and 3x and you know and keep and you're doing wild numbers but you're just kind of slowing it down and that's where i think if you took if a company wanted to acquire i think it's either because you're either a threat to them and they would rather buy the company to make it go away because they're taking whatever money they're spending like they're potentially losing money because customers are buying sour strips over this or what a partnership would allow to do is if if i had unlimited manufacturing co-packing and funds like the the sky is the limit on how big i could grow this um so would i be interested in a partnership with a company that could help the brand grow into what i think it can be as one of the top candy brands in the space i would be open to the conversation of it but if someone just wants to write me a check i i i in my head it's too early i think it's true it's too early and it's easy to take a big check and just walk away and be like oh i'll start something else or i can go on a beach for a while but also like i i think i can do this on my own like i think i can get to these big numbers i can keep doing that myself and it's it's really really challenged me it's it's pushing me and it's also forcing me to grow as a leader and a boss and hiring more people and i like the fact that i'm giving so many people jobs and employment and you know the the co-packer is you know their business is making so much money because of me and now and the manufacturer is increasing their capacity and fulfillment and now they're making more money because of my growth and i'm and it's like this storm of where i'm i'm helping a lot of the things that are that are moving and i like that and so i don't know what's going to happen with it um in my mind i'm like i'm just on this path of i'm gonna keep growing this thing as big as i can go but there will be a point where i'm gonna have to limit my growth because of i don't have unlimited resources and it depends you know you see a lot of these brands i won't name any but like there's a lot of brands that i know whether it's in the beverage space or even the the food space where you know they'll take these 10 20 30 million dollar investments and they own 10 of their own company and i'm like i don't want that like i don't it just that's not for me and and then then you're forced when you only own x amount is then you're then you have to have this 800 million dollar exit or else you're just going to be in this rat race forever so um it's an interesting world of men i always say that sour strips is the success it's having is something that like shouldn't have worked and it shouldn't be and it shouldn't have worked how well it did and i think it came down to the execution and obviously my following helped drastically but it's also a really good product it's really cool branding we're kind of disrupting the space in a branding aspect um that i think a lot of other brands are going to start being like you know who who is this candy company who is this guy and then they're going to see my weird videos like this is the owner he is exactly saying this dumb stuff in my videos well i love it yeah max where okay so everybody can basically go to everforwardapparel.com or sourstrips.com or go to uh the max's um youtube channel which we're gonna link everything down below max before i let you go this has been really inspiring and amazing to see the growth and the success and and it's really just incredible um just to see everything that you've done give the aspiring entrepreneur out there your best sort of piece of advice as cliche as it may be or not it's going to be cliche no one wants to work hard yeah it's it's going to be like this have patience man everyone sees whether it's on a youtube scale they don't see the growth in the social media and i tell them i'm like i have made over 1200 youtube videos you know i've been making videos for seven years and people get frustrated when they make five and it doesn't you know take off i'm like how do you think i feel when i've been doing this for seven years and these kind of new age influencer young kids start a year ago and have get a million views per video and i'm like i've been doing this for seven years and i can't grow that fast and like that's frustrating for me but you know it's it's understand on the the youtube world and social media i say be go all in on yourself don't try to be someone you're not um my personality is a you like it or you hate it kind of personality and it's just who i am and i don't try to portray that i'm not as weird and wacky as i am and i just embrace it the weird side of myself and on the business side same with like clothing or any new business is have patience because again with the clothing i've been doing it for over five years i've put in this work and people don't want to do that and it's it's easy to see people's quick success and they think that it's going to happen like that forever exactly and 100 and a lot of people just they don't want to put in the work so it's like put your head down believe in yourself and you know you you can truly achieve like amazing things and it's super cliche but i mean even you know you or myself who's just been doing this and for so long and people have seen the growth with companies and brands and just you as a person and leveling up in your life and i think that's what's what's super cool and everyone has a story and everyone can tell that story to the world well max thank you so much for being a part of this this was really really exciting for me and and i'm now i'm all in so you got to let me know how that conversation goes with this unnamed brand guys if you want to check out anything that max is doing please hit those links down below make sure to go subscribe to his youtube channel go grab a like 20 bags of sour strips there you go and uh max you got to send me the uh the lemonade version i love lemonade or the pink lemonade right 100 man all right send them to me because uh i love lemonade but anyway max thank you so much continued success i'm rooting for you and it's exciting to see good things happen to good people so congratulations keep busting and kicking ass and i'll see you on the other side appreciate it man

Channel: Alpha M Extras

Views: 85,539

Rating: 4.9702363 out of 5

Keywords: maxx chewning, maxx chewning interview, alpha m podcast, alpha m interview, sour strips, ever forward, selling candy, direct to consumer, business interview, business podcast

Id: 8AwrGOF_wdQ

Length: 51min 20sec (3080 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 29 2021