YouSaid · the spoken record

David Segal

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2024-04-16
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2024-04-16
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  1. “That I was able to self actualize. Did I tap into my full engine? Hopefully one day on my rocking chair, that's the rocking chair question. I'm able to say I did that. I didn't shortchange myself. I didn't not show up for myself.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “When I was a little boy, my father used to say to me, he'd say, David, you're like an eight-cylinder engine operating on two cylinders. And I didn't really know what he meant by that. I didn't know the world. I didn't know was out there. I didn't know all the possibilities. But the more I go through life, the more I realize that for me is very important. I don't want to ever look back and feel like I didn't use all eight cylinders. And I think that applies to everybody. I don't want to feel that I didn't tap into my full potential. I don't know what that is right now. I can't tell you. We all have a certain level that we're going to reach. You know, not everyone's Michael Jordan and not everyone's going to be the Warren Buffett or the CEO or the president or whatever, right? And I don't think that matters. I actually think what's far more important is, did I self-actualize all eight cylinders?”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “You choose your focus. You really do. And that's something that needs to be practiced. It's not something you can't just tomorrow. I think it's hard to wake up tomorrow and be like, I'm going to have a positive mindset about everything. Well, you're not. If you've gone through your life having a negative mindset about everything, you're not going to be able to do that in one day and probably not in one year and probably not in five years, frankly. But how do you take one step forward in that journey towards having a better perspective and being able to enjoy life more and celebrate all the good that's in your life and not just focus on all the things that are not what you want to be?”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “Were the personal developments, where my ability to connect with my wife on a deeper level, where my ability to truly enjoy and appreciate my kids. I think we're all kind of playing for that no regret old age rocking chair moment. At least I sort of use that as a yardstick, be like, well, is this going to matter in my rocking chair? And of course, life has many twists and turns. And who's to say you'll ever be in a rocking chair? I mean, I think it's just more the sentiment than the reality. But I think that thinking about the question, what's missing in your life, the answer is always perspective. You have to decide what narrative you want to live, right? Like you don't get to choose a lot of things.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “To do and accomplish. I mean, I definitely sit down once a year and I write out goals and I write out one-year goals and three-year goals and 10-year goals. But then I kind of like to say to myself, and let's say I achieve none of them, right? Because you always have that sort of fear. Like, what if it doesn't work? What if I can't, what if I'm not that good at this? And what if I can't, right? And so what I got three healthy kids, I got a great marriage. I've made enough money. You know, and so what? And I know that sitting here, it's easy for me to say that a lot, you know, but it's all relative, right? You have to remember that it's all relative. Like there's always somebody who has more and there's always somebody who has less. And that's true no matter where you are. But the truth is I was just as happy in that bass room apartment in Montreal as I am now. You know, so much has changed in my life, but at the same time, the real changes, the real things that brought true happiness.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “That's a tough question. I cheated before this interview and looked at your notes, and I saw that question and I wasn't sure how to answer it. And I'm still not. I think it's a really difficult question to answer. I think the answer is nothing. There are lots of things that I want, but there are a few things that I truly need that I don't have right now. I think what's missing is just more. More life, more embracing the journey, more being able to take it all in without feeling less than like a failure, more being able to just appreciate all the good that's in life versus constantly persevering on what's difficult or missing or bad. Life is short and it should be celebrated. It should be elevated. And I think there are lots of things I want.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “It's not different with adults, right? Like you're just tired. Like, go to bed, call it. It's over. Day's over. You know, tomorrow's another day. Go to bed.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “Thousand percent. I think that's the biggest, least productive, most dangerous time for our mental state of the day. And usually I find it's also the time of day where I'm the most worried about my future. About the business. I'm usually the most down on, you know, I'm in a depressive state. I'm sort of like, oh, it's not working. Things aren't going well. I wish this. I wish that. And I'm sort of down on myself. And it's important to be like, you know, more and more I try and distance myself and be able to be the observer rather than the participant in that and be like, okay, well, like you're just tired. Like you're just tired. You know, with like, with kids, when you're like, okay, you're tired.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “Time, and I'm certainly more present on the weekends than on holidays. You know, like I was saying, there's no substitute for the work. You have to operate with a certain level of intensity in order to get things done. And I work late into the night. I work up until about eight or nine o'clock. I'll usually either read a bit or watch a bit of TV with my wife and read to one of my kids before bed and go to bed and try and get as much sleep so I can get up and do it all over again.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “And if I'm working, it'll be more reading or taking notes or reflective emails on my laptop. There's working in the business and working on the business. I like to take my weekends if I'm going to work to work on the business and not in the business. I really make sure I take time for my kids and my wife on the weekends. I mean, I make a point to go out with my wife for a date night at least once a week, usually on the weekends. We go for dinner together. We take a fair amount of trips. I think that's also really important. I like to get away. But yeah, I sort of have started to bring a different mindset from my Friday night to Saturday night. And then Sunday starts to ramp up again, right? Like you sort of gear up for the battle. But Monday to Friday, it's intense. Like I'm an intense guy. I just am. There's no way to, for better, for worse is who I am. And I go out at hard and I wear my heart on my sleeve and I work very, very hard. I'm present with my family during the week, but for very short periods of time.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “So, the Sabbath is a Jewish, it's called Shabbat. It's in Judaism. It's this idea of from Friday night sundown to Saturday night sundown. You don't work. Now, what does that mean today? I've sort of evolved it to my own personal, like I say, I'm not religious, but I think there are principles in there that have helped me a lot. I still will work on a Saturday morning sometimes, but I won't I like to come at it with a different mindset. For some reason, I found a way to take the edge off on the Friday night to Saturday night. And I think of that as my relaxed time.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “For a tea and be able to just listen to them talk about their science fair or their gymnastics or whatever it is they're into. It doesn't take much. I'm not religious at all, but I think there's enormous wisdom in the concept of the Sabbath. I think it's just an incredible concept, right?”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “I think a couple of things. I think getting up early is really important. I don't really know many extremely successful people who don't get up early. I like to work out in the mornings. I like to turn my phone off at a certain point in the evening. And I know this is going to sound really weird, but I actually bought this thing that I can put my phone in that locks it. It's like a little cubby from my phone. And I put it in now around 9, 9 30, and it's locked. And of course, at first, I was like, wow, what if my, you know, my parents a bit older? What if something happens or I need it? And I said, well, you know, my wife has a phone. I have my computer. It's not like there's other ways I can check if I need to, but this allows me from sort of I used to go on social and just sort of numb out. And a half hour ago by and I'm like, what am I doing? I just wasted a half hour in my life numbing out on social with my kids. Can I be present reading my son Harry Potter who's seven years old and just starting to get into that?”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “Such a good job taking something as complicated as the energy industry or the railroad business and distilling it into a few timeless principles. And he does this with investing as a whole, right? He teaches us how to have a perspective on investment.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “Like the Mark Twain saying, you know, I'm sorry I wrote you such a long letter. I didn't have the time to write you a short one when I was going to McGill. I went into management and I realized very early on that I didn't know how to write. I was a terrible writer. It's sort of a lost art form. And I want to learn how to write. So I went into English lit at McGill and I ended up minoring in English lit. It was serendipitous because I met my wife in English lit. But I also learned how to write. I wrote for the McGill Daily newspaper. And I really wanted to turn what was a weakness for me into a strength. And I became, you know, an above average writer. I'm no Mark Twain, but I'd like to think I can write a decently persuasive email or letter. And I think that's a really important skill set. And where that comes in particularly helpful is how do you express a complex idea in simple terms? And no one does this better than Warren Buffett. I mean, you read his annual shareholder letters and he does.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “So that was, I mean, we're going back now 20 years, right? And since that time, I've seen him go through waves where the world thought he was a dinosaur. Like when he bought craft and when the tech was really booming, everybody's like, or Bitcoin was super hot, right? Everyone's like, oh, this guy's a dinosaur. He's out. He doesn't know anything. Well, turns out he's not. Then he turns around. He buys the Japanese trading houses at 10 cents on the dollar and he makes another brilliant move. And you're just like, wow, he's done it again. I mean, I think before 2008, he was another period in 2006, 2007, leading up to it where he looked like a dinosaur. And then, bang, he's saving the financial world in America and making these investments in gold and sacs. And, you know, so I think what I admire about the guy is, you know, we have all these sayings in life, like play the long game or learn how to sit with something. And it's really hard to do those things, right? Like it's all easier said than done. And I think he's managed to be able to do them. And I also, the other thing I admire about Warren Buffett is being able to express complex things in simple terms.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “The first one is I wish I had this superpower. Here's a guy who can make very few decisions, but make them with so much conviction and then live in Omaha, Nebraska and like go sit in a fishing boat while the world goes on around him. I mean, you know, talk about being able to overcome the action bias. I just think that's incredible. I mean, a lot of things we're talking about here today where how do you get to a place where you have internal validation and you kind of don't care what others think. I mean, very few of us can say that we don't care about what others think. I think he's one of them. I think he really is one of them. I first read about Warren Buffett at the start of David's tea. I was telling you the story. I think it was Buffetology, actually. I think his daughter-in-law wrote it.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “Know, I didn't have that. I stopped and I didn't have any, I had nowhere to go in the mornings, right? I went from having this big office with 100 plus people who, you know, with my name on the door and I'd walk in and I was important, right? And then the next day I'm out and, you know, I'm waking up. And now what? And no one's running up to me anymore. And I'm not in this nice office. And so I think the first thing I would have done, I would have gotten a really nice office. I would have, I think I would have consulted with a lot more people that had been through that experience of having sold their company. I wasn't very thoughtful about that. And in retrospect, I mean, I became, it took me a little longer and I became more thoughtful about it over time. But by the time I became more thoughtful about it, I'd already jumped into other things. And those, of course, take up your entire focus because once you're in the game of building a business again, you're trying to manage the swings of the game and you're trying to go on a run where you grow.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “You know, if you're playing for validation from others or you're playing for external success, you're never going to have the full fulfillment that you get from your achievements in life. And I don't know that I've entirely overcome that external validation. I don't think I have, but I certainly work towards it and really focus a lot more on internal validation. I think coming out of David's tea, I wish I had coming out of a big financial score, but having not done a lot of the work to understand myself and what I really wanted out of life, I wish I had been more prepared for that. First thing I would have done, I would have gotten a nice office.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “And the truth is, we do. And there is no one way. You can always find a story that validates your narrative. I think in some ways that's kind of healthy now that I think about it now. You know, I think, you know, you want to continue to reinvent yourself and not think of yourself as too old or now I have these two businesses that are growing and I'm like, oh, I need to grow them fast because I only have this many good years. I'm entering my prime and it's like, well, are you? I mean, who's to say? I mean, there are endless stories of people that do it in their 50s, 60s, 70s. I mean, some in their 80s, right? So I think all of that, everybody's unique. And I think it's really important to forget about.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “Like, oh, Sam Walton didn't start till he was in his 40s, or like, you know, Warren Buffett made most of his money after 55. I mean, all of these things are just ways of telling ourselves that we have more life ahead of us.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “Money can help facilitate parts of that, especially something to look forward to. But you have to tap into deeper meaning what it is, what gets you excited on an ongoing basis. For me, it's building businesses. But I wish coming out of that experience of making money and becoming financially independent, I wish I'd taken a little bit more time to think about how I wanted to do that and where I wanted to do that. I think I was a bit too, I felt I needed to get back in the game very quickly. I think I set an artificial timeline. Like I think sometimes we set these artificial timelines with ourselves. And at least in my case, it was my ego. I felt I had to be back in or I was going to be a one-hit wonder. There is no one way. There is no one story. I'm now in my early 40s and we love telling ourselves the stories of people that validate our narratives, right?”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “First of all, money doesn't buy meaning. Number one, you have to money can help facilitate a lot of things, but you have to know who you are and what you want. That's really, really important. And that has nothing to do with money. Buying nice things is going to be fleeting. I think we all know this intuitively. And yet so many people do this. And I'm not saying don't buy nice things. It's always nice to buy nice things, but it's important to understand that in and of itself is not going to give you meaning, a really nice car, nice watch, or nice house or whatever. It's going to be cool for a minute, but eventually it's going to go away. I think I once heard this from a friend, you know, the secret to life is something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “No moment in life where everything's just perfect. Like life is dynamic. It's not static, right? You're always renegotiating with yourself. And it is an ever-changing thing. And I think it's just how do you work on bringing the right attitudes into it each”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “And make everyday day one. You know, we have a habit of beating ourselves up, right? Like the idea of being compassionate with yourself is really important. You miss a day. So what? Like in meditation, it's, you know, come back to the breath, come back to the breath. And we call it rabbit holes. You go down a rabbit hole where you have these almost like blackout moments where your mind just carries you in a thought. And when you first start meditating, most people when they first start meditating, they do the same thing. They sit down for 20 minutes. But don't do that. Sit down for like three minutes or four minutes or five minutes, like build up, right? You're building a muscle. You're building that focus muscle. But when we have these sort of blackout moments in meditation where our mind wanders and we don't even know where it goes, then all of a sudden we come back and we're like, oh yeah, I wasn't focused on my breathing or whatever visceral exercise I had. We have a tendency to beat ourselves up. You're like, oh, I can't believe I could, you know, you do it mentally. And we're human. You're going to make mistakes. You don't have to always get it right. You're allowed to slip up, but just keep restarting.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “You had six hours of sleep and you're not feeling great, and you're feeling sluggish, and that's actually when you need to do it. The doing is what matters. And it's life, life just is like that. And I learned that from my father, you know, I mean, he got up early and stayed late and put in the work. And there is no substitute for the work. Doesn't matter how smart you are, you have to put in the work.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “That didn't make it. It was the people that had hope but not expectations that did, right? So they knew they'd get out of there, but they didn't have an expectation on when. And I think depression is like that as well. You have to get up and go for that run, even though you don't want to do that 20 minute sit, you know, breathing exercise, even though you don't want to work on your eating habits or your rituals, whatever they may be. I mean, and it's all kinds of different rituals in your life. It's important to develop. I'm using the word ritual loosely here. Routines, habits, whatever you want to call them, when you're in a dark place, they're even more important. I mean, it's really easy when you've had 10 hours of sleep and the sun is shining. It's warm outside. It's really easy to go for that run or put on that smile or whatever it is. That's where it's easy. Where it's hard is it's when it.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “There is no shortcut for the work, period. There's no magic pill, there's no magic elixir. It's about habits. You have to do things even when you don't want to do them. I don't know where I heard this story, but I think it was a guy who had survived the internment camps during the war and where they were being tortured. He said that it was the people who lost hope.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “Reasons I felt it was time for me to move on. And I think I never had a chance to process all that and deal with that. And I had to really understand when it no longer becomes about the money, you really have to think about what you're doing and why you're doing it. You take away that factor that it allows you to drown out all the other things in life that are really important, like meaning and being able to really appreciate the journey. And I didn't really understand those pieces in my life early on. It just became a singular focus where how can I build this and make money.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “Oh, yeah, I was really depressed. Like, like I went through, you know, I don't talk about this often, but I was in a really bad spot. And it was a weird thing. Like, I felt guilty about it because like, wow, what right do I have to be depressed? I just, I lived, I just had the dream that everybody plays for, which is an exit in a major company and financial independence. But I was very upset. I had some health issues. And it's hard to know whether the health issues were from the depression or the stress of building it or just what came first, the health issues of the depression. But no, I had to develop better habits in my lifestyle. I had to develop a better perspective on life. There was a lot of stress. There was a fair amount of internal fighting in the company between my original partners, the private equity group. It wasn't an environment where everyone was just focused on the customer and adding value for the customer. And there was a bit too much in internal conflict, which is one of the”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “And I'm very fortunate I have a couple of partners in that business, one of whom is the CEO. The company is doing an incredible job. I was the CEO of the business. And then when I started Firebelly and I realized tea is really where I wanted to go back to, he took over. He was our head of operations. And he's done an incredible job. And now the business is starting to grow again. And we've become, I think, the number one player in Canada for healthy, fast food. And I'm really excited about the growth here. But we, I mean, we failed. I mean, we failed and we failed and we failed and we failed until.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  32. “Can also be in the form of it's taking too long I think we often don't think of that as failure, but like Mad Radish, which is a healthy, fast food concept I have in Canada, you know, we were figured it out for the lunch market and we were accelerating in five-day week office stores. And then the pandemic came. And we almost went out of business. And we were failing in a big way. And I had invested way more money than I thought I would have to. And it had taken far longer than I thought it would. But it wasn't working. And I almost stopped. And we almost said, you know what? Let's sell it for 10 cents on the dollar and move on. But we didn't. And we stuck with it. And now it's in a much better place and we got better at the dinner menu. We developed a two-day part menu. So we got really good at the nuances of that business, right? And we did that through failures. I mean, we just, we kept failing. We've failed on menu development. We failed on real estate. We took bad stores. We figured out what not to do to the point where here we are today.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  33. “It's funny, you know, I don't often think about my failures. They just become part of who I am as I go forward. But, you know, if you're afraid to fail, forget it. Go get a job. Failure takes on many forms, right? There's failure in that it just like I failed. It didn't work. I was a failure. And that happened to me when I started that fitting room company right out of college. And it straight up did not work. I had to hang my head down and lick my wounds and move on. And, you know, as is often the case in life, you have to go down in order to go up a lot of the time. And I had to do that in that case. And I had to, it humbles you, I think. And I wore that one in a big way, you know, especially at a time in life where everybody's trying to flex in their advancement and their career, right? As young professionals, here I was with this major failure right out of the gate.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  34. “It's a funny thing. Everyone has tea in their cupboard, but it just sort of sits at the back and gathers dust. And that was one of the things with Firebelly, you know, we wanted to make sure that it was well designed. We originally put it in these boxes that they're like books on a bookshelf. And we did that. We wanted to be on your counter front and center. And it should look good too. And so we've approached it from that angle. But we haven't approached it as a fashion product. I mean, with David's tea, that was a big thing, right? Like it's spring, summer, winter, fall. It's like our new fall collection, our new spring collection. It's pumpkin this. It's, well, no, like we don't really think about tea that way. Like real tea drinkers drink tea every day. Like it's fantastic. Firebell is a brand for tea drinkers, for people that really love it. And that's what we're servicing.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  35. “It makes the perfect gift, right? So we tend to perform well in, we took our best sellers and put it in Erewhon. I think Erewhon has a more discerning customer and appreciates really high quality loose leaf tea. So I think everyone works for us. And we've been, you know, we've been one of the top performers in our category so far. And I think Bloomingdale and Craig, you know, their gift. You go there for Christmas to buy Christmas gifts. And T makes a great Christmas gift. And so all these great gift boxes with our accessories and our teas together. And it sort of works really well there in November and December. When you think about it, you can give tea to anyone. You can give it to your mother. You can give it romantically. You can give it to a co-worker. It really does make a great gift. I mean, the message you're sending the person is, here's something that's good for your health and well-being. Here's something that can be a break from your day or it can be social with your family, your friends, your colleagues.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  36. “We're in Erewan, which is really hot grocery store right now in LA. We don't want to be in some of the more mainstream grocers. But Erewan really is a special place. We're in Bloomingdales. We do some of our gift assortment in Creighton Barrel. Yeah. And it's mostly direct to consumer.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  37. “I think it's easier with modern day media to talk to niche audiences. And so we want to be really good at servicing a customer base who really cares about having an incredible team ritual, really high quality product, and really just focus on what we do best. And I think that's a little bit different than how it used to be. I think it's easier to find your audience at scale than it was. Then you weren't able to do that in 2007, right? In the same way. And I think that really changes how you think about the business.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  38. “Pink in your cup, and there's one that's strawberry, and this was very new, right? And it was all about, you know, smelling it. And it was just such a new phenomenon. We went from Earl Grey and Mint and Chamomile into all these plethora of flavors. And I think with Firebelly, it's a little bit different. We're saying, look, we don't do things that you can only do with flavoring. Like we don't do peach tea because you can't make a peach tea without flavoring. But we do really high quality freeze-dried berries. And what has changed about business is there's more of an opportunity to take a niche and really get a thousand true fans with it.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  39. “Don't change. And I like to put my energy into that. And one of the things I love about tea is that it's so timely. People can trust and that isn't going to waver in some of the principles that it stands for. And so what we love about loose leaf tea is it's higher quality product. You get the whole leaf. You get to watch it expand. You get the full health benefits. It becomes this pause in your day. And I think that's just, that's what we're about. We're about, we tend to attract people who are type A. I mean, they're not necessarily entrepreneurs, but they're entrepreneurial in what they do. I think it's for people who are on the go, who need a moment to themselves or a social moment with friends. I mean, it's Tuesday night. You don't always want to have alcohol, right? Like sometimes you just want to have a, you can't make you a tea. Like, have a great tea and a great conversation. So I don't think those principles change in terms of David's tea. I mean, David's tea was a fashion brand. It was about people were discovering, wow, you can have tea with vanilla and you can have tea with almond and it turns.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  40. “Contrast it when I started David's tea, there was no Instagram. There was no Shopify. You had server rooms. And if you want to build a website, you know, you called a website guy, right? That's how we used to build websites. You found a friend of a friend who is usually a kid who knew how to build a website in HTML. The store, a physical retail store was much more about distribution than it was discovery. I mean, it was about both, but nowadays you don't need a store to distribute, right? E-commerce was a tiny, tiny percentage of the business back then. It's exploded on the scenes now. So it was very different. I think the space is much more competitive now. There's a lot of products out there that claim lots and lots of benefits. But I think some of the fundamentals of building a business haven't changed. So, you know, everybody loves to talk about what's changing and disrupting. But I think it's also important to look at what doesn't change.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  41. “It's such a big in Europe and other places in the world. It's just North America that for some reason is a bit late to the party. And I just think once they realize how amazing high quality tea is, it has its place in our daily ritual.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  42. “You guys make My kids too get into it, right? Because there's so many different caffeine free teas and so many different flavor profiles, whether it's a sweet ginger or a chocolate tea or a really nice peppermint eucalyptus tea, apple chamomile, right? There's so many different combinations. So kids can get into it too. That's what sort of drove me to create firebelly is that everyone I would show really high quality loose leaf tea to and demonstrate how nice a tea ritual is would would continue on with it. I mean, they'd get into it. And I'm like, wow, you know, I want to share this with everyone. I really want it to be something special. I mean, this isn't something you can find at the grocery store, right? It's much higher quality tea than people are used to. And I think, you know, why not? Tea should have its time.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  43. “Create kind of a monotone flavor, it's like watermelon chewing gum, right? Right. You get that burst of flavor, but then it dissipates. It's very similar with flavored teas when they're using flavorings. Whereas, you know, instead of using vanilla flavoring, at Firebell, we use real Madagascar vanilla. We use really high quality ginger, really high quality turmeric. And it makes a difference in the quality of the tea. And so I think Firebelly became sort of this brand where I got to create the teas I love and sort of share my private stash with the world. And then you can't put a Ferrari engine in a Winnebago. So we had to create the accessories to go with it. And so we created a stop infusion travel mug. I mean, you think about accessories, it's all designed for coffee drinkers. But like I wanted to put tea drinkers first. So we created this travel mug where you can stop and start the infusion with really high quality loose leaf tea. You can make hotter iced tea. It's 100% leak proof. It's powder coated metal. I mean, I get obsessive about all these small.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  44. “And tea is very different, right? There's Leaning in tea as well. So whereas with coffee, you get that big spike and crash. You don't really get that in the same way with tea. You get more of a sustained energy. Althene modulates the impact of the caffeine in your bloodstream on your body. And it really creates a nice calm energy and a nice focus. And then you have herbal teas in the evening that are fantastic. And whether it's you want help sleeping or with digestion, whether it's ginger or, and so the teas that we create with Firebelly, we don't use any of these flavorings, which is kind of the secret in the tea business. If you go label hunting at the grocery store, everything has either natural flavor, artificial flavor. And it's not that it'll kill you, but a natural flavor just means it was derived from a planter animal source, but it ends up in a laboratory where about 90% of what goes into these flavors are preservatives and additives that go unlisted on the label. We have these all the time. They're not necessarily bad for you.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  45. “I'm drinking way too much coffee. I'm not sleeping well. I get the jitters. I get headaches. I'm like, well, why aren't you drinking green tea in the afternoon? He's like, oh, I never thought of that. I'm like, oh my God, green tea is amazing. He's like, wow, it's kind of bitter, right? I'm like, well, yeah, because most people drink the equivalent of folgers for coffee, right? Coffee went through these phases where we went from first wave to second wave to third wave and people got fancier and fancier in the types of coffee they drank and tea in many ways hasn't you know David's tea made some headways and certainly had slightly better product but I think the really good stuff is still is still new to most people and that's what Firebelly has become about you know it's in curating these collections for Harley and other ones my friends brought some to you and and got you into it a little bit you know as as we develop getting people into these amazing teas and you know all of a sudden Harley's drinking green tea in the afternoon no more headaches no more jitters because the cafe”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  46. “Not great, and I've actually tried to buy it back at one point with bain capital. I've moved on. I mean, I wish David C well. And I'm very excited about what we're doing with Firebell E, which is my new tea company. While I was developing David's tea, I always had a private stash, right? What sold at David's tea were these heavily flavored teas? And that's just what the market wanted. But my palate developed because I would drink it every day all the time, right? And I would travel these incredible tea regions and I would meet with our tea blenders and I'd learn kind of how to create an amazing tea in the right combinations of different ingredients. And when I left, I started to realize, wow, you know, I love tea. I love creating teas and I love creating the products that go around with it. And I would curate these tea collections for my friends. I mean, Harley, who's the president of Shopify and a close friend, I got him really into tea because when I first met him, he's like, you know.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  47. “When I sold my steak in David's tea in 2016, we had 200 stores, about 200 million in sales, about 30 million in EBITDA. It was a pretty nice business.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  48. “It's this incredible drink that's the second biggest drink in the world next to water. It's just ironically in North America, we're not that into it, but it's this timeless ritual that everyone has a tea story from when they were younger, somewhere in their family, someone drank tea. And with David C, we created this sensory experience in the store where you come in and you're smelling tea and you're tasting tea and you're talking about tea. And it became this very unique experience. And I think that's one of the reasons it worked. And yeah, it really grew from there.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  49. “15 stores today, and without me, he'd have zero. So it really worked out well. And away we went, we opened a store on Queen Street. And it didn't work at first. I mean, it sort of worked, but it really took a bit of time. I remember the summer I got married, which is about a year. We had four stores. It was about eight months after we started, a year after we started. And it wasn't going that great. I mean, we weren't doing well enough that summer for the business to survive. And I was really worried about it. But then, you know, we just kept getting better and better at it. And it just, it finally caught.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  50. “Never a coffee guy. And I remember being in a tea shop in Montreal off of Saint-Denis, which is this really cool street, sort of Asian-inspired tea house. And we went in and I started to think to myself, I'm like, wow, you know, there's no size, no color like there is in fashion. It doesn't go bad like a turkey sandwich. It's leaves in a cup, so the margins are good. You can operate out of small spaces. And we call anything you put in hot and cold water that's not coffee, tea in North America. So it's like cooking, right? The combinations of what you can create are endless. This is a Warren Buffett business we should do tea. And we sort of looked around for one to invest in. I got more and more into it. I started to develop a love for the product. Finally, I think either I turned to my cousin or he turned to me and I said, look, let's just do it ourselves. I'll build it and you'll back me. And it was a great combination of youth and experience, right? Like the way I like to describe it is without him, I probably would have 10.”

    2024-04-16 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · David Segal: Building a $200m Business · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT