A Natural Leader
How Nicole Dawes combined an entrepreneurial DNA, resolve in the face of doubt, and a lifelong passion for bringing healthier, tastier food to the world to launch and grow Late July Snacks and Nixie Sparkling Water.
Show Notes
Nicole Bernard Dawes has long held the conviction that, when done right, healthier food can be everyone’s first choice, not an alternative choice. But as she followed in the footsteps of her parents, who were both food entrepreneurs, she learned that grocery aisles weren’t going to change for the better unless she committed herself and her career entirely to the cause.
In her talk with Jesse, Nicole describes her lifelong journey that began with a food retreat and her role greeting customers at her mother’s natural food store. You’ll hear about her first venture into entrepreneurship as a 12-year-old chef and marketer, and what she learned working for her father’s company, Cape Cod Chips. And you’ll hear how Nicole founded Late July Snacks, stewarded it through a recession and family tragedy, and found the courage to take bold but well-understood risks in the name of good health - helping to spark an organic revolution Nicole would remain at the forefront of for years to follow.
Guest Bio
Nicole Bernard Dawes is a pioneering business owner whose lifelong dedication to transforming the food industry led her to create delicious, organic options like her co-founding Late July Snacks in 2003, one of the country’s most successful organic snack brands, and most recently Nixie Sparkling Water in 2019. Nicole has been named Food & Wine and Fortune Magazine’s ‘Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink’ and Forbes Magazine’s ‘Top Five Women Breaking Barriers in Food and Beverage.’
Helpful Links
Nicole’s appearance on the LA Woman podcast
Forbes article, “How The Founder Of Late July Includes Generation Z In The Snack Business.”
Feature in Inc., series How I Did It
+ Episode Transcript
Nicole Dawes [00:00:06] We spent the year, 2010, actually kind of working on the tortilla chips and launching them, and we officially hit stores in the fourth quarter of 2010 and our brand never looked back. I mean, we grew exponentially from that point forward. So, I mean, it was definitely the riskiest decision we ever made, because if it hadn't worked out, I'm not sure honestly what we would have done next. So taking that step off the cliff, you know, we ended up kind of catapulting this completely new level as a brand.
Jesse Purewal [00:00:48] From Qualtrics Industries, this is Breakthrough Builders, a series of conversations with people whose passions, perspectives, instincts and ideas fuel some of the world's most amazing products, brands and experiences. I'm Jesse Purewal. And on the show today, how an entrepreneurial DNA, a passion for bringing healthier, tastier snacks to the world and a bet-the- company move in the middle of a recession helped Nicole Dawes break down barriers and break through as the founder of late July snacks and Nixey sparkling water.
Jesse Purewal [00:01:27] I am here with Nicole Dawes. Nicole, thank you for coming on the podcast.
Nicole Dawes [00:01:32] Oh, thank you for having me. I've been really looking forward to this.
Jesse Purewal [00:01:34] So you have spent a lifetime, Nicole, around food and drink and the creation of it and the celebration of it. Tell me about what some of your fondest and earliest memories are around food in your family, in your household?
Nicole Dawes [00:01:50] I think if I were to take like a couple of really formative ones, one had to be the time that my mother took me to this macrobiotic summer retreat when I was really, really young. I mean, I was old enough to, like, participate and be aware. So maybe like eight, but young enough that it really wasn't something I wanted to do. I think that's kind of, I mean she was really excited as we're going to spend a week in Western Mass learning about cooking macrobiotic food with other families. And for me, it was just a week away learning about cooking food that I wasn't, particularly,
Jesse Purewal [00:02:24] I was going to say, were there are other seven year olds at the macrobiotic food retreat?
Nicole Dawes [00:02:28] There were, there were other kids there. And I remember that I was missing like the series finale of some show and we were going away on this thing. But why it was a formative memory for me was my mom believed so deeply about food and caring about its source and where it comes from and creating these balanced meals. And it really formed so much of who I eventually became.
Jesse Purewal [00:02:52] I know each of your parents was involved in the food business in some capacity. How early can you remember them being involved in some of those ventures and some of the ways that you would jump in and get involved?
Nicole Dawes [00:03:05] It's, it's your whole life. I mean, you're surrounded by it. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. And my mom had a natural food store when I was really young. It was fun for me. I mean, I imagine it was sort of like a logistical nightmare for her, but she would bring me to the store with her and then I would hang out just entertaining myself or talking to customers or probably not helping, but I thought I was helping. And then my aunt who she owned the store with would actually take me at the end of the day, while my mom closed up, to her shift at a local restaurant. And I would actually sit in the restaurant with her and help her get all the salads ready for that night's meal service. So I remember I would like, put the mushrooms on the salad. And I think being involved in the business and being involved with my family was just something, that was all I knew. I would go to the floor, and my father started Cape Cod potato chips, and I would just hang out there at the sorting table helping people sort chips or I mean, I was just all I knew.
Jesse Purewal [00:04:07] And at some point it rubs off on you and you decide, even before starting late July, you started a different company, maybe when you were more like 11 or 12 in the in the sweet space. Tell us about your first foray as a young entrepreneur.
Nicole Dawes [00:04:24] Sure. Well, you know, I so I really desperately wanted a summer job, but when you're 12, you really can't get a summer job, that's just not allowed, to hire 12 year olds. So my father said, well, why don't you start your own thing, do something on your own. I thought, well, what am I going to do? I'm 12. And then my best friend at the time, made these excellent chocolate chip cookies. I mean, they were really good. We had a whole formula for how many ridges they should have at the end and precisely how many chocolate chips each cookie should have. And this is before we made them to sell. And so I thought, our cookies are pretty good. Maybe we could convince a couple of delis in our town to sell them. But it never even occurred to me that I couldn't, honestly. I had this, like, red wagon. And we packed up this red wagon and we dragged it with us to, like our first stop was the deli closest to where we lived, where I live. And we went in and we had like a whole jingle that we wrote. And we like sang it to the manager. Jesse: Oh, you made it? Nicole: Yeah, we did like a whole sales pitch, which honestly, I can't remember right now, but it was based loosely on Laverne and Shirley. And he said yes. And so we actually supplied that deli cookies. And we each made like two hundred fifty dollars. We were really proud of ourselves.
Jesse Purewal [00:05:50] That's incredible. And you learned, and you probably had a couple of no's along the way, right? Or did everybody say yes to you?
Nicole Dawes [00:05:57] No, I mean, people were very skeptical. Most of the people thought it was sort of silly. You know, we did a lot of custom orders and we sold it to that deli. And I think what we learned from it and what my father was really specific on teaching me was how to calculate our margin properly and what we should charge and it was my first lesson in pricing a product.
Jesse Purewal [00:06:20] But I'm fascinated that at that point in your journey, you're already starting to learn about the operating on the financial sides of things and that you had the earnest desire to go out and, as you said, get that summer job, like to go do something that would have the kinds of maybe impacts on people that you'd seen your parents have. I think a lot of people whose parents are kind of, both in the same industry. A lot of times they they have a yearning to get out or you know, sort of try something new, but you really found a connection to to what they were doing.
Nicole Dawes [00:06:56] I did. I mean, I honestly I loved it. At that point in my life, by the time I was 12, my mom actually Ihad left her natural food store and her sister took it over completely. And it's still operational in Cape Cod. There's two locations now. But I loved being at the potato chip factory. I mean, I truly did. And I remember, like at one point in my career, I met somebody who had the opinion that he absolutely would not let his children get into the family business. Like, I think he was a little bit scarred by having to go into his family business. And it caused a lot of personal strife for him among siblings and other relatives. And so he was emphatic that his children not under any circumstances go into their family business. And it was very hard for me to understand that because I really loved it. I loved everything about it.
Jesse Purewal [00:07:44] That said, you didn't go study at a culinary academy right away or go off and get training in some other part of the world on special preparation of food or operations. You, I think, actually had some interests closer to to the business world of
Nicole Dawes [00:08:00] One of the things my father was very specific about was there was no straight line to entrepreneurship. It's not like you go to college, you study this, you become a food entrepreneur. I mean, my father's line was I mean, he did go to college and was an economics major. But I mean, he was a firefighter in Alaska. He worked on a fishing boat. It wasn't like one stop to where he ended up. And so nobody ever really pushed me. This is the career you want to pursue. This is the path you should take. So when I went to college, there was a part of me that was really interested in journalism, actually, and TV journalism in particular. I was kind of interested in that. I had always really admired like the news anchors of my youth. But when I got to college, I really didn't know exactly what I was going to study. It wasn't until my sophomore year that I took an economics class and kind of fell in love with it.
Jesse Purewal [00:08:48] Mm hmm. And you went from college into a field that was closer to getting into working in the food business. I think you worked in an advisory capacity, consulting capacity. You eventually find your way into leading marketing at Cape Cod, the company your your father had started. What were you learning in that early part of your career?
Nicole Dawes [00:09:10] I think one of my earliest lessons was just the importance of really understanding what makes your brand authentic. When you're speaking for a brand, I think it's important that it comes from a place, at least when you're dealing with brands that are smaller, that really do kind of have a stance for something, that you can convey that in an authentic way that that is meaningful for you. And then hopefully it will also be meaningful to the people that buy it.
Jesse Purewal [00:09:41] So what insight did that give you as you started to think about your own ideas? At some point you have this inspiration or this idea for a new company around a healthier and a more natural chip product. So what what kinds of things were surrounding that idea for you? And how did you link that back to your purpose or a purpose that a brand like that could convey?
Nicole Dawes [00:10:05] Well, that that's a really interesting question, because I think I was a little conflicted in terms of like what my personal mission was versus what was right for the Cape Cod brand. I was very interested in sustainability and organic and pushing Cape Cod to go more in that direction. And, you know, I do ultimately think that that could have worked for that brand. But I realized that that was sort of my my passion and my desire, not necessarily what was the right next step for that brand. And I realized that taking the health and wellness and snacks passion that I had, was probably going to have to be my own company, like I was going to have to do that on my own because the Cape Cod brand was about homestyle and delicious, simple ingredients and it was all natural. But I was kind of trying to push it to a place that I don't think that brand really was ready to go or, you know, honestly, maybe even the marketplace wasn't ready for it.
Jesse Purewal [00:11:08] Yeah, the marketplace may not have been ready. And what about the opinions that maybe your your father and some of the people that had been behind him starting that business had. Was there a tension in terms of where maybe the focus was from the business, based on what he wanted to do with it, and maybe where you thought it could go? Or was everybody sort of aligned that way? This makes sense. And now you've got to go pursue it. You just can't pursue it here.
Nicole Dawes [00:11:36] He never really stopped me from exploring things I was interested in. I think the biggest challenge at Cape Cod chips when I tried to do the organic potato chips and again, nobody was really against the idea. It was just that, you know, I was pushing for something that was kind of the world wasn't ready for. And I don't think it made a lot of sense for the entire resources of that company to focus on something that had a very low chance of succeeding. So I kind of pivoted the whole thing to more reduced fat and that vein, versus the organic. But knowing in the back of my mind that that's where I wanted to go personally. Right.
Jesse Purewal [00:12:14] And so you would go there eventually with with Late July. And I want to go back to 2001, because in 2001, the natural food and beverage market was about a seven billion dollar market. Not small, but nothing like what you were talking about in terms of mass market CPG and, you know, Honest Tea and Earth's Own, brands like that, are just getting their start and ingredients don't really exist yet at scale. Fast forward 17 years later. 2018. The market has grown over 20 percent a year. It's a two hundred and twenty, two hundred and thirty billion dollar business. Did you think back in 2001 that it would be that kind of a growth or did you just have a conviction that, boy, this is better for people and this is better for the world and I can make this taste great. So let's kind of experiment and see where it'll go.
Nicole Dawes [00:13:08] I mean, I still believe we're in our infancy. You know, I think that we're going to see a shift over the next decade where natural and organic products continue to grow at this rate while they kind of inverse with the rest of the CPG world. I mean, in 2001, I knew that if we could make products that tasted more delicious than what was out there and they were healthier and made more sustainably and added value, I don't think that you can ever be out there being two, three times more expensive. I mean, that's not going to create seismic change. But you get there over time. Obviously, as you increase your efficiencies, the prices will come down. But I think I knew that if you could do that, why wouldn't people choose it? If you gave someone an option that was better in all categories, eventually someone's going to try that and they're going to love it and they're going to switch to it. I did not think it was going to happen overnight, obviously, and I still don't think we're there. I still think we have a lot of room for growth.
Jesse Purewal [00:14:14] And when would you say you had your first product breakthrough? At Late July.
Nicole Dawes [00:14:20] I mean, honestly, almost right out of the gate, because we, I mean, I think about my mom's 1970's natural food store and as much as I have really fond memories of the counter and the friendly people, I mean, I also have terrible, terrible memories of the carob covered rice cakes and the cardboard tasting crackers. And I think about what had changed from 1978 to 2001 and the whole center part of the store, it was a shockingly little amount. So when we came out with crackers that were organic, simple ingredients that tasted as good or better in my opinion, than what was available in a conventional grocery store, I think people were really surprised and almost right away our brand was being distributed nationwide. So, I mean, I think people were really excited about the idea that someone was finally paying attention to this middle part of the store where it had been largely left alone for for quite some time.
Jesse Purewal [00:15:25] We'll talk about maybe the decision that you made and how it impacted your success there and the decision around doing crackers rather than something else, because there's the middle of the store, but the middle of the store has lots of different shopping velocities in it. And you were in a lower velocity part of the store, which maybe gave you a little more time to expand, and understand and kind of optimize what you were doing, but at the same time, there were tradeoffs around how much people would be able to return to your brand. So what about that challenge was the right move and a great move? And what about it, kind of made you say, boy, we also have a ton of other opportunity here that might be adjacent.
Nicole Dawes [00:16:06] I don't think that I fully understood just how different the velocity would be of crackers versus potato chips. I mean, I knew obviously people don't buy as many crackers as they do potato chips, but we were putting our budgets together and just imagining just how our growth would go. We had this very quick growth and we actually launched in the fall, which is actually a very smart time to launch a cracker company because you're coming into the real cracker season. Cracker sales fall off a cliff when the weather starts to warm up, which is the exact opposite of potato chips. So learning all of those lessons is obviously hard because we had to make a lot of adjustments. But I think also learning it allowed us to understand why it might make sense for us to go into more complimentary categories to crackers so that we weren't looking at such seasonal sales or and hopefully something where we could increase our velocity a little bit.
Jesse Purewal [00:17:05] Well, I've also heard you say that sometimes knowledge can be bad and having so much understanding of what it took to bring a potato chip to market and really understanding that product category, the marketing dynamics and the consumption dynamics around it, in some ways made it easier for you to eschew that out of the gate and say, now we're going to do this different thing. But it sounds like over time you felt like you could pivot into that. So what what allowed you to be able to step into those new adjacencies in chips and get into the higher velocity categories and kind of keep the momentum of the business going, even though you knew it would be a totally funky change to your operational model to be able to accommodate that.
Nicole Dawes [00:17:49] We needed to do something to jumpstart into higher velocity sales. But it was also, you know, it was that like burning desire that I'd always had to continue to improve the health of snacks. I work with my husband and he and I were sitting down one day and, you know, we were looking at our product portfolio. And, you know, while I loved some of our products, we had a line of extraordinarily delicious sandwich cookies, actually, I just didn't feel like they represented that future that I saw for that for snacks and for the category as a whole. Like, I just I wanted to make healthier products that were sustainably sourced, that tasted incredibly delicious, and cookies checked like one or two of those boxes. But they just weren't pushing the world in a healthier direction. And so the one product that we felt really could check all of those boxes was tortilla chips. So it was like, I was really drawn to that category because I think it was like the culmination of my entire life like leading to that moment. And we made the kind of radical decision to discontinue all of our cookies, which we were only about eight million in sales at the time, and they represented two million of those eight million. So it was a pretty risky decision to make and push our whole company towards creating delicious but also healthier snacks thatwere, used, organic ingredients. And I didn't have the direct knowledge of how complicated it was. I'd always been on the periphery of seeing my father down the line of testing distributors and how expensive and complicated it is. And I think not knowing that to every nuance was probably what gave me the confidence to believe that we could do it and not let the fear of how complicated it would be hold us back
Jesse Purewal [00:19:50] For people who are interested in growing a company or an enterprise that in these kinds of categories where it's highly kind of intermediated, like complex channel dynamics, very different product velocities, depending on the subcategory. How would you counsel people to think about or maybe how did you think about the balance of kind of building a brand and driving end user awareness and demand and an understanding of shared interest around your story and your purpose versus kind of spending to the trade and building relationships with the channel and kind of getting to the place where you had shelf space. How does one in the early years, early quarters and years of a business like this think about the optimization around those two different audiences and those two different objectives?
Nicole Dawes [00:20:39] I mean, I don't think it should be radically different because I think, like, your messaging and your brand should be pretty consistent. You know, in the early days of Late July, the majority of our focus went towards the trade, because if you're not on the shelf and you're not building relationships with your retailers, it's going to be very difficult for anybody to know you exist, particularly when you're a small brand trying to compete with much, much larger brands. I've always thought that those retailer, and the trade relationships are probably the most important relationships that we have and have built over the years. You know, I still think that the messaging and who you are and all of those pieces kind of translate between both. But, you know, I would definitely counsel people to focus on their trade relationships because, you know, in the end, you know, those are the people who are going to believe in you and give you opportunities and and help you grow your brand.
Jesse Purewal [00:21:39] What was the toughest decision you had to make within the Late July business in the time after you lost your dad, and your dad unexpectedly passed away fairly young; the business continued to thrive under your leadership. A lot went right. Some things probably didn't. But when you look back, what do you think is the most high impact decision or or set of decisions that you made on behalf of the business that allowed Late July to continue to thrive into the last decade and continue to grow?
Nicole Dawes [00:22:17] The biggest decision was launching into tortilla chips. I mean, the year that my father passed away, you know our bank actually used his death to put us in a technical default on a really large loan that we had, and it was 2009 so it was also the height of the recession and we were just barely EBITDA positive, but we weren't profitable yet. So, you know, I was trying to replace a really large loan after my father had just passed away where I think people had some confidence in me, but I didn't really put myself out there that much in terms of interviews or press. So, you know, I don't know how much people even knew the involvement level I had, you know, that it was actually my business that was started. This is the year we made the decision to discontinue two million dollars worth of business and pivot our entire company into chips. I mean, hands down. It was the riskiest decision that we ever made in the company's history. And we did everything all at once in this one year of 2009. And I think forcing ourselves to really define who we were and clearly coming out of this with what our mission was, who we were as a brand, what that authentic brand messaging should be and what we stood for, I think it just made us stronger than we'd ever been. After we refinanced our loan, thankfully, to RSF Social Finance in San Francisco who stepped up on our behalf. We spent the year of 2010 actually kind of working on the tortilla chips and launching them. And we officially hit stores in the fourth quarter of 2010 and our brand never looked back. I mean, we grew exponentially from that point forward. So, I mean, it was definitely the riskiest decision we ever made, because if it hadn't worked, you know, I'm not sure honestly what we would have done next. I think everything would have been very, very different in a much, much more negative way. So taking that step off the cliff, you know, we ended up kind of catapulting to this completely new level as a brand.
Jesse Purewal [00:24:19] Nicole you've spoken and written about some of the assumptions and misunderstandings that prospective customers and others in the industry had about your role at Late July. You were, in fact a founder, but sometimes you had a personal struggle with perceptions versus reality, people's perceptions versus your your truth in a business leadership context, because you were a woman, because you were someone's daughter in this case, how did you navigate and manage that? And how do you counsel other women entrepreneurs and women leaders to do the same?
Nicole Dawes [00:24:57] I think earlier on in my career, I was much more sensitive to it in terms of people kind of knowing my role and understanding it. And one of the moments I think that was the most kind of the biggest gut punch I think that I had in my whole career was, I knew my role in terms of being a founder. And a lot of the decisions that we've been made were driven by me and so forth and so on. I was actually at my father's wake and one of our investors who was an investor that my dad had brought in, he tried to get a shareholder's meeting together because he was like questioning my ability to run it in the absence of my father. And I just couldn't help but think if I had been a son instead of a daughter or looked differently, I don't think I look like what you in your head would think a CEO would necessarily look like. And at the time, obviously, I was much younger than I am now, too. I don't think in his mind I looked the part. Luckily, he was a small shareholder and couldn't really do anything. But just the fact that he was even trying to do that to me was just, you know, it took this bad moment in my life and really just was the kind of the exclamation point on just all of the uncertainties that I had around myself, too. But what it made me realize coming out of that was that I'm only going to ever be judged on my results. I should only be focused on doing the best job I can and letting my results speak for who I am. And slowly, over time, my confidence in myself grew to the point where I didn't care. You know, people could say, what they wanted to say they could do, they could do whatever they wanted. But ultimately I knew that everything was succeeding and I knew and I believed in my ability to do it.
Jesse Purewal [00:26:41] So, Nicole, after 16 years with Late July, you extend into founding yet another company, Nixey Sparkling Water. I know it's a it's a product that continues to hew to your personal philosophies and beliefs around healthier and better for you, free of synthetics, free of carriers, no artificial preservatives. Talk about your intent with this brand and what you built it to stand for.
Nicole Dawes [00:27:11] One of the products that is very complementary to snacks is obviously sparkling water. It's something we were kind of always around at Late July. And I'd watch the category with a lot of excitement. Carbonated beverages are 30 billion dollars in sales. I mean, they're enormous and sparkling water is just this tiny part of that right now. And while soda is declining, sparkling water is exponentially growing. I mean, the same exact thing is happening in this category. It's getting healthier. It's changing, and change takes time. It's not something that happens in three years. It's something that happens over 20 years. And if you can get in there and create a product that speaks to the needs of people, this health and wellness shopper, the changing dynamics of the grocery store, you're going to be a successful brand.
Jesse Purewal [00:27:59] And 2020, if I have this right, was Nixie's first full year. So you launched during the pandemic. What were some of the moves that you had to make that maybe you hadn't originally contemplated in the strategy?
Nicole Dawes [00:28:11] Yeah, I mean, you know, obviously we had our first full year during a global pandemic, which was certainly not something we had anticipated. And we made the decision very, very early on not to pivot to D2C because we're a very small team. We knew we couldn't do everything great. So we made the decision to continue to push into retail and to launch on Amazon, but not try to build our D2C business. I think D2C is, depending on your product, could potentially be a smarter decision, you know, if you have a lightweight, expensive product. Unfortunately for beverages, it's not ideal for D2C because it's so large, it's so heavy, it's expensive to ship and it's easily damaged. So it doesn't present itself perfectly for D2C anyway. But given all of those factors, we decided to stick to our original strategy of growing our retail relationships and supporting online shoppers through Instacart, Mercado, local delivery places like Good Eggs in the Bay Area and Amazon.
Jesse Purewal [00:29:24] Nicole, you talked when we were discussing Late July about how, you know, maybe in the view of some people, you were maybe more behind the scenes with Nixey. You clearly are on the front lines. You actually are in many ways the literal face of the brand. What is it about either the nature of the beverage category or about your growth as a person and as a leader that made you want to and start to be able to feel comfortable with kind of coming out there and stepping out as a bit of the visible face of the brand. And what do you think that that does for the value of the brand and to engage your audience?
Nicole Dawes [00:30:06] Ultimately, I was convinced, and partially because I like it, you know, I want to know who's behind the products I buy. I enjoy knowing that people put their whole lives on the line to make a brand mean something and care about all the choices that a brand is making - that is really meaningful to me. So it's a little bit hypocritical for me to want that in brands, but not put myself out there in that same way. So with Nixey, I wanted people to know that this is something that kind of runs deep through me. You know, I've I've thought about every decision that we're making and each one is meaningful and impactful to me, which is, I think, why I decided that it was time to kind of be more comfortable with that.
Jesse Purewal [00:30:52] And Nicole, at this stage of your career, if you're in a conversation, let's say over a dinner, you know, a heart to heart, a woman entrepreneur comes to you, says, listen, what what's the thing I need to do? What's the practical advice you'd give me? What's the move I should make to be successful out of the gate? Keeping in mind everything you've learned, what's the thing that you would would tell that that young woman entrepreneur, that young woman leader to act on and to be bold about?
Nicole Dawes [00:31:22] I think that I as I look back, I wish that I'd learned to trust my own instincts much earlier on in my career. And that I had the confidence to to to believe in myself earlier on, to have that same faith in myself that I tell other people to have in themselves when when they're just starting out.
Jesse Purewal [00:31:41] Well, Nicole, thank you for your time and your honesty and your wisdom and your pragmatic advice today on the show. And thanks for being here with me. I greatly appreciate it. And I wish you well on the rest of the journey with Nixey and with everything else you've got going.
Nicole Dawes [00:31:58] Thank you so much for having me. I really first of all, I love your podcast, and I was just really looking forward to this, so I appreciate it. And I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
Jesse Purewal [00:32:09] All right. Be well. Thanks so much for listening to Breakthrough Builders, you can subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed the show, I'd be grateful if you could spread the word by leaving a rating and a review. It really does help other listeners find us. And please tell your friends. Breakthrough Builders is a production of the industries team at Qualtrics. The show is written and hosted by me, Jesse Purewal, mastering by Nate Crenshaw, post-production and music by Clean Cuts Audio, part of the Three Seas Collective. Design by Baron Santiago and Vansuka Chindavijak. Website by Gregory Hedon and photography by Christy Hemm Klok. Special thanks to the entire Breakthrough Builders crew at Qualtrics, including Ali Rohani, Jeremy Smith, John Johnson, and Kylan Lundeen.