How One Man Went From Prison to Building a Fitness Empire (REDCON1) | Aaron Singerman 💪 EP142
34 min
•Oct 6, 20256 months agoSummary
Aaron Singerman, CEO and founder of REDCON1, shares his journey from heroin addiction to building a $100M+ fitness and beverage empire. He discusses business scaling strategies, brand differentiation in the crowded supplement market, employee equity retention, and the importance of purpose-driven business with charitable giving.
Insights
- Passion-driven obsession is a double-edged sword that can fuel entrepreneurial success but requires conscious channeling away from destructive behaviors
- In commodity markets like supplements, brand differentiation comes from personality, purpose, and community building rather than product formulation alone
- Relationships and industry connections are force multipliers that enable rapid scaling—new entrepreneurs often underestimate their value relative to capital
- Retaining key employees requires equity participation and vesting structures, not just salary increases, especially in competitive talent markets
- Purpose-driven charitable giving resonates with consumers, retailers, and investors, creating competitive advantage beyond product quality
Trends
Founder-led personal branding as primary differentiation strategy in CPG and supplement marketsMilitary-themed branding and veteran-focused corporate social responsibility gaining traction in fitness/beverage sectorsDirect-to-consumer (DTC) marketing and community ambassador programs replacing traditional retail-only distribution modelsEquity-based employee retention becoming standard practice for scaling CPG companies to prevent talent poachingMulti-channel retail expansion (DTC, Amazon, Walmart, specialty retailers, convenience stores) as growth strategy for beverage brandsTransparent product labeling and commodity-proof differentiation through brand storytelling rather than formula secrecyGenerational wealth planning and responsible inheritance structures becoming board-level discussion topics for foundersPurpose-driven business models with integrated charitable giving as consumer preference and competitive moat
Topics
Supplement Industry Commoditization and Brand DifferentiationDirect-to-Consumer (DTC) Marketing StrategyFounder Personal Branding and AuthenticityEmployee Equity and Retention StrategyRetail Channel Expansion and DistributionCommunity Ambassador ProgramsPurpose-Driven Business and Corporate Social ResponsibilityMilitary Veteran Partnerships and SponsorshipsScaling from $0 to $100M+ RevenueBootstrap Funding vs. Investor CapitalAddiction Recovery and Career ReinventionGenerational Wealth PlanningBeverage Industry Growth and Market PositioningRelationship-Based Business DevelopmentProduct Pricing Strategy in Competitive Markets
Companies
REDCON1
Aaron Singerman's primary company; sports supplement and canned energy beverage brand founded in 2016 with $100M+ rev...
Blackstone Labs
Singerman's previous supplement company where he owned 33% and generated $20M revenue before founding REDCON1
Vitamin Shoppe
Major retail partner for REDCON1 products; mentioned for sampling campaigns and distribution expansion
Circle K
Convenience store chain partner; REDCON1 expanded from 20K to targeting 50K+ locations by end of 2026
Amazon
E-commerce retailer where REDCON1 products are sold alongside other major distribution channels
Walmart
Major retail partner for REDCON1 product distribution across United States
Whole Foods
Premium grocery retailer mentioned as key account requiring relationship management and retention
Trader Joe's
Specialty grocery retailer mentioned as important retail account requiring dedicated relationship management
GNC
Specialty supplement retailer mentioned as key distribution channel requiring relationship-based account management
Costco
Warehouse retailer mentioned as major account requiring dedicated relationship management for product placement
Musco Development
Company that gave Singerman podcast opportunity early in his career, helping launch his media presence
People
Aaron Singerman
CEO and founder of REDCON1; primary guest discussing his journey from addiction to building $100M+ fitness empire
PJ Braun
Co-founder of Blackstone Labs with Singerman; helped build previous supplement company to $20M revenue
Brandon Cruz
Retired Navy SEAL and co-founder/frontman of REDCON1; key to brand's military positioning and credibility
Ryan Bates
Retired Navy SEAL and co-founder/frontman of REDCON1; helped establish military-focused brand identity
Mike
Personal trainer in Houston who mentored Singerman on passion-driven pricing and customer loyalty principles
Joe Weider
Father of modern bodybuilding; cited as inspiration for Singerman's career path in fitness industry
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Bodybuilding legend who inspired Singerman's early passion; realized he couldn't replicate Arnold's path
Peter McGuff
Former editor-in-chief of Flex Magazine; cited as industry inspiration for Singerman's career development
Jim Manion
Creator of IFBB Pro Bodybuilding organization; cited as inspiration for Singerman's industry entry strategy
Ronnie Coleman
Professional bodybuilder; cited as athlete Singerman admired but realized he couldn't emulate as career path
Jay Cutler
Professional bodybuilder; cited as athlete Singerman admired but realized he couldn't emulate as career path
Quotes
"I'm going to do this and nothing else matters, and focus out all of the noise. And that can be a curse, by the way, for sure."
Aaron Singerman•Early discussion on obsessive focus
"You're never going to get a Porsche like me... Do you love training people? I love helping people here. When I'm in the gym, I'm thinking about how to help them, when I go home at night, I'm thinking about how to help them."
Mike (personal trainer)•Mentorship moment on passion-driven pricing
"If you don't have a strong brand and your marketing doesn't tell people who you are and what you're about, it's going to be tough. It's going to be really tough."
Aaron Singerman•Brand differentiation discussion
"I buy the product for $10 and sell it for 50. What do you mean 8% return?"
Aaron Singerman•On business reinvestment vs. passive investing
"You're not owed anything, right? You need to work. You need to work."
Aaron Singerman•Advice to his children on wealth inheritance
Full Transcript
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Money Moneys podcast where we cover three core topics. How to make money, and invest money, how to give it away to charity. Our guest here has built up a very, very large business. He's built up a personal brand. He's helped a lot of humans get healthier, lose weight, build up strength, and build up confidence and all the things in between there. So we're going to dive deep into the different categories of what happens, not just in investing money side, but what happens about investing to yourself? Becoming healthier, becoming fitter. What does that do for your household, for your career, and for your life in general? Now, as you guys know, these podcasts are under 40 minutes because the average commute to work is 45 minutes, and the average workout is 45 minutes. So this episode will be between 32 and 38 minutes for your listening pleasure. Now, without further ado, our guest, Aaron, if you could give us a quick two-minute bio, so be sure to the money. Sure. So my name is Aaron Sangerin. I'm the CEO and founder of RedCon 1, which is a sports supplement brand that has transitioned into also canned energy and beverage space. So we started off thinking bodybuilding and fitness, which is my passion, and it's transitioned into a much larger business. For me personally, my journey is an unusual one because I started my life early as a kind of mixed up kid, a drug addict, intravenous heroin and cocaine addict who really didn't know where they were going to go in life. I was lucky enough to decide, find and pursue my passion of bodybuilding and fitness, get into the world of bodybuilding and fitness as an interviewer. I imagine like a bobcastus of bodybuilding and fitness. And as soon as I got pregnant with my first child, I realized that that's not going to make enough money to pay the bills and pursue the passion of supplements, sports supplements, which is something that I've been taking and passionate about my entire childhood adult life, and was able to create success in that. It sounds like an upward trajectory from there, but the truth is there's been some very jagged falls along the way. I went to prison along the way, following that same passion and then came back out of prison and continued the journey with Redcon 1 and have been able to have some explosive growth, even though I've had quite a bit of pitfalls along the way. So it wasn't a journey straight to the top. There was quite a few jagged edges along the way. Well, I'm very excited to ask you a lot of questions in because I think it's important. I think too often on social media people pretend everything is perfect. The perfect filter, the perfect story, the perfect household, the perfect child, the perfect relationship, the perfect, perfect, perfect. Perfect is not relatable. No. And I definitely know that it hasn't been too many perfects. So it's been a struggle and a way, you know, one after another of obstacles that I've had to overcome, but I never got myself too down about any one of them and tried to figure out a way forward, a positive way. And I think that certainly is relatable because most people don't just have this wonderful path to the top. So on the make money side, there's so many different categories in personal training, weightlifting, competitions, creating supplements, creating products, opening gyms. There's so many different things from a financial perspective in the health and wellness category. You're doing a lot of them. Not only do you have the supplement company, but you also have a gym that you built in in Boka. You've also got different divisions. Now you started the energy drink. Walk us through the different elements of your business empire. Yeah. So initially it was about passion. And you know, I tell people a lot when we talk about it, people are trying to figure out which their path in life is going to be, is for me, I was very lucky to have a passion from an early age at 13 years old. I fell in love with bodybuilding and fitness. So I always remember watching with my dad, predator and Arnold, Arnold, you know, are the arm wrestling scene or Arnold arm wrestles, Carl and I saw that muscle and I thought, man, that's cool. And my dad thought it was cool too, even though he wasn't really until all that. And I pursued that passion and was able to find that. And even through all of the down times and some of the really difficult times, I always had that interest. And so when I was able to get away from the drugs and take a good look at my life, the only thing that I had a consistent interest in was bodybuilding and fitness. And being a tall, skinny Jewish guy by nature, being the next Mr. Olympia Arnold is very unlikely. So I realized pretty quickly, like, I'm not going to be Arnold. So if I'm not going to be Arnold, what could I be in the same space and make money and be able to pay the bills? Honestly, at that point, it wasn't even about being a millionaire or a billionaire or any of that kind of craziness. It's just about, man, if I could just follow my dream, pay my bills and do something fine, man, that just seemed like 100% the goal. And so that is what I did. I ended up focusing every bit of my energy on that. I stopped doing the things that normal 20, by the way, I was doing drugs and stuff to my late 20s. So it's not like I discovered this early on and had this trajectory that began in my late teens. It took me till 28, 27 to get off of heroin and to start following the passion. But I stopped everything that everybody else does. I didn't go out. I didn't go out with girls. I didn't go to movies. I was strictly focused on how could I get into the bodybuilding space? And I looked at people like Joe Weeter, who is the father of modern bodybuilding, discovered Arnold Schwarzenegger and like Peter McGuff, who was the editor-in-chief of Flex Magazine and other Jim Manion, who is the creator of the Pro Bodybuilding organization, IFBB. I looked at these guys as my inspiration instead of the Ronnie Coleman's, the J-Colors. I loved all those guys, but I realized I couldn't be them. So I put everything I had, all my attention, all my focus, all my energy, and to figure out a way to get in. And I got shot down over and over and over again, where I would send articles for freedom magazines, and I would try to break in by emailing the hosts of the initial podcast when podcasts just started going out. And I did anything I could, and eventually I was able to break in and get a chance to interview one of my favorite podcasts hosts on his podcast called Off Top Big Radio. And that was what gave me the opportunity to then take that small opportunity to get my own podcast with the same gentleman, and that got the attention of Musco Development, which gave me a chance to do a podcast there. And then so on and so forth, opportunity after opportunity, I pursued passionately with everything that I had, and I did that, continued doing that same level of passion, to discover sports supplements, which led me to start making actual money. And I would say that the journey to that was a long journey, and it didn't happen overnight, but by following my passion and pursuing it relentlessly, at the sacrifice of quite a few other things in life, I was able to achieve a fair element of success by the time I was in my early 30s and made my first million dollars at 31. So from drug addiction at 28 to a million dollars at 31, you can imagine you have to really, really give it everything you got. I've always had that ability to switch. You know, that sort of obsessiveness that is maybe not something that's easily taught, I have this unnatural way of being able to say, I'm going to do this and nothing else matters, and focus out all of the noise. And that can be a curse, by the way, for sure. I'm sure it's probably part of the drug addiction, everything else is that same kind of obsessiveness that has made me successful in business. So on the making money side, there's personal trainers that charge 40 bucks an hour and some that charge 100 bucks an hour. There's gyms that charge 10 bucks a month and you know, equinox charges 300 bucks a month. What do you think the difference is, would be someone that's charging small, medium, versus large? Sure. So I have a great example for this. When I first got sober, the first thing I did was personal training. It was the easiest thing to get into. I loved bi-building, I loved fitness, I knew how to build muscles, I knew how to work out, and I went to a place, a wellness center in Houston, Texas, that's where I was after I was born, raised in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina sent me to, as an evacuee, to Houston, Texas, and there, once I got sober, I worked at this wellness center, and there was a guy there, Mike, another trainer, and he was very busy, very upbeat, good energy, and one day I pulled up in the morning with him and he had a brand new Porsche 911 turbo, and I looked at him and I said, man, I told him I said, Mike, I'm going to get a, I'm going to get a Porsche like you, man, you're my inspiration, and he said you're never going to get a Porsche like me. And I was like, you know, my first impulse was like, oh, you know, fuck this guy, like you know, I was mad, I was mad. Sure. And I said, dude, what kind of thing is that to say? And he said, do you love training people? I said, not really, he was, I love training people, he goes, I love helping people here, he's like, when I'm in the gym, I'm thinking about how to help them, when I go home at night, I'm thinking about how to help them, when I sleep and I dream, I think about how to help these people. And as a result of that, I get great results and people feel that energy. He's like, I watch you in the gym and you don't love it. And I was like, yeah, yeah, you're right. You know, I don't love it. And Mike charged a few hundred dollars an hour, I'm charging fifty dollars an hour. He's got people lined up for him and it's the same thing that comes down to what we just talked about. He had that passion. And actually that conversation with Mike, the trainer, made me sit down and think, like, what am I doing with my life? If I'm sober and I'm going to be, you know, if I'm going to make something out of this life, I should figure out what it is I'm passionate about because it isn't training. He was right. It just was kind of like a slap in the face to be told straight up like that. Yeah. But it helped me tremendously. I'm still in touch with Mike and he watches our, my success has applauded, you know, from the sidelines doing what he's still doing and loving what he's loving. So it's interesting. So why dive into the supplement space? There's thousands and thousands of brands that are out there all over the world. What makes your brand stand out and why dive into that category? So I would say that when the brand began nine years ago, I had another supplement company before that. I'm actually on quite a few sports supplement companies, about ten companies over the entire lifetime of my career where I've been a part owner or I've helped develop the products where I had some ownership portion. And the one that I had sold previous to starting Redcon 1, I sold my shares and at that time it was already a really crowded space. You know, when you go to the Olympia or the Arnold Classic or any of these big expos, you see these big booths, these companies and they spend this money and then the next year they're gone and you're like, wow, whatever happened to these guys now they're, that's, because it's competitive. It's a difficult space to be in. And so the reason why I initially got into it was because I knew there was an ability to fill a niche and personalize the brand. So in Blackstone started, there were very few owners that had anything to do with the brand. And so I was ahead of my time, me and my partner at the time, PJ Braun got in front of the camera and we personalized the brand because we were two likable, charismatic kind of Jimbrose who didn't really know where we were doing, but people related to the fact that we're just two Jimbrose and don't know what we're doing and making it work. People liked that. People thought that this is something I can relate to and now we have a lot more of that. But that getting in front of the camera and personalizing the space was big. When Redcon one started, it was the same thing again where I had to figure out how I differentiate myself from the crowd. What can make Redcon one different? Obviously we can make great products. You know, that's obviously a big deal to make a great product to sell a very reasonable price to do a good job marketing because basically sports supplements are a commodity. You literally, you can have Dan, Dan labs come out and you can take my exact formula and you can use my exact formula in one of our hit products like Total War where our labels are transparently labeled. So you have every ingredient on the back. You bring it to a flavor scientist, you make the exact one. So Total War, it's Dan War. So it's just the commodity. So if you don't have a strong brand and your marketing doesn't tell people who you are and what you're about, it's going to be tough. It's going to be really tough. I tell people when they say they want to start a T-shirt brand or whatever brand you have to say, well, what's going to make your T-shirts different? Why are they going to buy this T-shirt and say that T-shirt? Maybe it's a price, maybe it's some quality, but there has to be something different. So for us with Redcon one, it came right down to the name in the beginning. We decided in 2000, it's January 2016, I thought, man, to make this different, I already have the bodybuilding crew. I have that group, right? That's the low-hanging for me. But what I thought was different was, in 2016, in January, the United States military was particularly, I felt like, at a golden era of my lifetime where people really respected specifically special forces, got more polarized quickly thereafter. But in 2016, in the beginning, I was like, what a cool opportunity. I have two good friends, Brandon Cruz and Ryan Bates, who are Navy SEALs, just retired. And these guys are good looking, charismatic, smart, funny. I can use these guys as frontmen, and I can create a company that stands for something. Redcon one, really, technically, means the highest state of military preparedness or readiness. And I wanted to do a brand that had something where it stood for something, where it was a purpose-driven company. And both of my grandparents, your grandfather's, fought in the Korean War and World War II. And my grandfather, on my father's side, who's a big deal because he was an officer who stormed the beach in Germany and commanded men as a Jewish officer. It's very rare. So I always was very proud of that. And I thought, in a different universe, if I hadn't done the drugs and everything, maybe that would be my path. Maybe I could have went in that direction. So I thought, this is an opportunity to do something really cool, where I can help servicemen and women by, I know, the third part of the show is charity, so we will save it for that. But I thought, that would a great differentiating way to do things. So that the brand can stand for something more than just great products and a great formula, a great price. So when things are a commodity, it's easy to get someone to buy something once. Not too easy, but it's easy-ish. So you get someone to buy something once. How do you get someone to reorder, subscribe, buy a year after year, whether it's where the shirt's proudly, buy the supplements, et cetera, buy the energy drink? How do you get someone to want to be part of the brand in perpetuity? So I think for looking back at RedCone, it happened in a few ways. Number one was because we built a strong brand that stood for something. I think it was also very important that we had a really good social media team and the message we were putting out resonated with people. I think it's important that you have placement, so it's easy to purchase, so you can get it. The more available it is, the easier it is to re-purchase. At that time, we were really effective at direct-to-consumer marketing, direct response marketing. And so you had, by having a good product that people like and they want, and they like what it stands for, it means something more to them than just the protein powder. As long as, by the way, the product has to taste good. If it's a garbage product, it's going to have even harder time. But we quickly built a community around RedCone 1 where we built the Tier Operator program and how it happened was very organic because the products were popular and we were doing well right off the bat and we had a lot of digital presence. People started asking, can I be sponsored by the brand? And I bootstrap this whole thing. I had no investors. It was all completely and totally my money. I had to be very, very careful about where I sold my money. And so there was a lot of people that reached out who said, man, I would love to be part of this brand and they were asking for sponsorship. And I had to say no. And I said no a few times where I realized I was disenfranchising people by saying no. And so the thought was like, okay, how can I say yes? So we came up with this Tier Operator program where anybody who has a social media presence that doesn't have anything like outwardly racist or nudity or anything that doesn't fit with the brand ethos. We had a very specific, one of the cool things we did with Riot Turn 1 that was different than any other brand I had is we created a brand book in advance. Who are we? What do we stand for? What are our fonts? What are our pantone colors? Who are we? And then if you didn't fit in the brand filter, which would be obviously somebody's racist or whatever, right? If you don't fit, you can't be in. But if you do fit, come on in. You can earn points. The points will get you the ability to get free swag, free products. And eventually if you move up the tiers enough, you get money, you get commission off of it. And so that building that, it ended up being about 30,000 people towards the beginning that were all posting on social media that were all participating in the brand that love the products that were willing to do work at Expose and sampling events all over the country. It was really neat when we went to Vitamin Shop originally and they said, hey, we're doing big sampling campaigns. How many events do you think you can do? I said, we can do hundreds of events a month, literally. Because we can mobilize these guys and girls who just want points. That's what they're doing for them. They want points. And the points helps them get to the next level or get to the next piece of swag. And they love the brand and they're coming there. It's not a pretty girl. You pay $100 to go to the event. It doesn't know anything about the products. You just hands it out. These are people that are passionate about the products. So I think those are all key factors on getting somebody not only to try it, but to repurchase. Because obviously that's the key. If you can get, you don't need a whole lot of people if they're all buying regularly. If they're all subscribed, you don't need millions of customers. Which is great that we got millions of customers. But that was not the original. Honestly, my original thought then, I left Blackstone Labs and I owned 33% of Blackstone Labs. And we were doing about $10 million or so in revenue. I'm sorry, $20 million in revenue, the last year that I left. So I might look, if I can do $78 million in revenue at Redcon, I'm pretty much even with where I was before. And we were doing a million dollars a month within the first year. Whoa. Which is really cool. And almost all of that was direct to consumer. So I passed up in one year. I passed up my biggest lofty of school at Blackstone going, just man, if I could just replace the income. And it gets all me and I own 100%. And I get to make the decisions, what would it win that would be? But we ended up making a little under 12 million in the first year and a little over 30 the second year. So it was like, wildly successful, very fast and very exciting. So most companies come out of the gates. And if they did one or two million, that'd be great for the first year. What do you think was the difference that you did 12 million and 30 million right out the gate? Well, I think there's, unfortunately, for the new person watching this show right now and goes, well, how do I recreate that? It's tough because I had a few things out of the gate that people don't have, right? I had connections. So I had relationships, which is a very big deal. Very big deal. As the CEO of a $100 million plus, you know, a nine-figure business, one of the biggest things that I do and my job is build relationships and utilize those relationships to get favors or a better price or to get our product run quicker or use that to meet other people that then help the business. That's a big part of what I do. So then keeping people accountable and motivating the troops kind of, so to say, that's a big part. So I had these relationships. I had some money in the bank, which helps for sure. So I wasn't, even though I was bootstrapping it, I was able to start right come one with a dozen employees. When I started Blackson, it was just me and my business partner. I didn't have the money to afford to even have buy, have a person to pack the products. I packed the products and PJ really packed most of the products until we hired our first person. And by the way, funny how things are difficult when you just get going, I had a difficult time making in my head sense to pay anybody to pack the products because I can pack the products. You know, you start thinking you can do everything better than everybody else. And then obviously if you want to scale business, it doesn't work like that. So knowledge industry knowledge, the ability to scale because I had the cash and the ability to have the relationships. For example, one of our manufacturers in the very beginning, I ordered $500,000 for product to start and cost of goods. And he said, you have 60 days to pay me back. And I was able to sell all $500,000 of products within the 60 days. So there was no cash needed. So it goes, how much do you need to start right now? I don't need any cash. I need a relationship. And the ability obviously to sell. I can't sell the product then. That's a problem. So when is the turning point for someone out there listening that they went from making 80 grand to 100 grand to 150, start making some money for their household and for themselves? When is the turning point when they start to consider maybe investing into other things? Whether it's real estate, crypto, angel investing. There's so many different options out there. We don't have to get into that part. But when did you decide, you know what, I'm going to start to diversify a bit, start investing other things. You know, I, as I said, by the time I was 28, I really had no money at all. And I started generating money very quickly. Because I used that obsessiveness. As soon as I had an opportunity, I looked for another opportunity, I looked for another opportunity. And I distinctly remember saving up the first few hundred thousand dollars in the bank and feeling like this is unbelievable. The first thing we invested in was a house, a down payment on a house. So I don't know if I would recommend that these days. The same way as I would have, you know, 15 years ago, very different. But then pretty much all of the initial investment that I had went into investing into myself and into businesses. I didn't start investing into like equities and real estate and stuff like crypto for years, honestly. I'm not saying is the right way to go. I think, you know, it's smart to take a portion of your income and start investing in index ones and stuff like this very early on, the earlier the better, 401k, etc. I don't think I started doing it until after I had a million dollars or so in the bank, where I started thinking about it because I was so single-mindedly and narrowly focused on the business stuff that when somebody said, well, you can make an 8% return. I'm like, 8% return. I buy the product for $10 and sell it for 50. What do you mean? Right. So it's difficult. It was difficult to get my head around it until you start thinking about the future and building generational wealth and your kids and other things like that. So it took me a little while. So at some point the 8% matters because you hit a certain part of a business where you can't invest more into the company. It has what's called either diminishing returns or you just don't need that much capital for the business. And that is typically a time where 8% sounds really exciting because now you don't want the money just sitting in your piggy bank. Oftentimes people save up 100 grand their savings account and they don't realize that if that money's not moving, if it's not being invested, well, 100 grand spends like 92,000 extra. Then it spends like 83,000. You try to buy a Ford truck and that Ford truck was 50K and that's 54,000. Yeah. And it's 59,000. So it looks like you got 100 grand, but do you really? Because it spends a lot differently. And so at some point you can't invest into your company anymore because your business is generating. Absolutely. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy at some point. Okay. For people that come on as executives to businesses that want to get equity into a company, how can they have discussion with you? Or like, hey, I worked in this industry for 22 years. I want to come work for RedCon one. I've got all this experience, but I want to get 1% equity, for example. How does someone have that discussion and figure out what are they worth? Sure. Well, I could tell you initially, back when I started, I didn't even understand that principle where you would want to retain or acquire a valuable employee that is vested into the business where they're not just saying, hey, I'm just doing this. I want to make enough money to pay the bills and go on vacations, whatever, save for my 401k. To get people that are really good and then to retain people that are really good because I've had people poached for me for sure. Of course. More than I care to remember. But I think that when you're thinking about approaching a business owner like myself, that's really the key is that saying, hey, I'm here for the money, right? It's to work. But if I'm working my ass off and I'm putting everything into this and you exit one day, I want to be able to participate in that. I don't want to be poached by somebody who offers me more money. We just recently had one of our beverage guys and the beverage team. He left for $25,000 more at a different account. It's like, I wish we would have even had chance to talk about it. Because he's went from one to another and this happens a lot. One of the things that we've done at Radcon is basically carve out a piece of the business so that we can give key employees equity that will be vested over time. If there's a transaction or something happens, they'd be able to take advantage of that, too. Because the truth is, if you are a very valuable player, you don't want them to leave. Of course, you don't want to look left and right and see who's making more. Because if that particular gentleman had a small piece of Radcon and he was able to go work at a much bigger company, let's say like I sell CS hypothetically and they don't offer anything like that. Does the $25,000 a year matter more than the opportunity at something big at the end, the golden parachute? So I think approaching somebody, you also have to be reasonable. Obviously. So when somebody is... And someone asks you for 14%. Right, right, right. You'd be reasonable and then also know your position, right? And like, so for example, if a graphic artist, if we have a lot of great ones, came up and said that, it would be like, man, not such a reasonable ask, right? Unless you're the graphic artist or you've done such great work or maybe this is a time where you've shown how much work you've done, and it's their appropriate time to ask for something like that. So you have to be careful because I know for me, if the wrong person asking that, I would be... I would want to like... I'd be like, well, see you later because I would write the person off in the fact that they're going to leave to go somewhere else. So you have to know the right time to do that. And I think as a business owner, you have to realize that this is a competitive marketplace. And if you have all-stars, there's a good chance that they're going to get offers. And their offers could be better than when you're... You're... And you can lose people. My agency's been around for 14 years and I've had two people leave. And the two people I forced them to leave. I was like, you need to go work at this company. One of them had to go work for a click-up. Click-up's worth four billion. Go. I get it. Go work for them. You get a little equity in a huge company. And the other one ended up starting a mobile app company that I'm a part of. But outside of that, no one leaves me. And because I'm obsessed with what you said, replacing someone is really hard. It's hard. Because you have to go into the tech and tech to it. I mean, you have for somebody that's key. That's doing something for you in tech. CPG is a little less like that, but still, it's important. Right. And you get someone that has the relationships with Costco and Whole Foods and Trader Joe's and GNC and they leave. Sure, other people might have a connection to you, but it's different when they just got a phone call. Which is that employee that had 16 years and they can call Johnny over at GNC and he's like, hey, buddy, of course, bring RedCon one over here. Relationships matter. And if you can, if you lose somebody that has a great relationship, there's no guarantee your product better be damn good and better be selling and turning at a very fast rate. But it's an account. Johnny could go to the other one and say, hey, you know, switch them. Yeah, it could happen. For sure. Okay, on the charity side, the philanthropy part, why do you think it's important for companies for their employees or their investors or their vendors or clients to see some type of charity element to their business? Well, for the consumers, I think it's important because there's so many options, right? And so you want to put your, you know, I think it's at least for me. I know I do. I let my dollars into talking for me. So if I believe in somebody's, the business ethos or what they stand for, what I believe they stand for, I'm going to be much more likely to spend my money with that business versus the one. And we've seen this all the time now. You know, you're starting to see it more and more. When RedCon came out, and even really to this day, if you think of all the sports supplement companies, there's not many that stand for something in particular. You can't look at them and go, this is what they're about, right? They're about this. You have people with, like, so for example, military charities, military purposes. You see companies that maybe do it for Fourth of July, but they're not doing it every day. You know, for us, every can of RedCon energy, a one cent of every can goes to a military charity, right? Now Gary Senees Foundation, but we do online voting. People can switch. We've done millions and millions of dollars to many different charities over the entire lifetime of RedCon one. And I think that that is, that is important. I think it's important to do good with your money. And I think that it speaks to the consumers. I think it speaks to investors. I know when I talk to buyers at, you know, Circle K or we talk about that, you can see that it matters to them. They light up on the fact that we're doing something good and they're supporting, you know, say, it's service men and women and their families. A lot of our stuff is Gold Star families. People that have given their lives, men and women, given their lives in the line of duty or in relation to their service and their kids are without a parent. And that speaks to everybody. Nobody goes, ah, who cares about that, right? And so it's multi-pronged, you know, it's, it we're helping people. It actually helps the business and it makes me feel and everybody feel good about it. Yeah. So there's only one question I ask on every single episode for the last 200ish episodes and I've never gotten the same answer. You build RedCon one, sell it for a billion dollars. You then build another brand, sell that one for a billion dollars over the course of your career. What percentage of that net worth do you leave to those children later on when you pass away? Yeah. So I have three little boys right now and I wouldn't be surprised if I have some more. So the thought is that right now, my thought, obviously this can change because I'm 45 years old and as I get older, grandkids, hopefully, you know, I have a live a lot longer and I get to see, I get to see these guys develop. But my thought would be something to the extent of I would figure out a way to do it where they get money or get part of the money as they get older as opposed, yeah, as opposed stages and very well thought out and not something that I would let them hear. Here's a 84 million one check. No, it's not. It's really, it's right when you get people and I know and this is a big question. When a lot of people that have, have generated generation wealth, this is something that people really contemplate and think hard about because they don't want to do a disservice to their children, which can for sure happen. So I think for one, making sure that they realize I tell my guys already because they already asked me, oh, am I going to get this? Will you give me this? Do I want to be the CEO or Ed Cohen? I tell them all, you need to work. You're not owed anything, right? Asher, my oldest said, hey, can I have such an African kids name come over and swim my pool? So you don't have a pool, buddy. Where's your pool? And he's like, oh, yeah, you're right. Can you swim your pool? Yeah, you can swim in my pool, right? Because that's like, Shaq is like, you're not rich at all rich. Exactly. I think that's important, though, telling them that at a young age. So in terms of percentage wise, it's very difficult to determine. In Jewish faith, we believe the first thing you do is you help your family. You're a Sadaka. Your charity is to your family. And then it's to your community and then it's to the rest of the world. So I believe that I would do something where at first I help out family and then my community at large and then in the world. So if I were to throw out a percentage right now and let's say I have billions and billions of dollars, I would think I could do 50-50. That's what I would think in my mind. And of the 50 that I give away, I think a good part of that would be to additional family members and a good part would be community and the rest would be to bigger purposes and things that mean something to me in the world. All right. So where can people find you across social media personally and for the brand? Sure. So my social media handles is just at sign Aaron Sangerman and then the brand is redcon1.com. It's also sold everywhere from Amazon to Walmart, 80 countries worldwide, United States military, vitamin job agency, grocery stores and it's expanding. We're in 20 plus thousand circle K. I'm scurry C stores, not just circle K. We're also in circle K. And that continues to expand really rapidly. Hopefully everybody's going to be seeing redcon1 everywhere in 2026 because our resets for the beverage business is happening right now. And so we're hoping to go from 20 plus to 50 thousand C stores by the end of next year. So exciting. Yeah, exciting. And exciting for sure. All right guys, for these podcasts just keep in mind it's not just for you. These type of episodes could be useful for your friends, family and followers. People from your past, present and future. You might be at a lunch one day and someone's like, I want to start a supplement company or a beverage company and you could then for them this episode and have these discussions that are really important to them. And that's what I call the butterfly effect. If you might help someone out there learn how they can go scale $100 million business like he did, that could be the butterfly effect that changes their life to help them save money, make money and everything between. So as you guys know, we grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think that's ridiculous. We have to have discussions about taxes, loans. Should I buy this? Should I lease this? Should I rent it? What should I do? And we grew up thinking it's rude to talk about it. You have to be able to talk about it. It is not rude. It is not money is not the root of all evil. It's part of your daily life. It's part of your bills, for your mom, for your children, everyone in between. They need money for supplies, items, travel, medical, everything in between has some parts of money. Now, as we do this and the reason for the podcast's success is you guys liking comedy subscribing. When you share this podcast, especially an episode like this, where it is really big for someone that's in the CPG space, beverage space, supplement space, health space, people that are in your life, they may enjoy this episode. By you liking comedy subscribing, it helps us. Because right now we're number 55 in the world. It's up to you guys by doing this, by sharing this episode and talking about money with your friends, family, and followers. I appreciate you guys, and we'll see you next Monday on the moneymundays.com.