0:00 Well, hold on. Let me be a good YouTuber. If you want to find out how much Mac sold for, hit the like button first. Or else you'll never find out. You know what's interesting is like they're going to hit the like button. They'll still never find out. You know what's crazy is you could till you're blue in the face. Tell someone be like, "Guys, hit the like button." And they could they could be sitting there and be like, "I ain't doing it." [Music] And welcome back to a very exciting episode of the Careful Boys. Today we have Max Chuni with us for the first time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Max. All right, man. Obviously, inaugural episode. We got to have our fans get to know you. We got to get to know you. I have no idea who you are except for Sour Strips. Candy. We'll get into that. Uh, who are you? How do you know Barb? Cuz Bar brought you in. All the good stuff. I
0:50 Well, you're way more OG than I am by like years. He's a grandfault. I think people consider you OG and they forgot who I am completely though. I'm like uh so I I started YouTube like in the fitness space back in like 2013 and uh I mean I'm sure you can tell but like I'm your buff pretty jacked. Look at the veins. But my my thing back in the day was be was being the guy who could deadlift a lot of weight but doesn't look like he can lift any weight. So Oh, like the anatoli. Yeah, like the original. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But they would call him the deadlift bra. I Yeah. was that it's one of those like names like you don't know where it came from but then it just it like coined into I made t-shirts like myself lifting called deadlift bra. Yeah. I just like could lift a lot of weight over the deadlift and that was like my claim to fame like what what I became kind of like uh that was my niche in the the fitness community. What was like six plus, right? Dang. Wow. 650 at my peak
1:42 and then I started getting hernas and everything. Now now I've like actually retired powerlifting which have you do you still powerlift every now and then? Loser. Bro, the older you get it's just like not worth it. I don't know, but deadlifted, got into powerlifting, made videos for like on a weekly basis for over a decade now, like super consistently. And then what made him unique though was in the fitness space, everyone usually like wore fitness clothes. Him, he was like this 9 to5 corporate dress shirt guy in his vlogs and then he would go train like powerliffters and then he I was basically Superman and then he would go back to like dress shirt and slacks and stuff all the time. Well, I was from the east coast, like Virginia, and like it it was so funny because I decided to dress up. So, for like the first part of my like YouTube career, I had to have like I worked a 9 to5 as like a corporate recruiter. Um, so I would like work 9 to5 then make my videos like afterwards, go to the gym. So, but
2:34 what's wild is like me going to work, I had to wear like a tucked in button down, but in the fitness community, everyone like thought they were like, "Man, this guy is like the style king, man. He look at that. He wears a button down and like these slacks." And it was so crazy cuz I'm like, "Do this just what I have to dress like for work." He's dressing like the basketball players on game day. But it was one of it was one of those things that like I thought it like I had to be the guy that like had a job and made fitness so I could be as relatable as possible. And then I started like battling with with that and then eventually I quit and 2016 and flat my wings and followed my dreams. That's cool. Wait, was following your dreams like specifically fitness content? Yeah, I mean I was like do so like in 2016 was when I I started making like enough money from like you like first like year or two like I didn't really make any money and then I started this like clothing brand started making some money from that and started having
3:24 like sponsors and so I started making enough that was like supplementing my job which I was only making like 40k at my job. What's considered enough at the time freedom? I think I tracked my finances for a while and I was I think I was making like 70k a year on YouTube like through my YouTube now. It was just like it's a real it's a you want to buy us out and so it was like consistent enough over time that I tracked it and then I was able to leave my job in 2016 but it was like right at that time I kind of did uh which I got a lot of inspiration from you know the bar brigade and like you know Christian with opening the gym is I opened this little like training facility in Northern Virginia right outside of DC uh right at that time. So I quit my job and then immediately cuz I didn't want to quit and just like have more time to watch Netflix right I wanted to go do something. So me and a couple of my buddies went in together in this warehouse for this like gym. So one
4:15 could like run his clothing business, one could run his personal training business, and I could like make videos without getting kicked out of the gym and run my clothing business. So we opened this gym called District Barbell and started going down that road. And then I just went full like content creator mode. And then so 16 to 18 did that then got convinced to move to Texas cuz I was visiting a lot my friends out in Texas. um moved to Texas in 2018. Still full-time YouTube kind of mode doing the clothing thing and then we started the candy business in 2019 and then then my whole life has kind of changed since then. Then I went full business mode into the candy and now I still make content on a regular basis. How did the transition I could I could see the corporate world wearing suits into deadlifting into fitness content into opening a gym but then candy business is like how the ████ yeah Willy Wonka doesn't want to get fit. That's
5:05 the question. It's the opposite. It's like It's like a dentist selling candy. It was like like Was there anything in your videos like that you that you were like obsessed with that everyone would be like, "Oh, in Bart's videos he always does this or eats this?" The one thing that is always in my videos, I never capitalized on it and I probably should have was uh my hair. I'm like, "What gel do you use?" After 2 hours of training, your hair is still the exact same. Yeah. It could have been like more like after 30 years your hair is exactly the same. That's true. After jiu-jitsu, your hair's like that. Even after Bicycle Hunt though still look good. I can see it now. Bart's Bart's special goo and like hair and it would be great. Uh no, I mean well candy if you like watched my content over the years. I was always I've been like a candy fanatic like my whole life. Like ever since I was like 10 to now. I like whenever I go down
5:55 like a c uh like a gas station, I'm like walking in the candy store like or the the aisle to see what's there and I'm just Top three candies. Sour chip. Sour chips. sour at this at this stage. Uh, no, I I've just always like I've always loved like candy specifically, gummy candy specifically, sour candy, and I was just like always a fiend for it, eating a ton of it. Sour gummy worms, I mean, you know, the sour straws, like just anything. I mean, that's the thing is like in the candy world there's only so many brands like these big bohemoths, but there's only so many different like candies, right? So, I was always eating them in my videos when I go to expose and people would come and wait to see me in line. They'd bring me candy from their state, country, whatever. And I was just like the candy guy. So then I got a lot of inspiration from Christian Guzman, one of my good friends um who started 3D Energy cuz he was like he is weirdly enough he like popularized like the white monster like on on YouTube. He
6:45 was just like started drinking these and I even I was like oh that's he always drinks those in his videos and you go to the store and you're like try it and it's good and you get I actually got influenced by him. So he started this uh energy drink company which is out of left field and I was like well that makes sense. He's the energy drink guy, you know, he launched energy drinks. So, I just had this goofy idea to start a candy brand. Um, but it wasn't like this big business like, oh, I saw a gap in the market and I see this opportunity and no one's launching CPG and I'll do this big brain. It was just I really like candy. I kind of know what people who really like candy would want in a candy. So, I'm just going to start it and we'll like we'll figure it out kind of like step by step. At the same time, it's very authentic though because um people in the fitness community are always looking for like simple and fast digesting carbs. So there was also a time where you would see all the fitness influencers e either chowing down on
7:36 gummy bears or you know other types of candy Jolly Ranchers midworkout before the workout. So it wasn't like I felt like there was some sort of synergy between your fitness and the candy. It's one of those things that like it's uh I always say it's like the fitness community is like the strangest uh like demographic to launch like a candy in, but it makes the most sense because it it I think it shows the general population that if like fitness freaks can like eat candy and like balance it in their like health and wellness journey, right? And and aren't like freaking out about maybe like sugar and they're just like yeah, you know, you you you use it in moderation and you can still do it and here's some of the benefits maybe for the gym. But that wasn't like my strategy. It was just like I happened to be in the fitness community, launched a candy brand and then now it's crazy cuz we're sold in like so many gyms. We're sold in like gold gold's gym like corporate. We're sold like brigade has it. Yeah. It's
8:27 it's it's wild. So it just happened to be a fitness community. Launched it on my 30th birthday. I didn't know at the time I was at the peak of my career. Like you never know. Um so like views were like at the all-time high. I launched this like secret project. It was like my 30th birthday. So it was this big hype around this like secret project. And then when I launched it, candy made sense. My audience was like, "Of course Max came out with candy, right? He's like the candy guy on his videos. Always eating candy." Um, so and then it was like off to the races. And then from there it just kept snowballing and I kind of just be like, "Okay, let's scale it and scale it and scale it." And then before you know it, it's, you know, been 5 years and we launched like 20,000 units. And now we sell like millions of bags like a month. It's just it's uh it's a lot of candy. And then Hershey bought it. Yeah. That's how cra That's how ████ crazy the ████ trajection. We started September 2019 and then November of 2024 we got
9:19 acquired by Hershey's. Okay, before we get to the greatness aka like the finish line which everybody wants. Uh I like to bust first and then do four. You want to bust first? No, no, I'm just kidding. Go do it. That's called reverse cowgirl. I think I'm not sure that's what it is, but I like that in Texas. That's what they call it. Reverse deadlift. reverse when having this idea of being like I want to make candy like did you have a connect in the industry did like how do you just go like I want to make this who do I call to make this where do I manufacture hold on let me be a good YouTuber if you want to find out how much Mac sold for hit the like button first or else you'll never find out you know what's interesting is like crazy they're going to hit the like button they'll still never find out you know what's crazy is you could till you're blue in the face tell someone be like guys hit the like button And they could they could be sitting there and be
10:09 like, I ain't doing it. I ain't doing it. I'm never doing it. Not going to do it. Just cuz you told me. Yeah. Hit the dislike button. No, they're going to do that. They're down to do that. They're going to do it now cuz you know what's so crazy is uh I with the candy thing, I get asked this a lot of like, "Hey, how did you like, you know, how did you find a manufacturer for the candy?" But it's funny cuz like when I have buddies with like drinks or anything like that, like clothing, like no one's ever like, "How did you do this?" they'd assume you like just Google and that's like what I did, right? So, I originally started the idea with a couple buddies because Christian with with the energy drinks. He had these like business partners behind the scenes because he was just going to be the face of it and, you know, launch it. So, I thought I was like, "Okay, well, Christian has is doing Alphalite and he's doing all these crazy crazy business guy, but he has business partners for the drinks, then there's no way I can do candy by myself. I need
10:59 business partners." So I actually like started with this idea with a two of my buddies who had no background in CPG. They were just like they were rich real estate business guys. So I was like business guys they'll be good at business. Right. But they know land though. Yeah. Exactly. But I was like whatever. So I was like I'll be the face of it and I'll just like promote it on my my my channel. But we like we went down the rabbit hole for like 6 7 months of like I mean literally just googling it's like candy manufacturers you know depending on what you want like sour we were going towards like sour belts or sour like kind of bites like shorter pieces. So it was just like you know candy manufacturers in the United States candy manufacturers like bulk candy manu you know we're just lots of different Googles calling places um emailing them. But the problem is a lot of these manufacturers, they, you know, if you come up to them and be like, "Hey, I want to launch candy brand." They're like, "Okay, cool. Our minimum run is, you know, x amount of like this or that
11:50 or or they're not really going to take you seriously because I mean, you don't see new candy." Now, you kind of start doing, but like you don't see these new candies kind of coming out to too much. So, just a lot of Googling and but we ran into a lot of roadblocks and like we couldn't figure out manufacturing. No one was taking us serious with these business partners and the idea kind of fizzled out. Uh this is right before I moved to Texas in like early or like late 2018. Um, so then I kind of gave up on the idea for like probably four or five months while I moved and then I was like, "All right, I'm going to figure this out." And I just went back to literally like googling, Googling, googling, and like eventually eventually just like with clothing and you know, it's kind of like with clothing, you eventually find Alibaba or AliExpress and you start realizing, you know, hey, just there's manufacturers that do stuff and you start small and then you just kind of expand from there. And that's essentially the same kind of thing is you find a manufacturer that maybe has
12:41 like a base product you can tweak or a base product you can build a brand around or just like you just got to get started with the with the idea, right? Because just like with clothing, the first t-shirt you come out with is not going to be the final t-shirt that you sell 5 years later. So I just needed to get the ball going and get like a product that I was like, "Okay, the ma I like this, the masses will like this. I can start with this base and we'll kind of adjust and move from there." And that's what I did is found a manufacturer that had a great product um built a brand around this um around this sour belt type of candy and then over time scaled scaled and started outgrowing these manufacturers and start had to find a new manufacturer. So we've switched manufacturers uh you know a couple years ago and from there it's just like improving improving but was not like a cheat code that I had was I was building a candy brand for like by someone who really loves candy. So I
13:31 kind of knew what people would probably think about the candy, think about the packaging, what they would like, what they would dislike because I'm the consumer for this thing. So even So you're making it for yourself pretty much. Yeah, exactly. in like certain decisions that like weren't like super business strategic but more of just like intuition and gut was even the fact that I mean I kind of carved sour strips into this like premium price category where you know if you get 3 and 12 ounces of sour strips in a bag it's going to cost more than you know 3 and 12 o of like gummy worms by by like a $150 but I couldn't compete on price so I'm like do I either you know make 2 cents a bag and never be able to scale the business or do I charge an extra dollar$ dollar$ dollar$ dollar$ dollar$ dollar$ dollar$ dollar$ dollar$ dollar$ dollar50 and I was like I bet people even if they maybe aren't balling out of control will drop an extra dollar just to even try it. Then they'll find out that they like it even more. And I think that younger me would pay an extra dollar or $150 for a,
14:22 you know, my opinion a superior candy. And that was kind of like my guess in the market and it worked out. And you know to this day it's like no one had this like premium pricing cuz everyone I remember when I first sold in the store some people were like why would anyone buy this for 350 if you can buy this bigger bag for a $150? I'm like because it's better. I don't you know it tastes better. Um and you know and then the market will decide if if like what you're deciding like the market will decide if the product is like a fit for the world, right? And we proved the market wanted it. We proved that like we could uh kind of bring candy into a cool kind of the modern social media space with the branding, the packaging, the products great and then we just scaled it from there. We had a lot of factors that were to our benefit is like we launched the peak of my career. Then COVID happened which when made our online sales go through the roof. So we had cash coming in the business and
15:12 making all this margin. Then when COVID ended then the stores are trying to get people into stores. So we had all these major retailers reaching out to us cuz we created this boom on during co which we couldn't plan for. Then we had the success you know co's awesome co was pretty cool. So you were just strictly direct to consumer when you started for the first 3 years or whatever. Well, I'd say for the first for the first like year to year and a half, like that was I'd say for the first like twoish years, we were probably like 85% of our revenue was coming from direct to consumer. Um, but I remember talking to some people in the space that were like, "One day that's going to flip." I'm like, "No way. There's no way." Cuz we're like, "We're crushing online." But eventually, like your sales start slowing down because with a a consumable product like that, like people want to buy it at the store. or they don't want to buy it online, wait 4 days, it comes in, it got smashed
16:03 up from the UPS people or something. So, they want to buy it at the gas station right there. So, you have to get into retail. But, I didn't know the first thing about like how how do I get it there? How do I ship it? What price do I sell it to? Oh, there's distributors. They have to, you know, eat as well with their margin. So, like what price do I do? So, I was like making up prices. And then you like you start out kind of like screwing yourself because you're selling it probably for too cheap, right? And cuz these people will you'll take advice from like distributors like, "Oh, I need this margin." But they'll actually take less margin, but they're just kind of saying numbers, so they could have a bigger margin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You don't have economies of scale early on in your business. So, you can't like you you can't do a lot of things until you get bigger. Then you can negotiate pricing and your terms can get better. Um, but it's just this like world that I didn't I just was like, I'm going to start a candy brand because I like candy. And
16:53 then it turned like years later it was like, "Oh ████ I got like an actual business with employees and like big retailers like Target and Walmart hit me up and there's like so much logistics going on to it." So then I had to really figure it all out. So they all came to you. Yeah. How did they catch wind of your success? It it had been social media. I remember in Oc so we launched in September 2019 and then in October of 2020 I got an email from Target the Target buyer that was like um up until this point every store that we've gone into the the companies have come to us which is crazy. We got an email from Target was like hey I saw your brand online interested in you know interested in your product right and I remember posting on my story um and like blurred out the person's name but I put like at Target like at Target email and I was like oh my god like Target's interested in the candy. I was like, "Ah." And then like an hour later, um I'll never forget this. Like an hour later, I get another email from Walmart and they're like,
17:43 "We're interested in your product, but please don't post this email on your Instagram." They dang. They were like looking, but then they saw that Target did it. And it was kind of like if I never posted Target, would they have waited longer? Like, who knows? For sure. Bro, I would have deleted thought it was a scam. We uh so we launched into Target. The original test was going to be like 300 stores. then it turned into the actual test ended up being 1,300 stores which they have like 2,000. So it was like 70% of Targets. That was massive. But when you go into retail, you know, you have you're going to make a lot less margin. You have these like 60 to 90day payment terms that they're not going to pay you until like 60 90 days after they get the product. So you have to front all this money for this crazy big launch, right? So you got to buy it all 3 months ahead of time. All this money, get it all ready. It goes into the store. That's been about 2 3 months. Then it's 3 months before you
18:34 get paid on that. But in that that time period from when you launch to when you get paid, they're still placing orders. So you still got to be ordering product. So you're still like burning cash. So it has to do well. Exactly. Yeah. So it's like, you know, you know the money's coming, but you have to like float it. So there was like when we launched into Target, that was like the the the luckily the only time that we like got like down to almost baseline flat with the company of uh of like money. I was like, I know this money's coming in, but I almost was like, I might need to take take, you know, investors. But, um, we were able to kind of make weather that little storm because we had all this cash from selling online and me not going out and buying a bunch of Lambos and ████ So, but then it was like self-sufficient. So, I started the business with like $50,000 and then I never never took investors, never took any partners. So it was just like self-sufficient but it was a lot of like
19:24 I mean I don't downplay like the hard work we had and the great product and the branding and all the attributes but a lot of it was just the right idea at the right time you know co was a huge thing that so you just got lucky. It was a lot of luck. It's kind of like the luckier it's like it's it's funny how like the luckier you get like the the harder you have to work. Um, and so, but even like the people on my team, like everyone that works for me is people that started like, "Hey, I need uh people helping me pack candy for the first launch." And people came in and now those same individuals are the people that are like running the operations, running. So, everyone has started from literally the bottom and like gone with me. So, I haven't hired anyone um from outside experience or like from another company. Everyone started from knowing nothing to like running the business. Wow, that's so cool, man. You got to give yourself
20:15 credit, dude. That that's a sign of a good boss because if you can develop someone from the ground up cuz a lot of people have to poach or get outside because they need someone with experience already. So you're showing people the ropes that have no experience and they're like a boxing guy making bo not boxing and fighting but like a box like someone that's boxing products and now he's director of operations or whatever. Like that's well it's cool cuz it it shows it not only is you know a benefit to me cuz I don't need I it keeps your cost down cuz people like you're like hey you know you don't need to pay sea level executive prices cuz everyone's just like I don't know what's going on and like everyone's learning at the same time. everyone can wear a lot of hats in the business, but then when all these different like expansions happen and people like level up, it shows all the other, you know, newer people that come on that like, oh, like
21:05 there's a lot of room for growth. And a lot of times like new roles and positions don't exist until they do. It's like we don't need a a head of uh, you know, retail shipments until we start getting all these different retailers where now we need a whole department lead, but we didn't need that, you know, 3 months ago. And so it's like you it's almost like you keep trusting in the brand and like you be a good worker and then you know everything just happens. So like everyone that started are now like leading departments, leading teams, being managers and so do you think any of that ties back to like cuz you said the one of the first jobs you had was recruiting. So I was thinking maybe like some of the experience you had from recruiting helped you even sort out who would be a good canvas to develop. Not at all. Not at all. No. No, I mean when but when I was at my corporate job like I was just so involved in like YouTube that I was just like all right let me do enough job to men me not to get like
21:55 that but like um but his ability to deadlift boxes was really I mean everyone like with recruiting it was like everyone that I hired was just like people that followed me on social media that was like uh like hey Max fan of yours would love to help out with the brand and then they just kept showing up and showing up and then when I needed someone to step up to the next level I'm like hey you you've been here all along like now I need you lead these new people and then that becomes now they're a manager and now they get a bump and everyone sees like everyone leveling up. So it's almost like if you keep believing in the brand, you see the growth of it like eventually we're going to need higher level roles and Max clearly wants to like you know hire or like uh promote from within. Um he doesn't want to bring in outside people. Um so it was like the the path was like very visible to all the employees. So it it motivates everyone from within but it's almost like but you don't know when
22:45 those roles are going to happen because they don't exist until they do. But if I'm doing my job of scaling the business, then we're gonna have these opportunities. Cool, man. Yeah, that is a fantastic Cinderella story that we're gonna continue into how that eventually But hit the like button and share with all your friends. Don't hit the dislike button. I didn't know you would take it seriously. Hit the notification bell as
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