The Advantage with Mike Wystrach

Oliver Trevena says he was beaten nearly to death at 21, then used the compensation to move from England to Los Angeles. He became an actor and TV host, and when he started taking business meetings between shoots, his reps dropped him for it. Now he co-founds Caliwater with Vanessa Hudgens, backed by Gerard Butler, Glen Powell and Demi Lovato, and it has launched in Walmart nationwide.

This episode is presented by Proppel. Hire A-player marketing and ops talent from the US and LATAM, and get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Follow Mike on Instagram: @mikewystrach — https://instagram.com/mikewystrach

In this episode:

◼ Why a Plan B makes your Plan A better

◼ Why no beverage giant ever creates a new category

◼ Why it takes 20 to 30 touches, not six, before a customer notices you

◼ How Erewhon started stocking Caliwater before his team knew

CHAPTERS

0:00 Hollywood to Walmart

1:11 Beaten Nearly to Death at 21

4:44 13,000 Pounds to LA

11:21 "Have You Done It Before?"

17:44 Stick Your Nose In

19:10 Why You Need a Plan B

20:53 My Agents Dropped Me

29:51 Everyone Said Don't Do Beverage

33:12 No Giant Creates a Category

35:19 30 Touches, Not 6

36:16 Erewhon Stocked Us First

43:28 You Have to Sacrifice Something

45:50 Final Thoughts and Wrap Up

Caliwater: https://www.drinkcaliwater.com

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yEIJgS4Rt34

All episodes: https://mikewystrach.com/podcast

Tobi Oluwole applied to Shopify seven times before they hired him. At Shopify, he wrote one LinkedIn post using a storytelling framework from his onboarding and woke up to 200,000 impressions on 1,000 followers. He has posted every weekday since May 2020, now has about 400,000 followers, and works three days a week.

This episode is presented by Proppel. Hire A-player marketing and ops talent from the US and LATAM, and get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Follow Mike on Instagram: @mikewystrach ‚ https://instagram.com/mikewystrach

In this episode:

- Why he won't quit a job until his side income has doubled his salary for six months

- His exact posting formula: weekdays, 9am to noon, 8 to 12 lines, one visual

- Write 20 stories first: your 10 best and 10 worst moments

- How one post filled his inbox with buyers before he had a website

- Why he turned down $400K: "You're a shark and I'm a dolphin"

CHAPTERS

0:00 1,000 Followers to 400K

1:52 Arsenal at $100K a Week

6:47 Shopify on the Seventh Try

7:47 One Post, 200,000 Impressions

11:43 He Wrote His Own Eulogy

13:19 Your Niche Will Find You

14:44 Write 20 Stories First

15:20 The Weekday Posting Formula

16:47 Your Company Isn't Your Family

17:35 The Six-Month Doubling Rule

23:38 No Website, Just DMs

24:19 Creators vs Money Makers

28:30 $47 Ebook to $750K

31:33 No Alarm, Three-Day Weeks

38:37 $20K a Month, 20 Hours

44:18 He Turned Down $400K

51:52 Final Thoughts and Wrap Up

TOBI OLUWOLE

LinkedIn ‚ https://www.linkedin.com/in/thetobioluwole

Founder's Blueprint ‚ https://foundersblueprint.ai

Website ‚ https://www.tobioluwole.com

THE ADVANTAGE

Apple Podcasts ‚ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-advantage-with-mike-wystrach/id6783458081

Spotify ‚https://open.spotify.com/show/033DuFkyBRu3qvgp8ozPz1

All episodes ‚ https://mikewystrach.com/podcast

PRESENTED BY PROPPEL

Proppel places marketing and operations talent from the US, LATAM and beyond, from video editors, designers and media buyers to managers, directors and VPs. It's performance-based: a one-off fee only when you hire, no retainers, and a three-month guarantee on every hire. Get 10% off your first hire ‚ https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

#TobiOluwole #LinkedIn #TheAdvantage

Scott Van den Berg invests only in brands founded by celebrities and creators, and the celebrity is the third thing he checks. He started with $10,000 checks and no network in Hollywood. Now his portfolio includes brands from Selena Gomez, DJ Khaled, Jake Paul and Katy Perry.

This episode is presented by Proppel. Hire A-player marketing and ops talent from the US and LATAM, and get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Follow Mike on Instagram: @mikewystrach — https://instagram.com/mikewystrach

In this episode:

◼ The 20% equity mistake founders make with celebrities

◼ How to vest a celebrity's equity on work, not posts

◼ Why Kim Kardashian was an Update customer before she was a co-founder

◼ Yeezy's $1.7B collapse and "key celebrity risk"

◼ Why celebrity CPG brands stall near a $1B exit

CHAPTERS

00:00 20 Million Followers, No Business

04:04 No Network in Hollywood

04:47 Why Take Equity Over $3M?

06:49 The 20% Equity Mistake

09:13 How Much Equity to Give

12:37 Kim Kardashian Bought It First

14:25 $10,000 Checks, Celebrity Cap Tables

17:49 Celebrities Are Building Tech Now

18:53 CPG Caps Out Near $1B

23:55 Supported, Never Depended On

25:50 Yeezy's $1.7B, Gone Overnight

26:33 The Chamberlain Coffee Problem

31:10 TikTok Sells Chocolate Bars

37:08 Final Thoughts and Wrap Up

SCOTT VAN DEN BERG

HotStart VC → https://www.hotstart.vc

The Fame Game → https://hotstart.beehiiv.com

LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/

THE ADVANTAGE
Watch on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. All episodes → https://mikewystrach.com/podcast

PRESENTED BY PROPPEL
Proppel places marketing and operations talent from the US, LATAM and beyond, from video editors, designers and media buyers to managers, directors and VPs. It's performance-based: a one-off fee only when you hire, no retainers, and a three-month guarantee on every hire. Get 10% off your first hire → https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Josh Suggs made $200,000 in profit his first summer walking up to strangers in New York parks with a microphone. No website, no personal brand, no connections, no investors. He was sleeping on a friend's couch in an apartment with no Wi-Fi, so every night he carried an SD card to an Apple Store and emailed a public Google Drive link to his one editor in Croatia. He had a 2.1 GPA and spent high school in special ed, in the same house as a twin sister who went to the University of Chicago on a full ride. StreetTalk is now more than 100 people and eight figures of revenue.

This episode is presented by Proppel. Hire A-player marketing and ops talent from the US and LATAM, and get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Follow Mike on Instagram: @mikewystrach — https://instagram.com/mikewystrach

Josh breaks down the offer he cold-pitched to brand founders on Twitter, the phone call that got his mother's blessing to leave Syracuse, and the merger that made it an agency.

What you'll learn in this episode:

◼ The Westport Front Porch play: free lessons traded for posts in a town's mom Facebook group, then the same play on founders

◼ The B2B influencer read: Ridge's Sean Frank is not a wallet CEO, he is followed by 100,000 other consumer CEOs

◼ The $5,000 offer: ten strangers reacting to your product, edited, ready to run, sold with no audience of his own

◼ The reps moat: 20,000 of these ads, 30,000 steps a day, and why a client cannot send a replacement

◼ His team, my offer: the Missouri merger that took two people to a $3 million run rate in three months

◼ The Media Mafia earnings call: eight founders under 23 reporting numbers monthly, $3.75 million last month

If you are young, broke and convinced you need a credential before you can start, this one is about the reps nobody else will do.

CHAPTERS

0:00 $200K Talking to Strangers

3:33 $45,000 Teaching Kids Tennis

6:21 $5,000 for Ten Interviews

8:54 Uploading at the Apple Store

12:34 My Moat Is 20,000 Ads

15:42 Mom's Friend Said Drop Out

19:50 His Team, My Offer

21:14 "I'm Why You Dropped Out"

27:19 He Owned the Magic Castle

35:32 A $3,000 Retainer at Fifteen

41:15 Collect Nos, Not Yeses

43:57 One-Way and Two-Way Doors

54:12 The Media Mafia Earnings Call

56:49 You Are a Time Billionaire

59:57 Final Thoughts and Wrap Up

CONNECT WITH JOSH SUGGS

StreetTalk → https://streettalk.com

X → https://x.com/joshsuggss

All episodes → https://mikewystrach.com/podcast

PRESENTED BY PROPPEL

Your business is only as good as the people in it, and finding real A players is one of the hardest things you'll do. Proppel specializes in marketing and operations talent, placing top people from the US, LATAM and beyond.

Whether you need video editors, graphic designers, or media buyers from LATAM, or managers, directors, heads of department and VPs in the US, they'll help you build the team you actually need to grow.

It's all performance-based. You pay a one-off fee only once you actually hire someone, so no retainers and no ongoing costs. Every hire comes with a three-month guarantee.

Get 10% off your first hire → https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Kat Schneider counted a 1,000 no's before Ritual worked. She was a venture partner running 70 companies for Troy Carter when she got pregnant, went looking for a prenatal vitamin, and could not find one that would tell her where the ingredients came from. She quit 4 months pregnant. One of the best known investors in LA told her to her face she could start a business or a family but there was no way in hell she was doing both. She has three daughters and a company that did more than $250 million in revenue in 2024.

This episode is presented by Proppel. https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Follow Mike on Instagram: https://instagram.com/mikewystrach

What you'll learn in this episode:

• Why she held back a finished product customers were actively asking for

• The proof stack under a single SKU: traceable supply chain, USP verification that under 1% of vitamins carry, a university clinical study, a patent

• Why this business had to raise venture money when most supplement brands should not

• The advice she forgot for two years and had to relearn: make yourself replaceable, then do not step back in

• Why waiting for a co-founder is the excuse she hears from women founders and almost never from men

• What she does with a no now

• The rule of three she uses to kill the guilt about what is not getting done this week

• Why every generational company was built by somebody with no experience in the category

If you are building something in a category that does not trust you yet, or sitting on a second product you are not sure you have earned the right to launch, this one is about the sequencing almost nobody gets right.

CHAPTERS

0:00 1,000 No's, Then $250M

1:44 $50 and a Suitcase

4:54 Running 70 Companies at 30

9:05 The Label Told Her Nothing

10:13 Quitting Four Months Pregnant

11:39 "Business or Family, Not Both"

14:44 Phil Knight Was an Accountant

18:38 His Business, Her "Project"

19:29 Pumping on a Broken Escalator

22:07 When You Need Venture Money

23:16 $5M on Clinical Studies

24:47 One Product for Two Years

26:19 She Sat on the Prenatal

27:56 The Product Is the Moat

28:36 Build for the Skeptic

29:20 One Brand Changed the Law

34:46 $250M Feels Like Nothing

39:17 A Decade In, a Coach

40:55 Make Yourself Replaceable

47:22 The Co-Founder Cop-Out

49:09 Why a No Excites Her

51:42 Three No's, Then the Check

54:49 The Rule of Three

58:47 Final Thoughts and Wrap Up

CONNECT WITH KAT SCHNEIDER

Ritual → https://ritual.com

LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/katerinamarkov

FOLLOW THE ADVANTAGE

All episodes → https://mikewystrach.com/podcast

PRESENTED BY PROPPEL

Proppel places A-player marketing and operations talent from the US, LATAM and beyond: video editors, graphic designers and media buyers through to managers, directors and VPs. Performance-based, a one-off fee only once you actually hire, no retainers, no ongoing costs, and every hire carries a three-month guarantee.

Get 10% off your first hire → https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Addison LaBonte is the founder of Sweet Addison's, a gluten-free dessert brand she started in her apartment kitchen in January 2024 and still owns outright. She built the customers first and the company second.

This episode is presented by Proppel. Hire A-player marketing and ops talent from the US and LATAM, and get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Follow Mike on Instagram: https://instagram.com/mikewystrach

A doctor told her she could have surgery for compartment syndrome or stop running for good. She took a third option, cut gluten, and ran again. Almost nothing had been written about any of it, so she started posting her own recipes.

In 2022 she posted a different cookie recipe every day for 25 days. A few hit five million views, and the replies asked where to buy. Sweet Addison's launched thirteen months later on about $5,000. Month one did seven to eight thousand dollars with no paid marketing at all.

No outside money, no board, and she still self-manufactures everything the company sells. By her own estimate ninety-nine percent of America has never heard of Sweet Addison's, which she offers as the reason to be excited rather than the thing to fix.

⏱️ CHAPTERS

00:00:00 Intro

00:02:29 Why A Walk-On Athlete Makes A Better Founder

00:05:26 The Diagnosis That Ended Her Running Career

00:09:36 Getting Fired Was The Best Thing That Happened To Her

00:14:22 The 25-Day Posting Streak That Built Her Customer List

00:15:10 The TSA Moment That Started A Cookie Company

00:19:53 How She Made $7,000 In Month One With No Ads

00:35:23 When To Turn On Paid Ads, And Why She Waited

00:45:32 The Fear That Stops Most People From Starting

00:49:42 How To Start A Brand For $5,000 And Keep 100%

🔗 ADDISON LABONTE

Sweet Addison's: https://sweetaddisons.com

Organically Addison: https://organicallyaddison.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/organicallyaddison

Sweet Addison's on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweet.addisons

🎙️ THE ADVANTAGE

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-advantage-with-mike-wystrach/id6783458081

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033DuFkyBRu3qvgp8ozPz1

All episodes: https://mikewystrach.com/podcast

⚡ PRESENTED BY PROPPEL

Proppel places A-player marketing and operations talent from the US, LATAM and beyond: video editors, graphic designers and media buyers through to managers, directors and VPs. Performance-based, a one-off fee only once you actually hire, no retainers, no ongoing costs, and every hire carries a three-month guarantee.

Get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

#AddisonLaBonte #SweetAddisons #TheAdvantage #MikeWystrach

We turned the six moves from this episode into one free PDF, The Cabrini Playbook → https://mikewystrach.com/get/leandro-playbook

Presented by Proppel. Get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Follow Mike on Instagram: https://instagram.com/mikewystrach

In this episode Mike and Leandro cover the task list that has to exist before the job description, the purpose every interview stage needs, the test project, the onboarding almost nobody builds, and the time zone trick for founders with no process yet. The rule underneath all of it is the one Mike has hired by for a decade: go get the person you technically cannot afford.

Full disclosure, and Mike says it in the first minute: Proppel is the presenting sponsor of this show. He found them through Google and ChatGPT, hired through them, and went to them about sponsoring afterwards.

⏱️ CHAPTERS
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:38 He Started A Recruitment Agency Without Ever Running One
00:06:41 Freshly Had 2,500 Employees And 700 Were International
00:09:01 Cheaper Talent Lets You Hire Three Months Earlier
00:14:40 Everyone Can Hire. Onboarding Is Where It Breaks
00:17:35 Write The Task List Before You Write The Job Description
00:21:50 Time Zone Is The Cheat Code When You Have No Process
00:23:29 Hire The Person You Technically Can't Afford
00:34:55 A US Creative Strategist Costs $150K. In LATAM, $6 To $8K A Month
00:45:44 The Real Cost Of Hiring Is Not Having To Hire

🔗 LEANDRO CABRINI
Proppel: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leacabrini
The Talent Standard: https://www.youtube.com/@Proppel

🎙️ THE ADVANTAGE
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-advantage-with-mike-wystrach/id6783458081
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/033DuFkyBRu3qvgp8ozPz1
All episodes: https://mikewystrach.com/podcast
Free playbook: https://mikewystrach.com/get/leandro-playbook

⚡ PRESENTED BY PROPPEL
Get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

#howtohire #Proppel #TheAdvantage #MikeWystrach #Hiring

Kenny Santucci did nine seasons of MTV's The Challenge. Today he trains Bon Jovi, guys from the Knicks, and whichever WWE wrestlers are in town, out of two New York gyms he owns.

Presented by Proppel — hire A-player marketing and ops talent from the US and LATAM. Get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Follow Mike on Instagram: https://instagram.com/mikewystrach

CHAPTERS
00:00:00 The Month He Lost Under Armour And HYROX
00:01:45 Nine Seasons On MTV's The Challenge
00:04:02 Start Before You Know What You're Doing
00:08:09 What A Two-Year Lawsuit Teaches You About Partners
00:16:38 Why Community Is The Only Moat A Gym Has
00:19:17 Rebuilding From A Push Cart In A Public Park
00:26:55 Bon Jovi, The Knicks, And Who Else Walks In
00:27:44 $500K Used To Be Rich. Now $5M Makes You A Loser
00:29:28 Admit You Don't Know Business, Then Ask For Help
00:37:02 Own Your Distribution Or Rent Someone Else's Audience

Everything between those two sentences is the part nobody puts on a highlight reel. He came off television and took the New Jersey civil service test his father wanted him to take, and got hired onto a fire department — he describes standing in the line-up thinking this was going to be the rest of his life. He partnered into a gym in Jersey with no idea how business worked and nobody to ask, and it ended in a two-year lawsuit. He built a 5:30am class at Solace that packed out for years while the equity he was promised never arrived.

Then in January 2020 he signed Under Armour and HYROX in the same month, and weeks later both deals were gone and New York was shut. He pushed a cart of kettlebells to the park at 28th and 10th because it was the only way left to work, and the wheel came off on the way. People walking past asked to join. That is The Strength Club, now in Flatiron and Caldwell NJ, and Strong New York — the festival Forbes named one of the best in the country, taking over the Glasshouse on September 26.

He is sharp on what the money noise does to people. Growing up he didn't know anyone earning $500,000 a year, and now the going line is that $5 million a year makes you a loser. Ask him the ten-year plan and there is no exit in it. His merch says bury me in the gym.

KENNY SANTUCCI
Instagram: https://instagram.com/kennysantucci
Website: https://kenny-santucci.com
Strong New York: https://www.strongnewyork.com
The Strength Club: https://thestrengthclub.com

PRESENTED BY PROPPEL
Proppel places A-player marketing and operations talent from the US, LATAM and beyond — video editors, designers and media buyers through to managers, directors and VPs. It's performance-based: a one-off fee only once you actually hire someone, no retainers, no ongoing costs, and every hire comes with a three-month guarantee.
Get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

THE ADVANTAGE
All episodes: https://mikewystrach.com/podcast

Sam McBride is the CEO of Kettle & Fire and the founder of Colter Ventures, where he writes $40 to $150 million checks into a handful of businesses at a time.

This episode is presented by Proppel. Hire A-player marketing and ops talent from the US and LATAM, and get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Full show notes and everything mentioned: https://mikewystrach.com/podcast/sam-mcbride

A year out of school and working in healthcare M&A, McBride sold a $10 million piece of business to a division he did not work in. He asked his MD what that was worth to him and got a story about how long the man had waited for his yacht club membership. He quit. Then he called a

mentor who was buying home security companies and offered to work for $30,000 a year for six months, on one condition: he wanted to be an executive immediately. He was 21.

Every decision since has the same shape. He joined RXBAR as roughly its fourth employee and was there when Kellogg bought it for $600 million. He put $44 million into a bone broth company he had sat on the board of for years, and took the CEO seat when its chief executive proposed they

swap and run it together. The most portable thing he says is about niches.

McBride is blunt that the niche was the training ground rather than the destination. The time in it is what made every later decision obvious, which is why he tells founders to start narrow and plan the way

out at the same time.

He is unsentimental about the job itself. One problem after another, almost no credit, and getting kicked in the head often enough that you stop expecting otherwise. Once in a while there is an outcome. The other 99% is the part you have to like.

Chapters

00:00:00 Operating Is Solving Problems For Almost No Credit

00:02:45 The Yacht Club Story That Ended His Finance Career

00:04:00 He Offered To Work For $30,000 A Year At 21

00:13:12 RXBAR Was Three Grade School Friends And A Warehouse

00:19:51 The CrossFit Business Topped Out At $6 Million

00:32:31 There Were Four Other RXBARs

00:35:30 The Values Interview That Ran The Final Round

00:41:31 Selling To Kellogg For $600 Million

00:50:28 Fewer Bets, Bigger Bets, And Kettle & Fire

00:59:27 Start In A Niche. Just Do Not Plan To Stay There.

Sam McBride

Colter Ventures: https://www.colterventures.com

Kettle & Fire: https://www.kettleandfire.com

PRESENTED BY PROPPEL

Your business is only as good as the people in it, and finding real A players is one of the hardest things you'll do. Proppel specializes in marketing and operations talent, placing top people from the US, LATAM and beyond.

It's all performance-based. You pay a one-off fee only once you actually hire someone, so no retainers and no ongoing costs. Every hire comes with a three-month guarantee.

Get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

All episodes: https://mikewystrach.com/podcast

Instagram: https://instagram.com/mikewystrach

Vitalii Dodonov is the co-founder and CTO of Stan, a creator commerce platform that's generated over $600M for it's creators. Every other platform in the category takes 10 to 20 percent of what a creator sells. Stan takes nothing.

Presented by Proppel. Hire A-player marketing and ops talent from the US and LATAM, and get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage

Mike's IG: https://www.instagram.com/mikewystrach/

In late 2022 Stan was doing roughly $1 million a year, and a slice of that was commission. They had added the cut for the reason everyone adds it: the rest of the category had one. Then Vitalii and his co-founder John Hu built the spreadsheet that killed it. They deleted transaction fees entirely and put the business on a flat $30 a month. Revenue went from $1 million to $15 million to $27 million.

Giving up a take rate at $1 million ARR means giving up the fastest-compounding line in the business. Mike walks him back into the room where that call was made, who pushed back, and what settled it. Vitalii is also clear that removing the fee is not what caused the 8.5x. The growth came from building a product people talked about, on no marketing budget.

A team of 30 changes the operative question: it stops being what to build and becomes what to refuse to build. And the thesis underneath is strange for a monetization company. Monetization was never the hard part. Attention is easy to accumulate and almost nobody knows what to do with it. Distribution is the bottleneck, and creator churn is structural rather than a product failure. That produced Stanley, the AI head of content Stan built in 14 days.

Chapters

00:00:00 Introduction

00:07:46 He Turned Down A Mid-Six-Figure Amazon Offer

00:14:01 Time In The Arena Beats Founder Dating

00:17:56 What Do You Do With The Attention?

00:21:50 They Added A Commission Because Everyone Else Had One

00:22:29 The Spreadsheet That Killed The Commission

00:24:26 Removing The Fee Was Not What Drove The Growth

00:27:38 $1M To $15M To $27M

00:29:54 Crossing $30M ARR With Fewer Than 30 People

00:30:14 No Marketing Budget, And Gas In A Tank

00:32:49 What A Personal Head Of Content Actually Does

00:39:31 Every Founder Is About To Need A Digital Identity

00:43:48 At 30, Optimize For The Rooms You Sit In

Vitalii Dodonov
Stan: https://stan.store

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vitddnv/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/vitddnv/

PRESENTED BY PROPPEL

Your business is only as good as the people in it, and finding real A players is one of the hardest things you'll do. Proppel specializes in marketing and operations talent, placing top people from the US, LATAM and beyond.

Whether you need video editors, graphic designers, or media buyers from LATAM, or managers, directors, heads of department and VPs in the US, they'll help you build the team you actually need to grow.

It's all performance-based. You pay a one-off fee only once you actually hire someone, so no retainers and no ongoing costs. Every hire comes with a three-month guarantee.

Get 10% off your first hire: https://www.weareproppel.com/theadvantage