From Waste to Wow

Chris Kiefer (00:00.554)

Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Pursuit of Purpose. My name is Chris Kiefer and I am here with Brad Pedersen, who is the co-founder of Pella and Lomi, two really awesome sustainable companies that we'll get into. But before we do that, first of all, Brad, thank you so much for coming on.

Brad (00:20.04)

Chris, really excited to be here with you today and really looking forward to our conversation together.

Chris Kiefer (00:25.374)

Yeah, and so I met Brad through Renee Warren, who you guys are, or it sounds like from what I've seen on the other podcast, you and the Martell family go back a little ways and you guys are adventure buddies, is that correct?

Brad (00:41.58)

Yeah, Dan is one of my best buds and we've definitely had a lot of adventures together and most recently even him moving to the Okanagan in British Columbia where I live and so just gave us more access and opportunity to go play together so we have a lot of good memories we've created in the backcountry.

Chris Kiefer (01:01.066)

Are you in, is it Kelowna? Is that the same city or nearby?

Brad (01:07.192)

Yeah, that's right. Colonia is the closest major city. I live just north of that in a small area called Lake Country, but it's, you know, within 20 minutes, we're just kind of in the countryside, nestled between, as it would suggest by the name, lakes. There's a whole bunch of lakes around us, but beautiful area.

Chris Kiefer (01:20.01)

got it. I was gonna, my geography of Canada is not great, but there was, we went up to, I guess it would be Alberta, just south of Calgary. Trying to remember the name of this place that we went to. It was this really, or maybe it was near Lethbridge. It was, the place itself, like the little, it was like a venue for this wedding of a friend of mine, but the point that I was going to make is that

Brad (01:30.856)

Hmm. Okay. Last bridge.

Chris Kiefer (01:47.722)

Like we live in North Idaho, not too far away from you, and we have mountains and stuff, but some of the photos that we took and just like the views of the mountains there, that is like the definition of God's country, if I've ever, like it is just, you can't, I genuinely feel like you can't go there and not be like, there is something bigger than me, there's a greater power that, like it's just.

the epicness of nature and the beauty and everything, it just really hits you.

Brad (02:18.916)

Yeah, I feel high gratitude for living in Canada. If you think about it from a luck perspective, the luckiest thing that happened, I was born in this incredible country that is full of abundance and has the lowest population density of any country on the planet. So there's a lot of country, not a lot of people, 10% of the US population there. And actually an interesting fact is that 80% of the Canadian population live within one hour of the US border.

So we're all kind of really low down on the, when you think of the country and how big it is and how far wide it goes and how high it is. Most people live just in the band, very close to the US border. So there's a whole lot of area that is, yeah, untapped, just incredible, like you say, God's country, just vast wilderness.

Chris Kiefer (02:59.999)

untapped.

Chris Kiefer (03:05.278)

Yeah, I remember it. It's called Pinscher Creek. Have you ever heard of that place? Yeah, very like kind of like, I feel like difficult to get to is probably most of Canada except for the major cities, but an awesome, awesome trip. So one of the things I wanted to dive into was, so you've started seven, is that, I saw seven companies, is the Pila and Lomi, is that eight and nine or is that part of the seven?

Brad (03:07.836)

Hmm. I do know that place. Yeah

Brad (03:16.241)

Hahaha

Brad (03:35.312)

Well, they used to be one company, but we just split them out. So that's actually technically seven and eight that I have been a part of co-founding. So yes, I've had other things that I've been involved in, I've invested in as an angel investor, but in terms of things that I've founded and kicked off from, from scratch, there's been eight adventures that I've participated in so far.

Chris Kiefer (03:55.262)

And I would say that, at least for me, because this was a pretty, it was potentially because of my past in the marketing agency, we would get asked to create Kickstarter videos for companies. And so I was very deep in the world of like what good Kickstarter videos existed and whatnot, and I feel like that's how I came across this Lomi product.

Brad (04:03.892)

Hmm.

Brad (04:08.782)

Mmm

Chris Kiefer (04:19.286)

But I think this is just before we get into like the learnings of these entrepreneurial things, I just would love for you to tell us what is Lomi and Pila and where did that come from? Obviously it was the result of this successful, is it the most successful Kickstarter or one of the most?

Brad (04:36.644)

Yeah, well, so we used Indiegogo. So crowdfunding as a category, we were the largest clean tech crowdfunding campaign of all time, the largest campaign of 2023. So yeah, it was an unusual outcome relative to what typically happens there. Yeah.

Chris Kiefer (04:39.575)

Okay.

Chris Kiefer (04:52.778)

That's awesome. So tell us what is the product and where was the idea for this? Where did it come from?

Brad (05:00.64)

Okay, so let me just take a step back in time and give you sort of a sense of my background to make sense of why those two businesses exist. So for close to 30 years, I was a toy maker. I made kids play things and in that process and through those adventures, I shipped billions of pieces of plastic around the planet. And I always felt somewhat conflicted about the fact that I knew that the majority of toys end up within landfill within 90 days. And most people are kind of like, what?

That's crazy, right? My Barbie or my Tonka truck, that doesn't seem to be the case, but yeah, those things would last longer. But if you think about the vast majority of toys are impulse toys, things that are near the counter that are in a surprise capsule or egg or something like that. And you take the toy out, you play with it, typically it breaks within a period of time, ends up in the garbage can, goes to landfill. So that is where a whole bunch of the toys I used to make went. And...

and certainly a number of other brands that are in the industry, that's what happens, and that's the end of life. And it kind of speaks to the broader idea of just consumerism, that we live in this economy of make, take, use, waste. Very linear. And there's not a lot of end of life thought into the beginning. At least that's the way it's been for, call it, the last 50, 60 years. So when I left the toy business and had an opportunity to start again, and I'd found freedom in that transition, I wanted to kind of redefine...

what I wanted to do when I grew up, because I've been a big kid my entire life, hence I was in the toy business. And I kind of landed on three principles. The first was life plan before business plan. In the past I had worked as my priority and while I espoused that my family was important and my faith was important and my fitness was important, if you looked at my calendar.

All you knew is that my finances were the most important thing. That's where I was spending the most of my time. And where you spend your time is what you value. So I was out of integrity with what I was saying versus what I was doing. So that was number one. Number two was only awesome people. I'd come through some business partnerships that weren't great. And I've come to learn that the two most important decisions you'll make in your life is who do you marry and who you get in business with. And make those decisions very carefully because it'll affect the quality of your life if you make it right or wrong. So.

Chris Kiefer (06:51.335)

Mmm.

Brad (07:15.304)

That was number two. And then number three was only impact. I only want to invest my agency into things that ultimately could be impactful and just bring more joyful purpose to my life. So that led me kind of with those constraints in mind to sort of look through a lens of like, what are the business opportunities that potentially I could get involved in that would allow me to apply these three things. And Jeremy Lang.

Chris Kiefer (07:40.734)

And sorry to recap, the three things are, I was trying to write these down, the value, where you spend your time is what you value. The third one was impact, and what's the succinct way to say who you marry and what you do business with? Only awesome people, okay. So the first one was the tagline is.

Brad (07:52.513)

Only awesome people.

Brad (07:58.744)

Life plan before business plan. All right, second one, no asshole rule. That's easier to remember. Third one, only impact. So that is basically the filter by looking at opportunities. So I was in a business forum with Matt Pertulli who owned a digital agency in Toronto and actually one of the largest in Canada and the world. Very gifted market.

Chris Kiefer (08:00.738)

Life plan, got it.

Chris Kiefer (08:06.501)

Yeah

Brad (08:25.948)

and he had invested into a startup called Pila. And Pila was the world's first composable phone case. And it was founded by an entrepreneur from Saskatchewan named Jeremy Lang, and he'd come up with this material that had these incredible composable biodegradable qualities, and he had applied it first to phone cases. And that just happened to be a really lucky thing. I don't think he knew just how big the market was. Like,

phone cases, there's $20 billion worth of those sold every single year, so it's a huge market. Kind of makes sense because if you think about it, Apple phones, well, they always have a new model every year and most people are trading in their devices every two to three years and when they trade them in, they have new phone case, right? The one you had before doesn't fit onto the one you're getting, so you get a new phone case.

Chris Kiefer (09:05.998)

throw the phone case away, I just went through that process. Yeah.

Chris Kiefer (09:11.722)

It's even interesting because before, I'm just remembering my first phone, the flip phone, or the LG phones, cases, they kind of had cases, but they weren't an essential component. And now it's like, I mean, the number of people that I know that don't have a case on their phone is like, it's almost awkward. It's like, oh, did you just get your phone and you're waiting? Why do you not have a case on your phone? They're so delicate. So yeah, phone cases are huge.

Brad (09:21.244)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brad (09:28.102)

Yeah.

Brad (09:31.451)

Yeah.

Brad (09:39.164)

It's a significant business. But the problem is that they're made out of this incredibly resilient material. We're not anti-plastic. It's just that we've gone from making things with plastic that have this very long, enduring timeline into things that we consume quickly, like single use is abuse. Like using plastic for spoons and cups and like, it just, if we use it once, throw it away. That is not responsible. So.

Jeremy applied the material to phone cases. Also, it's a business that had enough margin because these new materials were more expensive than traditional polymers. And he had built it and had gotten product market fit, but he just didn't have the ability to scale it. And so Matt had come in as the first investor and Matt was frustrated because now he was growing awareness and creating demand, but they didn't know how to increase production and scale it. And of course, with my experience in being a toy maker where I've...

literally, like I said, billions of pieces of plastic around the planet, it was the perfect opportunity for me to apply my agency. And the good news is that Matt, Jeremy, and I, we went through a really thorough process up front to be able to ensure that we were good matches for each other that weren't gonna step on each other's toes and that we were gonna compliment each other's weaknesses versus compete with each other, which I also think is a really important thing when you're thinking about a business partnership.

So that was how this got started. And as we were selling millions of pieces of loamy case, or sorry, of Pila cases into the world, we started running into a new problem, which is how do we give these things the end of life they deserve? In other words, they do break down, they do compose, but most people don't have access to a home composter and or an industrial composter that actually takes compostable plastics. And so we would get people actually shipping their Pila cases back to us.

and saying, hey, you look after it. And we were like, well, just take it to a composing facility. That's what you do. But we really quickly found out that was not readily available. So we just, yeah.

Chris Kiefer (11:43.618)

So I have a quick question on that. This is a stupid one, but this is just my lack of knowledge in the composting world. If I have a compostable phone, why can't I just put it in the garbage? What's the, like, isn't it gonna compost in the landfill?

Brad (11:50.141)

Hmm.

Brad (11:57.944)

It's a man that's such a great question and it's probably the number one misunderstanding of just organic matter in general. At least it was for me like the idea. Hey, I take my organic things. I put them into landfill and they break down there and that's just that's responsible. Right. The problem is typically they go into a plastic bag that then goes to a landfill where they cover it with clay or dirt. And so it breaks down breaks down anaerobically. So instead of generating.

emissions that are helpful, it creates emissions that are harmful. So it generates methane gas, which is up to 80 times more potent than CO2. And then it also produces something called leachate, which leachate seeps into the water system and corrupts it. So it's, I think, probably one of the greatest misunderstandings, because let's face it, most people don't think about their garbage. Their garbage is something they put into a bin and then it goes away. And they don't want to think about it, quite frankly. That's just...

kind of like, hey, it's a problem that was solved because it's no longer there. I mean, it-

Chris Kiefer (12:59.218)

Yeah, so I'm going to try and if I'm if I'm tracking with you, this is super like this is crazy I've never it's never crossed my mind before but you're saying that not only for phone cases But like a banana peel or any anything that is compostable If it goes into the ground and if the i'm just tracking the words anaerobic, so there's no oxygen in the breakdown process That is that makes a worse byproduct than if you were

Brad (13:20.36)

Correct. Yep.

Chris Kiefer (13:27.226)

oxygenating your compost and turning it in your own house or your piece of land that you own, that's going to be a much, because I've always thought, what's the like, people talking about composting? It's like, I mean, we live in Idaho, garbage isn't really a problem. Like no one talks about it like they do in Seattle, where there's just like, where do we put all of this, you know? And so I've thought that if I take a banana peel and put it in the garbage and then

Brad (13:44.815)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Kiefer (13:53.974)

put that in the garbage, the can, and they take it in the garbage truck, what's the difference between that and my backyard? And you're saying that it literally is going to decompose and create a different byproduct by doing the first as opposed to doing it in your house.

Brad (14:08.636)

You've said it very well and quite frankly it is the greatest misunderstanding. Most people don't know that is it, and I didn't know that. And you know the problem we were trying to solve is how do we give our compostable phone cases the end of life. And as we were solving that problem we realized that actually this is not just for our compostable products. This is for all organic waste, so food waste as well. And everything you just said we came to this understanding that when you take organics and put them in the landfill...

and they break down anaerobically, that's harmful, not helpful. And that really what we should be doing is breaking it down with an oxygenated environment with the right microbes, the right humidity, and then the output does two things. Number one, it becomes a regenerative supplement for the soil, and that's something that we actually need more of in the planet. And the second thing is it's a decarbonizer, not only by diverting the methane gases, like that you displace it.

but the output itself actually sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. In fact, LOMI is going to be a carbon asset within this calendar year. And we truly believe that we've built the most scalable carbon capture solution on the planet today. So look, you asked about the crowdfunding campaign and we're kind of going down the securitas path. The point is that...

Chris Kiefer (15:25.215)

Yeah, yeah.

Brad (15:27.436)

we decided to just, can we get proof of concept? Would people support something like this, particularly at this price point? Because it's $500, it's not cheap. So we put together this crowdfunding campaign. I've done crowdfunding campaigns in the past, it sounds like you've got experience there. They're hard, they require a lot of time and investment and effort. And what I've come to learn is that if you do six figures, that's pretty extraordinary.

Chris Kiefer (15:42.766)

Mm.

Brad (15:52.024)

as a point of comparison, Peloton, when they launched their initial product on a crowdfunding campaign I think it raised about $250,000. So that, you know, you know where they are today. If you do seven figures, that's really extraordinary. And if you do eight figures, that's like unbelievable, you're a unicorn. And so we launched it, we did great storytelling, which is really the key to why that works so well. You know, Matt's opening line, what if you could change the world with the push of a button? It just...

Chris Kiefer (16:11.394)

Mm-hmm.

Brad (16:19.384)

resonated with people. They understood that the simplicity of this thing in my home actually not only eliminates the mess and the smell and all the things we don't love about food waste, pests, rats, raccoons, that kind of stuff, but also is an incredibly healthy thing and positive, simple thing we can all do to support a healthier planet and help reverse climate change. And it just resonated and people showed up and voted with their wallets and you already know the outcome. So it was incredibly...

Yeah, it's incredibly successful. And then we've since. So we did the crowdfunding campaign April 2021. Like I said, raised just under $10 million worth of support. And since that time, we've shipped almost 200,000 units into the market. So just over 18 months.

Chris Kiefer (16:49.482)

And when did that video launch?

Chris Kiefer (17:07.586)

That's awesome. And so, yeah, I'm curious how, and you kind of touched on this, but I would love to go deeper into, or I saw in your bio that you have seven times a faith-based founder. So talk to me a little bit about what does that mean? I'm assuming that this probably ties into your new three rules that you live by, but you probably didn't always have those, but maybe you always had the faith lens.

or how has that evolved in your journey?

Brad (17:40.528)

Yeah, look, it's a great question. And it's something that I would say is evolving. I haven't arrived, I'm a work in progress, but I do feel like I've had enough experience, enough reps that I've figured a few things out. Look, I grew up in a home that I had incredible support from my parents. My parents, they went to church, they were believers. So I think I had good role models in terms of the way they lived their life, but I also...

didn't want to take anything at sort of face value. I wanted it to be real for me. In fact, I think it's Scott Peck had said that there's nothing more dangerous than hand-me-down religion. You know, if you just believe something because your parents believed it, that is not really a great way to build a foundation of support. It has to be something that you really own on your own. And so at 17, I had finished up high school.

And I was getting ready to go to Chiropractic College, but I decided I wanted to take a break and just maybe do some traveling. And my father had suggested, hey, check out this organization called YWAM, which is Youth with a Mission, and check it out and see what you think. So I went online, I did a little research, and I, actually I don't think I did it online. Whatever, I did research, because I don't think the internet was even a thing. It was a thing, but not much of a thing.

Chris Kiefer (19:03.13)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brad (19:05.872)

But I did some research and I was like, this sounds interesting because I'm not just traveling, this is gonna be allowing me to do things that actually make impact and I was curious about that. So I wanted to do it. And it's kind of cool because you go and do something called a DTS where they train you up and then you don't even know where you're gonna go but you're doing outreach somewhere in the world.

we ended up going to Jamaica and at first I'm like, yay, kid from the prairies gets to go to this really cool exotic island and this is gonna be amazing. And you know, I'm gonna be surfing on the beach and how awesome this is gonna be. And then I found out we were going to Kingston, Jamaica and Mandeville, Jamaica, which is on the south end of the island and at that time Kingston had the second highest murder rate in the world. Anyways, it was definitely a different experience than what you could imagine based upon where we were and the people we were gonna be meeting with.

But three things came away from that experience. Number one was just how incredibly fortunate, blessed I was to be born in Canada. And that we all should be to be born in these Western countries where we just take for granted our safety and food security and shelter. And you know when you go to developing countries and you see firsthand how most of the world lives, it's really eye-opening.

So that was that was the kind of the first like wow this was like first time I've kind of been out of Kansas. It was like this is a an eye-opener, right? Second thing was living in faith I'd heard about it you read about it, but Actually when you see and what is faith is a substance of things hope for the evidence of things not seen and when you actually Truly live in a place where you don't know exactly You know where you're gonna be staying

Chris Kiefer (20:30.457)

Mm-hmm.

Brad (20:53.82)

where your meals are gonna come from, it relies you to rely on a higher power to guide what's happening. It's pretty incredible. And I saw things that just you couldn't explain outside of just miracles. It was just so formative to how I was looking at the world and that yes, I have agency, I have the ability to make things happen, but there is forces at play that are beyond me that are helping amplify any of my activities.

And then third was this sort of soulful satisfaction that came from giving. When you lean into other people and are able to invest into them time and effort and your agency and resources in a meaningful way and you can see in their eyes that you made a difference and there's no way that they could ever repay you for what you did. There's nothing that you could ever buy or own that would ever give you the same soulful satisfaction.

So at 17, those three things, I came back from that experience and they never really left me. They became kind of grounding anchors in terms of the way that I was looking at the world and the way that I would then go forward. And I always had this entrepreneurial tendency, but I would say that I also felt somewhat conflicted or maybe even convicted that, you know, if I wasn't doing anything other than, you know, God's work, it was less than. Like you're not actually...

in the church, if you're an entrepreneur, you're kind of like, I'm not sure you're actually, you're a bit of a risk taker and you seem to be preoccupied with money, therefore you're less than others. And there was a long period of time that I almost had a little bit of guilt and a little bit of shame about the fact that I wasn't doing things that were honoring the kingdom of heaven in the way that I was showing up. But I have come to learn.

Chris Kiefer (22:31.906)

Hmm.

Chris Kiefer (22:42.827)

Mmm.

Brad (22:45.968)

And by the way, there's a couple books that I read that were really helpful. One was Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor, and the other is To Call to Create. And Erwin of Commandus, he also talks a lot about this, that everything that we do has got eternal consequences, and that we were actually, from the beginning of time, called to be creators in God's economy. That all of us have different gifts and different talents, and our talents have been gifted to us.

in order to build value into people and the planet. So, you know, there used to be like 700 different rules and commandments that if you go through the Old Testament that people were supposed to lean into. And Jesus summarized it in two, love God, love people. And if you think about it, you know, how do we love God? Well, we start by loving this planet, this garden that he gave us, this gift that he asked us to co-create in, to not only be, not to be the...

the takers, but instead to be the caretakers. We're really good at taking, and we are very poor at caretaking. And secondly is, by doing that, also loving the people that are around us. And so as I look at it, I think business has the potential to be the greatest force for good, to do and serve those two things. And so I really feel more empowered and compelled than ever before that these enterprises are a force for good. And through delivering excellence and value and helping build value into

God's economy and into the lives of people that I'm really living in service and aligned with what he wants for our world and our humanity

Chris Kiefer (24:19.326)

Hmm. I love that. I was just so tough to take you where my head's at. Seems similar. I when I was in college So I'd gotten engaged to this is a personal story that I've never shared publicly on a podcast But I was engaged to Natalie and I told her I should start but when we started dating Early like within a month of dating I told Natalie that I had always had this thought Maybe I'm supposed to be a priest and I was like should I like I didn't know if that

Brad (24:32.208)

Hmm.

Chris Kiefer (24:48.05)

if I was gonna do that or not, but I just, I didn't wanna like, I wanted to make sure she wasn't blindsided if a year later I was like, hey, so it was a thing that we talked about frequently, but I remember, very similar to what you're describing, I had this thought of like, I can be a priest, which is like the best thing that a human could do. That was, this is the perception. Or I could do like, be a dad and have, you know, take a normal job, but you're not really like a saint.

worthy person in that situation. You're like, you could be a good guy, but it's like if you really wanted to follow God's will, go do that. And that was something that I, who knows where that came from. It's not like my parents said that, but I was, I remember I was growing up and I think I remember you saying you were told you were going to be a chiropractor. And me growing up, it was like, Chris is going to be an engineer. He's going to be an engineer, going to be an engineer. Like, I liked Legos and building with stuff and people just said that constantly. So when I went to college, it was like, oh, I guess I'm going to be an engineer.

Brad (25:19.154)

Right.

Chris Kiefer (25:45.834)

and I went to my first engineering job after college and it was like the whole world just was like, it was scary, cause I was like, oh no, like I'm on this path to be an engineer. It doesn't look fun. That guy doesn't look like he loves his job. And this is like, this is what I'm debating. Do I, cause we were, I was engaged at this point. Do I get married and be an engineer or I have like three months to say.

Never mind, Natalie, I'm out. I'm gonna go be a priest, because the engineering was like so, it just didn't, it wasn't right for me. And I didn't realize that there was like another path of being a good, faithful person. And I love, I didn't, I still, this is the first time and I love the frames that you're putting on entrepreneurship of just really leaning into creating and co-creating with God in all of this.

And that's, I don't know, that's a very exciting, or it resonates strongly with me, cause I feel like it's not like I've, I don't, I am definitely not in the same place I was 12 years ago, but it's now, it's still something that I think like, how am I, like some of the things that I wanna ask you is the, a lot of this stuff like the composting or going and serving in other countries, I feel like there's the voice in my head that's like, you're like,

how are you actually gonna make an impact? Like you, you're a little, one person. I'm curious if you have these thoughts. Obviously, as the machine starts gaining legs and you're shipping hundreds of thousands of these, you're like, oh, okay, we actually could make a difference. But there's that piece of like, how are you actually going to change the amount of plastic that is just dumped into landfills? That's the voice saying to me, not to you. But you know what I'm saying? Like, you're just one person, you're not gonna change.

Brad (27:12.731)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Kiefer (27:39.51)

the other 50,000 people in Coeur d'Alene that aren't gonna do it, you know?

Brad (27:43.925)

Yeah. Do you know who John Newton is?

So I'll tell you a quick story and it'll make sense. John Newton was a sailor in the slave trade and he was conflicted about it. He felt guilty about it, but it was a way to make a living. And he was off the coast of Ireland, got caught up in a storm, and at that moment, he got on his knees and he prayed to God. He said, if you save me from this storm, if I survive, I will commit the rest of my life to working to abolish the slave trade. He survived.

and chewed his word, he went back to London, and he started publishing documents on the slave trade and the atrocities and everything he'd seen. He teamed up with William Wilberforce, and together, within just a few years of him passing, they actually were able to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire. And while most people may not know that story, they forever know him for the hymn he wrote, Amazing Grace. And so when he...

About the hymn and the words, particularly when he talks about a wretch like me, you can maybe understand where he was coming from because he felt so conflicted about what he was doing.

Chris Kiefer (28:54.439)

and in and yeah, part of that industry.

Brad (28:57.155)

Yeah.

just being in an industry. And so, look, I kind of look at my experience similar. Of course, you know, making toys is not the same as trading humans, but to the extent that, you know, I have shipped a bunch of plastic things. And again, all in the spirit of putting smiles on kids' faces, knowing that the end of life was not an integrity with a circular economy or a generative economy, there's some conflict with that. And, you know, the greatest threat to our planet is not, you know, nuclear war or conflicts that are happening in the Middle East

The next you know, COVID outbreak the greatest threat to our planet is the false belief that somebody else is going to solve our problems We have to be willing to lean in and take action to make the change possible because while you know John Newton didn't understand at the time the work he was doing today He was a part of the series of steps that allowed us to get to a place where we actually have You know the planet has progressed to a much better

place for civilization quite frankly.

Look, I think entrepreneurialism is an opportunity to express yourself and your talents in a way that makes meaningful change and I hope the work that I do today is going to make impact to generations beyond me. I don't know that for certain and it's certainly not hubris. I don't care if they remember my name but hopefully, you know, I talk about the kids are arrows in my quiver that I'm firing into a future I'll never see. So hopefully to their kids' kids, those arrows that are shot into a distant future, that

Brad (30:32.73)

of the work that I'm doing here today. And you know, it starts with awareness, because here's the thing, we're all just kind of becoming aware that plastic pollution is a problem. That's really only within the last, call it 10 years, that there's suddenly a general awareness of that. Now there's awareness of food waste going to landfill is not a great thing. That awareness is helping create positive change towards it. Just think, at one time we used to power a large part of the world with whale oil and bat poop.

which is kind of crazy, right? You think about it now and go, how did we get to such a crazy idea to do such mindless ways of creating energy? But that's what we knew at the time. But through awareness, we said that this is not sustainable or there was a better path in the way of using coal and then that led to petroleum. And now we're aware that, hey, there's consequences to that. So we're waking up to wind and solar and all kinds of other opportunities. So it's first step is awareness and then the ability to lean into it.

Use our entrepreneurial gifts, our God-given talents to be able to then make change, make momentum that hopefully impacts within your lifetime, but hopefully even beyond your lifetime in a way that continues to build value for both people on the planet.

Chris Kiefer (31:44.642)

So I have an interesting, then again, these are just like the personal voices in my head that I'm bringing up. But when did you realize, or maybe there's a series of like breakthroughs, you're born and you're like, okay, this voice tells you you're gonna be a chiropractor, and then you go on this mission, and then you start some companies. But I feel like something that I have.

witnessed other people talk about. I've maybe had a couple of these moments of just realizing I'm actually capable of so much more than I thought I was. And I'm curious if you have identified any moments in your journey where there was this expansive or the expansion of what your vision or goal or whatever is. And I have a follow-up to that, but I'm curious where you want to take that.

Brad (32:21.8)

Hmm.

Brad (32:40.58)

Yeah, well, let's just be clear that I've typically stumbled on those by a series of happy accidents of through events that I largely did not want to go through. So...

I've come to learn that success is not a very good teacher. We tend to learn from failing, and we tend to learn from mistakes because when you fail and you make a mistake, it actually stops you, it forces you to reflect and then unpack, learn, and then try again. If you choose, you can choose also not to do that and be a victim and say, okay, I give up, and that makes you a failure where, you know, you get knocked down and then stay down.

Chris Kiefer (33:15.785)

Mmm.

Brad (33:19.408)

But I went through bankruptcy not once, but three times. And all three of those were forcing functions of stopping. Learning, unpacking, learning.

Choosing again and I found that you know, it's hard to figure out what you want in life It's much easier to figure out what you don't want so every time I would basically, you know look at the anti goals through the Problems that I'd gone through in business and say okay I never want to have these things happen again and that became the foundation for building a new business model That was better and so this is to answer your question on the other side of my failings was a better version of myself

there was purpose to my pain, and ultimately a better business opportunity that I wouldn't have found if I had been successful and just continued to kind of roll through life in that initial model.

And while I'm not suggesting people need to be masochist and go blow up their lives and look for pain, look at the struggles that you're going through and how you can build strength and how you can take your pain and turn to something that's purposefully better for you. And, you know, I've had, like I said, a few adversities, got fired from a company I co-founded. Another not awesome experience in the moment, but on the other side of that, freed me up to a better future that gave me new options and infinitely better life plan

and would never have saw if I just continued to be successful and just continue to kind of roll along in that. So I'm just a big believer that you know this is the whole idea of faith you know the substance of things

Chris Kiefer (34:54.989)

So, but I definitely hear what you're saying. I wanna probe deeper into like, but you had, I'm assuming, a personal belief of what you were capable of. And that has to change as you, like you don't co-found or have success in Lomi or Pila if you're a small-minded leader that can't paint a vision of like, like I guess that's the thing is like saying that, here's my great mission for our company.

come join me, follow me, let's go change the world and change composting. That doesn't, like, if you don't have the belief that it's possible, people are gonna see that and they're like, I'm not doing that. But it takes, it's almost like courage, faith, and then just like a little bit of ego, I think, of just like, no, I can't, like, we can do this, let's go. Like, we got this, but that doesn't, I'm assuming that 17-year-old Brad didn't have that. So where does that come from?

Brad (35:51.652)

Yeah, you're. Yeah, look, I agree. 17-year-old Brad was naive, and maybe to my benefit that I was just kind of, you know, it's something I actually call grit luck, where you just keep, you just don't give up. You just keep going and going and going, because even though it's, you know, it's the idea that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. I just keep leaning into the opportunity and trying to unpack it. So I.

I think at an early age, I did have some characteristics that helped me because I was resilient. I was a person who wanted to work hard and I wanted to perform. You know, I grew up in a family where my dad...

and instilled a work ethic into me that was hard work was important. And in fact, if it wasn't hard, it didn't really even count. I had he was expecting me to work hard, and that's how I earned respect from him. So I think that was helpful. And I think that was, you know, the beginning foundation. But as you move along, you start to understand that actually.

we as founders, entrepreneurs, are responsible for creating a future that other people can't see. We are vision casters. We travel in time into the future, imagine what it could look like, and then come back and create it. Like, when you set up a business plan.

for a year, that's literally what you're doing. You're time traveling to the future and saying, this is what I expect on the other side of this period of time. And then you come back and you put the steps in place to make that so. And along the way, you're probably pivoting and changing and being nimble and all that kind of good stuff. But we are...

Brad (37:30.416)

you know, this is part of what's unique about our humanity is that we have this incredible ability to imagine a different future and then to create hopeful ways of actually actualizing on that and creating it and creating a being. And if you have a basis of faith that you believe all work is eternal, if you believe that you're a spiritual being having a physical experience, then that's kind of a space foundation. Okay, this is a part of the overall plan for my existence in life and beyond. Therefore, everything I'm doing today...

has eternal consequences and if that's true then I have lots to hope for and I think quite frankly I think Christians should be some of the most innovative and risk-taking people on the planet because they understand the end game they understand what it's about so they should be leaning into this knowing that if we're in integrity with what we're called to do that ultimately we have a higher power that's empowering our ability to make impact

Chris Kiefer (38:27.647)

Love that. So I'm assuming that this could be a great transition into the new book that you have coming out, Startup Santa, is that what it's called?

Brad (38:37.828)

That is the name, Startup Santa.

Chris Kiefer (38:39.59)

And you, I assume, are the Santa, right? In this, that is the, was it your nickname, or like people called you that at some point with the toy company?

Brad (38:42.076)

Hahaha.

Brad (38:48.984)

Well, you know, no, I didn't ever get called Santa. The title is sort of cheeky that, you know, I've done several startups, and I was in the kids' space for almost 30 years, and I'm the real Santa Claus. If there's anybody who could be close to him, I am him, because most people know that Santa's from the North, and we're Canadians, so we're the closest to him, and you know, every morning...

Chris Kiefer (39:09.386)

Mmm.

out and toys.

Brad (39:13.656)

every Christmas morning I was putting joy and happiness under the tree. So, uh, so yes, that is the, where the title comes from.

Chris Kiefer (39:20.834)

That's the title. Yep. Now let's go deeper into the book.

Brad (39:24.568)

Yeah, so look, the book, it's a Toymaker's Tale of 10 Business Lessons Learned Through Timeless Toys. And I actually didn't want to write this book. The original idea was I was gonna do a memoir. And part of it was there was just a whole lot of things that happened in my life that I just felt like, okay, I need to write some of this down just so I don't forget it. Because our minds are really good at coming up with ideas, but retaining information tends to be kind of a leaky thing. And furthermore, I also thought the world is kind of noisy.

So I started writing a memoir and then as I started writing ideas started to come about and actually I found out that I actually write to figure out what I think and how I think about ideas and correlate ideas and it just started to come together and The final sort of iteration was like look I've got a whole bunch of life lessons Mostly from things that I did wrong. So, you know, this I tell people is not a to-do book It's a what not to do because here's a bunch of mistakes I made in building companies

and taking those lessons and tying it to toys. So iconic toys that you would know about and why toys? Well, toys are a facilitator of play and they help us just become human. Like they teach us how to be creative, how to interact and how to solve problems. And so behind every toy, there are lessons to be learned that some of them may not be even obvious. Like I talk about Jenga as an example that there's foundational blocks and there's flexible blocks. Like there's certain blocks, if you pull out the whole thing falls

you can move and it's no problem. Well that was a perfect analogy to talk about in your life. You've got values of like faith, family, fitness, finances, those things. You can't have those fall because if you do the entire structure falls. But things like fun and friends and you know, refinements or pursuing acts of freedom, those have the ability to be flexible. You can pick and choose when you do that and how often you do it. So every chapter takes a toy,

Chris Kiefer (41:16.782)

Mm.

Brad (41:24.358)

learned that I then tied to stories along my journey as being a toy maker.

Chris Kiefer (41:28.566)

That's awesome. I was gonna say Jenga, that's, first of all, that's the first game that Natalie, I like on our first mini date, Natalie and I played Jenga, but on the iPad, iPad Jenga. It was really like novel back then. They just, you know, I think it was the, literally the first or second iPad where you like could, you spin the Jenga tower around to get oriented and stuff. But I love the analogy also, like you want to have your Jenga game end quickly.

Just have one block at the bottom, you know? Have a foundation of one thing instead of your three or four values, you know what I mean? Like, you have one little thing that everything's teetering on, it's out of balance, your game's gonna be over pretty quick.

Brad (42:10.564)

Yep. Yep, absolutely. I didn't know you could actually play Jane Gunn on a smart device. That's the first I've ever heard of that.

Chris Kiefer (42:18.246)

Yeah, it's not, I mean, there's definitely the, it's less, you know, there's not as the big, having it physically there and tumble over definitely does not quite the same on an iPad. But anyway, so that sounds awesome. And where can people find this? Is it, where would a listener go buy this? Is it on all the regular places?

Brad (42:30.334)

Hmm.

Brad (42:40.452)

Yeah, so it launches next week, so first week in November, and you can find it in all the usual places, Amazon, Apple Books, we have an audiobook as well, so if you like to listen to books versus read them, that's going to be available as well, but if you want to learn more about the book, you go to StartupSantaBook.com and actually, you can download the first chapter for free, plus...

I did some videos with one of my spiritual mentors and there's opportunities for you to kind of go behind the scenes and learn more and even go deeper in terms of some of the lessons that we unpack in the book.

Chris Kiefer (43:15.282)

Awesome, I love that. On the topic of books, I always ask all my guests, what three book recommendations do you have for the audience?

Brad (43:25.616)

Look, first of all I would say that for me books are prescriptive. It's like what do you want to get value from the book versus just a book. So I tell people, if you tell me you want to learn about personal development, if you want to learn about how to be a better leader, then there's different books for that. But for me, the books that have made the biggest impact in my life, number one, the Bible.

Number two, Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller, which I would highly encourage to anybody who's a founder, business owner, or just a leader in the marketplace, quite frankly, who maybe has a little bit of uncertainty about what is my role in God's economy. I think it's extremely helpful. And then, look, I would say the third book is probably The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.

It's just no nonsense guide to what it takes to actually create success. It turns out there are no silver bullets. There is no fast lane to become successful. It's just small decisions consistently executed over time that compound into big results, both good and bad. Choosing not to do it or choosing to do it. So yeah, those would be the top three that have made impact on me.

Chris Kiefer (44:33.578)

Love those. I haven't heard of the, is Darren Hardy you said for the compound guide? Yeah, that sounds very interesting. And last question, favorite movie.

Brad (44:40.648)

Correct.

Brad (44:49.169)

I chopped my head it's gonna be Gladiator but I kind of feel like I came out of a generation of these big epic iconic films that told these stories of hero's journey like so I love Gladiator even though it's fiction loosely

based on history, but I just love the hero's journey story in that, in fact I have the helmet in my office because I think it's kind of a great reminder of just the blood, sweat and tears of trying to...

go through to meet your ultimate purpose in life. But I also think that during that, my generation, there was Braveheart, there was Saving Private Ryan, so many great movies, you know, River Runs Through It, but definitely glad I would be the top of my list.

Chris Kiefer (45:28.46)

Mmm.

Chris Kiefer (45:40.554)

I just, while I was looking this up on IMDB, I realized that, did you know there's a second Gladiator coming out next year? Gladiator 2? And it looks like Russell Crowe is gonna be in it again. Yeah, anyways, I was like, I just was pulling it up to link this. But anyways, so if you're a Gladiator fan, which I definitely am, looks like the next year at some point there's another one coming.

Brad (45:48.872)

No, I had no idea. Really?

Chris Kiefer (46:09.45)

Well, Brad, this was a super fun conversation. I have, this is just a random, I'm curious, because we've got a couple more minutes, just a little icing on the cake. The thing that you said about you, what you, where you spend your time is what you value, if I said that correctly. I'm curious, have you ever had, have you ever, well, first of all, I'm assuming you have kids, right? Have you asked them how, for feedback on how your time,

Brad (46:32.346)

I do, yep.

Chris Kiefer (46:38.698)

like allocation is going, or your wife, or who do you turn to like, hey, am I in alignment with what I say I will want?

Brad (46:50.032)

Yeah, no, I look, I think it's a great question. I actually talk about this in my book and the answer is yes to both my kids and my wife. I would say that's a recent history for me with some of my learnings. My kids are adults, they're in their mid-20s. But, you know, one of the things I talk about, you know, as I said, the two most important decisions you make is who do you marry, who you get in business with and get those right because your quality of life will be tremendously impacted on that. I've been very blessed. My wife is an amazing life partner and...

You know, two practices we have every week. Every Wednesday we have a date night and it's meant to be just fun and you know, cracking a bottle of wine and having dinner. We kind of surprise each other and it's just light conversation. But then every Sunday we go for a walk and we do a review of the week. And the way that we do that review is we personally self-assess how we showed up that week as a husband, father, lover and provider and her provider becomes a caretaker or homemaker.

like what worked, what didn't work, what do we think about the week ahead and then we give the other person an opportunity to either agree with it or provide feedback and I think it's important to provide those opportunities to communicate because I've come to learn that relationships don't get poor overnight they just gradually drift because of neglect and so love takes work, relationships take work, you got to lean into it and be you know proactive and work it to make it work.

Chris Kiefer (48:16.766)

Yeah, the one thing that made me think of when you said that is, so I have almost six, four, two, and how old is she now? Eight weeks old. So we've got four kids and my oldest, Ellie is her name, I asked her this question. I love asking really difficult or deep questions to little kids just to see, because it blows your mind how good their responses are sometimes.

Brad (48:28.851)

Hmm.

Chris Kiefer (48:45.666)

But one of the questions I asked was, hey, Ellie, how do you, or like, what do you think is important to me? And she, and a five-year-old, you know, this is her response, and she's like, I think that your phone's pretty important. And I was like, how do you know that? And she's like, well, because you look at it a lot. And I was just like, ugh, like, duh, like, just the, like, if you.

stop and have those conversations, regardless of the age, you have a five-year-old just like slap you in the face lovingly. She's just completely observing and just stating what she's seeing. And it's like, okay, yes, that's a great point and a good reminder. And it's like, my wife is over there like, I've tried to been telling you, whatever. If Natalie tells me, I'm not taking that. But when your five-year-old just is observing.

It's pretty humbling and a huge blessing to be reminded of that. So I just love the idea. I like that the date night and the walk, that's a fantastic idea for just reviewing the week. And I do think I completely agree with you that it sounds like that compound guide that you mentioned. There's probably, just from what you said, similarities that it's not like you say, I love you once and you're good.

It's the good relationships have check-ins and just the, it's like the reps, are you doing your reps every day? You stop lifting, you can't just say, well, I lifted a lot when I was 20, where'd my strength go?

Brad (50:07.794)

Yeah.

Brad (50:19.324)

Yeah, you can't win today's game with yesterday's home runs. You have to actually lean into it today. And your fitness and your family, your faith, it's a daily practice and giving opportunity for feedback. Because it's all small course corrections, right? I mean, we are out of balance and we need some feedbacks to help us get in balance. And as long as we give people permission, we're open to it. That's how we become better at what we do.

Chris Kiefer (50:43.09)

Amen. All right, well, thank you so much, Brad. It was a pleasure. Thank you for taking the time to come on here and share wisdom. And for those of you, oh, I almost forgot. How would you like people to connect with you if someone wants to?

Brad (50:54.392)

Yeah, you can go to my website, bradpetterson.com, and that's spelled with all E's as in echo, and D as in delta, because most people don't get it right. They spell it with other letters, so, S-E-N, yes, that's right. Yeah.

Chris Kiefer (51:06.178)

S E N at the end. S E N, awesome. Well, great, Brad, thank you so much and we will see you around.

Brad (51:15.42)

Sounds good. Thanks Chris. Appreciate the time today.