In this episode, John LaRoy, CEO of Apparel Redefined, sits down with Matt Lancor, founder of Kombuchade, as he shares his journey from studying Materials Science Engineering at the University of Illinois to building a thriving kombucha business. Matt’s path began with a math teacher’s influence, sparking his passion for engineering, sports, and entrepreneurship. After a successful career in technical sales, a health transformation led him to kombucha production.
Hear how Matt overcame challenges like layoffs and financial hurdles to create a company dedicated to improving gut health and hydration. Drawing on the resilience and decision-making skills honed through his rugby background, Matt has grown Kombuchade into a business with a mission to inspire people to prioritize their health. With a new facility and big dreams, Matt’s story is a testament to persistence, innovation, and the power of purpose.
Key Highlights
• Matt Lancor’s Early Life and Entrepreneurial Journey 1:42
• Passion for Rugby and Early Success 8:10
• Discovery of Kombucha and Entrepreneurial Venture 10:55
• Transition to Full-Time Entrepreneurship 23:25
• Growth and Expansion of Kombucha Business 28:12
• Impact of Rugby on Entrepreneurial Success 35:16
• Final Thoughts and Contact Information 38:00
Presentation Transcription
Matt Lancor 00:00
Let’s go.
Curt Anderson 00:02
Alright guys. Hey, John LeRoy, Happy New Year, dude. How are you, man? I’m
John LaRoy 00:06
doing well, happy New Year to you too. Hey, thank you big it’s gonna be a wonderful
Curt Anderson 00:10
year. As a matter of fact, I’ve got my Christmas card sitting right here from the LeRoy family. What a beautiful family, dude. So how was how’s the holidays? Everything
John LaRoy 00:19
good. Everything’s good. What did your was your family say about getting a Christmas car with a father with a cigar in his mouth? Like,
Curt Anderson 00:28
yeah, my they loved it. It was wonderful. So you have beautiful family, lots to be proud of. Survived the holidays. We got into a new year. So, man, it’s 2025, what a great way to kick off this New Year, man, we got Matt Lancor in the house. Matt, Happy New Year. How are you, dude,
Matt Lancor 00:46
I am very excited to be here. I’m very grateful to be connecting with some business leaders in the space of something that I love, which is materials right. As a materials engineer, I love the the story of how things come to be and to be able to connect with John and his team through Derek and have our stuff printed locally. It’s something I’ve always wanted for the company, and now we’ve got a great a great channel and a great partner right for us to continue doing that in the future.
John LaRoy 01:18
Appreciate that, man. Yeah, I love it. Alright, so
Curt Anderson 01:22
let’s go back in time, not too far back, because you’re a young man, so we’re going to go back 2014 ish, if I’m not mistaken, I believe you. You are fighting a line eye. Guy, if I have that correct, do I have that correct? Man, that’s correct. So alright, you’re off of college becoming an engineer and just this fierce, wonderful rugby player. And God forbid, we might talk a little bit of rugby, but just when you went off to University of Illinois, just talk a little bit about like intentions. Like, what were you What were you going to major? What was life going to look like? Let’s talk about going into college. What did that look like? Oh,
Matt Lancor 01:52
for sure. So I always had a bit of an entrepreneurial bug. I started mowing lawns and doing kind of little side hustles when I was in elementary school and middle school, and I had a math teacher whose daughter was a materials engineer, and he said to me, Hey, Matt, you know you’re really good at math. You’re really good at these standardized tests. Have you ever heard of material science engineering? And I go, not. What’s that? And he goes, You should go down to this engineering open house down at the University of Illinois. And I go down there, and I meet all these other materials engineers, and they, I specifically remember this one booth that was all about innovative sports equipment and how new materials drive innovation and drive technology and drive changes in business and in the marketplace. And I was like, boom. I’m like, This is it. I can mirror my love of math and science and creating an impact in the world with my love of business and entrepreneurship. So I wanted to insert myself right into that intersection of engineering and new technology and how that’s going to create shifts in the marketplace and in business development. And it was literally just that one thing my math teacher saying, Hey, you should check this program out. Turns out, turns out, the undergrad program at U of I was ranked number one in the country at the time, right above MIT. They had a rugby team. I’m from Illinois. Had some friends that were going down there, and that was it, man. There’s just kind of fate in a way.
Curt Anderson 03:40
Yeah, perfect, perfect fit. So, alright, so you know what? Let’s, let’s just, let’s, let’s pull out the punches. You know, Matt, rugby, dude, you got the beautiful rugby ball right over your shoulder there. You know, for folks that aren’t familiar with rugby, just talk a little like, why the passion for rugby? You look very athletic. You could play all sorts of different sports. Why rugby?
Matt Lancor 03:59
I did. I started growing up playing soccer. I then got into football, and in high school, my freshman year, I played football, I wrestled in the winter, and then I ran track in the spring, and that year, that spring, so this would have been 2010 my one of my older cousins had started playing rugby in college at Southern Illinois in Carbondale, and I went to watch one of his games, and I it was like this mixture of all my favorite sports, right? I was a running back, and I played safety. I was a wrestler at 175 pounds, and I ran track. And I was like, wait, I can tackle people. I can run with the ball. I can, you know, evade. I can kick the ball. Because of my soccer experience, I can pass the ball. And I, luckily, my high school had a club team, so I went and signed up that spring of 2011 Would have been my first season. Immediately made my way into the starting starting 15 over a senior. It caused a little bit of controversy, because I was only a sophomore, but first match got me the ball, broke three tackles, scored my first try, came up with a bloody nose, and I was addicted from that very moment.
Curt Anderson 05:23
Yeah, there’s, there’s no like, there’s no like, I kind of like rugby. It’s like, either like, you’re all in or like, you know, that’s not for me. So, all right, so scored a try on your first game, dude. That is phenomenal.
Matt Lancor 05:37
It just, it was it? I just give me the ball. I’m going to run. I’m going to run through guys. I became an all state rugby player that first, first season, three, three, all state years in high school, awesome. And it helped my football career. It helped my wrestling. They all the skill sets all interrelated. And the other thing that I really loved. There’s actually two things. One is there was no play calling by the coaching staff. The coaching staff would teach you, like patterns of play, but while you’re on the field, you’re calling the shots. You’re not waiting for a play call. I remember being a running back, and sometimes the play call would come and I’d be like, that’s a bad call, coach. Like, I wish I could push back. We need to run 46 buck right now. We don’t need to be running up the middle, you know. But the and then the second thing was, after the match, we would always share a post game meal together with the opposite team. So in football, you just fuck those guys, you get back on the bus and you go home. But with rugby, it was like, Hey, man, here’s a cheeseburger. And that was a great run, dude. Like, that was awesome handshake. It was this different dynamic where you I was making friends instead of having enemies, and because of that, I have lifelong friends all over the state of Illinois, all over the Midwest, all over the country and all over the world. Now that I’ve shared these physical, intimate kind of violent moments with you know,
Curt Anderson 07:20
yeah, what I think it’s called gentleman’s violence is that, is that, do I have that correct? It’s,
Matt Lancor 07:24
it’s a great way to put it. It’s, we’re a gentleman. But one more on the field, it’s no holds barred.
Curt Anderson 07:30
No holds barred. So, alright, so let’s buy All right, so college, you engineering degree, fierce athlete, you’ve got this entrepreneurial bug inside of you when you’re going through college, what in like, you know, engineering classes, what was future looking like to you then?
Matt Lancor 07:47
Man, I didn’t know. I just knew that I liked what I said, that intersection of, like, new technology and driving changes in the marketplace. And I took some entrepreneurial courses and tracks while I was in school, one of my favorites was called engineering and entrepreneurship, and it was a guest lecture series. So every week, it was a guest who would give a talk, and they were either a founder, a patent attorney, somehow involved in the startup ecosystem. The second one was I did an extracurricular group with a business consulting group, and I got to do some actual real world business consulting on some existing businesses in the marketplace. And I loved the business consulting. I loved the entrepreneurship, but I still didn’t have the eureka moment. I didn’t know what it was, and so my goal graduating was find a role that will help me build my skill set towards finding that eureka moment. And I interviewed probably 50 different organizations or more. I was hungry. I was just like, I took whatever interview I could get so investment banking, programming, business consulting, you know, working at like John Deere or a ceramics manufacturing company and micro chip makers, all of it, and I ended up finding a niche kind of role called technical sales, and I started working for a German automation company that manufactured sensors and controls that are used in industrial manufacturing. And so my role, essentially was I had about 100 accounts, all within two hours of Chicago, and I would go, and it was kind of like that TV show how it’s made. It was like, what were they making in this one? And I would roll up, and it’d be like, Oh, we make whipped cream here. And I’d go meet the head engineer, and he’d walk me through their entire process. And I would say, Well, you know, hey, I’ve, we’ve got these new. Pressure sensors that can solve that problem for you. Or, why don’t we put a safety sensor on here so it doesn’t pinch somebody’s fingers? Or, you know, hey, what if we put this little laser here I can actually measure, you know, extra whipped cream. Or it just became this problem solving role inside of industrial manufacturing depending on what they were making. And that just fascinated me. I got to see the proverbial behind the curtain, right for how all things are made here in America.
John LaRoy 10:36
Alright, awesome. So go ahead, John, no, it just sounds awesome. That’s really cool role. It
Matt Lancor 10:43
was. I loved it. And then I did a project at well to Coincidentally, I was still competing in rugby, right? So I was doing this day job, working all these different accounts, automotive, food and beverage, pharmaceutical, you name it, I was, I’ve probably seen, seen it in some way or another, and I tried some kombucha at a rugby tournament out in Seattle, and immediately felt the difference that weekend, a normal bowel movement pregame. Poop was no stresses. That was the big one I noticed. And then kind of a a mental resilience. Like, I don’t know how to describe it, but I was, I wasn’t stressed. I was just kind of like, calm. I was like, wow, let’s take the match 250, pound Fujian guy, no worries, chop and tackle. Hit him right in the knees. You know, it was like, it was a different it felt different internally, like mentally and emotionally in some way. And I couldn’t find any kombucha in the Midwest after I came back. Then I found a grocery store that had a couple SKUs, started buying, you know, 234, bottles a week, and just quickly got this idea to, like, home brew, my own version of it. And that was kind of the the origin story, you could say, of kombucha. It was this mixture of this long term entrepreneurial drive mixed with now I have this, like manufacturing experience, and now I’m seeing a need in the marketplace, right? One of the guys on my team that year, actually, he went on to become a two time Olympian. None of us knew anything about gut health or probiotics or how it was going to affect our performance and our recovery, and it was such a simple idea. It was like, Oh, I just want to make gut health and probiotics cool for athletes,
John LaRoy 12:42
it’s wild. How much that stuff is has changed. I mean, a little bit older than you, but you know, same thing, like in high school, three sport athlete and every sport was like, soccer was my thing to stay in shape for baseball and hockey, right? And then I did football power lifting in the summer, just to stay in shape for soccer and then also for hockey and baseball. It’s like the stuff we were doing, you were just doing, and everything was kind of based off the football lifting program, right? And like, the baseball coach, like, yeah, it’s good idea. It’s like we’re doing overhead snatches, we’re doing all this stuff that, like, then became really popular with CrossFit. But it’s like, it really wasn’t sports specific at all, and no one talked about eating. It was like, go eat as much as you want, of anything you want, and then just go lit, you know. And it’s just, it’s, and that’s like, how it was. And you talk about, like that was the beginning of, kind of like, oh, you should lift when you actually play sports, because that didn’t happen, you know, I mean, for like, 1940 to 1990 there wasn’t an off season program just to show up at Spring Training and use those 30 days to get into shape. And hopefully you’re in shape, and then, you know, maybe by June, July, you’re good for the MLB season. But, yeah, it’s just wild. How much of that stuff has exploded. And then it’s like, Okay, let’s get the lifting and all that stuff down. And now let’s look at what you eat, and then look at, like, all the stuff that’s going on in your biome. It’s just It’s wild, like, that’s taken this long to get here, but here we are, but just a little bit dive, or going back into the manufacturing experience. Like, how much of walking through all those shops helped you probably be, in my opinion, I bet it helped you 1015, years of when you started trying to make your own stuff, because you saw, like, the actuators and the lines and this, this and that, and then just having your own mechanical engineering or engineering background, because, like, even to me, like Today, we just got back from Charlotte yesterday, and I’m just still looking within my own industry, but touring shops all over the country and seeing like we do the exact same freaking thing. But I’m like, Oh my God. Like, that’s a great freaking idea. And it’s like our industry is very home, like garage based, and everyone’s kind of got. Like a little knick knack or spin of doing things. And, yeah, like, we’re still learning, and it’s like, I wish I was able to go see all these different shops back in the day, and it would help help me be farther along. But I would love to go see other industries as well. And I do like that now. And we go sell to other companies, like, Hey, let me see what you do. And, you know, everyone’s a little protective sometimes, like, you know, if you’re not, you know, like, why do you need to see that? It’s like, I’m not trying to steal anything. I just want to see if there’s got to be a better way that we do things. And what can I pick up from here? That’s, it’s really cool. I
Matt Lancor 15:34
think I wouldn’t be here without it. It gave me the confidence of, like, because it’s just like you’re saying a manufacturing plant. At its core, you’re receiving inbound shipments of raw materials. You were going to take those raw materials, put them through some sort of process that is going to change them in some way to add value. Then you’re going to package it in a way that it can then go outbound. That’s it. That’s what’s happening at a high level at all of these factories. Whether you’re making t-shirts, you’re making kombucha, you’re making microwave bacon, you know, whatever it is that that plant’s doing, and you can learn cross industry, right? Because we’re all doing the same thing, bringing a truckload, unpack it, process it, add value, repack it, send it out. And I wouldn’t be here without it. I mean, the one epiphany where it came to me, it was like a calling from God. I don’t know what else to call it. I was at a beer brewery, and I’m walking through and I’m looking at all these machines, and I’m doing this project with this like we’re measuring water flow and beer flow, and we’re helping them dial in their recipes to automate it. And it was like this small voice. It’s like, Hey, Matt, I want you to build a place like this, but for kombucha for active people, and your goal is to help 100,000 people take their first step towards balancing their gut health and their overall health and wellness, and I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for that. And the thing is, I was open to that, right? I was searching for this. What is my purpose like? What is my why do I have this engineering degree? Why am I in all these these factories? Why am I with all these elite level athletes, kind of pushing myself to do this and this, like kombucha thing just became like, Oh, this is the perfect mix. Like, this is what I’ve been searching for. And how long
John LaRoy 15:43
after did you get that nudge, after you had your first sip of kombucha.
Matt Lancor 18:02
My first sip was August of 2014 I was home brewing by October of 2014 Wow. That October was probably when I was in that beer brewery, and I started thinking about the brand, and I actually, I have the original logo. Here. I was in an art class, and I was drawn, I drew this logo, and I didn’t know what it meant to me at the time, but what it meant, what it felt like was this internal balance of balancing our internal structures to then reach a higher level, a new peak, or a new level of understanding. I was like, Oh, this is a logo for my company. I
John LaRoy 18:53
mean, did you, I mean, the flower of life, right? I mean, like, did you know about that before you drew that? Or did that just come in?
Matt Lancor 19:00
It was a flower of life, meditation art class, where they would just draw the interconnected circles, and then I colored in that pattern with colored pencils. In some way. I started the LLC in June of 2015 I was still in my parents house, like making black mark kombucha. But I was doing like 1000 2000 $3,000 a month in cash sales to guys on my rugby team. I found a guy doing prepared meals for like 20 or 30 CrossFit gyms, kind of in the southwest and western suburbs, people in my yoga studio. No, he was called Cinderella paleo. They’re no longer around. It was Bernie Laskowski. Now he runs a restaurant in Geneva, but he was selling them. I was doing it. I was like, Dude, I don’t know what’s going. On, but, like, this is a business. I think, you know, I was 22, 23 years old. I was so dumb. I, like, I had student loan debt. I My parents thought I was insane, but I just had this, like, inner calling, or this inner push that was like, Dude, this is going to be huge. I started validating it, right? I wasn’t, I shouldn’t I give myself a little bit of a break. I wasn’t that dumb, but I was pretty dumb. I was a little naive. Maybe we’ll call it that. I bought a ticket to the kombucha con. It was a Brewers Association for kombucha brewers, and they were in their third annual meeting. So they had only, this is their third meeting ever, and I got to go meet the founders of these other like National kombucha brands. And the keynote speaker was a craft beer guy, and he goes up and he’s like, you know, craft beer took the world by storm. He goes, kombucha and fermented beverages are going to do the same thing with from Big Soda. He goes, this is the craft beer of health and wellness, and you will all craft your own unique brand, your own unique messaging and your own unique process. And I took that, he showed all this market data. Here’s how big the market’s going to be, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just thought, Okay, if I could get 100,000 people to drink two or three products a week. I’m like, that’s $100 million company. Like, that’s not that crazy. How many athletes are there in America? Okay, well, there’s 20,000 professional athletes. There’s a half a million collegiate athletes. There’s 100 million in youth sports, from elementary school up to high school, and there’s 150 million adults who exercise regularly, whether they’re a weekend basketball player or they’re a jujitsu competitor or whatever they are. And I’m like, 100,000 out of 200 million. I’m like, that’s nothing like I could do that, but that’s the naivety, right? Like, I was like, Oh, I’m competing with some of the biggest, most well established, well funded companies on the planet, but because of this engineering experience, I crafted a unique process in house that caught our costs compared to all of our competitors, and we created a different texture, right? We’re not super carbonated, we’re more lightly carbonated, right? It’s gonna be easier for somebody who’s active. We’ve got more functional herbs, right? So I started looking at, how are these other brands making kombucha, and how could I make it more functional, more nutritious? Uh, how could I make it easier to drink for an athlete? I add electrolytes to it now, right? How could I, kind of you differentiate ourselves a little bit? But yeah, it was just step by step, day by day. I mean, we’ll have our 10 year anniversary coming up in June. So it’s not a get rich quick scheme by any means. But it was fueled by purpose and passion the whole time.
Curt Anderson 23:25
So, man, when talk about so you had this great job fresh out of college, you’re living at mom and dads, so I mean, you’re making pretty good you’re making phenomenal money. What was the transition like? When did you when did you leave the corporate world to start your entrepreneurial journey? Oh
Matt Lancor 23:41
yeah, dude, I had the company car. I was making six figures. It was like I it was cushy, and that was kind of what I held on to in the back of my mind. Whenever I would, you know, have some fear or anxiety or worry come up would be like I was a great technical salesman, like, if shit hits the fan, I just go get another one of these engineering sales jobs, you know? But the transition was less than optimal. I started my my branch office here in Chicago was going through some layoffs, so they started kind of firing some guys around me. I was new to the corporate world, so I didn’t understand, like, the just the cycles of how those things work. And so I was now working the account book for like, three guys, and it was starting to become really overwhelming for me. And I told my boss. I was like, hey, you know, I think I’m going to try this kombucha thing. I don’t want to leave you guys hanging, so I’ll leave at the end of the year. This was probably, like October, maybe of two. 1015, or 16, I’d have to look at the timeline six, let’s call it 16. And you know, so you guys can hire somebody, and I can train them, and I won’t leave you guys hanging. They ended up laying me off like three or four weeks after that, right around Thanksgiving, blessing in disguise, because I had six months of unemployment now to kind of, like fuel my, like, transition, right? And I just went at it full time, right? I cashed, I had about $20,000 in my 401, K, I just cashed it all out, put it all in the kombucha slush fund I started. I was already generating revenue, right? I was already profitable. I was making 2000 $1,000 you know, whatever it was on the month, depending on the sales. So I was cash flowing. Still at mom and dad’s house, they thought I was crazy, though, so I had to move out. They didn’t kick me out. But it was like, kind of close. It was getting kind of close my dad and mom co signed some of my student loans so that they were super nervous, and understandably so, I was on the hook for about 100,000 in student loans at the time, and just started reaching out. One of the guys on my rugby team had an extra bedroom. And he goes, I’ll rent it to you for 500 bucks a month. So I was in Wrigleyville. It’s $500 a month playing rugby, still driving home to mom’s house to make the kombucha, until we got it into a licensed facility in July of 2017 and just I always made it work, right? Like I would drive for Uber if I needed money. I would do little side jobs. I worked on a mobile wood fired pizza truck at a farmers market on the weekends, making organic Pete farm, farm to pizzas. Worked at a cannabis dispensary, I did some business consulting for a couple other small businesses that needed some support on the kind of operations side of things, and I just always found a way to to make it work. And even looking back on it, I’m like, I don’t know how that worked, but I would always somehow figure out what I needed, or something would show up when I needed it, or I was just resourceful, right? So, like we did a Kickstarter campaign, I resold $5,000 worth of product that funded one of my first big inventory runs. Because of that, one of my rugby coaches approached me and said, you know, hey, I’m looking to make some investments in some smaller companies. I’d like to invest $20,000 into your into your company, and just started slowly, like figuring out how to turn this thing into something that could have some real long term potential. Alright, so,
Curt Anderson 28:08
dude, this is a phenomenal story. So, alright, so layoff was perfect blessing in disguise. You move in with your buddy, you start launching this. Walk us through, like investment steps, like, we’re we’re production like, walk us through the journey of like, from from idea to like, if you want to speed up to like where you are now. Yeah,
Matt Lancor 28:30
so it was just step by step, right? It just break it down. I need an LLC. I need a bank account. I need a QuickBooks. You know, I need these things to run a business. All right, so let’s do that. Okay. Now, what do I need? I need glass. All right, who’s making glass as close as possible to where I met. I always highly prioritized domestic manufacturing. That was even back in back then, that was always my goal. I want this made as close to my factory as possible, because I understand the economic impact of the local economy, and I want to reduce my transportation at freight costs. It was like a double edged sword. Right? Saves me money, but it’s also better for the overall ecosystem. Labels, they’re made family owned company out of New York, not as super close, but really reputable. The caps were made in St Louis. The teas are direct trade from a group out of Milwaukee. So they get them direct trade from the farmers, pick and pack them in Milwaukee, comes down to Chicago, and I just started delivering in my Volkswagen Jetta. I just would like pack it up, put a fill my trunk. I drive it there. I was just doing a lot of handshaking and walking in and saying hi and get accounts. I had about 50 accounts I had built up to, and I would do my QuickBooks on my phone. Own, I’d send them the invoice. I’d get paid through that. And that worked, and then I was profitable again. But I needed to make a jump, right? We needed to to build our own facility. I was renting a facility at that time from another kombucha Brewer who was licensed as a supplemental shared kitchen. So I got into his facility, that got me licensed, that got me moving. Then we got our own facility. Got that licensed as a wholesale food establishment. And the same thing, dude, we’re just we’re bringing in raw materials. We ferment the teas. It goes through a seven day natural fermentation step with functional herbs and teas from around the planet, exclusively organic. And then it gets packaged. And then we we deliver it. And the kind of some of the pivots we’ve made over time, we had some really ugly bottles in the beginning, but we got into the market, we transitioned into a more readily available, cost effective platform, and then people started asking for cans. They wanted it in an aluminum can. And they wanted functional supplements. They wanted electrolytes. They wanted CBD. They wanted magnesium. They wanted these functional supplements that they were already taking, but they wanted them in a beverage format with the probiotics to kind of help them break them down and process them. So we launched a functional line. There was a performance and a recovery, and it was electrolytes and CBD. We were super ahead of the CBD curve. This was 2018 I got flagged by everybody, my payment processor, my insurance company. Everybody was like, Dude, we can’t work with you if you’re going to do this. And I was like, Okay, I just won’t tell you about it. And then eventually it became a problem when my payment processor was like, I can’t process any of your money anymore. So we took that feedback, pivoted so back up a little bit. We had seven flavors and glass bottles, then we had the functional can line. Then we took those two things and merged them together. So dropped the CBD line, took three of our top selling flavored kombuchas, added electrolytes to them, and then that’s how we got to this product today, started making friends in the rugby community. So now on the board, we’ve got the dietitian from the Olympic training center out in Chula Vista. That’s because I have teammates who are contracted as Olympians out there now, former and current. I’ve actually got three of my Chicago Lions Boys are out there right now. And started meeting some people networking. Found some old beverage guys. They call themselves, W, n, d y, we’re not dead yet. So they’re all like, 55 plus retired beverage executives. One of them is the former co founder of the Gatorade Sports Science Institute, and he’s like, Dude, I love what you’re doing. I’m from Chicago. I live on the north side, so I’ve been trying to, like, build some really smart, talented people around us, and now we’ve got the foundation. We just moved into a new facility, actually, January 1. It’s about 10 days ago. Just finished the move, and we’ve got the platform right. We’ve got some brand value, we’ve got some athlete partnerships. We’ve got some high level kind of advisor guys sitting on the board making sure we don’t make any, you know, big mistakes. And our goal is, again, that North Star, 100,000 people that I want to inspire to take control of their gut health. And what most people don’t realize is how integral our gut health is to everything, right? There’s how you think, how you look, how you feel, how you perform, how you recover, all of these things are rooted in the gut, and researchers are now calling it a second brain. They’re saying that there’s more neural activity going on in our gut than there is up here. And you, you know it like when you walk into a room and you feel the vibe, or you get butterflies in your stomach, or you you kind of have an intuition, or you have a feeling about something. They’re saying that that’s actually neural activity that’s starting in your gut and then translating its way up to your brain. And it’s just, it’s fascinating to me, so the rest of my life is just domestic manufacturing and focusing on gut health and hydration. Kind of inspiring people to take control of that for themselves. Okay, dude,
Curt Anderson 35:07
this is such a great story, man. Alright. Let’s talk about partnerships, relationships. Like you said, like, hey, I need my label. Person in New York, I need my glass. Guy, you’re doing we’re here with John LeRoy at Apparel Redefined how important? You know, we always say it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to raise a business. How important has it been for you, Matt, as a young entrepreneur, having these partnerships, relationships guys like John LeRoy, how’s that been for you? For your success?
Matt Lancor 35:35
Invaluable. The number one thing I tell all entrepreneurs, regardless of what stage you’re at, is surround yourself with good people. Actually, I had the opportunity to meet Jim Cook, the founder of The Boston Beer Company. I was at a networking event. It was like a speed coaching event, and he made a surprise visit, and I was able to get one of the slots, and he said, Matt, there’s two things you need to focus on to be a successful CEO, the quality of your company culture and the quality of your products. And if you focus on those two things, nothing can stop you. You can figure everything out. People don’t run out of money. That’s not why they fail. They run out of the emotional bank account. You can always find more money, you can always make another sale, you can always find another partner. You can always figure that out. But if your emotional bank account goes to zero, you will fail, and you will quit. And he said, if you have good people around you that will mitigate that risk, and if you have a quality product, you will always be able to find customers. And those two things have stuck with me, kind of throughout my entire journey, ever since he said that to me, I just, I can’t harp on it more. And I think the other thing too is those relationships become more than just business. They become friendships sometimes, right? Some of my best friends are people that I’d like to do business with, and it is super important to me to kind of find those people. And how we got here was I was on a quest to find organic cotton T shirts, and I couldn’t find him for the life of me. And Derek, one of John’s employees, is a friend of a friend in high school, and we just kicked it off because Derek’s a nerd for apparel, and we just like, boom, we get together. It just ideas were exploding. And I was like, Derek, man, I’m trying to figure this out. He goes, Well, if you can find him, he goes, I can print on him at our shop here. And so, lo and behold, I find these hippies out in the Carolinas that back in the 70s and 80s were on the same quest to build an organic cotton supply chain domestic to the United States. And so they connect with organic cotton farmers in Texas. They built out an entire manufacturing plant to mill and turn the cotton into all they’ve got like 50 different kinds of cotton materials that they make on this organic cotton, and then they sew them into sweatshirts and T shirts and this whole thing. But they suck at marketing, and they suck it, getting their mess. Nobody knows about these guys. They still don’t. And I it’s like a part of my mission, at some point, is to help these guys get their product out there. Because it’s just like the supply chain is so cool say
John LaRoy 38:55
that they even care about people know about them. They
Matt Lancor 38:59
don’t, but they do because they want more sales, but they like, they don’t know how to do it. So I found these guys, and I go, Hey, Derek, I got my guys. Can I ship in 100 T shirts and you can print on them? And so now this is, like, obviously new, right? Like this is the second round we’ve done, but I have the supply chain built out with the or these organizations and people that I could build long term partnerships with. So now I can. I got my guys bring it to apparel redefined, boom. Now I have a domestically produced, grown in America, sewn in America, printed in America, organic cotton t shirt supply chain and man. The potentials for that are are astronomical, right? Like, I don’t have the time or the energy to do it today, but I. Made me think, like, could I put a American made t shirt in Walmart? Could I put an American made t shirt in Costco? Could I launch an American made direct to consumer t shirt business? And John Derek was just telling me, you guys are building out this kind of direct order dropship program, and it’s got me thinking, I should build a brand around American Made in American printed, but I just don’t have the time or the energy today. But maybe there’s somebody listening to this that’s like, Hey, I’d be interested in doing that. Let’s partner up on something like that. Because you just you never know right
John LaRoy 40:41
for sure. And I think, too, that one of the things like you talked about, you were at this crossroads of, like, the the intersection of materials and sports, right, and unknowingly, that’s kind of how we kind of carved our niche Right. Like 2005 2006 Nike Under Armor introduced what we call performance, fabric moisture management, right? And that didn’t exist. You know, those companies have been around, but no one had 100% poly T shirts up until then, polyester wasn’t really considered. It was a part of the apparel or the fabric, but it wasn’t the sole yarn, and no one knew how to print it, you know, like, here comes this material, but the products that are needed to put logos on it, there’s, there’s synthetic dyes versus natural. And the synthetic dyes would bleed into the print, and you get dye migration all these, you know, technical nerd terms. Etheric is a nerd sidebar, but in a good way. But anyways, like we started, like, Hey, I was coaching high school baseball back in the high school I played at, and selfishly, I’m like, Hey, we gotta learn how to print on this, because I gotta recruit. We gotta steal kids from Mount Carmel rice, you know, and all this type of stuff. And if we have cooler stuff to wear, it’s going to become easier. So that’s kind of like how we unknowingly cut our niche. But now, like, let’s fast forward, like, the quality of that material, and it’s kind of run its course, right? Like you couldn’t wait to go run a, you know, Big 10, 5k downtown and go get your U of I, you know, now it’s, like, it feels like a three cent shirt. It’s, you know, it smells really bad after, you know, eight washes and that 100% poly shirt is kind of at the end of its cycle. And now, like, people don’t realize, like, that polyester on your skin, like, 24/7 and then, like, going to play college hockey, like, all of my underpad stuff was 100% poly. And like, you’re sweating into it, and where’s that polyester being made, and it’s going back in your body, messing up your gut health. And like, to me, like one of the things that, like, I want to push because we’re starting to find shirts that are optimized to be printed for print on demand, that are 100% organic cotton, because these big three companies under armor, Nike D is, you know, I don’t want to speak Bailey on it, but like, they talk about sustainability, and they talk about this, but our number one byproduct from them is plastic. Everything comes individually bagged, and we have mountains and mountains of plastic bags. And then the shirts are made with plastic also, and then they’re on your body. You got a plastic water bottle all day, and it’s just for so much micro plastics around you. And I feel like now more than ever organic, even you know, mid grade cotton coming back into like everyday wearables, because the expression part of it of putting your logo, your brand, your mission, with your vision on it is not going to change, but the medium that carries it will. And prior to this, 100% cotton was considered cheap in the United States, like it would shrink. It didn’t feel real good, like they were sourcing all you know, the thread counts and stuff you talk about bed sheets, the same thing in apparel. And we have unique opportunity now to, like, peel back the curtain and say, like, you don’t want this 100% poly stuff on you 24/7 365, you know? I mean, like, even some of that clever marketing. Have you seen ads?
Matt Lancor 44:07
Oh yeah, the underwear company, yeah, yeah.
John LaRoy 44:10
I mean, I bought them just like, oh my god, I’m 40. I want low T I’ve been wearing all this, like, performance underwear. And it’s like, what the hell you know? So, again, it’s like all this stuff that’s like coming to light around nutrition, around gut health, around what you’re surrounding and wearing. You know, you there is a real opportunity here. I don’t really have the time either to launch another side business of of that. But we have the we have the the resources and tools to whoever wants to do what we’re ready to help you out. But, yeah, it’s, it’s crazy, the conversions of worlds that are happening all at the same time, kind of,
Matt Lancor 44:49
and it’s, it’s amazing how the pendulum swings, right? It’s like, super performance. Now, it’s like, we’re going back to old school, back clean. And the the guy who did it first, was the Patagonia guy, Yvonne Chouinard. He’s the one who cracked me open about the pesticides used on conventional cotton. And I was like, Dude, this is crazy. I wear cotton. I’m wearing cotton with pesticides, or I’m wearing plastic. Where do I how do I solve this problem? Like nobody has a solution for it. I can buy a $50 organic cotton t shirt on the internet, but that’s not feasible. I need to fill my my drawer with this thing. You know, I need at least a $20 price point or a 15 I need something that’s manageable for me to buy, you know, five or six of these T shirts and rotate through them.
Matt Lancor 45:42
Yeah.
Curt Anderson 45:43
Well, all right, John, as always, man, I just I keep you guys much longer than we intend, right? I think we blew great past our original So, Matt, we’re going to wind down. So first off, I want to give a huge, huge, huge, heartfelt thank you. I want to tell you how inspiring and how amazing this is for folks listening anything. Man, I encourage you to go back and hit the rewind button, because this is just a fire interview, Matt, where can folks find you best ways I know you’re it’s perfect. You mentioned the founder of of Jim Coke, right? How do you say his lesson
Matt Lancor 46:17
might be it? Yeah, I don’t. I might be mispronouncing it too. Connect
Curt Anderson 46:21
with Matt on LinkedIn, because I saw you have a post when you were shaking hands with Jim Koch, and it’s a great post. So connect with Matt on LinkedIn, Matt, where else can folks find you to learn more about your company?
Matt Lancor 46:31
Best place is our website, kombuchade.com, we’re super active on Instagram. I’m active personally on LinkedIn, just under my name Matthew lancor. We’re going to put up a Tiktok shop sometime in the next couple weeks. So we’ll be reaching out to the youth through the the tiktoks. And my email, actually, if people want to reach out directly, is just Matt matt@kombuchade.com
Curt Anderson 47:01
Excellent. And we’re going to have all this in the show notes. So again, stop by Matt’s website. It is a powerhouse story. Rugby is all over the place, Matt, my last question for you today, how does rugby help you as an entrepreneur?
Matt Lancor 47:16
Dude, rugby players make some of the best entrepreneurs and business people on the planet, second to probably wrestlers and hockey players. Just there’s something about learning that you’re not made of glass, learning that there’s somebody that’s always bigger, faster, stronger, and so you have to learn the mental, emotional side of the sport, and just the grit and the resilience and the ability to, you know, similar to wrestling and hockey to rugby, the coach isn’t telling you what to do when you’re out there. You know, there’s a game pattern, or there might be a strategy that you guys came up with before the game, but you gotta have the confidence in yourself to make a game time decision. And you learned very quickly that indecision or slow decision making in high pressure situations never leads to a good outcome.
Curt Anderson 48:19
I dropped the mic right there. Dude, that was man. John, closing thoughts as we as we wrap up this amazing, incredible interview.
John LaRoy 48:28
Couple comments back to the beginning, when Matt was, you know, you just, just touched on it again, like in football or you get a play call and it’s like, what the hell Matt? One of my best friends. I kind of introduced you to a little bit Brennan Meany, one of our best friends, guy, Eddie Rabo. He played big dude, played offensive line for San Rita High School. And one of the jokes we still tell is he got a play call into the huddle, and he looks over the sidelines again, scream, scream at the coach because he disagreed with the playhead he was calling again. But, yeah, I mean, it’s just, it’s wild. I mean, and my, one of my best friends, Brendan, who’s a rugby guy too, he played rugby all over the world after college. He’s now the performance coach at the Chicago hounds, the professional and I guess there’s a kombucha competition on the team between your stuff and my buddy Brendan stuff. Yeah, it’s why. And, like, I started my kombucha journey, I guess, private. I mean, I was early. I was drinking and stuff, because I realized the benefits as well. And, you know, we’re not a big podcast here, and I don’t want to, you know, put in a gold commercial, like all the other podcasts out there, but I stand behind Matt’s stuff. It is phenomenal. Kombucha. You know, we’re fortunate when we do a swap of or he comes and picks up and drops off some samples for Derek stuff’s great. Get it at Mariano’s. I know there’s probably some stuff going on there with the Albertsons and all that other stuff that’s going on. But, yeah. It’s, it is really good and definitely functional too. You can totally tell the difference between, you know, the performance and also the recovery. Great stuff, and it tastes really good too. You know, there’s stuff out there try, I try a little bit of everything. Every time I see something new in a store. We’re up in Door County, a couple weeks ago, tried out they got a big kombucha place up in Ephraim, and got some of that. It’s good stuff, but yeah, totally believe in it. Awesome vision. Always great to work with people. Curt, we’re fortunate. We sit down with some unbelievable entrepreneurs. And like one of the things that continues not to be to bring up another, but a pattern like we continue to meet and talk to people that have extremely powerful vision and mission. And when you have those two together, and you can totally feel it like your gut that this guy believes what he’s talking in, and it’s not if it’s when they achieve that vision. And that’s just step one, like, and that’s something I’m learning too. Like you keep extending the vision and growing the vision, and because you’re going to get there, it’s just what happens when you get there. Because it’s not the end. And to just mad props to you, and what you’ve done great product. Obviously, you focus on two things, the quality of your company, your culture and your product. And you got both. So congrats, man, it’s it’s awesome and cool knowing you. And look forward to all your success moving forward
Curt Anderson 51:27
Absolutely. So thank you guys. Check out Matt on LinkedIn. Go to his website, kombucha and it is and buy the product. Man, just go out and buy the product. And he’s just trying to make everybody’s gut life a little bit better, gut health life a little bit better, and you’re doing it one person at a time. Be part of the 100,000 So Matt, thank you, dude. God bless you. Keep being an awesome rugger. Keep being an awesome entrepreneur, and we just wish you monster success. Hang out with us for one second, and John will be back here next week with another amazing I don’t know if I don’t know. Might be tough to top this one, but we’ll be back with another person, so we’ll catch you guys next time.