🚀 The Secret to Building a Viral Brand! 🎉 | Mid-Day Squares’ Jake Karls on Authenticity & Growth

📢I talk🎙️with Jake Karls Owner of Mid-Day Squares! 👏🍷 🎇 🎉 ✨ 👏 🥂 😁

How did Midday Squares go from a condo kitchen to 9,000 stores? 🤯🔥 Jake Karls shares the power of authenticity, brand storytelling & social media marketing! 💡 WATCH NOW! 🎥 @ThirstyThursdaysat3PMEST 

💥 The Power of Authenticity in Branding with Jake Karls 💥

What makes Midday Squares a standout brand in the food industry? Authenticity, storytelling, and human connection! 🏆 From dancing in grocery aisles 🕺 to building a $100M brand, Jake Karls spills all the secrets.

Key Takeaways

✅ Turn customers into friends – Build real emotional connections
✅ Show the REAL journey – Wins & struggles create brand loyalty
✅ Energy & positivity attract people – Brands need personality!
✅ Small wins = Big success – Growth is a process, not overnight
✅ Resilience is everything – Keep pushing forward, even in tough times

🚀 Want to grow your brand? Watch & learn from the best!

🔥 Want to build a brand that stands out? Meet Jake Karls, the high-energy co-founder of Midday Squares! 🤩 From hand-delivering bars to Costco success, this episode dives into:

🔹 Brand storytelling – Why sharing real moments builds customer loyalty
🔹 Authenticity & social media – How viral dancing videos helped drive sales
🔹 Scaling a business – From startup struggles to $100M vision
🔹 Retail strategy – Why Midday Squares chose the refrigerated section
🔹 Entrepreneurial mindset – How resilience & small wins lead to success

If you're in food & beverage, marketing, or entrepreneurship, this episode is for YOU! 💯 Subscribe for weekly insider tips on brand growth & innovation! 🎬

📢 Where to Buy Midday Squares: Target, Whole Foods, Amazon & more!
🔗 Website: www.middaysquares.com

NOW ON YOUTUBE!!! Thank you for Listening! Join us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Host Jessie Ott's Profile on LinkedIn

Chapters

• 6:07 The Journey of Midday Squares
• 11:48 Product Development and Market Fit
• 17:29 Navigating the Refrigerated Snack Market
• 18:41 The Power of Teamwork and Trust
• 19:26 Resilience in Entrepreneurship
• 21:34 The Hardships of Building a Business
• 25:09 Mentorship and Learning from Others
• 27:44 The Importance of Therapy and Support
• 29:01 Future Aspirations and Business Growth
• 31:20 Personal Interests and Hobbies
• 33:48 Produced by Fedora J Productions
• 34:10 Tune in Next Thursday and Have a Great Week!

Transcript

Jessie Ott (00:31)
Hello and welcome everybody to Thirsty Thursdays. I've got Jake Karls Co-Founder of Mid-Day Squares. Welcome Jake.

Jake Karls (00:38)
How you doing? I'm fired up to be here. Thanks for having me and super excited to chat.

Jessie Ott (00:43)
Yeah, me too. I, you know, I don't know if I ever told you this, but I think I, I, I learned about you through, Daniel Murray's Marketing Millennial podcast. heard you and I was like, I gotta get to know this guy. He is super cool.

Jake Karls (00:55)
Listen,

know, great podcast, for me, just, I like to have fun. like to live in a serious world, not seriously. one thing that we've done while building this business and building just my life the way I want to build it is just to try to have as much fun as possible, even in the moments that are hard and painful. So I try to bring that energy to whatever I do. And I appreciate us having this conversation today.

Jessie Ott (01:20)
Yeah, well, it's, it's, it's real. mean, it's evident in what you, in what you just said, because your posts are amazing. I mean, you've got an amazing follower group. I think you have 50 some 50, 50,000 plus followers on LinkedIn and you're certainly an influencer. And you talk about, don't hide anything, which is, I think is really a great part of your story that I can't wait to dig into. And, and I think that's where people like, like you were talking to Daniel about, that's where people really.

Jake Karls (01:37)
No.

Jessie Ott (01:47)
dig in because they like the behind the scenes, they like the story, they like the personal struggles and all your wins. mean, you feel like you win with you when you get a new distribution in Costco. That was really fun to watch you and your team go through what that meant to you.

Jake Karls (02:04)
Yeah, it was you know what we started this business with the idea that

We wanted to make our customers friends. We want to turn them into friends rather than just be transactional, which most businesses seem to have. And the way we did it was just basically make everyone feel like they're part of this and on the journey with us. So going through the good, the bad, the ugly, feeling the emotions, seeing the hardships, experiencing the wins together. And it brings a lot more value to everybody. It makes it more emotional rather than just those transactions. So for us, yeah, we're focused on friendship.

Jessie Ott (02:33)
Transactional. Yeah, exactly.

Jake Karls (02:36)
You know, every business should focus on turning their customers into some sort of friendship or some sort of emotional connection rather than just, you know, I'm buying a product at this price. No.

Jessie Ott (02:47)
Yeah, no, 100%. So where are you calling from today?

Jake Karls (02:51)
I'm based in Montreal, Quebec. I don't know where you are, but it's quite cold where I am. It's like negative 20 degrees outside.

Jessie Ott (02:59)
painful. I don't think you want to know where I'm calling from. Yeah, we have a, we have a house here near Orlando and a good friend of mine, from home. I'm from Iowa originally. She came down for the last week and she's going home to 15 degrees. And I'm like, well, that's, that's on you. You bought a plane ticket home. I feel for you guys.

Jake Karls (03:01)
Florida.

it.

Yeah, no, it's

I'm gonna be in Florida next week, so I'm gonna get that sunlight but listen, you know for us, you know, I wear shorts in the winter. yeah, that's my energy. I love it. makes me so happy honestly. The truth is, look, for me, again, energy is a huge thing whether it's in business or the personal world is

Jessie Ott (03:28)
I see that and you dance outside. I'm like, how is he doing that?

Jake Karls (03:42)
It's contagious. People want to be around optimism, around hope, around positivity. There's too much negativity all over the place. So when someone offers this energy or this atmosphere, this environment that's fun, people just want to be around it. It attracts people to it. So that's my vibe. As you wear shorts in the winter, people are like, this guy's crazy. And now I'm used to it. And my legs aren't as cold as they used to be. And I think it's become part of my character.

Jessie Ott (04:09)
Yeah, I kind of percent agree. I mean, I love watching videos of you and the people that work in the grocery store when you dance down the aisle. That'll never get old for any of us. Like that is so cherishable.

Jake Karls (04:19)
No, Stuart, Stuart,

Stuart is a legend. He's the manager of a store that we sell to, one of the first stores we sold to. And he's just, you know what? He makes doing business so fun. you know, him and I dance almost every week, every two weeks, let's call it, maybe at most, where we go, I still hand deliver them product, which is kind of fun. Because the secret is I want to dance, to be honest with you. So we hang out and, you know, instead of talking about like merchandising or...

Jessie Ott (04:37)
That's great.

Yeah!

Jake Karls (04:45)
promo planning or any that stuff, we just have fun and people feel it and people want to be part of it. It seems so, it seems like we, it should seem easy actually. It should be easy to have fun. Us being just humans should be what it is, but for some reason, sometimes the corporate world changes that. With this guy Stewart, we have fun. He makes doing business a lot easier, let's call it.

Jessie Ott (04:58)
Yeah.

It does.

You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of that song Happy. Like you should, yeah, you should totally do a video rendition of that with all your dancing.

Jake Karls (05:15)
Yeah, he's happy.

Oh,

oh, 100%, maybe the next one that we do will do that song. I think he'll love it. He usually picks the songs, that's the truth.

Jessie Ott (05:30)
Okay, okay, yeah, because that, I mean, it just brings a smile to your face every time you see it. It's so fun. And I love the last one I think I saw. He started breakdancing.

Jake Karls (05:40)
he's the best. He's a star. guy, the guy, the guy outdoes me every time. But the truth is, is look, I always say this. Customers see it. Millions of views online have seen it already. The other retailers see it. Everyone feels it. Like, you know, like it's, there's no secret. It's just make friends, be human and turn business into something that is, it makes it, makes you feel alive rather than a forced, a forced chore. Make you, make your business

Jessie Ott (05:42)
Great.

Hehehehe

Yeah, nice.

Yeah.

Jake Karls (06:07)
experiences in your relationships make you feel energized and alive. Don't make them pull you down or feel tired or exhausted. And that's my way of living and I'm trying to make more of my business like that.

Jessie Ott (06:19)
Yeah, you know, your interview had a huge impact on me because I am building my businesses as well and just launched my tech platform and I just don't know how to connect the dots to that energy to what I'm doing. But I just, it's very inspirational what you're doing. So, you know, keep it up. It's pretty, it's contagious. It's really cool.

Jake Karls (06:36)
So.

Well, I appreciate

it. You'll figure it out. You'll figure your authenticity in there and it will strike through, through everything because there's too much inauthenticity in the world, so you'll go right through.

Jessie Ott (06:48)
I appreciate that. I hope so. Well, it takes a lot longer than 30 or 45 days too. You can't do it all at once. That's right.

Jake Karls (06:55)
There's no such thing as overnight success. It's

always the 15 year, 20 year overnight success story, not the 45 day or one year. It's highly unlikely.

Jessie Ott (07:04)
Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah. Highly unlikely. It's just too hard. There's too many moving parts. And then if you're, if you're a producer, like you are, you got to be able to make the materials and all the packaging supply chain. Like there's a lot that go into it that, you know, you, you worked a long time to get that Costco business. You got to ramp up and scale.

Jake Karls (07:15)
Thank

It's fascinating. Honestly, I have this thing, Jesse, where I realized that the small wins that happen every day or the small steps forwards, the baby steps, end up compounding into something massive over time. Costco was a many baby steps taken for many years till the big moment came. And it did come. It did.

Jessie Ott (07:48)
Yep. Yep.

Jake Karls (07:55)
but there was a ton of movement, small little movements every day, forward, hardships, adversity, but keep pushing, keep pushing, and eventually it comes. And it's like the law of compounding, there's the law of compounding that's really, really something fascinating. And I think as a human and as a business, you need to understand that nothing's gonna happen really, really quickly. It's going, greatness takes a lot of time, it's patience, execution, and compounding is a real thing.

Jessie Ott (07:59)
Mm-hmm.

Jake Karls (08:21)
Yeah, you know, sometimes it's easy to say, things aren't getting done. There's no movement. There's nothing really happening. But then, boom, it hits. And it's not just because that thing hits the day of. It's because all the hardship and the work you put in for the last two, three years. That's why it's hitting. So I always tell people, just be patient.

Jessie Ott (08:37)
Yeah, it takes time. You know, got to build those relationships and that's, and those relationships change and move and, and, you know, grow and, you know, I don't know, I don't know the food side business. Like I know the, the, you know, the beverage business, but a lot of times we, we may move around, but we move around in the same industry. So typically you don't go from beer to wine and spirits. It's think it's more fluid now than it used to be.

Jake Karls (08:53)
Yup.

Jessie Ott (09:05)
you know, versus beer people kind of getting into the wine and spirits. So I don't, I don't, assume your buyers kind of stick with food because it's what they know, but yeah, but you can kind of follow them too. And that that's, that's actually kind of helpful also in some ways, right? Cause if they go somewhere, you don't have distribution, you can pick up some new, new stores. So are you from Quebec?

Jake Karls (09:12)
Yep, yep.

I love it.

I'm born and raised. But I travel every week. So I'm in the US weekly. I'm in Canada, the other side. We're building a multinational business, so multiple countries.

Jessie Ott (09:28)
Born and raised, okay.

Yeah.

That's awesome. That's really awesome. Yeah, I was going to talk to you about representing you guys in the military because I think that's a perfect snack for the troops.

Jake Karls (09:45)
yeah.

Yeah, we should do that. That would be awesome. I think it's a, you know, we're a great smack for first responders. You know, we're big, we're big, you know, out on that, like, you know, firefighters, paramedics, know, law enforcement officers, you know, they love it because they're on the go. They need something quick, that's clean, that gives them fuel. So we do a lot of that. Even the hospitals.

Jessie Ott (09:55)
Yeah.

Jake Karls (10:06)
But I think that the military would be interesting 100%. If you know people, let us know if there's a distribution way of doing that. Because for us, our mission is to make people's afternoon a better snack. Like it's to give people a better snack in the afternoon that's better for you, got some protein, got some fiber, keeps you full, makes you feel good, and still tastes good, right? And that's what we're really trying to do is dominate that afternoon. 87 % of people snack in the afternoon. So if we could be that...

snack for them, that's what we're trying to do. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, 80 plus percent or something. I don't know the exact numbers on that, but I could tell you that a lot of people do a lot of snacking in the afternoon. People forget. They always think morning time or after a workout. No, when you're hustling and you're working and you're grinding, people want that snack. They want their coffee and their snack. So we're trying to be in that zone. That's really what we're trying to do.

Jessie Ott (10:38)
80 %? Both men and women? Wow, that's a lot.

Yeah. Well, it's funny because, I have my tea, my tea here, and I was just going to eat a brownie. So I'd rather have exactly, I'd rather have protein cause we're trying to, you know, keep we're older and we're trying to be better and the more protein and more snacking you eat, you, you burn more fat, you know, that whole thing, metabolism thing, you know, so we're, we're working on that.

Jake Karls (11:08)
Yeah, now you're going to eat a midday square.

Yeah, listen,

we're just trying to make a better for you product that tastes good and can be part of someone's everyday snacking. yeah, you'll love the Mid-Day Square. people, many other people, it's an everyday snack. It's your 2PM-er. And that's it.

Jessie Ott (11:39)
I can't wait. Yeah.

How many flavors do you have?

Jake Karls (11:48)
We have brownie batter, almond crunch, cookie dough, peanut crunch, and peanut butter, regular peanut butter.

Jessie Ott (11:56)
Are they all gluten free, soy free, all that stuff? Nice.

Jake Karls (11:58)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gluten-free, soy-free,

dairy-free, they're vegan. They've got real foods, no preservatives, no additives.

Jessie Ott (12:07)
Are there raw nuts or is it all butter? Or like-

Jake Karls (12:11)
It's a

mix, some of a mix.

Jessie Ott (12:14)
Okay. And where can we get them here in the U.S.?

Jake Karls (12:17)
We can get them at Target, we can get them at Whole Foods, Sprouts, Fresh Time, Fresh Market, Amazon Fresh, amazon.com, middaysquares.com, and then in Canada there's a bunch of stores as well. But we're working on increasing the distribution more and more, and there's a bunch of mom and pop spots that we sell across the United States.

Jessie Ott (12:22)
Fresh market, yep.

that's cool. Okay. Yeah. yeah, let's talk about that military or if you have a contact you want me to get in touch with, that'd be really fun. I think it'd be, I think the military would be a great spot. Great space for it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I want to get involved because I think it'll be so much fun working with you guys. okay. So let's start from the beginning. Where, where, where did it begin?

Jake Karls (12:44)
Thanks, I appreciate it man. I appreciate it Jesse.

Yeah.

So we started Mid-Day Squares in August of 2018 when we launched the company, but my sister was working on this snack for two or two and a half years prior to launching this company. She was making this as an afternoon snack for my brother-in-law, her husband that was looking for something that was still chocolate but indulging but a little better for you. And she made him this snack because she's a foodie and they had it for like two years. And then eventually he ended up wanting to work with my sister. My sister wanted to work with him on a business and food.

Jessie Ott (13:03)
Okay.

Jake Karls (13:27)
was the common denominator of what they loved. And they read a report one day that showed that dark chocolate was growing very fast year over year and that plant-based proteins were also growing very fast year over year. So they decided to launch the product they were making every day. Like, oh this is a chocolate bar with plant-based proteins and real food ingredients. And they got that commercialized and they asked me to join as the third founder. And they're like, hey, before we launch, we want you to help blow up this brand, it relevant, make it...

Jessie Ott (13:43)
That's cool.

Jake Karls (13:54)
make people feel something, build a community around it. And I looked at them and I said, at the moment, at the time I was just closing my other business and I was like, you know what, nothing better to do. I was just off a heartbreak, you know, closing a business, lot of hardship. And I was like, I need somebody to be busy, joined in and the idea was let's build the next, hopefully biggest, know, chocolate snacking business, which is now what we're trying to do is next build the next biggest afternoon snacking business that's in the better few space. And yeah, we started making them in our condo kitchen, hand making them every day from 5 a.m. till 5 p.m.

And then we would actually hand deliver from 5 p.m. till 10 p.m. because we couldn't afford shipping. That's startup life and we did that for a bit of time. And as we were doing that, we were actually recording and filming everything on social media to show people this is what it looks like to build a business behind the scenes. The good, the bad, the ugly, you name it. And next thing you know, started getting some demand. We got a little local retailer, a little bagel shop took a chance on us, then a little local natural store. And the next thing you know, we're 9,000 stores across North America. We've sold over 50 million

Jessie Ott (14:39)
Yep.

Jake Karls (14:52)
chocolate bars to date now. We built our own factory that can produce over 100,000 bars a day. And we have a community of over 600,000 folks that are part of our fam. I'd say that what we're trying to accomplish is just become a brand that's part of people's lives. Be a staple in someone's home, be a staple in their life, but also be a brand that makes them feel something deep. And that's what we're trying to do and takes a lot of time and a lot of effort.

Again, the overnight success story could take 20, 30 years and we're okay with that.

Jessie Ott (15:22)
Yep.

Yeah. No, that's great. you know, I mean, you just, it just takes, it just takes one to get started, right? Like at the beginning, it just takes one and then you got your story and then you just, you know, the, the dominoes fall and yeah, you don't get that success overnight, but I'm glad you guys are, are, you know, have the right head space to grow gradually. Cause it's going to take time.

But you'll get there because I mean, you're out there.

Jake Karls (15:49)
Oh, yeah. Listen,

you know, I think that at the end of the day, this is my mentality is as long as we feel alive every day and we feel energized and we're having fun, even though it's really hard and there's a lot of pain associated with that, then we should keep building, keep going. The moment it stops being fun, the moment it stops being, you know, it stops making me feel alive every time I wake up is the moment this business is no longer for me.

And it hasn't happened and I don't think it will happen, but the most critical thing is to just do something that's meaningful to you, do something that's purposeful. And over time, if you work really hard, you build, hopefully it will reward you with whatever you believe reward is. And that's what we're trying to do here at Mid-Day Squares is we are slowly trying to win the refrigerate, because we're in the refrigerated section, win the refrigerated section for snacking. And it's happening in real time, but it's happening slowly, but it's foundational.

I really want Mid-Day Squares to be a brand that lives on forever, whether I'm in it or not. But yeah, all I can tell you is having fun and feeling purposeful will drive you to accomplish and achieve and beat out all the adversity that you're gonna go through when you start a business.

Jessie Ott (16:57)
Yeah, no, a hundred percent. No, you mentioned the refrigerated section. So I want to talk a bit about that. Can you talk about why it needs to be in the refrigerated section?

Jake Karls (17:07)
Yeah, we like the two things. We actually like the refrigerated section. We believe where the consumer today is moving more and more towards better for you fresh snacking, meaning like, you know, less preservatives, less additives. And that's what keeps us fresh. That's what is the preservative for midday squares is the cold. It's the natural cold air, right? But the second thing is, look, like

Jessie Ott (17:27)
Okay.

Jake Karls (17:29)
If you look at the bar aisle in a typical supermarket, there's so many bars. There's almost like a decision fatigue that happens when you're out there and looking at it. So for us, being in a different section actually is beneficial. That being said, the logistics is extremely hard to have refrigerated chocolate being shipped all over the place. That's been a lot harder to learn. But again, we're getting better at supply chain. We're getting better at logistics. And again, not overnight. It's taken six and a half years to understand this space.

For us, we're very bullish, we're very big believers on fresh snacking growing over the next 5-10 years, even further than that down the line. And I think that it will become more more popular as we see consumers wanting more fresh products.

Jessie Ott (18:08)
Yeah, for sure. So the backgrounds of the three founders have nothing, had no experience in food. So you're all learning all, all every day. Yeah.

Jake Karls (18:16)
Yeah, my sister,

so my sister, my brother-in-law and I, we all had different backgrounds, different entrepreneurship backgrounds. We started other different businesses each, what we have is perseverance, resilience, and belief, unconditional belief in what we're doing and product market fit. The product actually is product market fit. But the three of us understand what we're not good at and then we hire talent that is good at it to help us build. know, we're very delegate and delegate trust.

Jessie Ott (18:37)
Right. Yep.

Jake Karls (18:41)
Delegate and trust can lead to greatness within an organization and Mid-Day Squares wouldn't be here today without the team we have here with us right now. They're phenomenal. The three of us are good at what we do, but without our team, we're nowhere. And I hope they listen to this podcast and hear this because they're absolute stars and you need a good team to build a great business. You need a great, yeah, sorry, even a great team. Sorry, not even just a good team, a great team to build a great business.

Jessie Ott (18:59)
100%.

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. It's, all about the employees and, having fun. mean, yeah, you work, but you know, having fun is, is, is important because you only get one life, right? You got to enjoy it while you, while you can. I know there's a lot of people, people that, you know, are miserable in their job and it just, you got, you got a choice. Just get out, you know, but I know it's hard right now with the economy, but.

Jake Karls (19:19)
100%.

You live... Yeah, it's hard.

No, listen, it's hard. The economy is not the best right now. But that being said, all I can tell you is this. Humans are resilient. And what we can accomplish as humans is fascinating. You know, we can do the impossible. And we will all build something great over time. And I think that...

Anyone that wants to start a business that's listening to this podcast is just know this. You might see the headlines and all the fun stuff that entrepreneurs get to do, but the truth is most of the time it's not the glamour. It's actually a lot of time putting out fires. There's a lot of pain. There's a lot of adversity. There's a lot of hardship, which life comes in any other format. You have a job. There's hardship. Life is hard in a lot of ways, but entrepreneurship is sometimes very lonely and painful because you're misunderstood. So just be able to just understand that you're to have to withstand an immense amount of pain to...

continue and succeed over time. And I wish someone told me that at the beginning of this journey because what keeps me going is the energy that I get from living, know, doing what I do every day, but also believing in that we can build something very big and impactful and just having that mission so clear and, you know, step by step, we know where we gotta go, but it's hard.

You know, it's hard for every business, whether they're billion dollar business or a one million dollar business. There's a lot of fires to put out and I just think that people always think it's always just sunshine. It's not.

Jessie Ott (20:51)
It's not at all. But to your point, it's when you wake up every day and you're excited to go to work, you're doing the right thing. And I think as an entrepreneur, I talk about this on the podcast all the time, every day is Groundhog Day, every day is a Monday because you're always working to get the first few years. Like Mikoshino, she created a snack, a mochi gummy snack, and she's like,

What the founders don't talk about is the first two years you sacrifice pretty much everything to get it going, you know? And it takes that dedication because you're the advocate for that business and it takes all

Jake Karls (21:21)
100%.

Jessie Ott (21:32)
the energy you have.

Jake Karls (21:34)
Yeah, if you don't want to give the energy to a business, it's likely not going to get anywhere. You got to really build that foundation. It takes a lot of energy to build that foundation. And once the foundation is built, the company can carry its way through.

Jessie Ott (21:47)
Yeah, with the right team, with the great team. You know, I was going to ask you to tell me some words that describe, you know, an entrepreneur. And I feel like you kind of did that, you know, with grit and resilience.

Jake Karls (21:57)
Yeah, I would say resilience,

perseverance and an ability to withstand immense amount of pain for a long time.

Jessie Ott (22:07)
Yeah. what part is your pain?

Jake Karls (22:10)
I just think that for us, we built our own manufacturing, so there's a lot of ops when you're building products and hustling and grinding and moving and grooving, especially scaling a product that's never been scaled, at least that we know of in the past. It's been very difficult and balancing that with growing the brand has been hard. We are a manufacturer, but we are also a brand. We are two under one roof, right? So it's just been difficult.

Again, I told you, little wins every day, little momentum every day has led to a lot of big wins over time, right? Last month we had one of our greatest sales months in history of our company and it was crazy, but you don't feel it, you don't really realize it because you're in the grind, you're in that pain all day, but there's little progress happening and compounding over time to create these big wins.

One thing I could say to anybody is just keep moving forward, no matter how hard it is. Just keep moving forward. And also know when to put the bat down too, like when to stop. But because you don't want to burn out and have all these issues. But what I would say is just allow positive momentum to force forward. Momentum is one of the greatest human forces that we have. And we got to use it when we can.

Jessie Ott (23:19)
No, a hundred percent. Let's talk about the products just a little bit. What do they sell for here at Target?

Jake Karls (23:25)
Yeah, Target's been an amazing partner of ours and one of our big believers. And they sell it anywhere from $249 to $299 depending on the region, depending on where the spot at the store is. And that's for one bar. It's in line, it's competitive. Again, we use all real foods. We don't use any artificial flavors or additives. So that's what we can do with our price point. But look, there's promos that go on. There's also multi-packs that have a bigger slope discount.

Again, our idea is that we want everyone to be able to have a midday square.

Jessie Ott (24:00)
And how much protein is in them?

Jake Karls (24:02)
Six grams per square. Yeah, it's tasty.

Jessie Ott (24:04)
Okay, that's great.

What was the thought behind the flavors that you came up with?

Jake Karls (24:12)
So mix of data that we buy on some of the data companies, the analytical companies that have accumulated data, and then data from our own customers that we ask. We'll make an Instagram story or a post and get hundreds, if not thousand, thousand plus pieces of content that is relevant for us to know what people like. So we parlay those two together. We take the bot data and then our own data from our consumers, and we melange, we mix them and come up with our own answer out of that.

Jessie Ott (24:39)
Nice.

that's really cool. Yeah. Speaking of French, I spent a year in France and I studied it for like four years in high school and in a semester in college. So we have an airport like 10 minutes from our house that flies to Quebec. So my wife and I are really excited. We want to come, come check it out some summer. Not the winter.

Jake Karls (24:59)
You should do it. Yeah, yeah, come in

the summertime. It's a beautiful place.

Jessie Ott (25:03)
Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait to get up there. So what's your number one selling item?

Jake Karls (25:06)
Love it.

Our cookie dough or our peanut butter those two are very head-on-head in terms of Amount amount sold to be honest with you

Jessie Ott (25:17)
Okay, it kind of changes depending upon the... the month, I guess, per se.

Jake Karls (25:22)
Day,

day, month, you name it.

Jessie Ott (25:25)
Yeah. Okay. Awesome. All right. And, do you have any mentors that helped you guys along the way since you were kind of

Jake Karls (25:30)
So many,

so many, I have so many people that I consider mentors, so many people I follow on social media that I consider mentors. You there's so much information out there, so much wisdom, so many individuals, so much that I just, I try to accumulate whatever I can and, you know, take it in and read a lot and watch a lot of things and then meet up with people if I can. And I just listen, you I think it's important to listen. And then...

Jessie Ott (25:41)
So much.

Jake Karls (25:53)
whatever you want to do with the information that's given to you, you do. But like at the end of the day, you know, also you are the one running your business. So you are the, it's you in the foot, your own shoes. There's no one else in your shoes. So knowing that while listening to advice is important, but taking everything with a grain of salt is critical. But what mentors to me do is less on the advice. It's more of feeling less alone out there and feeling that there's somebody out there that...

that can empathize at least or can be there and uplift you and get you through some of those hard moments.

Jessie Ott (26:24)
Yeah,

yeah, no, 100%. Is there anybody that you wanna mention in particular or are you saying that they're just sort of all in together? Just a little bit from this person and that person and yeah.

Jake Karls (26:36)
Yeah, look!

You know,

whenever I can see some of these people, I love seeing them. I'm hanging out, go to their houses sometimes. But also, sometimes a phone call, you're there for two minutes is good. But also, like I said, social media, you could follow some of these great individuals that share their mind almost every day. They share their wisdom. If you have internet, it's a huge way to have mentors in your life. They don't need to know you. You experience their knowledge.

Jessie Ott (26:59)
Yeah.

Jake Karls (27:02)
You can read their books, sometimes they the biographies and stuff like that. This is golden information. This is like a, it's a privilege to have.

Jessie Ott (27:10)
Yeah, no, I did that. I still do that. I don't do it enough. Because, you know, when you're in your car, you're listening to podcasts all the time. And I don't I only go I am only in the car if I go to the gym. And so I but I love I love podcasts for that that exact reason. There's so much wisdom out there. I mean, people are doing amazing things.

Jake Karls (27:25)
Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

There's so many people around the world doing incredible things, whether it be in their personal lives or business. And you could learn from a lot of it. We could all learn from a lot of it. being open to it is critical.

Jessie Ott (27:40)
Any key resources

that you want to mention that helped you along your journey?

Jake Karls (27:44)
I think therapy has been a big one for us as business leaders. We've done a ton of therapy and that's been really good in terms of making us better people, better leaders. I think another thing is just, when you're going through something, asking for help is not a bad thing, it's actually a good thing. Yeah, but you gotta get, it's an ego thing that, that's just an ego thing. And working past that is critical to growing your business and it's critical to growing you as a person.

Jessie Ott (28:02)
It's hard.

Jake Karls (28:11)
So I think that that was something early on that I struggled with. Now, when I'm going through a moment or we have an issue in the business, we reach out to the people that we know can help. And we're not embarrassed or not shy. We're just, we're vulnerable and transparent. And it really does go a long way.

Jessie Ott (28:25)
Yeah,

no, 100%. I love that. That's really cool. Therapy. Is there any particular kind like group therapy as leaders?

Jake Karls (28:32)
We do

group as leaders or we do individual. I think any type of coaching is really good to making you a better individual or a better leader.

Jessie Ott (28:38)
Yeah.

And is that an ongoing thing like a monthly thing? I love that.

Jake Karls (28:45)
Yeah, it's every two weeks or so, 10

days to two weeks, yeah.

Jessie Ott (28:49)
Yeah, that's a great idea. Like a little leadership session, really. that's really cool. So what is your outlook for you guys? Like, what do you think in the next two to five years?

Jake Karls (29:01)
You know, we're hoping to scale this business to $100 million in the next three years. you know, that's just from an impact standpoint and size and distribution. So increasing distribution, getting even more world class at operations and manufacturing. So we're trying to get to the top, top, top level of that quality safety, which obviously is priority number one of the business. And then, yeah, just continue to have fun, know, continue to have fun and build a team that is very strong, very foundationally strong that

Jessie Ott (29:21)
Yeah.

Jake Karls (29:28)
and making my partners and I less and less relevant to the day to day and start schlepping back more and more and more and just being brand builders, visionaries, relationship builders, innovators, all that stuff. that's what we're trying to do and I'm excited to embark on that journey.

Jessie Ott (29:38)
Yes.

Do you envision creating another type of product besides?

Jake Karls (29:49)
My team's working on some really cool innovation right now. Like that is different than the current line that we have. And if we get to that, it will be cool to see it. But again, it's under afternoon snacking. So like it's still under that profile of function and use.

Jessie Ott (30:01)
Okay.

Nice. Okay. Okay. So you're not going to come out with beverages or anything like that. I wouldn't, I wouldn't. It's too hard. I mean, there's a lot of noise in that space too, so stick with what you know. It's, it's, it's when it's, it's learning so much. mean,

Jake Karls (30:06)
No, not in the current moment.

Thank you, no.

Jessie Ott (30:21)
Just trying to learn LinkedIn and YouTube and ad that I'm like trying to learn how to advertise and all the things like I feel like you need a PhD in YouTube. Like it's ridiculous.

Jake Karls (30:31)
It's

it's wild, it's a wild thing. But listen, the ability to learn is a skill. And if you can learn, you can use it and then you could be at an advantage.

Jessie Ott (30:43)
Yeah, no, I love to learn. So I learn something every day. you know, really digging my heels into this AI. you know, I've been able to train my AI prompt to create 20, 15 videos in four hours and have everything posted and ready to go. Like it's incredible. Yeah, it's really incredible. otherwise I wouldn't be able to do it. Like you just can't write that much on your own that fast. You know what I mean? It's pretty cool.

Jake Karls (30:59)
Wow.

It's wild.

It's wild. But look, that's what I'm saying. It's great. It's great to have different skill sets, different learnings, different tools in place.

Jessie Ott (31:15)
Yep, yeah, 100%. So what is Jake like to do when he's not working?

Jake Karls (31:20)
I like to play outdoor hockey, like to read, I like to work out, and I enjoy playing board games with my friends to be honest with you.

Jessie Ott (31:28)
What kind of board games?

Jake Karls (31:29)
I play Catan, weekly.

Jessie Ott (31:32)
okay, that's cool.

Jake Karls (31:33)
I love it. Settlers of Catan, great game, so much fun, so much thinking, so much energy, so much good bonding experiences with my childhood friends.

Jessie Ott (31:40)
that's cool. I know my, we've got a group of friends that just love it, but, they last forever, right? These games last forever. Yeah.

Jake Karls (31:45)
So much fun. Yeah. yeah, it's it

just it's it cycles. It's amazing.

Jessie Ott (31:54)
Alright, well, where what's your website? You want to call out your website or where they can?

Jake Karls (31:58)
Just follow up midday

squares on social media or add me on LinkedIn, jcarls, if you want to connect or jcarls on Instagram. yeah, if you ever want to buy a midday square, www.middaysquares.com. You could buy on our website or you could check the store locator, which means the closest store to you. It will give you and we're always in the refrigerated section of the store.

Jessie Ott (32:19)
Nice. And a great price. Under three bucks. Yeah, that's a hundred. That's great. That's huge. Well, I was wondering if you would indulge with me on a little adventure.

Jake Karls (32:21)
Yeah, that's the goal.

Tell me what the adventure is.

Jessie Ott (32:34)
Will dance with me?

Jake Karls (32:36)
Yeah, would you like me to dance?

Jessie Ott (32:38)
Let's do it!

It's not quite as fun on a little screen.

Jake Karls (32:42)
You

I love dancing though,

I do love dancing and I appreciate it.

Jessie Ott (32:49)
Yeah. I love dancing too. It's just, it's, it's just a release of, you know, all the things and yeah, exactly. That's it. It's more scientific than, than what I was saying, I Probably a lot of scientific background behind dancing and you know, how it makes you feel. Anyway.

Jake Karls (32:53)
Yeah.

Dopamine, dopamine.

I agree.

It's having a good time. I it's most important thing.

Jessie Ott (33:13)
Yeah, 100%. So anything else that we haven't mentioned yet today, Jake, that you want to talk about?

Jake Karls (33:20)
No, just go out there and be yourself unapologetically. Have fun. I appreciate you having me on this conversation. It was a great time and I look forward to anyone that wants to connect in the future.

Jessie Ott (33:31)
Okay, awesome. Well, this is so fun and thank you for sitting down with me. I know you're super super busy so I really appreciate it and stay warm up there.

Jake Karls (33:40)
I will do my best. Shorts in the winter. Let's go. Woo! Ciao. A bientot. C'est bon.

Jessie Ott (33:41)
Okay, let's go. Au revoir. A bientot