0:00:00 Jake Karls: Canada has a risk adverse culture. It’s, it’s in Canada, we’re nice people, don’t get me wrong, but we don’t like to take risks and that’s embedded into our systems of society. And what ends up happening is, is when you look at having a business, you’re like, oh, that’s risky. I’m not going to pay bills, I’m not going to do these things. It’s going to be, you know, a failure, etc. Etc. That’s a huge problem. That’s number one is the risk adverse culture needs to change. So you need people that can inspire the change by basically executing and showing that it’ to create something meaningful and do it in the authentic way of that individual. Like, hopefully midday scores will have shown that to Canada that you can win by.

0:00:45 Amanda Stassen: Welcome to the Purpose Power Brand show where we have conversations with leaders and brands transforming business into a force for good. I’m Amanda Stassen, business and brand strategist, entrepreneur and founder of Bizu Innovation Group. I’m speaking with business leaders and entrepreneurial visionaries who are proving that not only does purpose drive profit, but the future of our world world depends on it.

0:01:05 Amanda Stassen: Guys, I am so excited. Today’s Purpose Power Brand episode is all about making it rain. Now, who as an entrepreneur wouldn’t want to make it rain in their business? Whether it’s relationships or sales or awareness? Seriously, what does it take to build a business that draws people to your vision and makes them want to be a part of it? And what does authenticity really mean in business? We’ve got a lot of talk about what authenticity is, but what is it really?

0:01:35 Amanda Stassen: How does it feel? What does it look like? We’re going to learn all about that and more in today’s episode. My guest today is Jake Carls. He is the co founder and rainmaker at Midday Squares. A functional chocolate. That’s everything a chocolate bar isn’t and everything a protein bar wishes it was. We’re going to get into the good, the bad and the ugly about entrepreneurship today, so let’s dive in.

0:02:00 Amanda Stassen: Hey Jake, thank you so much for joining me today on the Peripheral Power Brand Show. I am super stoked to be talking with you today. I totally love your energy. I love the passion that you bring to your work every day. It’s totally fantastic. So thank you for joining.

0:02:14 Jake Karls: Oh, I’m fired up to be here. You know, I’m on a fast right now, which is what we were kind of discussing before. So, yeah, I haven’t eaten in quite a While. So I’m just doing liquids right now, but I’m super fired up. And, you know, I always say, if I can’t perform while being fasting, then, then what is my body actually like? Because, you know, people survived for many, many years during hard moments, so I should be able to do, like, that’s what my mind’s telling me right now. I feel to give. Give it my all and have fun while doing it. So I’m pumped to be here. Thank you.

0:02:46 Amanda Stassen: Oh, awesome. I love that you’re into the whole biohacking thing, because I think. I think our bodies were definitely created on purpose, which kind of brings me into the. The first question that I want to ask you before we actually dive into the business of Midday Squares. Love getting to know the humans behind the brand. I do believe that we’re all created on purpose, for a purpose. And one of my favorite quotes about this is actually Picasso.

0:03:14 Amanda Stassen: He said, the meaning of life is to find your gift, and the purpose of life is to give it away. So to bring expression to that gift, to share it with the world. So share with me your personal purpose and how that powers the work that you’re doing in Midday Squares.

0:03:30 Jake Karls: So I love that. You know, I’ve struggled ups and downs throughout the last decade of entrepreneurship that I’ve had finding my purpose, and I. I figured out, like, areas of where the purpose thrives, but I haven’t nailed it 100%. But the most accurate I can give you at the current moment is I truly believe I’m working towards my purpose being to spread positive vibes every single day, to make humans feel something deeply inside when I’m with them or when they’re watching me.

0:04:03 Jake Karls: And then third, to show that you can win by being yourself unapologetically every single day. And that’s how we’re building Midday Squares is being unapologetically ourselves and trusting ourselves and showing that you can build a, hopefully a huge organization in a very saturated space by literally following your own path and being yourself. And I. I really think that if I do my mission and live it throughout the next couple of years and continuously live it, I think that I will have inspired, hopefully the next generation or the older generation above me to be themselves a little bit more every day or be a little bit more bold every day, and that will be winning to me.

0:04:46 Amanda Stassen: Hmm. I love that and I love hearing that, particularly in the business realm, where a lot of people feel like, you know, they have to put out a Persona, if you will. We talk a lot about Personas and branding, which, you know, in a world where AI is becoming like the go to for pretty much everything, it kind of brings forward this, this sense of, well, what’s real is this the real person that’s talking to me? And how do you share that realness with people?

0:05:16 Amanda Stassen: I love that.

0:05:18 Jake Karls: Yeah. And I think that, you know, I, I’m all for AI, you know, like as a business leader. And I think it’s the next evolution for, you know, optimizing and making things easier or doing things that you’re not really good at and improving on those using machine learning, all that jazz. But one thing I could tell you is I am a hundred percent for the continuation of humanization in terms of interaction, in terms of care, love.

0:05:43 Jake Karls: These things are extremely important for life to go forward. They’re also extremely important to how you run a business, how you communicate with your customers, how you build fans, I like to call it fans, and how you have your relationships with your life, whether it’s family, your partner, your business partners, your friends. Humanization, care and love is at the core of human nature. And if you’re not going to offer that, humans are going to distance themselves from you or relationships will start to.

0:06:11 Jake Karls: And again, it all comes back to just being authentic. If you are authentic yourself, people are either going to love or hate you. But both those emotions are tremendous amounts of care and emotion.

0:06:20 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, yeah. And I, I love that you say that because fundamentally, business is about people. I know we call it business. And at the end of the day, you are, you are interacting with another human being. It’s going to come down to somebody that you’re speaking to, somebody that you’re talking to, somebody that you’re sharing stories with of what’s working in their life and what isn’t. And hopefully your products solves a problem, it meets a need in their life. So I think, I think you hit it squarely on the head. It is about people, it is about building relationships. So I just love that now you’re one of the co founders at Midday Squares, but your role is described as rainmaker.

0:07:00 Amanda Stassen: And I, I feel like I just gotta pause here because I’ve only ever heard the term in, you know, a legal practice or maybe investment banking, maybe management consulting a little bit. But for those of us who may not know the exact definition of it, yeah, I looked it up and it’s basically a person who brings clients, money, business and even intangible prestige to an organization based on their associations or contacts.

0:07:25 Amanda Stassen: And like I said, I’ve only Ever heard it in the. You’re sort of the banking or legal space. What’s your take on the role and why is it so critical for entrepreneurs and even business as a whole?

0:07:36 Jake Karls: Yeah. Rain making, you know, is something extremely important. Whether it’s legal, whether it’s plumbing, whether it’s investment banking, whether it’s chocolate, a chocolate enterprise. And I’ll say that my role day to day is simply to make friends for Midday Square. So first I’ll make friends with myself that are genuine friendships and then bring those hopefully to the business later on or if they don’t go, either way, I’m still a friend with that individual or that organization.

0:08:01 Jake Karls: So my job 247 is focused on how do I make more friends, how do I build deeper relationships. And, and I get to do this without having to operate the business. So I’m so independent of operations that I could focus 100% of my time, well, let’s say 90% of my time right. On building these relationships, whether that be through online content creation, through speaking gigs, TV appearances, or showing up and you know, having one on one meetings, you know, going out, having fun, taking vacations with people, doing things where I’m actually building something that’s of depth and not just level. A lot of business relationships are transactional and surface level.

0:08:38 Jake Karls: Taking that transaction out and focusing on how can I get something deeper with you that’s actually emotionally connected and more tangible or intangible. Prestigiously intangible. But for me that’s my focus day to day. And what ends up happening is my team will ask me to make friends with different types of people and folks and then bring the organization. And that’s how I add value to the organization. But I also add value to bringing the energy. I’m the, the company cheerleader. I am the hype person. I am the person that brings that heart and soul into the organization from the outside. Because I’m so outside of the business. Right.

0:09:14 Jake Karls: Yeah. So I found that. And, and again it, it lets me live into my purpose, which is making people feel something deeply inside. Vibes or I try.

0:09:24 Amanda Stassen: I love when you describe it the way that you do, which is actually really, really interesting. It has this sort of combination effect between marketing and sales. It’s not purely sales in the true sense, sort of. It’s what I think salespeople would love to do. Be freed from the operational stuff and just focus on the people. And it’s not all the way marketing, but it has those elements of it. But why do you think businesses a Lot of businesses don’t have this kind of role.

0:09:59 Jake Karls: I think that the problem with a lot this role is people look at it as a short term roi. Like oh, he’s, he or she’s traveling the world and meeting people, spending, you know, like last year $60,000 of travel. It’s expense 60 or $70,000. It’s a lot. Yeah, but the way my company structured is that look, these relationships are going to come over time. It could be five years from now, it could be tomorrow, it could be in 10 years. And this relationship a, an immense amount of value to the business. So whether it’s a new retailer that we get into, whether it’s a investor, we get an investment, whether it’s a media article that ends up helping us get into another thing, or it’s a, it’s a new team member that’s hired in our executive team.

0:10:41 Jake Karls: This is how you have to look at it. It’s a long game not to have ROIs on it. And you know, I always give an example. When we were desperate need for capital, you know, two years ago, you know, we pulled out of a deal last minute and we had two weeks to raise money. And because I had all these friends, I was able to call up all these individuals and within a week I had $10 million lined up like finger. But that’s because the trust and relationship and friendship was built over two and a half year span prior to that.

0:11:08 Jake Karls: And again that’s the rainmaker. So the rainmaker needs to completely operate independently and not have these ROI markers necessarily based to just revenue or dollar value. Instead needs to be free to execute. Like I said, there’s, there’s two sort, there’s two sides to that. If you’re not bringing in any relationships, then yes, I feel like years, this is just an expense. It’s very high expense. It’s a salary, it’s a, it’s a, it’s, but it’s expenses.

0:11:35 Jake Karls: It’s a lot. But that’s where you have to find the right person for the right job. Right. I found immense amount of passion for the business to succeed at, at the highest level possible. So I’m going to give no matter what. But look, it took me years to figure out this role and years to figure out how to, how to play it. And again, trust my partners, trust me to do what I need to do, whether that be going to hockey games or concerts or things.

0:11:59 Jake Karls: I’m always in an environment where I’m thinking about how can I bring this relationship to midday squares down the line. If not, how does this relationship benefit my life or how can I add this person’s. Relate this life as well. And look, a lot of people failed this role because it’s too ROI driven and transaction.

0:12:16 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, very, very short term thinking happening in business today. Although I’m, I am finding that businesses that focus on their purpose or their mission have a more longer term view. So I’m excited that more roles will be opening up like this that are, that are built around building relationships and making noise. It’s that happy marriage between marketing and sales and bringing that to life. But you know, this inherent in this whole building relationships, making noise. There’s something about Midday Squares. I’ve heard you guys describe it as building a business out loud.

0:12:55 Amanda Stassen: And it’s all about this sharing the good, the bad, the ugly. It’s part of how you guys have built huge community of customers, followers, fans. I’d love for you to expand on this idea of building a business out loud because it goes against what a lot of entrepreneurs and business leaders do, which is they keep things secret until they’re launched. They share only successes and maybe not the fit. They don’t share the nitty gritty.

0:13:23 Amanda Stassen: Why does this work? And, and tell me how you guys do it.

0:13:27 Jake Karls: It only works when it’s authentic to the business or to the individuals in the business. And what I mean by that is you could share a story, a great story, and it could be cool one time, two times, three times, four times customer bases, you get some community but eventually the inauthenticity will catch up and it will be exhausting, tiring and, and you’re not going to want to do it and then it will collapse.

0:13:49 Jake Karls: For Midday Squares, our day one was if we wanted to win in a very saturated market of chocolate, you know, where there’s 40000 products on a typical supermarket shelf, you know, it’s dominant five big businesses in terms of all the snack, chocolate, snacking, you know, we’re gonna need to hit an emotional connection with the consumer. Instead of being a commodity, let’s make people feel something deeply. Let make them feel part of the journey. And the only way that we were able to do that was by telling the story of both success and failure. And why I say success and failure is because it’s relatable. When you see someone winning, you could either cheer them on and be part of it and be proud and excited.

0:14:27 Jake Karls: And when you see someone losing. Yeah, you feel them or this is so real or it’s so different that you Want to support them, you want them to win, you want to help. So we basically. This moment where it’s. Instead of talking about the. Talking about the chocolate bar, in our marketing, we only do that 10% of the time, maybe 12% of the time, we’re focused on showing you the behind the scenes. That way you could feel part of the actual journey with us. The emotional feelings of the ups and downs, which is just real life. Yeah, we all go through ups and downs. And when you have that authenticity throughout the marketing and the storytelling, people start to want to be around it. They want to be part of it. It attracts that energy, and eventually it builds someone that is a friend of yours or a family member or neighbor, that feeling of community rather than, hey, I’m buying this product because it’s a chocolate bar and I like the chocolate bar. No, you’re now buying the product because you like chocolate, obviously, and you like the chocolate bar. But on top of that, you. You feel part of the journey.

0:15:23 Jake Karls: You feel emotionally connected to the journey, and you feel closer to it. And you will not just go buy the product, but you will go sell it to thousands of other people. You will go get help this company win at all costs possible because you are part of it.

0:15:35 Amanda Stassen: I. I love that. That is. That is truly how to build a brand. How do you. Because a brand is all about igniting and inciting emotion in people so that they choose you, but they don’t just choose you. They want to be a part of what you are envisioning, what your mission is. So, you know, people hearing this may, you know, entrepreneurs are probably thinking, you know, that’s easy for you to say. You know, maybe you’re an extrovert.

0:16:05 Amanda Stassen: Maybe, you know, maybe this comes easy to you and you can do that whole building out loud thing. But what about entrepreneurs who haven’t done this before? What if. How would. What would be some baby steps that you would recommend to entrepreneurs that can. They can start in the whole building out loud space.

0:16:21 Jake Karls: So my partners were. My partners are introverts.

0:16:25 Amanda Stassen: Okay.

0:16:26 Jake Karls: They’re out there.

0:16:27 Amanda Stassen: Believe that.

0:16:29 Jake Karls: Yeah. The truth is you don’t have to be an extrovert or an introvert to put your story out there. Your story is unique. You have two things about you that’s unique, DNA that’s different than everybody else in the world. And. And then you have the experiences and stories that you have of your life, and if you don’t share them, then how are you setting yourself apart? We can all wear the same glasses, the same hat. The same T shirt, make the same products.

0:16:48 Jake Karls: The only thing that separates us is the DNA and the storytelling that we have and the experience of our story. Because that’s best. That’s the best thing about you, other than, other than, you know, your DNA. That’s different. Right. So, yeah, for me, I would say any entrepreneur that’s scared or doesn’t do it, it’s just to start small. Start by creating little momentum. When you create little momentum, eventually that compounds into great momentum. And that great momentum is one of the most powerful human forces in the world.

0:17:15 Jake Karls: And I would say just start by sharing your story. You have nothing to lose. It’s what makes you different. It’s what makes you great. And you should be proud to share it. If you are a kind person and you. You have been through a lot of cool things in your life, start sharing it. Somebody else is going to relate to that story. Someone else is going to want to hear more about it. Yeah, you live your story 24 7, so you don’t find it interesting.

0:17:38 Jake Karls: The other person next to you does not live your story 24 7, so they might find it interesting. So the only thing you have to lose by sharing your story is someone saying, oh, I don’t want to be part of this story anymore. I don’t want to hear this story anymore. So I don’t want to see this person. So what? That person’s never going to be there with you anyways.

0:17:54 Amanda Stassen: Right? Right.

0:17:55 Jake Karls: Should start Just. Just start little things. Doesn’t have to be so risky. Start smaller, smaller little things and get bolder each time. And then eventually, you’re going to feel so free when you share a story, because your story is going to be out there and people are going to love it. Trust me. People are going to get behind you. People get behind the underdog. They want to be part of that. They want you to win.

0:18:17 Jake Karls: So start by just doing little steps every day, little stories. But again, believe your stories are unique. Believe your stories are what makes you great. And once you believe that, it’s not going to be so hard.

0:18:28 Amanda Stassen: Oh, my gosh. We could do, like, a whole course on this. It’s fabulous. This is exactly what we do with our clients as well. It’s that. It’s. How do you unlock the power of your story? How do you become the most authentic you? I love it. Okay, let’s. Let’s get into the business now of Midday Squares. The business started in 2017. Walk me through the origin story. You know, you guys went from. I think it was Your sister who created the recipe in a condo kitchen.

0:18:56 Amanda Stassen: It’s becoming urban legend now. And now owning, you know, to owning your own manufacturing plant and you’re making over 90, 000 bars a day.

0:19:05 Jake Karls: That’s like huge.

0:19:06 Amanda Stassen: It’s huge. But how did it start? How did you get your first call it five, 10 customers and then how did you grow your customers from there?

0:19:15 Jake Karls: I love it. I love it. So yeah, the midday square story is fascinating. So my sister was making a version of what midday squares is today for my brother in law, her husband, to take to work every day. This is in 2016, 2017, I believe. Okay, 16, early 2017. I’m not, I’m not 100 sure. I think it’s 2017, early 2017. And she was making the snack for him to take to work and she was loving it. He wanted to crush his sugar cravings in the afternoon and keep him full. And she was like, I could make healthy. That’s a chocolate bar still. Instead of having this high sugar chocolate, you can have this. And he took it for a long time to his office and everyone loved it.

0:19:51 Amanda Stassen: Yeah.

0:19:51 Jake Karls: And it was hobby snack for a while. Until 2018. My sister and brother want to work on a business together. She ended up closing her business and he ended up selling this company. And they looked at food because food was both their passions. And they basically found a report that showed that dark chocolate was growing year over year and that plant based proteins were also growing year over year. And my brother in law, being a software engineer and a data guy was like, oh my God, Leslie, you’re making a baby of these two massive growth categories stories.

0:20:16 Jake Karls: That’s what we’re going to launch. And basically went on for the next eight months to commercialize the product and then approached me with this idea saying, hey, we’ve got this chocolate bar. We call it a functional chocolate bar. We need you to be our third founder to come in and blow up the brand and build it. And I looked at them and said, guys like this is going to be so difficult. This is, this is going against the giants in the space.

0:20:37 Jake Karls: Wow, saturated. And it’s also limited space in grocery stores win. And they’re like, well, we have a great product. Number one, we have product market fit because the data showing that number two, your job is to figure out how to make people feel something and build community. And if we have those two things, community and product market fit, we might be able to win. So we, so we started together on this journey. We launched the business August 2018 with the idea that we were hand making these bars by from 5am till 5pm every single day.

0:21:03 Amanda Stassen: Wow.

0:21:04 Jake Karls: And we were hand delivering them from 5pm till 10pm because we couldn’t afford shipping. And at the same time we were documenting and sharing everything on social media so that the consumer could see how hard it is. These make this business and you could see the success and the failures in time of the company. That, that way you see a glass window of the entire business. You don’t just see, here’s the product, here’s the perfection.

0:21:24 Jake Karls: No, you get to see the imperfection and the hardship in the business. And next thing you know it just started taking off. And fast forward five and a half years to today. You know, we built a fully automated chocolate factory here in Montreal, Canada where we, we again, we’re we. It was custom because no one wanted to make our product. No one was able to make our products the way we wanted. So we had to build it.

0:21:47 Jake Karls: You know, we’ve sold over 35 million chocolate bars to date. You know, we’re one of the fastest growing, you know, functional snacks in the set in both Canada, the United States. And you know, we’re a team of 50 plus people and the idea is we want to take over the space. We want to be one of the biggest functional chocolate snacking companies in the world.

0:22:07 Amanda Stassen: That’s awesome. What, what a. And I don’t want to under, I don’t want to overemphasize the success without really speaking to the idea that it took everything to get here. And entrepreneurs, you know, we’re all starry eyed. It’s like I’ve got this great idea and it’s going to be amazing and you’ve got to be your own cheerleader. But midday’s story is one of resil and unshakable determination. And the other thing that I feel like you guys have is you have a superpower for turning bad situations into marketing gold.

0:22:45 Amanda Stassen: You know, one big example that hit the news feeds, I think it was 2021, that whole cease and desist legal notice that you guys got from Hershey for packaging infringement. Now I, I know eventually you guys change your packaging, but you launched this music video and guys, if you have not seen this, you’ve got to. It’s called Chocolate Gone Crazy. I totally loved it by the way, and I love the way that you guys poked fun at the whole thing.

0:23:12 Amanda Stassen: But it was such a powerful way to think about it. Now what I’d love for you to share is share about that experience. But also, how did you guys come up with this idea of flipping the narrative and then maybe talk about how you guys maintain resilience in the face of bad news and failures, which all entrepreneurs, all of us, face every day.

0:23:35 Jake Karls: Yeah. So I think that if you want to be an entrepreneur or you are an entrepreneur, you know, you need two things. You need. Sorry, three things. Unconditional self belief. So delusional self belief, almost the ability to withstand an immense amount of pressure and immense amount of resilience and perseverance. Like, if you don’t have those three things, it’s going to be very hard to win because the odds are stacked tremendously against you as an entrepreneur.

0:24:03 Jake Karls: You know, Most businesses fail, 90 plus percent fail. So that you’re going into an idea or a career choice where, you know, there’s such a high failure rate, like, it’s. You got to be insane, right? Something’s got to be wrong with you to a certain extent. I’m missing like 10 screws for sure. But, you know, I don’t want to go into full details about the whole music video. I think. I think what I want to share with everybody is, is the lesson that could be applied to all of this. So, no. Yes. We had a season assist and we answered back in a creative way with a music video that we put all our energy to. And everyone loved it. Everyone was fired up because it was something different. It was. It was thinking outside the box. It was not the herd. The herd would have just stayed quiet. Did change the package and moved on. We’re like, you know what? We’re gonna be loud and tell the story and have fun with it. Because having fun in life is what people want to be around.

0:24:52 Amanda Stassen: Yeah.

0:24:52 Jake Karls: And pulled that music video and it was. It blew up and it went viral and it was so much fun. We got tons of press, all that jazz. But I learned something in university and something that stayed with me for forever. And it applies to this situation and applies to everything in terms of hardships and moments of, you know, absolute chaos or, you know, carnage, let’s call it. And it goes like this. It goes like this.

0:25:17 Jake Karls: If you were given a graph and you were to input into that graph average decisions every single day of your life. So if you as a business leader were making average decisions, you and your career are making average decisions. And you just being at your, you know, home and personal life making average decisions. And statistically your output on that graph must be a dotted line. That’s a straight line that goes slightly up so it doesn’t look bad. You know, if you look at. It’s clean, it’s the straight line that goes up.

0:25:43 Jake Karls: Now let’s take that same graph, okay? And let’s now take. Instead of making average decisions every day of your life, so, you know, average says in your business averages in your personal life, let’s now make an average decisions. Hence, you just being yourself unapologetically or you making, you know, decisions that are not following the herd. So not following the average. So your statistics, your output, statistically after that will not be a straight line. It’s impossible.

0:26:12 Jake Karls: Statistically, it will be points that are up high and down low, up above the line and below the line.

0:26:17 Amanda Stassen: Right.

0:26:18 Jake Karls: And it’ll be zigzag when you connect them. And at first you look at that and you’re like, hell, no, I don’t want that. That graph, that’s a scary graph. It’s too much failure. It’s too much losses. Yeah, why would I. I can just take that straight line. That’s what will choose in the world now. What? I think that we, as, you know, risk takers or gamblers of the world will take the outliers. And I’ll take it any day of the week. And I’ll tell you why.

0:26:40 Jake Karls: Because every low point or every failure point in quotation underneath that line is actually an opportunity to learn and grow and make something awesome out of it. That is the opportunity get to experience resilience at a very deep level. You get the privilege to learn to experience. And once you look at it like that, then every single low point is actually a win. So even though we went through the low point of going through a season assistant, you know, all that stuff, we turned it into a positive.

0:27:07 Amanda Stassen: Yeah.

0:27:07 Jake Karls: So you can take your perspective and frame every situation that’s bad. And they’re going to be a lot of situations. There have been a lot more shittier situations that we’ve gone through than that that we’ve taken and felt. Obviously it doesn’t feel awesome.

0:27:19 Amanda Stassen: Right.

0:27:20 Jake Karls: And flipped it into a perspective where we can learn and grow from. And every time we’ve done that, we’ve had such a high return on what has happened. So if you listen to this podcast, all I need you to take away from this entire podcast is obviously follow your purpose. We’re going to. We know that. But number two is just make on average decisions. Don’t fold. Nothing great in life came from mediocrity.

0:27:44 Jake Karls: So stay away from it. Be repelled by it. And even if you’re going to fail Doing the other way. Failure is not a bad thing. Failure is an opportunity to grow if you choose to take that opportunity.

0:27:56 Amanda Stassen: So good. So good. I love that visual also. And it makes perfect sense. It’s like, you know, those connecting points. And I would, I would wager that the points of the highs and the lows, actually the average is higher than if you made those average decisions because the highs take you higher.

0:28:13 Jake Karls: Sure.

0:28:14 Amanda Stassen: The taste, the lows take you low, but they allow you to leap over and they allow you to jump and leapfrog over certain spaces. So I think it’s so powerful. But it brings me to kind of this one question that I just have to ask you before we kind of close out. But yes, there’s a lot of failure in entrepreneurship. And you guys, as entrepreneurs, you have hurdled through that dreaded five year mark that a third of new businesses in Canada do not make it past. So big kudos and congratulations to you guys because entrepreneurship is not easy. But now we’ve got this study from the bdc, you know, they found that entrepreneurship is declining in Canada. We’ve got 100,000 fewer entrepreneurs than 20 years ago.

0:28:59 Amanda Stassen: What’s your take on why this is happening?

0:29:01 Jake Karls: So it’s very sad. This is something close to my home where like, I think that, you know, my next chapter of life is going to be dedicated to stimulating entrepreneurship in Canada. And I choose Canada because from here, obviously, and you know, look, we do 30% of our business in Canada, 70% in the U.S. but U.S. understands capitalism. They actually take the risk part and embrace it for good or bad, but they embrace it. And I think they do a lot of good with capitalism in terms of, you know, using the risk to build things and innovate on.

0:29:32 Jake Karls: Now Canada has a risk adverse culture. It’s, it’s in Canada, we’re nice people, don’t get me wrong, but we don’t like to take risks. And that’s embedded into our systems of society. And what ends up happening is, is when you look at having a business, you’re like, oh, that’s risky. I’m not able to pay bills, I’m not able to do these things. It’s going to be, you know, a failure, etc. Etc. That’s a huge problem. That’s number one is the risk adverse culture needs to change. So you need people that can inspire the change by basically executing and showing that it’s possible to create something meaningful and do it in the authentic way of that individual. Like hopefully midday scores will have shown that to Canada. That you can win by being you and you can win really big and you could take big risks because they’re rewarding and that failure, if so is not so bad.

0:30:19 Amanda Stassen: Yeah.

0:30:19 Jake Karls: Second is we have a funding problem in Canada. Meaning we have a lot of money here, but the funding is not going to early stage companies. And the reason being is because a lot of Canadians that are in the investors world, you know, unfortunately have again a risk adverse culture where they’re not willingness to hit the risk that a lot of the American investors are willing to take or swallow. And what that does is it waits for companies to get to profitability or to get to a stage of where product market fit is completely shown.

0:30:46 Jake Karls: And what that does is actually starve some of the innovating companies that aren’t really good at raising money or aren’t profitable right off the bat or aren’t at the scale they need to get to. And what that does is it forces them to find money somewhere else and sometimes they don’t have enough time to and they end up closing. And then the last thing is we need to create an environment where we, we as, as a country want to support entrepreneurship. So government programs, government support, you know, you don’t want to have these new taxes that are coming in that are, are taxing the, the capital gains. Like you know, not everyone’s mission is to make, not everyone’s purpose is making money. Mine’s not Midday squares.

0:31:28 Jake Karls: Is, is, is the purpose. I, I told you before. But a byproduct of the success is, is capital. Right. And that capital allows me to then go invest in future entrepreneurs and stimulate. So, so if you’re, if you’re creating a non incentive to want to make money because it be taxed. And I’m not against tax by the way but what I, what I do tell you is that if you create those you’re going to have a problem because you’re actually going to, you know, have the, these companies, these entrepreneurs, these risk takers just move to the United States and that’s happening in mass exodus. Right. So for us we need those three things. You need to create a more risk taking culture. And that starts in the university systems, that starts in high school, that starts in everywhere. You got to get it around us in culture. Number two is to get more funding for early stage companies.

0:32:15 Jake Karls: And number three, we need to create an environment where we encourage as a government entrepreneurship and give it an environment where has the infrastructure to go out and thrive. And last but not least, look, you know, I love the United States in terms of doing business. You know, they buy a lot. And I love Canada as well. I just wish that Canada could become more competitive as a country in terms of entrepreneurship, but it’s not right now. And I will do everything in my power as I grow and as I continue to do my mission of life to help Canadian entrepreneurs succeed. Because I think that without entrepreneurship in a country, small business doesn’t exist and innovation starts to be dried out.

0:32:55 Amanda Stassen: I couldn’t agree with you more. And it is a sad state to hear a report like this where, you know, they talk about, you know, one of the reasons that they cited, which you, you touched on, is this idea of, you know, fewer people own businesses and then demographically the ones who do own those businesses are retiring and younger people are choosing security of a job over the risks that are inherent in starting your own business.

0:33:25 Amanda Stassen: And I think there’s such a huge opportunity for even life growth, growth in the space of entrepreneurship for all of us to take lesson from and grow and thrive and to build one another up and to build the economy. But it starts with risk. It starts with taking that leap. It starts with running with idea, believing in yourself and moving forward. So I couldn’t agree with you more. And I think, I think there’s so much that needs to be done in this space of entrepreneurship, especially with the next generation, because we do have that demographic shift that’s happening.

0:34:00 Jake Karls: Yes, this is, look, and I’m not here to shit on anyone. My thing is more just we can do better as a society, all of us, and help if we don’t have entrepreneurship, it will hurt the country over time. And there’s nothing wrong with not being an entrepreneur, by the way. Careers are amazing and without careers, you don’t have a country either. So you need both. And no one’s better than the other. And I just think that again, if we could just create a little bit more risk taking in all of our lives, whether it’s a business or life, I think you’ll see a lot more success in, in both business and personal lives if we do that. I think this needs to change and it will take time.

0:34:47 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, I know. Absolutely. Jake, listen, this has been absolutely awesome. Before we wrap up though, what two purpose power tips would you share that would help leaders and entrepreneurs grow their business and brand thing number one, block.

0:35:03 Jake Karls: Out all the noise. There’s a lot of noise out there. People are going to tell you how to be. People are going to ask you to do this. Trust your gut, follow your gut. It’s not going to be right every time, but it will be right most of the time. It’s a subconscious, right?

0:35:15 Amanda Stassen: Yeah.

0:35:15 Jake Karls: And that’s powerful. We don’t even know what the subconscious is. It knows we have no idea. Right. But usually it’s right. That from the gut level feeling. Right. Number two is, is when you are not yourself, you are not your best version. When you are, you are your best version. So why would you not want to give yourself the opportunity to be your best version? It’s not going to guarantee success, but it will guarantee the best opportunity to become successful.

0:35:45 Amanda Stassen: So good. It reminds me of the, I think it was Oscar Wilde, the quote where he says, be yourself, everyone else is taken.

0:35:53 Jake Karls: I like going to start using that.

0:35:54 Amanda Stassen: Yeah, you should. Okay, so where can people learn more about you? And where can they buy Midday Squares?

0:36:01 Jake Karls: I think they could, you know, to follow me. Come on. LinkedIn. Jake Carl’s LinkedIn message me. Happy to chat. Follow Midday Squares on social media. TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook. We have a lot of fun there. Up Midday Squares and then if you want to buy the product, and I hope you do, you can find it in fridges across North America. Whether it’s Target, Whole Foods Sprouts, Sobeys, Metro, Walmart, Canada, soon, hopefully Costco, that would be a big one.

0:36:25 Jake Karls: And many other local mom and pop stores who have built Midday Squares as business or on our website, ww.middayscores.com and again, we are located in the refrigerated section. So I hope you guys enjoyed the podcast. Thank you for having me, Amanda. I really appreciate it. And look, I’m looking forward to continuing to spread purpose and I hope you are too. And everyone listening.

0:36:45 Amanda Stassen: Oh, thank you so much, Jake. Thank you for sharing your story, your passion, your learnings, your insight. And just in case you have not heard this today, thank you for living and sharing your purpose. The world is made better because you’re in it. Thanks again.

0:37:01 Jake Karls: Thank you.

0:37:02 Amanda Stassen: Hey, thanks for listening to this episode of the Purpose Power Brand show. I love having these conversations with entrepreneurs. They are definitely my people. I love their energy, energy, I love their insights, I love their drive. And thank you for being here with me. Thanks for sharing this with me. I hope that you learned something new and insightful from Jake. I definitely did. Lots to apply, lots to think about.

0:37:24 Amanda Stassen: I loved all that we talked about regarding brand and storytelling and tapping into your authentic self to unlock your brand’s superpower and why it’s so important to trust your gut and to take those risks risks to achieve the growth that you want to see. It’s not going to happen by keeping things average and normal. You’re going to want to take and step out, take those risks and step out. So thanks again. Thanks for joining me here today. Keep moving forward, keep building, keep growing, keep sharing your vision and keep the faith.

0:37:57 Amanda Stassen: The world needs entrepreneurs and leaders just like you now more than ever. See you next time. Bye for now.