Keto Chat Episode 70: Victor, Kristoffer, and Keto Kookie

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Check out the Keto Kookie website & click HERE for their new flavors!

Here’s some more information about the Keto Kookie Co-founders

Kristoffer Quiaoit is the co-founder of Keto Kookie, a low carb based snack company that developed a tasty, gluten free, sugar free cookie with less than 2g net carbs per cookie. In 2016, Quiaoit experimented with the ketogenic diet and discovered the potential to help people improve their health by making low carb fun and tasty. Quiaoit and his friend Victor Macias joined forces to develop Keto Kookie. Keto Kookie has been featured on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast and has been consumed by participants of the NASA NEEMO 22 mission. Keto Kookie was the most funded cookie in the history of Kickstarter and reached its $30,000 funding goal in less than five hours in September 2017. Prior to founding Keto Kookie, Quiaoit launched Bright Brain Learning in 2012. Bright Brain Learning has helped hundreds of students improve in math and science and consider careers in those fields. As a youth mentor, Quiaoit collaborates with the non-profit Seeds to Trees to teach at-risk youth about entrepreneurship and train them in skills needed to start their own companies. Quiaoit’s ultimate goal is to have a positive impact on the world, both in health and in education, and Keto Kookie plays a main role.

Victor Macias is the co-founder of Keto Kookie, a low carb based snack company that developed a delicious, gluten free, sugar free cookie with less than 2g net carbs per cookie. In 2016, Macias and his friend Kristoffer Quiaoit developed Keto Kookie after experiencing positive benefits from the ketogenic diet. Keto Kookie was the most funded cookie in the history of Kickstarter and reached its $30,000 funding goal in less than five hours in September 2017. In addition to his role at Keto Kookie, Macias is the President and co-founder of Male Standard; a men’s lifestyle website that enables men to become the best version of themselves. Male Standard covers what men need to know to improve their style, grooming, lifestyle and travel adventures. Through Male Standard, Macias has partnered with dozens of household brands such as Old Spice, Patron, Timberland, Heineken, Chevrolet, AXE, and Gillette. He is recognized as a leading social influencer and regularly attends events both in the United States and Internationally as a brand influencer and guest.

Transcription

Carole Freeman: Hey, welcome everyone to another episode of Keto Chat. I am your host, Carole Freeman. I am a certified nutritionist and creator of The Fast Track to Keto Success program. I am here today with, let’s see if I don’t butcher their names, the Keto Kookie dudes, Victor [inaudible 00:00:23] and Kris [inaudible 00:00:27].

Kris: Yeah, you did it.

Carole Freeman: Is that right? Hey, welcome guys. Where are you joining us from?

Victor: We’re in Orange County, California. Anaheim Hills right by our kitchen in Yorba Linda, California.

Carole Freeman: Awesome.

Kris: Yeah.

Carole Freeman: So, you guy’s been making, cooking cookies all day long?

Victor: Yep. Two shifts a day and 600 days a weeks, it’s been a blast, nonstop.

Kris: Trying to catch up.

Victor: Yeah. Definitely.

Carole Freeman: All right. That’s nice well, for people who don’t Keto Kookie, which you know, after Joe Rogan and all these other people have been talking about it, how do people not know about you guys, but just, you know tell us like what is Keto Cookie?

Kris: Yeah, so Keto Kookie is a low carb gluten free cookie that has three net carbs for two cookies and it’s, really we created this for ourselves initially and we wanted something sweet and we’re like, hey let’s make a cookie and yeah, it’s been awesome.

Carole Freeman: Do you have a little package you can show?

Kris: Yeah, so this is the cookie.

Victor: We can’t travel without them anymore. We’re just like filling our backpacks up with cookies everywhere we go now.

Carole Freeman: So they come packaged, it’s two per package, right?

Victor: Yes.

Kris: Yeah.

Carole Freeman: How many flavors do you guys have currently?

Victor: So, we have chocolate chip, snicker doodle, double chocolate and on Kickstarter where we’ve launched we have peanut butter and birthday cake available as pre-order at the moment.

Kris: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Carole Freeman: Cool. Okay. Well, we’ll talk about your Kickstarter here in a little bit but I want to get you guys’ backstory. Like, how did you get on this Keto kick for all of us?

Kris: Yeah. So, last year in January I heard about the Keto Diet on a podcast and they were talking with Dom D’Agostino and it was like, oh there’s less inflammation, better energy and you can lose fat. I’m like, whoa this is amazing. I might as well give it a shot. Went on it, lost eight pounds in two weeks. I wasn’t trying to lose weight but the main thing that I really got from it was the energy. I used to be a chronic napper. I used to nap every single day, at least once. Sometimes twice a day.

Carole Freeman: Oh, wow.

Kris: To the point where my …

Victor: Didn’t your parents think you had something going on?

Kris: My parents said hey you should go see a doctor because you know, you’re just napping all the time and when I went on Keto that all went away and that was the thing that got me and got me sticking to Keto it was like, hey I can have more energy and do more stuff.

Carole Freeman: What was your, you know what was your diet like before and where you like a really active guy or anything or …?

Kris: Yeah. I mean, I was pretty active.

Carole Freeman: Besides napping?

Kris: I was pretty active and I used to be a competitive basketball player and you know I would just carb load before practices, before games, and so I kind of got in that habit. I would eat burgers with the bun. I had a weakness for French fries, popcorn in the movies, doughnuts. Everything.

Victor: It was all carb loading.

Kris: It was all carb, and I’m like, oh I’m preparing for, to go play basketball but it really, I mean I really felt it. I didn’t understand. I thought napping was just part of life but in reality it’s just,these carbs were taking a toll on my energy and health.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Yeah. Well, eight pounds must’ve been like all in the middle, right?

Kris: Yeah. Yeah. So, after I stopped playing basketball as much it started creeping up. I’m like, okay, I don’t have that college metabolism as I used to.

Carole Freeman: Yeah.

Kris: Yeah.

Victor: Yeah, and he’s the one that got me into Keto. So, we listened to the same podcast. He decided to give it a try and for me I, in high school I was the kid that I could eat a whole large pizza and nothing would happen. Oh, look … and all my friends would gain weight and then I hit college and then introduced beer and just bad food and I gained, I gained weight.

Carole Freeman: Okay.

Victor: I think at my heaviest I was like 185, 186. I’ve lost about 40 pounds since being on Keto.

Carole Freeman: Okay. Wow. Okay.

Victor: This was like the easiest. So, I tried all these diets right? I don’t call this a diet anymore. I really call it a lifestyle but you know, I would eat my emotions in a sense. So, a lot of weight and with Keto it became the easiest, tastiest thing and it just, I mean it melted off. People looked at me like holy crap, what happened to you? It just melted off.

Carole Freeman: Do you guys have some good before photos, because we can like put them in right now?

Victor: Oh, yeah. I’ll send some

Kris: We’ll send some. Yeah.

Carole Freeman: Yeah, through the magic of video editing we’ll get some before photos in here.

Victor: Yeah, I have some pretty …

Kris: You have some pretty good ones. When you first started Keto Kookie.

Victor: I used to go to McDonald’s and get a Big Mac and two cheeseburgers and fries like on a Monday and then Wednesday would be like, oh today’s a Carl’s Jr. Day.

Carole Freeman: Yeah, yeah.

Victor: I mean, this just changed everything, the way I feel. Like, the interesting thing is Kris’s drive for it was the mental function. Mine at first, my drive for doing Keto was the weight lose but as I’ve been on it my drive now is the mental function and weight lose happens to be a side effect of it.

Carole Freeman: Okay.

Victor: That’s really what’s become addicting about it. At least for me.

Kris: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Carole Freeman: So, how did you guys meet?

Kris: Yeah. So, we met what like five years ago?

Victor: Yeah.

Kris: 2012. So, I was just starting my other business, a tutoring company and Victor was, he was part of the small business development center. Actually the youth entrepreneurship program.

Victor: Yeah.

Kris: So that was, I’m no longer a youth but …

Victor: Yeah, we don’t qualify for that anymore.

Kris: He was actually one of the coaches and he had his own thing. You know?

Victor: Yeah, I had a like a men’s lifestyle blog that I started when I was in college and Kris actually came and won the competition.

Carole Freeman: Oh, cool.

Victor: He won it and then out of everybody we kind of connected the most and we just, we’d met up at coffee shops and work on our own individual businesses, because being an entrepreneur can be lonely, hard to relate.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Yeah.

Victor: So, we’d meet at coffee shops and then did this Keto thing and said, hey why don’t we try something together?

Carole Freeman: Okay. Yeah. So you guys shared about how Keto’s really impacted your own health for positive. Have you guys had like an impact on your families? Like, is the wave rippling out to other people in your family?

Victor: Oh yeah.

Kris: Yeah. I got my cousin into it and he’s, he hasn’t looked like this since, probably high school and he’s going on 40. He lost probably about, at least 40 pounds. He used to be very active, swimming all the time, doing yoga and it just never fell off for him, the pounds and this is what really got him over the top and really excited him and he just felt more energy too and then he started sharing with other people, his friends and then it just became this snowball effect where everybody was like, hey you look so good. You know, you look a lot better. What are you doing, and it’s like well I’m eating more fat and then it trips people out but it’s something that kind of hooks other people. So, that’s kind of what I’ve seen.

Victor: Yeah, like for me I got, so on one end I used to tell, try this and people were like eh, we’ll see but they saw the weight lose they were like what are you doing? So, I got my brother in law, both of my brother in laws, some friends and then recently I got my dad. My dad’s 52 and he’s jacked. Like, he is so, he’s in such good shape and he used to always, every since I can remember him and my mom always used to go to the gym and work out and they were in good shape but it wasn’t until like he adopted Keto and recently intermittent fasting and now he’s like wearing cut off shirts. It’s just like, melts off.

Carole Freeman: You got a shirtless selfie of your dad we can …?

Victor: Not shirtless but it’s just one of those things where now people ask him what he’s doing and it’s interesting to see just the snowball effect like Kris said.

Kris: Yeah.

Victor: People, lead by example. It’s really the best way that you can get other people to follow.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. For sure, that was one of the theme’s at Keto Con was just, you know, that’s going to be the best influence we can have is just lead by example, because people can see like how obviously healthy, like I don’t know if your guy’s families are saying this or not and I’ve known you guys for a few months now but your faces are just like, you know, beautiful clear skin. You guys look youthful and young and really healthy, right and so it’s really hard to argue or you know, people see how healthy you look and vibrant you are and you know the weight lose. It’s hard to argue that what you’re doing is like unhealthy, right?

Kris: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Victor: Exactly.

Kris: Absolutely.

Victor: Then you go get blood work done and the doctors are telling you it’s going to be bad and nope.

Kris: Yeah.

Carole Freeman: Yeah, it looks good too. Yeah, so all right I don’t why but this is doing great. So …

Victor: Exactly.

Kris: The biggest thing is like how I feel. I guess I’ve been like lately I’ve just been trying to listen to my body more and Keto’s really helped with that and you know, now I’m noticing like I feel a lot better when I eat certain foods and feel terrible when I eat other foods but just that feeling, it’s like I don’t want to sacrifice that for this doughnut anymore.

Carole Freeman: Yeah.

Kris: I don’t want to feel bloated for the whole day.

Victor: Or crash for an hour after.

Kris: Or crash for an hour and it’s not worth it. So, that’s the thing is just the feeling, the energy that I’ve gotten from it that I’m addicted to I guess.

Victor: I’ve notice, even like with Keto it’s like you start to level up. So, now Keto is the norm and you’re experimenting to cutting out diary?

Kris: Yeah.

Victor: You know, so it’s almost like once you know how good this feels you get addicted to, okay I wonder if I swap out something else, how much better would I feel? Or something else and it’s just like a game.

Carole Freeman: Yeah, well and it’s, that’s exactly what I’ve found with my clients. I mean, I’ve worked with you know, women that have struggled with their weight their entire life and it really, just exactly what you’re talking about. It’s like here becomes your baseline. It’s like your base camp. Like, you get that solid foundation and you really do get that clarity to feel, you know, this makes me feel good and that doesn’t and I can make a choice now whereas before it was always this compulsion and just keep feeding the carb based inside of you and you just never had choices. You just felt terrible all the time and couldn’t feel that and so I love that. That’s exactly what I’m seeing with my clients and everybody that I talk to about this is they see, you know, I can experiment with this and I can try this and I know, really clearly, like the messages my body sends me are so clear now and I can really listen to it.

Kris: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Carole Freeman: Like, all those things they told us to do now I can actually do it.

Victor: I started throwing sea salt in my water now thanks to your advise.

Kris: Yeah, that’s been really helpful.

Victor: It’s just such a game changer. I’m like I’m drinking [inaudible 00:11:24] waters. Not until you throw salt in there that you really notice the difference.

Carole Freeman: Right. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very key. If you guys are watching and you’re not doing salt, one or two teaspoons or more per day. Like, that, The Salt Fix Book’s a really good one too. We’ll plug that too but they’re not a sponsor of the show but …

Kris: It’s a good resource.

Victor: Exactly.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Well, so okay, so what was it like in the beginning when you guys were going from your former you know, fast food diet to Keto? Like, was it hard to wrap your brain around it? Was it hard to give up those foods? Was it easy? What was that like?

Kris: Yeah. I mean the cravings were there and you can, I could feel my body like oh I need carbs, I need carbs, I need carbs for like the first probably three days and then the fourth day it was like Keto flu. I read about it and so I was preparing for it and I didn’t know what to expect and it hit me pretty hard and I had like a huge headache. I couldn’t do any work and then my heart was beating really hard and i was like, oh my gosh, this is like terrible. Maybe I should get off this thing.

Victor: It was exciting. Yay, you’re on Keto.

Kris: Yeah and I was getting worried. I’m like, oh maybe this is not the thing and then I kept reading online. It was like, just wait it out and you know, waited it out and it passed. I felt amazing afterwards and like immediately, almost immediately I just stopped napping and which was a really cool thing and I felt more calm too. So, my anxiety levels went down. I mean, we have more things to stress us about now than ever but I just feel more zen and it’s not, there’s no more of these ups and downs, these mood swings that I used to get with carbs. So, that’s been a huge help.

Victor: For me, the journey was a little different. I would like do a sprint and then I would crash. A sprint and I would crash. So I would, again if I was tired or stressed out I would reach for the junk food and I’d have to start over again, over again. What ended up working for me the most was I ate the same thing for like six days a week and I just stuck to what worked and then that kind of help me build the momentum.

Carole Freeman: So, just keep it super simple, right?

Victor: Yeah.

Kris: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Nice. Okay.

Victor: That’s it and that’s what kind of helped me kind of long term with what we were trying to do. That and then once I was hooked on that feeling of the energy and that calm, like I have two kids. I have two businesses. There’s no way I can thrive and keep going with what I’m doing if it wasn’t for Keto.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Yeah, cool. Well and so then tell us, walk us down the journey of the inspiration for the cookie and how you developed your first one.

Victor: Want to talk about your mom’s kitchen?

Kris: Yeah. So, we were like, what do we miss and when we started there wasn’t a lot available. I mean, there are more snacks available now that I wish we had before but before it was like, there isn’t really much so like, what do we miss? Cookies.

Victor: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Kris: So then we, like okay let’s figure out how to make a cookie. So, we go to Whole Foods, get all these ingredients, go to my mom’s house, put on some aprons and then start you know, baking out of her kitchen and trying these different recipes and like, all right, let’s see how we can, what makes a delicious cookie and none of us have any baking experience, right?

Victor: Nope. That’s the first time I ever baked in my life.

Kris: I think we turned bakers that day.

Carole Freeman: Oh my gosh. I wish there were photos of all the mistakes.

Victor: Oh, yeah.

Kris: Oh, yeah. I think we do have some photos.

Carole Freeman: Oh, yeah?

Kris: We came out with like globs of like chocolate and it was just, yeah it was quite an experience and we, you know, we’re like what makes a delicious cookie and how do you make it Keto and that was the biggest thing for us in making a tasty Keto Kookie.

Victor: Yeah, because we didn’t start from a healthy cookie and work backward. We started from, what’s a delicious cookie and how do we replicate that with ingredients …

Carole Freeman: Okay. Okay.

Kris: Yeah.

Victor: That was really what was key to us.

Kris: Yeah and then we had friends, family try it and like hey try this and then afterwards just say hey there’s no sugar in it and its gluten free. They’re like, oh okay.

Carole Freeman: Like ah ha, tricked you.

Victor: I think the real key to was, so we had these cookies we were making at home and I’m like will anybody actually buy them or care to buy them?

Carole Freeman: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Victor: So we threw up this super simple website and like a picture of a regular chocolate chip cookie and a PayPal button …

Carole Freeman: Okay.

Victor: Anybody want this and about three people bought and then a week later, 20 people. A week later, 50 people. We’re like okay, okay, something’s going on here. At that point we were still buying all or stuff at retail. So we were losing money on every order.

Kris: Yeah.

Carole Freeman: Okay. Yeah.

Victor: So we ended up pausing that and went okay, and then I think we need to launch a Kickstarter to do something in order to kind of get us to that next level.

Kris: Yeah, so that was really, we were really excited.

Victor: Yeah, it was great …

Kris: People were, we got some response from the community and a lot of feedback. So, people were like oh you know, you shouldn’t use this sweetener. We were actually using chocolate chips with [inaudible 00:16:52] before we knew any better and and then we were like oh we can’t use that ingredients. It raises blood sugar. So I went all right let’s use something erythritol instead and then and yeah, so were like hey we should see how people that are diehard really think about the cookies and we went to low carb USA in San Diego.

Victor: We were so nervous.

Kris: Yeah.

Carole Freeman: Oh, that was your first one?

Kris: That was our first one. Yeah, and these are like the top scientists, the top people in the medical professional industry and we’re like, man they’re probably going to hate us. They’re like who are these guys bringing cookies?

Victor: The waiter who was doing the walk up and they would look at us and they’d would give us this like scowl …

Kris: We’d get a the stink eyes.

Victor: They’d give us the stink eye and then leave, like …

Kris: They were like, what are these cookies doing here?

Victor: Yeah, yeah and I think for me the big part of that was somebody goes up to our table and they slam their hands on the table. I’m like oh here it is, here it is, what’s going on and somebody shows their like glucose monitor and they were like, I had your cookies an hour ago and look. It was almost like a flat line and we were just like wow and we’re like whoo, man. Yeah. It was good.

Kris: Yeah and the biggest thing that came out from that was, so we were at our booth and this you know, six foot four, bald head guy with muscles bulging out of his button up shirt comes up to our table and he’s like, you guys are my heroes and we’re like, what are you talking about and he’s like, well my son has Type One Diabetes, we have him on a low carb diet and now like I can finally put a cookie in his lunchbox without having to worry and we got goosebumps and from that moment, we initially started this for fun and it just became so much bigger than that. Especially when people like him shared their story. People like you.

Carole Freeman: Are you talking about R.D.?

Kris: Yeah. RD Dikeman. I love that guy.

Carole Freeman: That was 2016 in San Diego, right?

Kris: Yes.

Carole Freeman: Yeah, I agree. His talk, like he had me in tears sharing his story with his son. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s, yeah, I’m getting chills when you tell me.

Victor: It was amazing. It was at that point when we looked at each other after the conference and we’re like, wow. Like, this truly felt bigger than ourselves. Like, we’ve done other projects, other businesses which were fun but this, the Keto Kookie became like, okay this is, we have like a bigger purpose a bigger mission and that’s where, since then that was a pivotal shift in our minds.

Kris: Yeah. We got super excited, these people, I mean people shard a lot of their stories of how Keto has impacted them and for us it was like, you know, a little bit of weight lose, a little bit of energy but for other people it went a lot more. It went walking, you know, when they use to have muscular dystrophy and couldn’t walk and then now they can run. I’m like, wow that’s so amazing and so as we heard people’s stories we got, we bought more into the Keto lifestyle and just helping the community. So …

Victor: Yeah. So, I mean, that’s been a pivotal point and it kind of brings us to today which is interesting.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Yeah. So you guys originally had the, chocolate chip is your first one a year ago and then you bought in the double chocolate, right?

Kris: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Victor: Chocolate chip, snicker doodle, and then we launched double chocolate.

Kris: Okay. Okay and so now you guys are, you guys are ready to take this to the next step, right? Like …

Victor: Yeah.

Kris: So right now, what’s like behind the scenes, what’s your production system? Are you guys still making the cookies yourselves or what’s the deal?

Victor: So, right now we’re working six, seven days a week, two shifts a day. Every cookie is hand scooped, hand pouched, hand shipped and it’s been, it’s been amazing. We had this talk with our community and we were like hey, we’re a little behind on orders. You know, if you guys want your money back you know please feel free and people were like, we’ll wait as long as it takes. We were like, wow. Okay. So then that really took us to, our mission now has grown and we want to grow the message of Keto. Which is why we started to launch a Kickstarter which we can talk about a little later but we went on a crazy experiment.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Oh, yeah we’re going to talk, I know you talked about the experiment.

Kris: Yeah.

Victor: So, we wanted to put our cookies to the test and we decided that for two weeks we were going to get off Keto and when we say get off, I’m talking about like old levels of eating like crap.

Kris: It was torture.

Victor: It was torture. It’s like, okay if you’ve ever seen those TV shows or movies where the little kid picks up a cigarette and the parents make him smoke the whole pack? That’s how I felt. I was like force feeding myself.

Carole Freeman: Oh.

Victor: I don’t want it. Please, I don’t want anymore of it and then we decided to, okay we’re going to do a seven day experiment where we eat nothing but Keto Kookies, water and coffee and some salt.

Carole Freeman: Yeah, yeah.

Victor: It was 16 cookies a day, 18 hundred calories and we learned a lot about ourselves.

Kris: Yeah, so by, well day three right …

Victor: I got Keto flu real, so by day three, i love our cookies, I couldn’t stand having cookies any more and by day three I got Keto flu bad. I mean, I was shaking.

Carole Freeman: Okay.

Victor: Kris is over here all jolly and happy and I’m like, we’re eating the exact same thing. What the heck is going on?

Kris: It’s because I listened to you and bought that salt and started putting it in my water and just made sure I had enough electrolytes and so I was feeling great and I’m like Victor he needed to add up, you know add electrolytes and then you did and it made things a lot better. Day five, we tested our keytones, so our blood. We’ve never tested before. So that was interesting and also scary at the same time because we weren’t sure like can you get into ketosis eating just these cookies and I was like what if we don’t? You know?

Victor: I was like, we were filming this. So, what happens if we don’t?

Kris: Yeah, so then we tested. You were at two point eight millimoles and I was at three point one.

Carole Freeman: Wow.

Kris: Right. Yes, we high fived each other and we were just excited because, I mean for those people that aren’t familiar with their level, that’s around, like three is around like therapeutic levels.

Carole Freeman: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Kris: Right?

Carole Freeman: Yeah. I hear most people have to be fasting to get to that level, yeah.

Kris: Yeah. So it’s almost like we were fasting, just eating cookies.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Except you got to eat cookies.

Kris: Yeah.

Victor: Exactly. Exactly. My strategy shifted. As first it was, how can I cram as many as I can and then spread out the rest and then it was like, let me just split them out throughout the day and then it just became how do I mix up all the flavors to keep getting that variety. Like, we were going to the fair and like my friends are eating like huge corn dogs and deep fried Twinkies and I was chill just eating my Keto Kookies.

Carole Freeman: You guys this is going to go crazy. Like you guys are going to have now the Keto Diet induction pack, right?

Kris: You might not want to buy another Keto Kookie again, yeah?

Victor: Yeah. Yeah.

Kris: No, because at day seven we were just like oh, just like oh only a few more cookies left, only a few more cookies because it’s kind of hard to have something sweet on your palate all day long.

Carole Freeman: Okay. Yeah.

Kris: We were just craving something savory. Like, I walked into my apartment and my wife is making chicken and I’m like oh my gosh, this smells so good.

Victor: my daughter was having scrambled eggs with salt and my mouth was just salivating. I’m like oh, eggs. It was definitely a learning experience. Will we do it again? Nope. I’m happy we did it though.

Kris: Yeah.

Victor: It was really cool.

Carole Freeman: Yeah, that’s well and it’s you know it’s a technique I know from psychology like you know, palate fatigue and you know just kind of an aversion therapy. So, you know, that’s always been a little bit of my concern with my clients is that like these cookies are so delicious will they be able to ever stop eating them and so maybe that’s a little like a technique I can use with them if they order them and feel like …

Kris: Or if they order too much?

Carole Freeman: Or 70 in a row and then they’ll be like I can moderate it now. I can have these occasionally and …

Victor: Yeah. Exactly.

Carole Freeman: Nice.

Victor: Yeah, so that led into our next phase which is the Kickstarter we’re launching now but it’s again for an higher purpose. You want to jump in there?

Kris: Yeah so we wanted, like we want to get people that are not on Keto into Keto and we saw this as an opportunity to use this Kickstarter as a megaphone. So, there are like 55 millions people that go on Kickstarter looking for projects and what’s cool is our project is the most popular food one in the Kickstarter and so this gives us an opportunity to like, you can eat a, you can eat a cookie and follow the Ketogenic Diet and so that’s what we’re trying to do is rally up in the Ketogenic community and also like get people who are not on Keto into, actually just being interested in and curious about it is.

Victor: Yeah. Definitely. It’s like how do we reach the mainstream audience while still serving our core which got us right?

Carole Freeman: Yeah.

Victor: So, we’re trying to highlight the benefits of a Ketogenic diet and then once you get in deeper learning about why Keto is unique and what Keto does and so far it’s I mean it’s worked. We got funded in under five hours.

Carole Freeman: Oh yeah.

Kris: Yeah.

Carole Freeman: So, your big mission is to get the word out and get more people on board and healthy but what’s your you know, kind of business goal? Like, what was this going to fund for you guys?

Victor: Yeah.

Kris: Yeah, so it was going to help us move into bigger manufacturing. Like we said we were hand scooping every, hand everything and this will help us kind of make cookies faster than people can order them. Right now, we’re I mean we’re two to three weeks behind on orders and everything is self funded. So, we don’t have any outside investing. So, this has, this has been great. We’ve gotten a lot of support from the Ketogenic community to really grow this thing and …

Victor: Yeah and so that, that’s kind of the business goal and being able to do that will allow us to drop prices, have more flavors, deliver faster.

Carole Freeman: Okay.

Victor: In terms of creating a movement we haven’t talked about anywhere else.

Kris: Oh. We can spill the beans?

Victor: We can spill the beans. Okay. So, we keep asking ourselves like, how do we focus, right? What’s our big purpose to spread awareness of the Ketogenic Diet? So, something that we’re going to be launching in the next couple of days as a part of our Kickstarter is #iamketo.

Carole Freeman: Okay.

Victor: We’re going to get some cool red rings that are bold and that people that are on this mission are encouraged to tell their stories.

Kris: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Victor: So, right now if I know somebody else is Keto it’s because I’m looking at what they’re having for lunch. Right?

Kris: Yeah, like are they on Keto? I think they’re on Keto. I’m not really sure. I don’t know if I should ask.

Victor: So, what we’re hoping for is how can we have people that we respect in the industry share their story and almost make a statement? Kind of like Live Strong but for, so we want it to be a ring. A nice red silicone ring that kind of makes a statement and kind of starts a conversation. We’re not looking to profit from these rings. We’re going to offer them for two bucks. Anybody that backs two dollars or more on our Kickstarter will get a ring but it’s like, this is more of a symbol of what you know Keto means and what Keto can become.

Kris: Yeah. It’s like a, it’s the symbol for this story. Everybody has a story and it’d be cool for everybody to share that story. I think that’s one thing that has been successful thus far and if more people do it, the people that are in the Keto closet you know, if they come out and like, hey you know, this is what, how it changed my life and I’m not telling you how to eat, this is what it’s done and hopefully that’ll inspire other people to get into that as well.

Carole Freeman: Yeah.

Kris: Yeah, it’s really to generate this conversation about Keto and we think, you know, we believe that the rings will be a good way to one, like identify other people but also use it as a conversation starter. Like, oh what is that ring that you’re wearing and like oh I’m on this Keto diet and you know, it’s helped me lose a hundred pounds and I’m able to get off all these medications because of this, of what I’ve being eating.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Wow. You guys that’s huge. That’s like, that’s so cool and I mean it’s just really impressive that you guys have been so inspired by the community to take this even bigger than you ever imagined it was going to be and you’re right. Like, you know living that and being that example and starting that conversation with people is going to be really powerful and then you probably also recognize that, I mean, we know because we’re in this community together, like supportive and connected we all are and you know, we end conferences with hugs and gosh I can’t wait to see them again.

That’s one of the things that you know is an obstacle for a lot of people trying to start out on their own is that lack of community and the more people that we can get that are trying this and supporting each other and talking about it, people won’t feel so alone and as we’ve changed the food landscape that’s out there as well to be more supportive of this we can actually you know help people stay on track and stick with it rather than just falling back into those old habits. So, it’s great. Great. Exciting.

Kris: Yeah, thank you.

Victor: It means a lot, it means a lot to hear that from you. I mean, because this is nothing without the community.

Carole Freeman: Yeah.

Victor: So, that’s the only way that this is going to grow and become something.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. For sure. Wow. Okay. So, if I’m understanding right you guys had like one Kickstarter and this is another one or is this still the same … ? Okay.

Victor: So, our first Kickstarter got us out of Kris’s mom’s kitchen into, into a kitchen where we would pay by the hour.

Carole Freeman: Right. Right. Okay.

Victor: Where we were able to grow to finally have our own commercial kitchen. It’s very cramped and now this is, to allow us to be able to, I mean business term but to be able to scale.

Carole Freeman: Okay.

Victor: To be able to offer the cookies to more people. Like a lot of people are asking about a retailer. They’re asking about Amazon.

Carole Freeman: Yeah.

Victor: Like, the only way we can really offer these to more people if we’re able to multiply and grow and this will help us do that.

Carole Freeman: You said, and this is the one though that was funded in five hours?

Victor: Yeah.

Kris: Yeah.

Carole Freeman: So, it’s still open though, right? So, people … ?

Kris: It’s still open. Yeah. Definitely and it’s still open and you know we want to get as much people involved in this as possible and even if it’s like just to get the rings, it’s just two dollars for the rings and then just have to pay for the shipping and make the ring.

Victor: Yeah.

Carole Freeman: Okay. What’s the closing date on this? This video’s going to be out there forever in the world so what’s the …?

Kris: Oh, yeah.

Carole Freeman: This thing we’re talking about, what’s the closing date? Is it like …?

Victor: October 12th. October 12th, 2017 is the last day of the campaign.

Kris: Yeah.

Carole Freeman: Okay. So we’ll link that in the show notes down below so you guys can get in on getting an iamketo ring and if you want to get in on, you guys have a couple of flavors that are exclusive to the Kickstarter as well, right?

Victor: Yes.

Kris: Yeah. We like to tease people.

Victor: Peanut butter and birthday cake are two exclusive flavors that you can only order through the Kickstarter. You can go to our site to get regular flavors but these are only through Kickstarter.

Carole Freeman: Cool. Nice. Awesome. Wow. Well, so gosh I would, you know I was thinking about asking you guys like what’s your bigger vision but we’ve already been there. The other thing I want to point out too is that the quality of the ingredients you guys are using are just phenomenal. So, there’s a lot of you know products coming out in the market and one of my greatest fears of you know the consumer side and all the product excitement. We’ve got a lot that are like Keto is hot and popular. We’re going to make all these things and very quickly that devolves into like the cheapest ingredients possible that we can get out there and then you know, when you get really refined processed cheap ingredients it’s not actually Ketogenic, right? Like it’s …

Victor: Right.

Carole Freeman: Maybe on the surface because the macros fit or something like that but we’ve got things like you know, maltodextrin for example that technically you know if you keep the carb amount low enough it could you know, look like Keto but those of us who really know understand, like you’re talking about with the Matltitol as well. Like there are things that are just Ketogenic even though on paper they may look like that. So, I just want to, you know, you guys know this but I just want to applaud you to everybody who’s watching this that you now the quality of ingredients you guys use, I mean that’s why they are Ketogenic is because you are, you know you’re not scrimping on the quality of all that.

You know, it really matters and so you know as we move into this time where Keto is just going to be so popular one of my biggest fears though is that we’re going to get all these really crappy products out there and they’re not actually going to be and so either people are just going to adding them to what, their already terrible diet and they’re not losing any weight, they not getting healthy or they’re going to eat those and it’s not also going to be very health promoting because they’re not really high quality ingredients and then, then it will be like well that didn’t work. I tried that diet and I didn’t get healthy and it’s just one more fad. Like, that’s my biggest fear right now is just the bad food products that are going to be coming out. So I just, I applaud you guys for having such great you know quality control and standards for your ingredients because that’s not what people are going to see in most things out there.

Kris: Thank you so much. I mean, people like you are going to be doing a lot of the education around these ingredients and so that’s really going to help educate people like oh, you should probably stay away from Maltodextrin. Stay away from these things.

Carole Freeman: Yeah.

Kris: So, the more we can educate people on these ingredients, so you know the more they can make better choices. So, I mean, thank you for being a huge part of that.

Victor: Definitely.

Kris: Yeah.

Victor: Like that, that’s really, it’s the education where everything’s going to come because we can’t control what’s going to come into the market but we can control how people are seeing …

Kris: Perceive.

Victor: How they perceive them. Exactly.

Kris: Uh-huh (affirmative).

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know within the community you’ve got just tons of fans. So, we just stick to the plan and we’ll get even more people. So, gosh what else have we not covered you guys? Is there anything else you guys were hoping we’d talk about or you were hoping I’d ask you about?

Victor: Well I mean I just, I love the opportunity to connect with people like you. Like even, going to Keto Con. I think Keto Con was great. It was the first ever of its kind and we’re going to see year after year how it’s going to be evolving.

Carole Freeman: Yeah.

Victor: So, I’m just, it’s more of a comment but I like where Keto is going. You know? We’ve felt so much love and warmth when we got into this industry. It isn’t, like there’s other businesses where you don’t feel that. Here it’s like yeah, come on let’s go, let’s help you, let’s give you resources and it’s more of we try to practice gratitude like as a habit in our company. So we always, when we’re talking we just want to say thank you. Thank you Carole for all of the love and the support. Thank to the community. We wouldn’t be here without you guys. So, everyday we’re like pinching ourselves, wow people are commenting on the cookies. It’s pretty awesome.

Carole Freeman: Wow. yeah. Well and it’s so true because there were at Keto Con at the end of it and I’m you know, been to these low carb and Keto conferences and they do all end like we’re just one big happy family and we’re all hugging each other and the same thing was happening at the end of Keto Con and there was a lady there that was coming and she says like I’m a photographer and I go to all these photography conferences and none of them ever end with anybody hugging each other. [inaudible 00:36:43] I was at different event, conference a couple weekends ago and yeah it was like wait, where’s all the hugs and affection?

Kris: Yeah, what’s going on? What’s going on, I thought all of them are supposed to be like this?

Carole Freeman: I know. Wake up. Conferences aren’t that fun. No.

Victor: Exactly.

Kris: Yeah, so I mean it’s been awesome. Everybody’s just been very welcoming and we’re trying to do this thing with other people that are you know, new to all of this. The biggest thing that I guess for people that are listening to this that I would want them to get is just keep sharing your stories. The stories are so powerful.

Victor: You can use the hashtag, iamketo.

Kris: Nice plug.

Victor: Sorry. Sorry. I got to do it.

Kris: I mean, we can tell people how to eat or but it’s really the stories that are really powerful and what get people to change and if we can do that more often and empower other people and inspire other people with those stories we can definitely get more people onboard with this Ketogenic Diet.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. Wonderful. Awesome. Well you guys this has been awesome. I’ve got one final question for both of you. It’s your last day on the planet. The meteor’s coming, we’re all getting wiped out today. What’s your final meal?

Victor: Oh, my God. I’m a burger guy. I love burgers. It would be, it would be from this place in Las Vegas called The Burger Bar.

Carole Freeman: Okay.

Victor: At Luxor in the Mandalay Bay and I would get a Kobe beef with bacon and a fried egg and cheddar lettuce wrapped. That would be my last. I’d have to fly to Vegas and they’ll do it but anyway, yeah.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. No. You got time. You know it’s coming so you can fly out there real quick and …

Kris: Yeah I would have a Wagyu steak with truffle, with truffles on it. With truffles …yeah, they make it good. I’m probably, since I wouldn’t have to do keto because the world is ending, I would probably just stick some fries in there and nap ’till the end of the world.

Carole Freeman: Yeah. You might as well be numbed out when you finally go out. Yeah. Awesome. You guys thank you so much. This has been awesome and thank you for the work that you’re doing and you know, thank you for you know, the inspiration to take this to you know the level that you are and taking all this love and passion for the good of the world and it’s really inspiring what you guys are doing. So, thank you so much for being here. I so love this.

Kris: Thank you so much.

Victor: Yeah. Thank you so much.

Carole Freeman: If you guys like this video give up a thumbs up. Come on you gotta you know, you gotta love what these guys are doing, right and subscribe if you want to see more of these interviews and go out there and hashtag the world iamketo. Right?

Kris: Yes.

Carole Freeman: So, get it all over. Let’s make this movement happen. So, that’s all for now. Thanks so much for watching. We’ll see you soon. Bye.

Kris: Bye.

Victor: Bye.