Ryan Moore & Clayton Bried of Nurtrium: The Future of Hemp

Saltwater High. Welcome, Ryan and Clayton to the podcast. What's up, bros?

Not much, man. How's it going?

Oh, it's good. First, I want to, first of all, thank you guys for sending me your amazing product. And I'm not just saying that because you're on the podcast first of all. I wouldn't say that if I was on the podcast. I want to show you guys how much of it I've used. I actually got it a couple of weeks ago. This stuff, it feels like I got a salad on my face. There's just so many nutrients in it. It's crazy. It's crazy. I want to eat it, too by the way. I don't know if I can do that. I was going to talk to you guys first. And then this one, so it took me a bit to figure it out. But this one is for more pain relief and muscle relief, which I always have surfing, obviously. So that one's legit. This one I've been using a lot. I just put it on my face. You guys see my shining face?

Yeah. That's the OG. That's the original.

The classic.

Yeah. That formula actually was originated in our kitchen.

Oh okay. I want to hear all about it.

Then later turned into our masterpiece. But, yeah, that's the original one. The Skin Balm. I use that one, too.

Oh, you do? For those of you that can't see this because we're on video. Basically, these guys sent me samples of their product that we're going to talk about in their business. And I get sent samples all the time. This is like I'm going to buy this stuff from you guys going forward for sure.

Thank you.

I really love it. And I'm not just saying that, right? It's rare in today's world that you come across a product that you're like, "Wow!" I want to hear the whole journey, but I could tell from the packaging to the cream, this has been an amazing journey for you guys. So, yeah, just tell me a little bit about yourselves first. Who you are, where you're at, that sort of thing.

Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you for the kind words. We love it. And it really has been a journey. After living in Nicaragua for 7, 8 years, I came back to the States. I'm originally from Flagstaff, Arizona, and I kind of came back to Phoenix, close to family and some network of mine and some friends. And when I came back, Clayton and I had some mutual acquaintances and that's kind of where we met and we had hung out, I think before that, Clayton, but not much. Really kind of got to know each other when I got back living in Phoenix and from there, just like any good idea, just kind of started over us drinking a beer and kind of hanging out and hearing. Really, I think Nurtrium started more as a brokerage because we were hearing kind of the stuff that happens as the processors to the farmers, the farmers to the manufacturers and all the hurdles that they were trying to get over. And that's kind of where we got started. But, yeah, we're based here in Phoenix and Clayton, I'll let you kind of introduce yourself.

Yeah. And I can kind of get back to the processor for sure. But I'm originally from Canada, north of British Columbia.

Oh, Canadian?

So usually I'm on a mountain bike or whatnot versus this prim and proper here. I got to dress up for the partners and somewhat, but, yeah, originally from Canada. But my folks were running away from the law or something like that. They moved to Arizona years ago, and they still haven't told me why such the big move. But I grew up in the Phoenix area, and I have 2 young sons, 7 and 5, lovely wife. And it was a mutual friend talking over beer with Ryan that we started talking. He was just getting back from Nicaragua, surfing. I'm like, "Wow, man. I love snowboarding." For the love that's outdoors, it was like one thing after another. I'm like "Hey, we got to hook up on something" or whatever the venture, and it just happened to be the hemp industry we started hearing a lot. And we also had another mutual friend that knows people in the industry and whatnot and kind of made the introduction into the processing world. And it was really kind of crazy, the opportunity. And you look at what hemp's doing for a lot of different products, as you know, and the benefits kind of started there. And that's kind of led us to some of the next steps. Yeah.

Nice. So I want to back up just a little bit, Ryan. So you went from Nicaragua to Phoenix. Dude, 6 years in Nic?

Seven, almost 8. I also have 2 kids. And my daughter was actually born there. She's a very proud Nicaraguan. She's a little Gringa Nicaraguan. Yeah, my kids were getting older. My wife wanted to be closer to family. Her family is here in Arizona, but it was a tough move. It's funny. I explained it the other day. Somebody was asking me, and I was like, "Yeah, I went from monkeys going over the top of my house to airplanes going over the top of my house every day." And landlocked at that. It's been tough. I know Clayton probably sees, he catches me sneaking off quite a bit, actually. In fact, just last week, I was able to get some of that swell in L.A., in Southern California. Got to paddle out a little bit, kind of snuck away from that.

Where'd you go?

I was in L.A., so we went up to I believe it was a break called Heavens. And then the second day, I went down by Trestles and I'm forgetting the name, what is south of Trestles?

Old Man's?

Yeah, down by Old Man's. Yeah, I was down there.

Sweet. Down with the masses, bro.

Oh, my gosh. I had no idea. I was taking direction. I don't know it that well and I was taking direction. And, yeah, it was crowded. Seven, 8 years in Nicaragua, if there's 5 people in the water, I'm like, "Man, it's busy today."

Wow. Dude, you got some karma points saved up for that. That's amazing.

Yeah. Tried to sneak away. Got to spend some time in Mexico, actually, this past summer doing some surfing down there in San Pancho area.

Come up to Ventura this winter and surf some waves up here, and we'll talk hemp.

I'd love to.

Rub cream all over our bodies with the hemp cream. I mean yourself, not each other.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah. So you guys had a couple of beers, you talk let's do a project. How did you come up with the balm or the cream? Does one of you use balms or creams? I see you got a beard, Clayton.

I actually use it on the beard. It's great.

You do? Yeah.

Ryan, I don't know if you want. We started hearing some of the benefits of why are people using it today. So even before we got into the product and I'll hand it back to you, Ryan, along in your kind of story with the family, but I'm an IT guy. So my mind went to man, how do we help farmers? How do we integrate, make software for a lot of the people? It's a new industry. And usually my mind goes to thinking, what solutions? And then when we started looking about into the hemp itself and the product we were kind of introduced to, it has all the natural capabilities. So we started doing history or understanding what are some of the ingredients. And it started leading to some of Ryan's benefit he's going to talk about in a sec, but it really started showing up like, wow, this is an amazing ingredient that we ran into randomly enough because we were looking at creating software tools about, hey, what's in this ingredient itself and how natural it truly is.

Yeah, absolutely. Like Clayton said. And a lot of it, too, was just finding those hurdles that we were talking about as far as farmer to processor, processor to manufacturer. We actually got a lot of pushback from manufacturers using the ingredient that we had found. The hemp ingredient we use, it's actually a patented process. It's not extracted. It's not just CBD. They found a way to just really keep the integrity and just keep it plant-based. So as we were getting that, we started making some prototypes. My son, Liam, he's 12. As we traveled back and forth, Phoenix to Nicaragua, he deals with eczema. So we just kind of started making. It was the simplicity of it. In Nicaragua, I think, you find a lot of those simplicities of using what's around you. So I just got some shea butter and mixed it with the hemp ingredient we now use. And he was using it. And within 2 or 3 days, we saw his eczema disappear, and we've tried everything. From the Aquaphors and the Vaselines, anything to get it down. And Clayton as well, I think, was handing it out. Just these little prototypes that we had basically not even for ourselves, but for other people. And we just kept hearing the benefits a lot. Like you were saying, people were just loving it. And I think that's kind of when it dawned on us to start our own product. Kind of go from there.

Sweet.

Yeah.

And back to what Ryan was saying is it's a powder format. So when we work with manufacturers, everyone's used to the oil or they were set up manufacturing-wise to use the oil that you can find out everywhere. So it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. It's more their manufacturing supply chain wasn't set up to manufacture with a powder format because no one really knew how to use it. And that was one of the things we got to like, hey, we're getting great feedback and let's do something on a proof of concept, but we have a great product in our hands, why are we dealing with the pushback when we know we have something here that's really special and that kind of triggered us to really launch the Nurtrium product.

Yeah. The consistency is really quite a bit different. I guess it's because of that kind of the powdery mix. It's pretty sweet. I have another case study for you. So the week you sent me this product, I got shingles. And I don't know if you guys know about shingles, it's the same virus as the chickenpox. It stays dormant in the system. So if you had chickenpox as a kid, you're going to probably get shingles at some point. And so I got the shingles. And basically you break out in these gnarly scabs, like open wounds. And, dude, I was putting this stuff on it, and I swear it cleared up in 4 days. I was also taking an antiviral that the doctor gave me, but the antiviral doesn't treat the wound. It only treats the shingle virus, right? There you go. Treats the shingles, too.

Yeah. We love to hear it, man. We love to hear stuff like that.

Yeah. So you guys get the idea for it, you decide you're going to do the product. And then I'm always curious because partnerships, they're hard, right? I've had a couple of businesses with partners before. And how does that conversation go down? How do you like, "Hey, let's partner." And I assume it's 50-50 or whatever. Just kind of tell me a little bit about that journey.

Yeah. You want to take that one, Clayton?

Yeah, I'll kick it off.

No, you talk first. Because if we are going to talk bad about each other, I want to have a rebuttal. If it's good, then I'll talk good.

I think it was love at first sight. We knocked off each of the interest when we talk about all things—activities, life, family and a lot of those simple kind of core when you talk about someone, what they're about, their personality and where they're from. That stuff was a no brainer. So it was somethone that I definitely wanted to hang out with for sure. But when we started talking business, I think one thing that worked well for us was we kind of let each other live in our own. What we're good at, what we excel at. Ryan comes from a sales and business development and whatnot. And again, I was the IT nerd but operational stuff. So I think we've done a very good job of staying in our lanes, but making sure we overlap. And I think we've done, well I believe, Ryan, we'll see what you say is really finding that common ground. We find ourselves agreeing when the paths cross a little bit. But we kind of stay in our side and we meet along the way.

Yeah. Great attitude.

Yeah. All of those things I absolutely agree with. And I also think as you get older and you do have families, I think some of those maybe not as much machismo in there. I think we are just open to we really believe when we kind of set up this company is that we laugh about it. But hemp is bigger than us, and we believe that getting it out there to the masses is the common goal. And so we kind of took that leadership with our company. It's not just us trying to make money. Obviously, we want to make money, but we saw the benefits. We hear the stories of shingles, eczema, psoriasis, just so many different things that we've heard. And I think that was different perspectives all the time. And I think it was just kind of respecting, like Clayton said, is respecting those perspectives and really just being like no, maybe your perspective is not right on this. Let's think a different way. It kind of opened my eyes to some things I don't think I had thought about before from Clayton and everybody that's had a part in our business. It's been good. And then yeah, we're outdoorsmen. We like to get out, ride our bikes, our boards, just always out. So we always had that in common. And I think that was probably the most important thing is just having a bigger goal, a bigger site, the big picture as well as common grounds.

Sweet. So tell me a little bit about the packaging because I kept the packaging actually down there. I think it's even hemp, right?

Yeah.

That was a fun part of the process. There was many cheap routes we could have gone of just give us mass-produced plastic packaging to do it. And I think we said, okay, how could we package this way that not only looks the way we wanted, looks cool where people are going to say, "Hey, what is this?" first of all. But how can we do it in a less footprint in a way. So each piece of that, we kind of package together, but absolutely, hemp is a packaging. I don't know why anyone speak to some of the glass and lids.

Yeah. Again, going back to us making these prototypes in our kitchen. The first ones were actually in plastic, and I think we had 10 or 20 of them, and we just both were kind of at that moment where we were like, we can't do this. Our story is just that we love the outdoors. I love the ocean, the mountains, everything in between. And we just couldn't do it. We just couldn't bring ourselves as cheap as it was to go with some of the plastic routes manufacturers. They absolutely, when you go in there, still want to push that on you just because it's easy to source for them. So I think it was Clayton. He was just kind of, "Let's not do it then. Let's find something else. Let's find a solution." I was like, "Okay." So we spent hours just researching and trying to find the best thing to keep it sustainable and kind of just reflect the ingredients that we have is natural and plant-based. So we got the recycled glass jars. We work with Oceanworks and Sana for our lids. Those are upcycled plastic. And then the hemp boxes and Tree Huggers is our glass container. I got to give a shout out to Tree Huggers as well.

Tree Huggers. And how hard was it to source the hemp box? It seems like that's a really hard thing to get.

I felt like that was the easiest.

Was it? Easiest?

Yeah. There's a couple of companies in the industry. They're doing hemp, hemp paper and whatnot. Depending on how much is recycled material versus hemp material and whatnot. But yeah, there's a company we're able to find that was able to spin those up, and we wanted to keep those natural. You can actually do colored. But we love the natural hemp kind of recycled look that we went with.

Yeah. I always had a dream that I could make a board bag that at the end of its lifecycle, you could put it in the garden, and it would just be compost, right? That was one of my dreams. Hard to do, though. Super cool, man. I just love it. And why hemp? What is it about hemp that you guys are stoked on?

Everything. I was going to wait for Clayton to answer that one. Everything. Like I said at the beginning, I think it's that bigger picture. What you said as well is our ethos matches as far as using that hemp. It's everything from the fiber to the cannabinoids that match your endocannabinoid system. There's not a lot of plants that do that. That can have a fiber and also match something that you have naturally inside your body. And so we just kind of started getting excited I think about that aspect, about that bigger picture of hemp and everything you can do, from the health to the environment. So I think that's what got me excited about it. I won't put words in your mouth, Clayton, but I think that's what got me excited. It's just that there is that bigger picture that people are working towards. And we also found in the hemp industry that people, despite everything, maybe not as cutthroat, that people do have that in mind like, hey, yes, we might have been competitors, but we do see this bigger picture of helping the environment and the world we live in.

Cool.

Yeah. I would agree with all that. When we first started learning more about hemp, all the things that it could be replaced. It's almost too dangerous. You look at everything from plastic to how we're fueling our vehicles. You can go down a path where it could almost ultimately, at the end, be a solution to a lot of areas that we're doing to our planet today. So then you match that with trying to find opportunities. So you have this amazing plant that can do all these things, but you have all these opportunities you can use it, I think we almost were kind of the young ones going like, we're going to start a business in every sector, we're going to have a fiber company, we're going to have a topical, we're going to make surfboards. So we learned quickly. You really got to zone in on it. We were just so passionate what the plant could do. And again, we kind of set our story how we came with the topical and in line with the ingredient and the processor. So we love our product. But there's actually stuff we still talk about where people in the hemp industry, what they're doing in the fiber world. If we had all investment in the world, that would be another area we'd love to concentrate because of where it's going to be in 10 years from now. But, yeah, there's a lot of cool things that you can do with hemp. And I think that was just opportunity around it where we just kept following it.

Yeah, definitely. Hemp is definitely in the spotlight now, which is awesome, because when I started Wave Tribe in 2007, hemp was not cool. There were just some t-shirt, like big old baggy, like burlap and hemp t-shirts and only a bunch of hippies wear them. It's so nice to see hemp finally getting the respect that it deserves. And obviously, it's making all of our lives better, from the creams to the edibles to whatever you're using it with. So I think it's amazing. I put hemp in my cereal, I put it on my skin, I put it in my body. Seriously, I probably ingest multiple forms of hemp a day. It's an amazing plant, but from a business standpoint, there are hurdles because I don't know if you've thought about this before, and you're probably hitting some of the hurdles now, but a lot of the advertising vehicles like Amazon, Facebook, Google, they have a lot of restrictions around advertising hemp-based products, especially if there's CBD involved. If there's any CBD, on Facebook, you can't even run ads, right? And so how are you guys kind of dealing with it? Especially as a new company, I know what it's like to be new, trying to get your word out and not really be able to put a lot of money towards advertising, which is a great lever to pull in the beginning, well, it's even a great lever anytime in a business lifecycle. But how are you guys kind of thinking about that and dealing with that?

Yeah, it's a really good point and a great question. We launched right as the pandemic kind of took off as well. And finding these things out along the way. Trying to find loopholes through advertising on social media, getting out to retail stores was tough. For the first year, just really leaned on our network, finding people that we knew had a shop or was doing something they could benefit from our products. So we kind of did that. And as time goes, we're still doing that in a lot of ways. Reaching out to people, connecting with people that see the benefits of it, can use it within their businesses. It benefits them as well as us. But as far as the social media, we stay consistent with Instagram, some Facebook, some Twitter, but no advertising. We just don't advertise on there. We've just gone old school.

Yeah. My blood is boiling with that question.

We work with a surf camp out in L.A. We work with some tattoo artists, just people that we really see could benefit from it. But that's been one of the biggest hurdles—retail closing down and no advertising on social media is just been one of those things.

Tough.

Absolutely.

Yeah. But we don't have a lot of overhead. We're still a small company. We don't have a lot of overhead. So we really lean on our network. Meeting people, just networking, get to meet you, get to meet some really fun and interesting people and rely on those connections.

Yeah, we dealt with all the different social threads of getting kicked off, trying it, seeing the big dogs out there just easily marketing all their CBD products. So you get really frustrated on trying to figure out how do the small guys play in the game. So we did a lot of lessons learned there just from the IT side of how you can nail the different marketing stuff. But I'd say we dabbled in almost every avenue when you talk about small sales team, where you kind of build out your social connections with different sales folks. We reached out in free shows. Every little kind of thing of the sales boats we tried. And to Ryan's point, it really came back to local networking. Our connections that people knew who we are, where we came from and our product that we're able to sit with them and explain the benefits. We just saw the best network in our small local market, and we're starting to see it expand from there. But we started off for the world, but you see the best benefit coming to the local and then expanding that way, which is kind of interesting on the journey.

Yeah.

Yeah. And have you guys looked at Amazon at all? As a distribution point?

I think we dabbled a little bit, but it was just kind of a no on the Amazon. I feel like we like that getting to know and being able to really explain it, whereas we don't want to be just another product.

Sure, sure.

We really like the fact that it's the patented ingredients and really being able to explain it, I guess. What do you think, Clayton?

Yeah. With any startup, you kind of balance how much investment you're going to go get. Like how much you're going to give up your company to go get the cash to be able to support the inventory, to sign up with someone like Amazon where they can put you out of business really quick, depending on not being able to keep up with the demand. So we went through the ups and downs of like, hey, do we want to go and get more partners? And it really always came back to we want to own most of our company and let's try to bootstrap as much as we can. COVID hitting didn't help that situation as many small businesses, but that was kind of our mindset of let's try to keep as much company we can, but we always revisit that. Okay, maybe let's try a different strategy.

Yeah. I'm happy to talk to you guys kind of about that offline and see if I can help at all, because I think you can have a dual strategy where maybe you're introducing the product locally or personally, but then people put it kind of into their Amazon subscription fee because they're buying everything else in the house there, right? So it can be kind of a two pronged approach where, yeah, you get them in the door, maybe through the website or through social, but then it becomes their distribution point, right, on Amazon. And there are ways to do it without giving any business away, any equity or anything. I've been in this game a long time. I'm happy to kind of get on a Zoom call and share a beer and give you my input on that if it helps.

Yeah, that would be great. We would love to.

Yeah. I would call it the necessary evil in a way, because it's just everyone's going there, dude. So if you're not where everyone's going, sometimes even though they don't want to pick a competitor, they will because of convenience, because they're already getting all their shaving cream and whatever else is coming from there. So it's worth contemplating. I think you can do both is what I'm saying. I think you can do both strategies. And yeah, the world is changing so quick, and especially since COVID, as you guys know, right? When I started Wave Tribe, we had sales reps and we were selling to surf shops and doing the tours around. That's a hard business. And the margins aren't great because you're giving wholesale pricing. In a world where you're direct to customer, in one way, it's better for the brand, but it's kind of a different approach, right? And to do without advertising is super hard. Super hard. That's where I think Amazon can maybe plug this kind of third hole where you do need wider distribution, because even with CBD in it, you just have to change the packaging a little bit. That's how you get around it. You guys have seen that, right? All your main competitors are all probably selling. You know there's CBD inside, and they know it, too, it's just as long as you play by their rules, then they'll sell it, right?Which is crazy when you think about it.

It really is. No, I would love to. I would love to talk about it more. We really have been just direct to consumer a lot online and really retail, it really hasn't done it. It's like you said, we want the idea of having sustainable packaging, natural ingredients, really giving a quality product. But it's that margin. It's finding that margin in there to be able to sell that in a retail shop or in a tattoo shop or wherever it may be. Those margins are tough to come by, as you know.

Yeah. And I think the consumer is getting smarter the last couple of years where they realize if you're going to have a hemp board bag or you're going to have your product, it costs more to make. You're making intentional decisions to have better packaging, to have what I call eco-minded kind of design around the box and the top and all of those elements cost more. They just cost more. And so you have to pass those on. And I think the consumer is getting more comfortable spending that extra 20 to 40% sometimes because it does make a difference. When I started, I was like, "Oh, I'm going to educate the world. Ecology and surfing, that's like the perfect marriage. What do you mean? Surfers are going to get it." And they didn't, right? They were like, oh, what are the pros using and what's the cheapest, right? That was the mentality back then. I'm very hopeful. And I'm also seeing the change that's happening. Guys like you that are making products like this is another example that things are changing. And so my hat goes off to you for being part of that change. And yeah, I'll do whatever I can to help promote the product and get it out there.

Thank you so much. We do see the change as well. I think more and more people are seeing the benefit of it, even if it's for the wrong reason. And it just makes them feel really good about themselves. It helps. So we've definitely seen that as well.

Yeah. What are the hemp laws in Arizona? Are they conservative or more liberal?

They're more liberal, actually. They've kind of taken a corner on that. I think when we were first starting out, we saw some issues in Texas and a couple other states. I think Idaho is still pretty conservative. Arizona kind of opened up to it right away. As far as people even trying to grow hemp here for cannabinoids or CBD, we saw that right away. And our processor is actually based here in Arizona.

That's amazing.

Yeah. Which is really cool for us. And they're always up on the changing laws and us working with them, we're able to kind of find out what's going on on that side of it as well. Those changing laws.

Have you guys thought about farm-to-table idea? You get a little plot of land, grow some hemp?

Always. Every day.

Oh, you think about it every day?

Every day I think about a farm-to-table, even if it's not hemp. I think about just having a farm somewhere close to the ocean. We've definitely talked about hemp. When we first started, we flew up to Grand Junction, Colorado, which we didn't think it would grow there very well, but it grows great there. And it's kind of that elevation we have in maybe middle Arizona, in between Flagstaff and Phoenix, just kind of a little bit higher desert. So yeah, Clayton and I talked about that quite a bit. I was like, "The land is pretty cheap there. Maybe?"

He keeps sending me plots of land in Nicaragua that we should pick up.

Yeah.

I vote for that idea personally.

Yeah. Being in Nicaragua for the time I was there, it's a small country, so I met a lot of people. And when I first came back and told them I was getting into hemp, I was just emailing, what are the laws, who can give me a conversation with the people that I need to talk to about growing hemp in Nicaragua?Unfortunately, Nicaragua, I think from what I understand and all of the things that I read that the government will control it pretty fiercely if they think they can get money from it. If you can make the money on it, you can always give that. It's a tax. Call it what you want, a Propina tax, whatever it might be. But yeah, Nicaragua would be great.

We talked to a lot of peers in the industry, too, that do that kind of farm-to-table. And I think once we kind of dabbled in that or jokes aside, is that it's kind of staying in the lanes like, hey, we found a really cool product. We made some really good partnerships in the industry, in the supply chain, like how can we help those other industries be better or our partners be better, but really, just hone in on our product versus you start getting too spread, too thin. We were already starting 5 businesses around everything hemp, so I think it came to that going, hey, let's just concentrate on our product and really trust that we partnered up with sustainable packaging and the right partners overall to help bring that to the table.

Yeah, that's a great point, man. I've made that mistake many times in my journey. Too many ideas, too many passions. So what's the next product? You've got these 2 or this is the flagship one. What do you guys call this one?

That's our Hemp Skin Balm.

Skin Balm. And the other one is?

Relief Cream.

Relief. Okay. So those are the 2 products that everyone needs to go out and buy today because they're amazing. And what's next? What's on the product timeline?

That's a good question. We're going to stick with the topicals for now. We're always testing and doing prototypes of things that we think we might go to. But again, like Clayton said, is we're going to stay in our lane with the topicals for a little bit. Just kind of really we are going to do is that do one thing really good. That's what we want to do.

And have you guys considered any, like, are you looking at any co-branding opportunities or private label stuff, or are you just going to stay like this company and your formula and go for it?

No, we haven't done any co-branding, but we've definitely used our formula. We haven't done any big deals with it, but we've used our formula to send to some people who are looking for that specific hemp and natural products. So we have been doing that a little bit, but nothing's said and done yet, but we do do that.

Very cool.

Absolutely.

All right. I don't think you surf, do you, Clayton?

No. I snowboard and mountain bikes. I'm kind of your coattails of Ryan surfing.

Not yet.

Yeah, not yet.

Yeah. I have a couple of questions I like to ask my guests. I'm going to ask Ryan, but I do want to ask one to you of the series. So, Ryan, very first surfboard. What was it? Explain it.

Oh man, it was a 6'2 or 6'4 Burn.

Nice.

And I couldn't get a wave on it for the life of me. But I traded my mountain bike for it. I wish I still had it, actually. I had to trade up for something else, but that was my first board.

Nice.

Best wave? Best wave ever?

Best wave was in Nicaragua. Playa Hermosa. It's just my happy place there. Yeah, best wave.

And best trip? Surf trip.

Best trip? My family and I, we took 2 months when we were living in Nicaragua and we traveled, took our truck, got a visa, and went through Costa Rica and Panama and then drove back up to Nicaragua. And it was about 2 months, and that was the best trip just because it was family, and it was just fun. Had the dog, we had everything.

Very cool.

Yeah.

If you could go back and give your younger self advice, what would you tell yourself?

Such a good question. Man, I would have to process that one.

Okay, let's ask Clayton what his answer would be.

Yeah, what would you do, Clayton? That's a good one.

You know what? Two things come to mind. One to be stick with the passion. Stick with your passion. I've gone through some up and down in my career chasing what I thought I probably wanted, which in hindsight, is not even close to what really matters. So stick with the passion. And I think the second one would be maybe invest in Tesla.

Or Crypto.

Crypto, I'll take Crypto. Or Amazon. One of those three.

Yeah. So what's the craziest thing you guys have seen lately? Just like craziest thing that comes to mind.

Craziest thing I've seen?

That's a good one.

Yeah.

Give me a second.

All right. We still got your advice, Ryan. We need your advice to your younger self.

Advice to my younger self.

Move to Nicaragua earlier?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Don't come back.

I wouldn't come back to Phoenix. I would have said no on that. That was only 3 years ago. My younger self 3 years ago, I wouldn't have come back to Phoenix.

It's still your younger self. That works.

Yeah. I guess that would have been it. I think I would have gone to Nicaragua earlier. I always had it in my mind. I think that my younger self would have told myself to go to Nicaragua earlier and just really stay, I guess. Stay away from Phoenix.

So where can everyone find you guys online if they're driving and they want to rush home and find you on Instagram or website? We'll have all the links in the show notes, but just kind of give a shoutout to where people can find you, the company and the product.

Yeah, nurtrium.com.

You want to spell it for people?

N-U-R-T-R-I-U-M. And then @nurtrium is our Instagram. Those are kind of the 2 major threads you can find us.

Nice. And how did you get the name?

We were going back and forth on hey, what are we going to call this? And it's really a combination of a couple. How do we really nurture the plant, the hemp. How do we really nurture our business, our partnership and the plant. So Nurture was kind of the first part. And then coming from software, I was like, hey, there's a lot of these words that have the -ium but then we were looking at Atrium. What are some things like atrium words. So we combined kind of the Nurture and Atrium, so what about Nurtrium? And then Ryan wrote back, "Love it. Let's go." It was pretty quick and easy, and then we just went with it.

It's a great word because I would say it kind of symbolizes the feeling of putting. When I put it on, what I felt there's a lot of nutrients. I just felt, like I told you, it was like a salad was eating my face. It feels like there's so much goodness. I was like, is that even a word? So I'm stoked that I asked.

I'm pretty sure we have a new marketing slogan there. It's just a salad eating your face.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right, bro. It's really good to talk to you.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

It was great talking with you.

Let's keep the hemp stoke going and the vibes. And I look forward to keeping in touch with you guys and doing whatever I can to help out. So, yeah, just stoked to connect.

Absolutely. We'll have to get a surf and a beer.

Absolutely. For sure.

Yeah.

All right, bros.

Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

Take care.