Army veterans Megan Militello and Lacey Ernandes never would have imagined when serving together that one day their friendship would turn into a business partnership. Megan and Lacey are the creative minds behind Elevated Oats and health and lifestyle brand. They share tips and advice on making their partnership work thousands of miles from each other while growing the business and their friendship. They offer amazing advice to any entrepreneur looking to jump into or start a business partnership!

Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:

www.elevatedoats.com

Battle Buddy Podcast Links:

https://linktr.ee/battlebuddypodcast

Transcript from Episode 58 with Megan Militello & Lacey Ernandes:

Keith McKeever 0:05

Welcome to the battle buddy podcast with Keith McKeever. Welcome back to battle buddy podcast ah popped back up on the screen. All right. Great. Yeah. Thank you, Megan Lacey. You're from elevated oats, your business partners. So I just wanted to say, a welcome to the show and be anybody who's listening, you need to pay attention. Because I think that you to have such a unique dynamic as business partners, personality wise, the compliments for each other and stuff like that. But without further ado, welcome to the show. And go ahead and introduce yourselves and tell a little bit about your story. We got you in the military, would you do things like that?

Lacey 0:51

I'm Megan, and I'm Lacey.

Megan 0:53

I'm from California. I joined the army when I was 17 as an air traffic controller. And that's pretty much where it all started. Oh, oh.

Keith McKeever 1:05

I think she's passed a few. I think it's me, okay. Rest of the Story.

Lacey 1:10

I joined the Army. I grew up in Indiana. And I joined the army at the age of 20. I was in I turned 20 in basic training. But that was yeah, it was actually. And I went got stationed in Hawaii and in 2007, or sorry, 2006. We deployed in 2007. Megan and I met in Iraq as air traffic controllers. Yeah,

Megan 1:36

I was a late Deployer. So I came out to the unit later on. And then it we had no clue that this is what we're life was going to unfold into, we spent a lot of time doing different things after the army, getting back in the army, going civilian route for air traffic control. And then after just life kind of shifted for us, I called lazy about a logo for this idea. And boom, it all of a sudden just turned into something we much more

Keith McKeever 2:08

perfect story of you just never know who you're going to meet, and how that person is going to impact your life down the road. And you may have no idea. In what way I know, I've had some people I've served with that. Now, a couple years ago, had had a conversation with one of the guys I you know, just a conversation just shifted my perspective and maybe look at things differently, you know, and that's 1314 years later, wherever it was. So you just never know what could turn into lifelong friendships, business partnerships, collaborations, whatever. That's what I love your story that came from two different sides of the of the United States and up in the army and have deployed together and become friends and then full circle years later come back as business partners. So what tell us a little bit about your company elevated oats, just so it gets context. They're

Megan 3:00

elevated oats is a gourmet granola company. And it's much more than just granola we're actually a lifestyle brand. So we promote living. Yeah, healthy, elevated life. And that's not just about like the food that we consume. It's about our mental health our giving outside Yeah, being physical just being in the sunlight and how that affects our cognitive health too. And then of course the food.

Lacey 3:25

Let's say like whole body wellness my eyes off.

Keith McKeever 3:29

I think that what the there's some important stuff to kind of learn about actually. I had a conversation. By the time this comes out, the episode will have released with Stephanie Lincoln from fireteam whiskey, you don't hurt I had a long conversation about like, the totality if you will of health, you know, physical health, mental health, like all those things. Over Over the years now, I've learned a lot from a lot of people about different things like they said, Son, like going outside with your socks and shoes off and grounding and just different things and eating healthier, eating cleaner. Quality of life. Like there's so much to it to just no pun intended, but elevating your life a little bit. And living better.

Megan 4:14

Yeah, it's all a balance. It's all a balance. So it's like constantly trying to work towards that every day. And not like being hard on yourself to what we're promoting that message. We just happen to make really great granola at the same time.

Keith McKeever 4:29

Which is, I mean, everybody can get around food, right? Food is what connects us. Maybe it's just a Midwestern thing for me. But I think it's general everywhere. Yeah, food brings people together. And ironically, when you break when you hopped on you or you had a bowl turns out it was eggs, not oats. But Campbell whatever everyday right?

Lacey 4:53

Well, I mean, just not for breakfast all the time.

Keith McKeever 4:56

Yeah, he's boring.

Megan 4:57

You know what's funny is like I don't really eat her. It's for breakfast ever as a snack? Yeah, I'm more of a snack or with it. That's interesting. Yeah. And we actually create it to be more of a snack. So it's really nutrient dense and hearty. It doesn't have. It's not like the granola you're used to at the store where it's full of like fillers, like all of these puffed things in there. We put nuts and vegetables and fruit, and it's like, it's hearty. It's a hearty snack, which is why we like having a snack. I think cereal I like to do maybe just a coffee cup. something smaller.

Keith McKeever 5:30

Interesting. Vegetables, too. Yeah, as the second ingredient. second ingredient Well, off food ingredients know that the higher it is on the list, the more there is in it. So I'm dumbfounded right now that there's vegetables in there. What kind of vegetables do you put in this?

Lacey 5:48

So they're not in they're not hidden. They're highlighted that we got some beets in our cranberry cashew chew and some carrots and are toasted orange and Reto. And there are banana like real bananas and our Banana Nut Bread.

Megan 6:01

And then the beets and the carrots we source locally here in Alaska. And what's really cool about that is in the summertime, because the sun is out for so long. The vegetables never tap into their reserves, so they're actually 20% sweeter. So we're using this natural sweetness from vegetables, which we all know we could use more of, I'm sure. Now, we're not hiding it, but it's definitely not the main like, I love listening to people that hate beets and then eat it and it like this doesn't taste like fruits at all. It's like yeah, it's roasted, they're roasted, they're a little sweeter, and then they're mixed in. It's just a different way to enjoy it.

Keith McKeever 6:39

Well that that bite. I'm one of those people right, so that might be one way I can actually stomach eating a beat.

Lacey 6:46

I never had a beat. I never had a beat and so I have this granola that she made

Keith McKeever 6:50

you a little bit nervous. You're like, well, we try something new. You're like yeah, I don't know if I'm gonna like this. You know,

Lacey 6:55

I have I have like the palate and mindset of like a 10 year old when it comes to food. So yeah, I was really stressed about it. I'm looking at it. I was like, particularly I was more weird about the cranberries that dried cranberries in it. Because the beets actually look like dried cranberries and you don't like cranberries and I don't really care for like the chewiness of a dried fruit.

Keith McKeever 7:21

I get that. I get that.

Lacey 7:23

But I love it. I do I love it. And I've grown to enjoy the chewy thing from the cranberry even you've grown a lot I think in the food. Hey goes to show what they say about kids. Like keep letting them try it. Yeah, well,

Keith McKeever 7:36

eventually you might like it. You know some things in life though if you like I hated barbecue sauce as a kid. I hated it. Now I love barbecue sauce. I will put barbecue on almost anything. One thing from childhood that has not changed though, is my distaste and hatred for peace. I do not like peace. I hate peace. And I think I can eat a man is fried rice.

Megan 7:58

Ooh, okay, so can you have a mixed in normally with other things are just fried rice.

Keith McKeever 8:04

Fried Rice. I can I can do that. Anything else? I'll take it out. Like salad. If I get a salad at a restaurant. There's peas in it. I will be digging them out. For sure.

Megan 8:14

That seems weird to me.

Lacey 8:15

Salad. No, that's delicious. Oh my gosh. I like to like pee.

Megan 8:20

I'm also not a P fam.

Lacey 8:22

I like good. Terrible. Yeah, that's something.

Keith McKeever 8:28

We all have our likes and dislikes. Yeah, right.

Lacey 8:33

Person and everyone. Totally. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 8:36

Yeah. Well, I mean, you grew up in Indiana, I'm here in Illinois, where I was born and raised. I grew up on, you know, meat, potatoes. And like, there'd be a vegetable at the table. But you know, you didn't normally deviate from like, green beans, corn, or maybe broccoli. So like, you know, beets is an example or like lima beans or like peas, things like that. It was like, I don't know if I want to eat this. My grandfather other hand, I had a grandmother that would eat those all the time. And I was like, I don't want to I don't want to touch this. This is disgusting. But she's all kinds of weird stuff. Anyway, so you two have complementary different styles. One of us more the creative side, one of us more of the business side. Go ahead and tell us what

Megan 9:25

would actually say we're both creative by creating literally different ways. Like, I'm that food side and you're like the visual side of things. Yeah, I

Lacey 9:36

do like all the packaging, media.

Megan 9:38

But we come together on business really well together, which is nice having that person just to bounce ideas off of, you know, it's hard making. We just read something this morning, you make 35,000 35,000 decisions in a day, like as a human being you make 35,000 decisions in a day and

Lacey 9:55

that's not just being an entrepreneur.

Megan 9:57

Yeah, that's right. So Having yeah, having that person to bounce things off of because not all your ideas are the best ideas, or sometimes it could be a great idea, but maybe just a little couple tweaks can really make it so much more efficient. Or elevated, right? Like, it's really nice to have a team to be able to tackle this business.

Keith McKeever 10:21

Yes, I have somebody to bounce your ideas off of that. May love the idea or may like it with some tweaks and and tell you that it sounds stupid. And not such plain terms, right.

Megan 10:33

I don't think it's sometimes it's not, wouldn't be the word would be the word. It would just be like, Um, no, I don't think so.

Keith McKeever 10:45

I do not like here, I can tell

Megan 10:47

when there's a long pause. And then I'm just like, Okay, nevermind.

Keith McKeever 10:53

You know, what was a nice communications what? 90% nonverbal? So yeah, that long, that long pause that stare off? And you know,

Megan 11:04

if it's not, I think we've learned well, we're trying to harness this, like, if it's not a Yes, right away, and then it's a no.

Keith McKeever 11:11

You know, that's, that's a that's a good lesson. You know? Or, or maybe it's something that can come back down the road, but like, you know, right now, yeah, not not a good idea. So how have you bought? Being both being creative in your own spaces? We'll say, how, how have you made that work? Together? From the bowels.

Megan 11:36

Also. Lisa lives in North Carolina. And yeah, I'm in Alaska. So we've been doing this apart. She's here for like, do visits and things. But it's a it's a challenge. Two, it definitely is better when we're together, like when we're here, because then she can walk through the factory. And besides that, it's like all online computer things happening. Yeah. You know, so you don't have that second, visual. Second.

Keith McKeever 12:04

You don't have all that context. And they're limited. And we

Megan 12:07

can help. Yeah, we're wearing so many hats. Like we all we can't wear them all the same hats either. So it's it's definitely a challenge. We've made it work through using program management tools, using our calendar, FaceTime all the time.

Lacey 12:23

All the time. Yeah, a lot of thank you Apple for FaceTime.

Keith McKeever 12:28

That does a surprise because that's what I was going to ask about. I know you have, you know, in your business model, you have a strategic plan. You both have the the avenues that you kind of do for the company. You Meghan, you said you're kind of the creative food one Lacey, your creative kind of graphic arts and stuff like that. But what specific programs have you found to be helpful besides FaceTime, that help you communicate be on the same page to work through some of that? Almost 4000 mile difference?

Lacey 12:57

That's not a that's number one. That's number one. Okay, so there's three that I can think of like maybe five. Okay, so Asana there, Spark email. It's an email client, that you can, I guess, like, like, chat right in there about the email, separate from the email with your team. You can delegate

Megan 13:17

emails in there, which is really nice. And yeah, being able to talk about an email without making it a whole thread is just like, oh, this is

Lacey 13:28

we just implemented slack. I really have enjoyed the slack. Yes, like scheisse. And Dropbox.

Megan 13:34

We use Dropbox a lot, just because we have a lot of files for things. Try to use Google Docs, but it's a little challenging on the organization side of things. For me,

Lacey 13:45

we are both on Mac, like we both use Mac computers. So we use a lot of the native like Pages and Numbers. Because easy to collaborate. Yeah. Okay.

Keith McKeever 13:54

I'll take your word for it on that one, because I'm not a Mac user.

Megan 13:57

Have you heard of Asana? Yes,

Keith McKeever 13:59

I actually use it for my for my business for a little while until other things kind of came up. That worked a little bit better, but I did love it.

Megan 14:06

Yeah, I mean, I think we even use it. Well, we even use it for our personal lives just because it's like, already everything isn't there. That it's

Lacey 14:15

Yeah, automate. Yeah,

Megan 14:16

automating whatever we can to not have it in the head anymore. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 14:21

Yeah, I used to use it. Same thing. I mean, for my podcast here for my real estate career, for personal things that were going on, you know, anything that I needed, kind of like a checklist or, or I love the fact that you could kind of duplicate things. So you could kind of build something as a template, and then just duplicate it, change the title, and then boom, everything's set, like for my real estate career, like all of the steps in the transaction that I needed to do, they were all set in there, change it added the dates to what needed to be done, and it kept me on track.

Megan 14:53

And it's really nice for us with having a team because we're able to delegate from there to like, we'll have a new employee come in If we want them to do something, it's hard sometimes to always be with them to train them. But in Asana, we can just put everything that we want done step by step, send it, this is how it's going to be. And then we always have that as a reference to.

Keith McKeever 15:13

That's a good idea must come with some challenges to our most of your employees in one physical location. Are they remote? Now they're

Lacey 15:24

all physical. Now there, yeah, I'm here. We're all physical. But we have kind of like flexible schedules with some of our positions, because they haven't made themselves into a full time position yet. So that's kind of challenging because we have people working at night. And if we're in the factory all day, it's kind of hard. We don't really meet pas very easily. Yeah.

Megan 15:47

And then last year, last year, we had more out of state contractors and things, but now we've kind of gravitated towards this focus, like focusing on the factory space.

David Pere 16:00

Yeah, that makes sense. That's why I asked you know, it's easier to manage everybody's in one place, I guess you could call a team meeting or people you know, you could you could show up at the right time, and meet with those people versus, you know, somebody be in 2000 miles away, or 1500 miles away, everything has to be done digital or FaceTime. You know, I know a lot of a lot of people have businesses like that, where they get those challenges that people have spread out all over the place, especially in today's day and age where for the last two years, a lot of people work from home.

Megan 16:28

Yeah, it was time zones are a challenge. Right? No, four hours and always adding it up and making sure you hit the right times. Calendars is really nice. But if you go to a different timezone, then it like, really, at least for me, it really messes up my stuff.

Lacey 16:44

I use Apple calendar. I use it in conjunction with

Megan 16:53

each other. It's like, what are you? tools are you using? Yes,

Keith McKeever 16:58

I was asking about some of these tools, because I think it's you know, this is a great lesson for a lot of people who might be looking to bring on a partner, or go from a single person to just even hiring employees and figuring out how to reach us reach out to him and collaborate. Because if you don't know these tools that that will be really hard.

Megan 17:15

Yeah, we last year, we tried to use the Marco Polo, which is kind of like a FaceTime video chat thing. Oh, yeah. for that.

Lacey 17:26

People like to talk a lot on those things. And then you have to listen to the whole thing to get to the next one. So it was like, Okay, this is a lot of a lot of listening.

Keith McKeever 17:36

So it's more like a tick tock or something you gotta like, Well, I mean, you could listen to the whole thing before you go to the next. Oh, yeah, that'd be kind of a pain in the butt. So Wow.

Megan 17:49

Not a tool that's like digital, but one of the most beneficial things for us was doing, like a design sprint, we met this mentor, and he actually came to our factories sat with our team, and then it's kind of like, okay, this is the problem that we're going to talk about, or whatever, you have four minutes to write down all of these things that you think so instead of us sitting and actually having a conversation and this dialogue that continuously went back and forth. Everybody's ideas were up on a wall, we can categorize them together. It just, it was really a cool process to be able to not talk about a bunch of extra stuff.

Lacey 18:31

Yeah, it was, you know, it was efficient, very time to like, one task at a time this is focused, and then you know, you have your plot problem at the end a way forward.

Megan 18:42

You have very clear steps on how we're gonna figure it out.

Lacey 18:45

I don't you know, like in the military, I don't know how long ago you were in, but like focus groups are coming in climate surveys. Syncing session, I think is what they were also called. It's like, that's what happens. A lot of times in meetings. This is where people just start listing all the complaints and problems. And it starts to control. Yeah, rail

Megan 19:04

derailed derail

Keith McKeever 19:06

a lot of meetings that have gotten that way out of control. Yeah, exactly. Talking about

Lacey 19:10

this designs, but I think like you can I think you can replace meetings.

Megan 19:15

Yeah, it was really cool. I would love to do it with a bigger team. Like because I think we had four or five people that did it all together. Yeah, it was.

Keith McKeever 19:24

I would say it was really interesting. Yeah. Anything to make meetings better, is it is a good thing. That

Lacey 19:31

companies called collaboratively. Ce O L. A, B.

Megan 19:35

He's a veteran or military too. And okay. Yeah, very cool.

Keith McKeever 19:41

Leave it to a vet to find a find a way to make a meeting more efficient.

Lacey 19:45

Well, I think we use Google's model. I think this is Google's model. This design sprint is like modeled after what they do for their meetings.

Keith McKeever 19:53

Interesting. That is interesting. I'm gonna have to look that up now. Now very curious exactly how that runs. But was that part of your strategic planning for your business as well? Or was it something kind of outside of that?

Megan 20:04

This was a bonus. I felt like,

Lacey 20:06

I think it ended up being in our strategic planning, but it was not planned to be in our strategic planning. I think we've done

Megan 20:13

a lot of things that weren't really planned to we did an accelerator program, which is like free resource. I mean, there's just so many resources out there for entrepreneurs, not only for veterans, I mean, we have a bunch of resources also, but from the state, yeah, entrepreneurs have a lot of resources to gain knowledge. And then meet people that are in the industry.

Keith McKeever 20:36

Yeah, I think, you know, you can meet people a lot of times by going to the networking, but like networking events and be a local Chamber of Commerce, whatever. Resources, I think that's, that's one of the problems is, I think some people know, the resources are some people have no clue where to get the resources. And it's kind of fuzzy, like, what resources are even available to you, you know, there's resources for women, on companies, minority owned companies, veteran companies, you know, you got local state, maybe even national, different resources, nonprofit resources, like, there's a plethora of stuff out there for you no matter who you are, but where is it? How to get to it? You know? So what has worked for you, for you to specifically, where do you where do you find some of the resources online?

Megan 21:21

Definitely, I just started googling everything, like pandemic time that nothing else was going on to where I was like Googling,

Lacey 21:27

if you just I mean, I mean, even without the pandemic, I think my first start would be just like, start Googling things, right? Reaching out to like the SBA and SBDC in your area, your VA person, because you want to get in those contracts, really just want to get in front of people's faces and start networking with the people in those areas, because they know the people, they're going to try to read you and the next person is going to connect you with someone else. And it's just being open to that process.

Keith McKeever 21:55

Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. This is one of the reasons I like I personally joined my local Chamber of Commerce, just because I was like, you know, I know some of the business owners in town, but I don't know all of them. But it just helps to know people who might know somebody or might know of a resource or, you know, just to be able to support other small businesses in your own community. And that's one way to do it.

Megan 22:20

That 1 Million Cups I have heard of that. Yes. Okay. That was another great one to like, right? I think the whole idea came about in August. And then by February was the first time we did 1 Million Cups. They didn't 1 Million Cups, three years in a row. So definitely known in the entrepreneur circle, which is cool, because they've been able to watch us grow also. Pretty awesome.

David Pere 22:46

Yeah, that's awesome. I have to grab a couple of those and put them in the show notes for everybody, some of those organizations. When we talked to a handful of weeks ago, one of the things that YouTube brought up was imposter syndrome. Any any thoughts on impostor syndrome and how you've kind of had to vote, like to hear both of your thoughts on it? Or how you've dealt with it, and try to overcome it? Or trying to think so that, you know, sometimes it's it's an ever evolving process? For sure. You deal with it, and you may get put it behind you for a little bit, and then, you know, it can sneak back up, but

Lacey 23:25

go ahead. I think for me, it's Yeah, got it. I'm just learning that each new step of the way, you're gonna feel like a beginner again. And like that doesn't it's like a video game, right? Like, where you level up your prestige. So you still have all the experience from before, but it's still a new, harder challenge. Because you know, you're doing something different. And that's why it feels so

Megan 23:55

that's a great analogy. Thank you. I love the video game thing and prestige level. Yeah,

Keith McKeever 23:59

I like it. I mean, it connects with me, I get it. I get it.

Megan 24:04

Yeah, I hope so leveling up. It's hard to remember that it

Lacey 24:07

is really hard. It's hard, not up in the moment, like you remember, it'd be nice, easy time and then like, bam, you know, the universe hits something at you again, and you're just like, ah, but you know, like, if you can step back for a moment and realize, hey, you know, this is just a new challenge. I have all these other challenges behind me. Like I've been okay. It's gonna be okay. You can keep moving forward.

Megan 24:29

Talking about it, I think helps a lot and having someone to bounce things off of that can be your cheerleader and support definitely gets you out of that mindset to the kids. The thoughts that you're having are not helpful. You know,

Lacey 24:43

I've cried many times. Many times, I've wanted to quit many times. I'm trying to

Keith McKeever 24:50

get his business for you right there. There's, you know, it's just like a marriage, right? You do the good and the bad, like, you're gonna have things that come up. They're gonna be challenges in your way. They're gonna be hurdles to jump over. And sometimes they're gonna suck, they're gonna be painful. You know, you're gonna feel like there's a brick wall on all four sides of you and the roof is caving in, or the giant boulders falling you like Indiana Jones, you know, something, something's there to just kind of crush you put an obstacle in your way. But I know sometimes on the imposter syndrome, I don't know if you've ever felt this way where you kind of feel that but then sometimes you reflect and you realize, you know, everybody else who's already been there was in your shoes wants and if there's somebody behind you, that's willing to just tried to take that step that you're leaving. You know, looking at your stairs. Yeah, they're looking at you. They're watching everything you do. And they're feeling the same way to you are about to step here on where you're comfortable. And he's dominated it. Totally. And that perspective, I think is helpful, sometimes.

Lacey 25:55

comfortable with being uncomfortable. Yeah, it's

Keith McKeever 25:57

hard. Well, hey, you know what, as veterans, I think we're pretty good at that. I think we are to pretty, pretty good. been uncomfortable

Megan 26:05

with that, too, like feeling those feelings? And when I tell people, everybody's just like, oh, I don't see that. Oh, my God, you have no idea how I feel on the inside. And that's why it's a good thing, I think. Yeah, yeah.

David Pere 26:19

I shows a lot of ability to self reflect. Which, which is a skill that I don't think everybody has. I wish more people did that, because I know some people that just just can't do that I consider myself pretty decent at it, to kind of sit back and reflect and, you know, sometimes I'm in my maybe in my own head, and I think too much. But, you know, it's good to be able to see that about yourself. But you'll never be able to see everything. So another thing you mentioned is a learner's mindset. So I'm curious how, how that plays in for each of you individually? And and what what exactly if there's a book or resource or anything that's been helpful to you lately?

Megan 27:02

Learners mindset? Well, I'll tell you what being an entrepreneur really slaps you in the face with that. Going from air traffic for me, like 10 years of schooling for that, and then going into this new endeavor, it was a rude awakening. Yeah. It was a learning curve,

Keith McKeever 27:24

more different environment into entrepreneurs.

Megan 27:27

Never having to network, like you're creating something that you're creating something to share with people. It's just another pressure like, of whether or not people are gonna like it right? Or if they're gonna enjoy it, or they're gonna think it tastes good. If we go by it again. You have all of these things that go through your mind, on your own. And then thank you, you're welcome. Thank you. And then it's just like, yeah, continuing to be uncomfortable with being uncomfortable, it doesn't stop. You're always going to be in that learner's mindset.

Lacey 28:02

If you want to build something and keep growing? Totally, if you, if you don't learn, what are you doing? You're

Megan 28:08

like you're staying stagnant? Absolutely.

Lacey 28:12

I'm just gonna interject my book. It's like, so the, I think the best thing about being an entrepreneur is that learning thing, like there is a learning curve, and it doesn't matter. I could probably go to a different company, and still be an entrepreneur and have different skills and doing something different, you know, learning something new. And Dr. Joe Dispenza, who wrote the book, breaking the habit of being yourself, talks about brain plasticity. And people used to believe that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. You know, like, once we got to a certain age, we stopped learning things, but actually, it's like, our brain is a muscle. And the more that you don't use it, you lose it. So being an entrepreneur and having this learner mindset, I think has really helped our mental health even you know, even though it's a challenging job.

Megan 28:58

It's only helped with growth and expansion. Yeah. And I know, like, for me, the last place that I was, I mean, the one thing that was missing was the growth feeling. And I

Keith McKeever 29:10

couldn't, it's true, and you're me. You two are partners, but together as one really, you're, you're the one to responsible for the growth. You know, if you're a solo entrepreneur, like it's you, you, you are solely responsible. Yes, sure. There's outside factors, right? The market, the economy, other things like that, right? They can, but you can go find the resources. You can read the books, listen to the audio books, listen to the podcasts, whatever you need to do, network till you're blue in the face. Like there's things you can do at the end of the day. It's it's your fault if it fails or succeeds. Totally, but another, another thought there a second ago. Since you both have a learner's mindset. I'm kind of curious if both of you would consider yourself is inquisitive in nature?

Lacey 30:04

I think I'm curious. Yeah, I think that would be a good way to describe me. I'm, like, suck in information. Yeah. You're

Megan 30:14

you Google. I mean, if we're talking about something, and there's a question, we don't know she's already on it.

Keith McKeever 30:21

Yeah. You know what? Google's got the answer for everything. You just gotta find it.

Megan 30:24

Yep. Seriously, we have so much information at our fingertips. It's really just about seeking it out. Like,

Lacey 30:31

ooh, that's my human design. If I'm called a seeker, so yeah, yes.

Keith McKeever 30:39

It's something I kind of noticed with different entrepreneurs is at least moderately inquisitive about things. You see something you're like, Oh, that's really interesting. Just curious. Next thing, you know, you're going down the rabbit hole of Google. And you're late reading about it in your own Wikipedia page, wherever you're like, okay, cool. I just spent 15 minutes learning about XYZ that has nothing to do with your business. You're just curious. I'm just very curious person.

Megan 31:05

Well, I would say to you even going into that business side of things, we didn't work in the business knew the food industry is a completely new consumer packaged goods is completely new. So we've had to learn all the things what how will these little marks are on the packaging? where certain words have to go? Don't get me started on recycling? Yeah. How? Yeah, how your customer reads the package, right? Like the words that are not trigger words, like anything? Yeah, it's like the psychology behind everything. It's been really interesting.

Lacey 31:38

I'm totally into it. Yeah, that is

Keith McKeever 31:41

interesting. I could see I'm a very inquisitive very inquisitive person. So like, I find it interesting, because I'm not in the food business. My wife is an esthetician, and she's making some products, but just like physical products and inventory, just like that side. But that type of business interests me because I don't do that in real estate. Like, put a house on the market, represented buyer seller, that's it, the inventory is out there. You know, it's, it's, it's a service based. And so I hear all these other different models, and I get really curious. I'm like, That's interesting, because you mentioned, you know, the placement of words and symbols and the things the government says you have to have on the package, you know, that that'd be that'd be interesting to navigate.

Lacey 32:22

It is very interesting. And scary. Also, right? Because no one's holding your hand and telling you make sure you're doing this. And we come from a background of air traffic control, where we work for the government and are very aware that there's rules, even if you're not aware of the rules, there are rules and they could get you. Yeah,

Megan 32:39

so that was, that's been great. I'm gonna say that was great for us, because we've been really keen on making sure that we're following how things are supposed to be we have a really great inventory system to where if we get a recall for an ingredient, we know exactly who to call for that. So we're not fishing around. Like we have to recall everything that we've sold in the past whatever. I would say we're doing some pretty good foundation building of the business.

Lacey 33:09

Thank thankfully for all that air traffic experience that regulation and red tape Yeah.

Keith McKeever 33:14

Well, you know, as a good thing to make sure that you're following the exact guidelines and, and procedure make

Megan 33:21

people sick. Yeah, we don't want to like even if we mark something wrong on the bag, or whatever, it's just, it's like one move. Yeah,

Lacey 33:33

but we understand because we were air traffic controllers, we had lots of people's lives in their hands.

Keith McKeever 33:36

That's what I was, that's what I was kind of referencing was the aircraft control thing. Like, you know, people's lives are literally hanging in the balance as they're taking off and landing and all that stuff. And like, you know, we need our air traffic controllers to be awake and alert and paying attention and doing the right things. I mean, I appreciate it when I fly to play. So yeah, hit me no one ever thinks about that person sitting in the tower that's controlling everything. So that's as they asked me quite the experience. I hear it it's very stressful, but that can be going down a rabbit hole there. I'm sure.

Megan 34:05

It was a good time. And I think the stress all depends on where you work.

Lacey 34:09

I also think it's

Megan 34:11

also your mindset. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 34:12

But you know, a lot of things about mindset for sure. Gotta have got to have the right mindset. The other thing you talked about accountability, we kind of hit on a little bit you know, you keeping each other accountable. Any tips and tricks for anybody else who has a business partner is looking to get into a partnership of some sort of how they can hold each other accountable for things without like, you know, I'm sure sometimes you kind of stress each other out without without like, really pissing off

Megan 34:42

without losing it right now.

Lacey 34:45

Um, don't lose your ego don't lose don't lose your ego. I was gonna check your ego to ego lose your ego check your ego. I think also for both people, right? Because it is hard to even like so. I'm going to give an example, there was an example where I was like talking about in the factory like, hey, this doesn't really look conducive to working in this shipment area. And then Megan kind of took it personally. And her reaction was that of someone who would take it personally. And then I took her reaction personally. Right? So we had this like, personal moment. So I'm like, You know what, I didn't really appreciate that. And also, I'm really just trying to figure out like, mate, how to make it better. You know? So I was just like, hey, do I bring this up? Or not? Because like, you're kind of taking it personally, I didn't say like that. But you know, yeah, you kind of taken it personally. And I'm, and I'm just trying to have a conversation. And then she's like, Yeah, I'm taking it personally.

Keith McKeever 35:40

I'm assuming Meghan, you had maybe a lot to do with whatever that procedure or whatever that thing was, or something she did. Or I'm

Megan 35:49

gonna say, it's not that I had a lot of thought she thinks she has to do it's because Lacey doesn't live here. So everything in that factory, I feel like is my responsibility. Everything in the factory is my responsibility. So she comes in to the factory, and then she's like, I'm not gonna say, why is this operated this way? It's like, why is that? How is it doing? What is this like this for? What is this? And so me? I feel like I should, I believe, I believe that I should have this like down even though I'm not a Master, I'm

Keith McKeever 36:25

gonna improve processes,

Megan 36:26

right? So it's like, great, that's the mindset, you have to become aware of like, that I was doing that I was taking, and I'm like, I'm taking it personal, just like do you want? I'm like, No, I have to, you have to give me an opportunity to change it. I'm like, I'm just frustrating.

Keith McKeever 36:40

Yeah, I'm sure it helps to, to frame the question and stuff, right to you know, I've seen with people, sometimes you can't just like make a comment. Sometimes you have to ask a question of like, you know, hey, you just explain to me what this process is, or why we're doing it this way. Right, you know, get the context and then have a conversation off of it. Because I think everything comes I'm sure you'd agree everything comes down to communication, and how you communicate that.

Lacey 37:06

And I think we, with a partner, it's it's all about, you know, like trying to be patient with each other and yourself. And, you know, in that instance, I was just like, Okay, well, you know, she's like, explaining, you know, I'm taking it personal or whatever. And I'm just like, Okay, well, I didn't say that. And I don't think that and I'm not treating you that way. So like, I'm trying to let you know, like, you don't have to take it personally, which she's aware, obviously, but I'm just wanting to know, I don't think that at all. I don't think that. And ultimately,

Megan 37:33

we're trying to like accomplish this one mission, like build this business. And if we can't sit and talk about this one thing, like, what are we going to? Totally, we're going to what's the next thing that we're not going to be able to talk about?

Keith McKeever 37:45

Exactly, yes, it can be the same page. Yeah. And then you

Megan 37:49

just start walking on eggshells, right. It's just like being in a romantic relationship. Really, it's a relationship. It's a partnership. Like your communication is key. No matter what kind of relationship that is.

Keith McKeever 38:02

Absolutely. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Any any last thoughts? For business advice for anybody that's like said, you know, looking, looking at a partnership or doing something like that? Mm hmm.

Megan 38:17

It's like a marriage.

Lacey 38:19

Get a what do they call it

Megan 38:20

operation? Oh, yeah. Create an operation? Okay. I would suggest reading the E Myth. Yeah, read the E Myth. Have you heard of it? No, I haven't. It's a great book. It's the entrepreneur myth. Basically, there's like three parts of being an entrepreneur. There's like the entrepreneur, the visionary, and the manager or something. It's a great book. It's a great book, but it talks about if you have a partnership, and then those hardships that you can face because Tom had all of these responsibilities, and Bill had all these responsibilities. But then Tom doesn't want to say to Bill, why didn't you do this thing? Right? So having this operational agreement, which I'm not gonna lie, we don't have one. But having an operational agreement, which is something we want to create, guidelines, those things out so that you can be accountable and responsible for your role.

Lacey 39:11

Yeah, things like, you know, even just like, how do you exit? Like, how long do you need to be vested before you can exit? Those sorts of things? Like, those are all things that you're gonna run into eventually? Yeah, one day,

Megan 39:26

we're not going to have this business forever. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 39:28

That's, that's, that's a good point. And I've heard it for two operating agreements, you know, it's, then you're communicating a coffee. Coffee is about communication, right? But you're communicating within, it's clearly defined, whose roles whose responsibilities, all those different things. So that's, that's some great advice. And so one last one last question. Tell us about the different types that you kind of hinted on earlier, but the different food products that you do anything new coming out, anything exciting that that you're We're going to roll out

Megan 40:04

Okay, one last. Okay, so we have four different granola flavors, the four flagship flavors.

Lacey 40:15

I wish we had some rerio

Megan 40:16

I have some I can go grandma Joe if you want to keep talking Yeah. Okay, we have four flagship flavors.

Lacey 40:22

What are our signature is salted cocoa crunch is the crunchy is hence crunchy in the name. It is made with a hint of cinnamon.

Keith McKeever 40:34

That sounds very scientific. Measurement exactly for that.

Lacey 40:39

Wow. Okay, maybe not maybe, but you can take the handsome men. There we go. And

Megan 40:44

what I like about this one, this one's my favorite. What I like is it only has nine ingredients. It's like super simple. It's just a chocolate granola, great snack. Just, I can just keep going

Lacey 40:53

with it. It's her favorite, obviously. And then the other three. The other three are a little bit of a chewy or texture or softer texture because they're made with a wet base,

Megan 41:03

which is those fruits and vegetables as the second ingredient.

Lacey 41:06

We have our next our actual This is our top seller Banana Nut Bread made with sounds interesting to me. Yeah. Real banana chips in there too. Then we have cranberry cashew Chu that's made with beets, Alaskan beets. And our toasted orange Amber Righto is made with carrots, Alaskan carrots. And then we're also

Megan 41:27

so what we're working on this. No, that looks great. When I'm working. What we're working on right now is spicy granola. Labor. Yeah. So we, as we said before, we want it to be seen as a snack. And this is us leaning more to communicate that to you right that this is a snack. So not really going to eat spicy granola as a cereal.

Lacey 41:51

No, I wouldn't say something about it being on yogurt. Yeah, which was. But maybe

Megan 42:02

we're calling it the popcorn killer. It's like you just can't stop eating it. It's so good. It's like this salty, spicy, sweet little snack. So that's a new exciting thing that we're testing right now. And then I would say the next most exciting endeavor is that we're about to get into all eight local Walmart's here in Alaska, which is really nice. It's incredibly milestone for us. Yeah. I mean, it's like, we're just under three years old. We've only been doing wholesale manufacturing for about two years. And now we're like already in Walmart. It's just like,

Keith McKeever 42:38

yeah, that has to be a heck of a process to get into Walmart. Well, you gotta get the bags, right? thing, right.

Megan 42:46

I'm just gonna say we change bags three times last year, but you gotta get the bags, right? Talking to your audience to get even considered. Let's just get considered good thing going on. Yeah, but the buyer saw us loved our product wants to put us on like a little side end cap. We're gonna do demos there at Walmart in the next like, few months to promote. It's, uh, that's really cool.

Keith McKeever 43:11

That's awesome. That's that's got to be tremendously exciting to Walmart. That's like, but yeah, I mean, yeah, right.

Megan 43:20

Resume if you like for us on our elevated oats. Resume. Yeah, we're like, we were in Walmart. Anybody could know what we're like. Yeah, what we're saying with that? Yeah.

Keith McKeever 43:31

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's got to, I would assume that's got to be one of probably many things. But that's got to be like one of those things. It's like, okay, we are like, back to imposter syndrome. Like we're legit. Like, we are here. Not only producing and selling but we are in Walmart.

Lacey 43:47

Walmart. Yeah. Like the like the Nike swoosh girl. Yay. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 43:53

Do you have a photoshoot planned where you're both there. Behind with your elevated oats

Megan 43:59

is someone to follow us. And we actually are getting an intern for the summer. And I think this would be a great intern project would be the like, do a whole little thing

Keith McKeever 44:08

following us to it. Absolutely. Yeah. Get a handful of photos or some videos.

Megan 44:14

Yeah. Great. LinkedIn posts.

Keith McKeever 44:17

Yeah, exactly. Because not everybody can say they have fun.

Lacey 44:21

Oh, we're gonna be celebrating. I'm not gonna lie. Like, I'm just gonna be super excited when my son gets to come here and like see on the shelf.

Megan 44:29

That's gonna be very exciting.

Keith McKeever 44:32

My mom did that back. Yeah, well, I tell you what, I personally can't wait to see those photos of YouTube. And Walmart.

Megan 44:41

Yeah, and then I can't wait to see where it goes beyond that. Because this is just like the first thing to prove that we are capable. And then we continue to scale the business. I mean, we right now have two ovens and we're we can have four

Lacey 44:54

stacked on top of each other on this one oven situation.

Megan 44:58

We use pizza ovens, which is really cool. I feel like we're going off on a tangent we. So we cook our granola through these pizza ovens. You can have them stacked for high. Amazing.

Keith McKeever 45:10

That's interesting.

Lacey 45:11

So we're just planning our next step because we're doing random right now.

Keith McKeever 45:16

Yeah, no, that's, and I said earlier are very inquisitive. So I'm like, trying to picture somebody. How do you cook granola in a pizza oven? How do you stack for high? I'm a visual person to some interesting

Megan 45:28

commercial pizza oven like at a Pizza Hut?

Keith McKeever 45:31

Oh, yeah, like I've seen him like Little Caesars and stuff. Like they got the little grapes that like, just pass it through.

Megan 45:37

It's a conveyor belt. Yes. So all we did, the way that we modified the oven, they have these like arms that have holes. Fingers are called fingers that blow out air. So it's a it's a giant convection oven. You have air blowing from the bottom and the top. What we did is adjusted the top so that it's not so much because it granolas light. And yeah, glow off the trace. So we have a lot coming from but but it just goes through and like three minutes. twice and once Yeah, twice. Yeah. We just put them on the conveyor belt had no clue was going to work. And we happen to lease an old pizza and they happen to leave their ovens.

Lacey 46:20

And it happened to work. Yep. Hey, universe.

Keith McKeever 46:25

Isn't it awesome? How things just happen sometimes? You know, an awesome yeah, because I I never even thought about that process of you know, how do you how do you do all that with them?

Lacey 46:34

Same. What you're going to ask next, Keith is how are we going to make an everything bagel granola? Oh, man. Yeah,

Megan 46:43

we're gonna do that next.

Keith McKeever 46:46

That's interesting.

Megan 46:47

It's gonna blow your snacking. Like.

Keith McKeever 46:52

Yeah, that's interesting. Well, I was gonna ask earlier. Has there been any flavors that you've tried? Like, you sounds like a great idea. And then you tried it? You ate it? You're like, no, like, this is not good.

Lacey 47:05

Did you try it?

Megan 47:06

I did. I tried a green one. It was a matcha. And I put way too much matcha I don't like matcha already. I really wanted it just for the color. But I put too much.

Keith McKeever 47:17

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Takes a little fine tuning. I'm sure there's a few and not quite right moments until you hit the jackpot in your like, perfect mix.

Lacey 47:28

We're on like, with the spicy granola is like the fifth iteration. So let's, that's why it's called number five. But I mean, I wouldn't say the first ones are bad or not. Now, this one, right, but everybody really likes it. So

Megan 47:43

it's all perception. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 47:46

I mean, but they didn't

Lacey 47:47

take the first four. So like, that's the thing. Like, yeah, I know what it's gonna be after this one. And I want them to taste that one. Now. I'm gonna say people chase that one. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 47:59

It's kind of exciting. No doubt about it. You always have to keep improving, right? Keep raising the bar. Yeah, give them

Megan 48:05

some give people something different to like, we want to be innovative. We're not just doing that with the veggies and the fruits in there.

Keith McKeever 48:12

You're definitely definitely sounds very innovative to throw beets and carrots into granola. So I'll give you that. And we

Megan 48:20

know we're going to now we're going to send you wouldn't want to happen today. Yes. So we've been awesome. But we're gonna send you a snack pack sampler so that you can try. I would love to know what you think of beets and granola.

Keith McKeever 48:36

I look forward to trying to cool that this sounds exciting. I may even you know, I may even do a live. Trying all live. Yeah. What the heck? Yeah, yeah. I'll coordinate it. So you know, so you can you can hop on your life, give me give a shout out and all that. So awesome. So awesome. Well, I appreciate you both being here. Don't be a stranger. Look forward to seeing all the growth that you can have in the future. And I really appreciate you dropping some resources and advice and things that have made things work for you. Because there's a lot of people out there to have partners and might be looking to bring one on and Nick could give him some good places to go and start. Start your journey.

Megan 49:11

Maybe it just happened to be your old battle buddy.

Lacey 49:16

Never know. wouldn't expect that or even dream of it. But it happened.

Keith McKeever 49:20

Yeah. Out of bad place for maybe somebody to look exactly, totally No. Especially to find somebody who kind of complements your own style, you know, and that you already connect with and you already have a relationship. So we've already worked totally. Well. Somebody ever listens to this, and it happens for you. I need him to reach out to me so I can get their story and see how your advice help them. That'll be

Megan 49:44

great. Please share with us too.

Keith McKeever 49:46

All right. All right. Well, I appreciate you being here. Everybody elevated oats.com is the website and scrolling across the bottom. But also be in the show notes for everybody. If you want to go check it out and in Baia, by couple of bags unless You're in Alaska and you just go into Walmart so

Unknown Speaker 50:02

yeah

Keith McKeever 50:06

that's this Jinx moment right there

Megan 50:16

said I look like the smiley emoji

Keith McKeever 50:21

maybe a little bit I like the blushing emoji aren't you want to guess what emoji I look like? There's too many emojis. Glasses you

Lacey 50:32

could do the cool guy.

Keith McKeever 50:34

Oh cool guy. I don't know that I've ever been confused with the cool guy so I appreciate that. Makes me feel better. So all right, well, I appreciate you stopping by. Yeah. All right. All right. There you go. Hope you enjoyed the show. Remember, you can go to battle buddy podcast dot det for all kinds of resources of information that might be helpful to you. If you happen to be struggling with anything from the National Suicide Hotline number is 800-273-8255 or you can text 838255