Casey Bard, in his own words.
This is a memorial republish. Casey Bard, founder of Tacticalories Seasoning Co., died in early April 2026 after a three-year fight with Stage 4 colorectal cancer. Casey told the people close to him that when he was gone, he wanted them to tell stories about him. This is Casey in his own words, recorded in March 2021.
Casey started Tacticalories with $500 and mixed his first batch in his bathtub. By 2020 the company had grown 4x. We talked about building a brand around a personal Venn diagram of interests, why he drops one product at a time instead of seasonal collections, the 2020 manufacturing chaos, and why he refused to dropship, refused coupon codes, and refused to take outside money.
GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/casey-is-choosing-to-continue-the-fight
Kurt Elster • 00:00.080
Hey, it's Kurt. Before we start today's episode, I have to share some setup with you. Our guest is my friend Casey Bard, who unfortunately uh died recently. Casey was the founder of Tacticalories, which I really loved. You know, I I've got these these seasonings in my cabinet. So that's the episode you're about to hear is with Casey Bard from Tacticalories. We recorded this back March 2021 when he was on the show. We're republishing it now because Casey told people that you know he wanted the people close to him to hear stories about him when he was gone, tell stories about him. And so this is his in his own words. If you've never heard Casey talk, I think you're in for a treat. He was a good one. If Casey's story resonates with you at all, I've included a link to his family's GoFundMe in the show notes. I'm sure they would appreciate any support.
So today, on the unofficial Shopify Podcast, I am joined by Casey Bard, who I have wanted to get on the show for a long time, but I'm glad I waited because he has quite the journey and story to tell. And last night uh we we screwed up our dinner. We did. We s we set out to make uh low maintenance.
Casey Bard • 01:16.440
Your family. Not me. Yep.
Kurt Elster • 01:18.440
Mate. And we set out to to make low main, and the low main had turned green. It had gone bad. And so we instead we made some nugs. Some chicken nugs, chicken nugs, some tendies. And I love when that happens, because that's when I break out my favorite wing sauce. Tacticalories Helldiver wing sauce. Which is good because A, this sells out all the time. It's tough to get. Limited edition product. Very, very delicious. And to discuss that, is the founder of Teched Calories and creator of this delicious wing sauce, among a whole bunch of other things that have really livened up my food. I'm thrilled to have him here. Casey Bard from Tax Calories. Casey, thank you for joining us.
Casey Bard • 01:58.400
Thank you, man. I'm super excited. I mean Kurt, you've been such a uh instrumental part of this whole of this whole of this whole game, you know. Um I think I'd still be here without you. I think I'd be here without Shopify, but it would be a lot more challenging. I would have spent a lot more money. And it wouldn't have been as fun or um, you know, it it would have been a different trip. You know, I think that um you're somebody I look to as one that saved me a lot of time and money Um and as a business, you know, as as somebody coming from um, you know, the standard, you know, this is like such a prototypical, you know, the big boy six figure, you know, salary job, um trying to start my own thing. Um you know, being able to kind of take that first step with some guidance and with a little bit of a plan, you know, not a perfect plan, but some some ideas. Um You know, it's been it's been a really amazing. So I just want to thank you two. You know, I'll I'll have to cut you the commission check here soon.
Kurt Elster • 02:55.560
Uh just keep me a wash in wing sauce and I more than even That's how much this flavor is worth to me. But no, thank you. I I appreciate that. And that you know, that's really that's that's why I do it is to champion entrepreneurship and to to help make the to encourage people and help make the journey easier along the way. But This isn't about me. I want to know about you. I want to know about tact calories. What the heck is tact calories?
Casey Bard • 03:19.819
My first concept with tactic calories was to start a blog account where I could speak, I could use my background in nutrition. and speak to a population that I felt like needed some help. And that's like the tactical population, law enforcement, first responders. Um I did a uh a gun like a like a three gun shoot, like a like a basically a accuracy competition one time and you know I brought my meals and I brought my hydration and I brought all this stuff to this event and all these guys that their lives depend on. I mean they're they're law enforcement, they're they're wearing you know, green a lot of colors of green and a lot of letters on their vests. They're they're eating fucking corn dogs for lunch, you know, and they're all sitting around. And I and I just thought to myself, I'm like, listen, like My life doesn't depend on it. And I'm taking it this seriously in the health and fitness, you know, nutrition end. And these guys are just that their life very much depends on in our life, you know, as as civilians, our life depends on their preparedness. And you guys are just fucking up. So I remember like saying, like, listen, this is an interesting spot. I don't really I'm not really interested in helping um, you know, in a clinical setting. I mean, I my my field work I did with cancer patients and HIV patients and That's too much for me. I'm not interested in it. So my heart wasn't in that. So I thought, as far as performance nutrition, it would be interesting to work with the tactical population because I liked a lot of the people that I met there. Um so I came up with uh a Venn diagram. Like I said, I have to make a uh a a nutrition company name. Um let's think of some things I like. I like guns, knives, camping, flashlights that are too bright. You know, stuff like that. So what what are some of the things that's like knives that are too sharp, guns that cost too much money. Yeah flashlights that are too bright, too.
Kurt Elster • 05:02.500
Then yeah, you just define find tactical niche. That's what that is. It's like, yeah, let's take something kind of engineering nerdy and very and then just make it over the top aggressive and excessive and just like ultimately a f fun engineering project. Yeah. As a kid I thought flashlights were cool. Now, oh my gosh, they're exceptional.
Casey Bard • 05:25.860
Now they're dangerous like when you have a flashlight that is dangerous is where where it starts to cross. Um I thought, you know what, so I put a Venn diagram. I very literally had it on a whiteboard And I said, what are some words, you know, around all these things I just said, guns, knives, flashlights, all that stuff. So I just put a bunch of words up there that kind of meant something to me. Um and then on the right side, I put, what now what else do I want? Nutrition, right? So tactical nutrition. So um you know, food, protein, steaks, brisket, you know, all these different things over here. So what I eventually did was find w w through the use of a Venn diagram Um tactical calories. Hey that C A L at the end of tactical C-A-L in calories, tacticalies actually is kind of cool and it kind of tells Man, I could do a lot of stuff with this. So not only so I start writing and I'm like, you know what, but tactic calories kind of lends lends itself to like a tactical approach to to food consumption or like a tactical approach to readiness, right? So I'm thinking I could probably make a consumer product here too. It's not just a ra around diet coaching, you know, because that doesn't eventually that I got that got kind of old where it was just like here's what to eat. Once I got once I had kids, I realized it wasn't as easy as following a meal plan. Right. It was like prior to kids, oh yeah, I can just do whatever the fuck I want. But after that. So I started to kind of say, like, let's let's create this consumer product that I can sell because this is what I'm doing my my day job anyway. Um let's produce a low barrier of entry Um low cost because I can't afford a ton. I mean I can invest a couple grand into start the startup, not a ton. I don't want to get into the firearms industry because I'm not a you know, I don't know anything about guns. I'm and I'm not a forger. I don't I can't do knives. I don't I don't Um so that that's kind of all out. Um I don't want to start a coffee company like everybody else. I don't want to start a beard oil company like everybody else. What can I do that is really me, because I think that that's the basis. And that's kind of my first takeaway on like, you know, if anyone's listening to say like when they're if they're still in that brainstorming phase, it's like What I did was I found what's really me so that when I invest and I go into these uh you know go to events or or or I you know immerse myself in this. Like I really like it. I'm really interested in it. And it and it almost grows exponentially because of that, right? It drives me. This is all I do.
Kurt Elster • 07:42.560
I love this idea that you said, okay, Venn diagram. What what's the overlap of of things I'm interested and things that are practical to sell? Yeah. And you came up with such a atypical idea that I don't think anyone would else would think of and your approach, like the moment you see it, you immediately gotta go, like when you hear tact calories And you see the labels, you're going, I gotta know more. And then you try you're uh and it's it's inexpensive.
Casey Bard • 08:09.620
Yeah.
Kurt Elster • 08:09.940
And so it's easy to try. And then once you do, you're like, oh man. So this is really good.
Casey Bard • 08:14.980
I I started to say a few minutes ago, I talked about At fourteen I was making my own food, right? Right. That that has never so essentially, you know, I'm thirty-four, so for the last twenty years I've been cooking my own food and now cook for you know my wife and kids and you know, last weekend for a hundred people. So Um w it in that I started you know when once I got to college, um and I had a really cool deal with the bodybuilders that I lived with. They said We're too meat-headed. Like I do we still live in the we just do steroids in my in our parents' basements. Like I don't really know how to cook. So I go, okay, I do. So if you guys buy food, I'll cook it. Okay, so this is in college. And they would do that and then I what I would do is I would go buy like Montreal steak seasoning and add like hickory smoke to it. Or Montreal steak make Montreal you know, kick and chicken and add some, you know, um habanero powder to it, just to kind of like liven it up. I was making my own sauces, making my own nothing too crazy. It was usually a base, and then I would expand I would take a different direction, you know? Uh So fast forward, that was that was in my you know around 20. Now I'm around 30 trying to figure out how to create a business. I go, what if I like did what I used to do where I make my own seasonings and sell them And what the really the kind of like my my proof of concept was I guess my my um you know wh where I n where I realized that there could potentially be interest is I walked into a grocery store and there's levels, right? So there's levels to everything. There's um if you walk in, they have all the produce right up front. There's there's crappy produce and there's organic high-end crazy produce, right? Um the meat the same way. There's there's choice stuff or there's there's crazy prime. You know, you go right to a butcher and get there's levels on everything. Beer is a really good example. You can go get Miller Light or you can get your local craft Beer and people don't em don't I mean y you know, I I like craft beer. I I'll pay twenty five bucks for a four pack with a promise, right with cool marketing and a and a cool company and a cool story. So you can keep going all around your grocery store, then you get to the spice rack and it's fucking bland and that is a pun because like like an intentional, right? So it is bland, there's nothing going on. So I thought to myself, why not? I mean there's there's local like barbecue sauces. Everyone has a kind of like a regional barbecue sauce. But McCormick has it on lock in terms of the dry rubs. So I said, like what a fucking open book here. What if I took what I know about um marketing small consumer goods Took some of these ideas from my college age where because these rubs, I still make them. You know what I mean? I just know I don't sell them, I just make them. Salt, pepper, garlic, and then some other, you know, special ingredients. What if I do this? What if I start selling it? So I invested 500 bucks. Um my first batch I did by myself in my bathtub Um not I mean that's like metaphorically, but not literally in your bathtub. No, we bought we bought all the plate uh all the bowls and you know everything was done to I have a little bit of a background in in uh good manufacturing practices with you know touring all these nutraceutical facilities and stuff, so I kind of had an idea of how to you know turn my house into that. Very very first batch was done that I fucked everything up. You know, my my my product weight, you know, I ended up little things, little, little mistakes like um if it says five ounces on the outside, I filled it with five ounces of stuff and then Um what I forgot to do was was um tear the the the scale. So I included the the you know so I sold I underfilled essentially my first batch, which is a massive fine from uh you know from a food um compliance standpoint. So, you know, a lot of little things. Um I I utilized um my friend to draw the labels, my other friend to print the labels, my other friend to help me fill my my you know at that time it would have been like three years old uh kids to help me warehouse them in my little office. I mean it was kind of a really it was really unique. And um I'll tell you what man, what was probably if things are ad if I'm addicted to things One thing that became immediately addictive was the little cha-ching. And it's something that this whole community, you know, I don't know if we talk enough about how impactful Um and how fulfilling that was after after months of work of this kind of concept and now I'm making my own money, you know. This is really me, and this is this is um a direct result of me putting time and effort into a project and now it's coming out and every single one of those chichings was Like I, you know, I I remember telling myself, like, I don't know of a time when this isn't going to be awesome. Like I don't, I can't fathom scaling to the point where I'm not going to leave the cha-ching on. Fast forward, um, in November I had to turn the Chachen off.
Kurt Elster • 13:02.940
Which is that's the the that's the place you want to get to. is when you're making so many sales you have to turn off the notifications.
Casey Bard • 13:10.920
I was try I did a product launch from a truck stop in mid state Kentucky, near Lexington, Kentucky. I was driving to Georgia for a whitetail hunt. And I had to do a product release and I'm trying to figure out how to get out of this, you know, cesspole of humans, and my fucking phone won't work because it's too busy to chinging to so that my Waze app can't, you know, help me get out of here. And I was like, oh my God, this is like hilario I'm like, I need to tell this story to Kurt. You know, like this is this is such a a point. I'm like the like, you know, I'm sorry I'm inconveniencing you with too many sales. Doesn't mean I'm not making mistakes, Keff. I've made a lot of mistakes in the last 18 months.
Kurt Elster • 13:55.180
Which I have uh in my my notes here I have mistakes question mark as one of the things uh to note down So when you started, you started, you're selling your product, and already you're making mistakes under filling stuff.
Casey Bard • 14:09.220
Yeah, I was gonna what I was gonna say, there's basically been two launches to this with this company. There was This Dust Bowl launch of just a side gig. It's a side hustle. And then in April of this year, it's gonna be two years from when I said you you got your last paycheck. It's first time in 20 years, you're not gonna get a you know, somebody's not gonna toss you a couple grand on the on Friday, right? So there's been very there's two very real Um, you know, it's the same company, but very different, you know, uh uh stress levels, very different um severity of action.
Kurt Elster • 14:46.259
So you put this thing out there as a side hustle, you're enjoying it, it's you're making, you know, twenty to thirty grand a year off of it, which is a great supplemental income. Um we're we're buying toys with it, which is f totally fine. Uh you know, I I've got my fair share of toys. And then you unexpectedly, through no fault of your own, you lose your job. And that was the thing. And I remember you you called me and we talked about it and you said, Yeah, I'm I think I'm just gonna I'm gonna scale tact calories. I'm going to go all in on this and see what happens. And of course I encouraged you and it worked out and we're lucky it did. Uh but so d take me back to that. What is that How did you make that decision and then what when you said, Okay, I'm gonna go full time with this, what's that look like in practice?
Casey Bard • 15:29.500
So I remember where I was sitting when I got where I uh you know, I got basically two phone calls and one of them I was sitting at a park. I had just got done um taking a little bit uh a little hike over lunch and got a phone call from the president of the company and he was crying. Oh boy. I mean he's he's getting ready to go to prison so uh he was crying and uh He explained to me everything that the kind of that, you know, maybe some of the things I wasn't um clued into and uh you know I just sat there. I was like um uh what my you know some of the ideas I I've I've tried to retain these four situations like this where I can kind of you know expla you know explain this situation to to other people that may be in similar situations. I thought a few different things. I thought one, I'm so thankful for my family, namely my wife, because this is about to get fucking weird, right? Um I have kids. This isn't just me. Like if I were if it's alone if I'm alone in a hurricane, I'm gonna just you know hunker down and everything's gonna be fine. Now I got baggage, you know. Um, I'm thankful for my wife who has a corporate gig in the health insurance industry and um ever everything's good. The second thing I thought is I'm really fucking glad this isn't the time when, you know, and and my my my friend Matt Vincent has a company called hate brand goods, H V I I I, hate. So he he had kind of gone through a similar situation. I remember him hearing this and it immediately resonated at that moment. He said You know, when when he lost his job, he walked out and told his wife, I just lost my job. And what what his initial thought was is, I'm really glad I didn't wait till today to start my apparel brand. Right? And that's the first thing I thought is like, oh my god, at least I have I even even if it's a step stool, at least I can get off this, like, off this ledge here. Right? At least I have something. 25 grand a a year. is at least something, right? I mean I can buy milk with that, right? So um those are the two things I'm s I was so thankful that against, you know, the through the opposition This is before now everyone works from home. It's accepted. When I work from home, like there was a time I got yelled at because they could hear birds in the background in a meeting. Right? So so think like the things weren't accepted. Like you need to be in the basement, you need to be doing work. You need to be putting it in. So You know, against all that I lived two lives for a few years trying to build my side gig. So when it finally snapped and this is all I have, it was almost like I had already made my bed, you know. Um I encourage people Through and through with minimal investment, you know, try try this and that. You know, try it because this felt natural. Once it started rolling, this was really my life. People really believe me. When I tell you something's gonna do X or Y, I don't have many people say, hey, it it did, you know, J instead. I tell the truth. You know, this is how it's gonna if this is a hot sauce and it's not gonna be that hot I I I'm honest, this is not the hottest thing you've ever had. Here we're this is it's it's these flavors, you know. I've tried to rem retain all my honesty, all my integrity. Customer service, all that stuff the whole way through. So I knew at that time sitting in that park that that like this I had a really I had a great opportunity as good of as as any. I still however I was still um you know valuable to other people. So I said I have two different options. I can either be a consultant for the supplement industry, I can essentially take everything that I had learned, which was, you know, the the pinnacle of this industry, and I could probably be very, very valuable. I could probably make Two to three times what I was making. I get to put a suit on every day. I get to fly all over and I get to tell people how to how to sell supplements and I I I just to be honest, Kurt, when I turn like that that early to mid thirties, I'm a lot more interested in brisket than I am creatine. You know? Like I don't really I I kinda I'm not in love with that anymore. What I'm in love with is this stuff. So fuck it. You know, like maybe I'm leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table for for this uh consulting gig. Because I mean that's the truth. I did. Um But it was also the time when my kids are, you know, they're four they're four years old once. And they're two years old once, you know, two years old once, three or four, five, like If I can find a way to be at home more and build something that's my own, um, you know, I kind of want to go to Disney and not worry about it. You know, when I went when I went on my um When d when I went on my honeymoon, I I was still running meetings from Jamaica for the soul company because there was no lift, man. There was no lift. I sold my soul to them. I'm a ginger that had a soul and I sold it. So, you know, I I it's it's one of those things I do have a very unique story, but it's one that kind of had to play out the way it did for everything to work. Um theory.
Kurt Elster • 20:35.560
So um Yeah, you have uh survivorship bias. Like in hindsight, everything seems like it really it fell into place and it worked out. But it's not it's all by design and it's by the the opportunities you created for yourself.
Casey Bard • 20:47.740
You know, people talk about negative self-talk and you know I I've never really been that. I mean I look back and I'm like I've made a lot of fucking good decisions here. You know what I'm saying? I'm very lucky because I'm I'm I'm about due for a really poor one, you know? Um generally I try to use my heart and like my goal. Like what do I want? Like plan your life the way that you want it. Do you want an office with a bazooka in the background?
Kurt Elster • 21:11.020
I was just staring at it and I was gonna say, hold on. Is there a a grenade launcher?
Casey Bard • 21:17.100
Single shot rocket launcher. Yeah, it's an AT-4. So uh but it you get you get one shot, buddy. Pick it, you know?
Kurt Elster • 21:25.039
Uh it's a metaphor.
Casey Bard • 21:26.960
It's a metaphor that it's a rocket launcher. Relax. If you have that opportunity right now, I mean you're basically set free. You know, it's basically I just got a divorce. You know, like like do you need to recalibrate or are you gonna go right back to what you just left? Like I get to recalibrate now and I get to do whatever the fuck I want and Why not at least try this? Am I going to put, you know, 40 years now into tacticalories? I don't know. Like I don't even know what I'm doing in two months out. Kurt, this is the reason we have I haven't done this yet is because I can't I do I mean as early as this morning I was trying to you know it took a lot for me to get on this meeting that's how It's not easy, but because I love it and I love everything that I do every single day, I wake up with anxiety like when you're going on vacation, like that positive Like, woo, I get to go do something. I do that every fucking day now. And my face looks different. My voice is different. My body's different now. All because like I'm I'm building my my temple. You know what I'm saying?
Kurt Elster • 22:28.900
No, absolutely. I want to go back to the relaunch. When this thing becomes your full-time gig. And it has what one, how has it done? How has that gone? And two, how'd you do it?
Casey Bard • 22:40.660
Okay. That's a really good Um now you know I told myself I I I had to ask myself we might get a share like numbers and stuff on this and it you know I It doesn't really matter because I don't I don't really care. You know, like regardless of of of uh of any way I I I I talk to people pretty loosely about everything and What what what I've seen the last 18 months um you know in closing in on two years is You know, I knew I had to start planning things to make this real. So how do I do that? And this is this is what I really want to kind of dive into with you Um, I take I took a look at the industry and saw what they're doing. And generally what it is is other people making product. You know, there's it's a it's a co-packing agreement or or some type of um private labeling agreement, okay? Um Kurt wants to start Kurt's rubs, and he finds somebody to make him these rubs and he orders a couple thousand at a time and he markets them. Okay. What I found is that Much like the supplement industry, it's hard to really keep a fire for more than like that single product launch. And everybody does the same thing. Here's our whole line all at once, or our our spring collection. Boom, there it is, right? that's super convenient for the customer because they can buy what they want right now. They can kind of pick if they want um you know, I just want steak seasoning and all the all the other stuff's all hot, so I'm just gonna kinda relieve it. Or or in the apparel industry it's like I can match things in this collection, right? And what I found was it was really hard. I could always see struggle in these other companies' social media presences. In staying relevant because all their cards they fold it, and their cards are out, right? Like what do you do? If you have four products, you release them in a collection, what do you do week seven? I not I don't know what do you do? I don't know. That's a good question. Uh share another hire a photographer to take more interesting pictures in you know pictures of a of rubs sitting beside meat. I mean how much can you do that? Um now the successful people, somebody I see, you know, a company that I used to watch a lot was is Huckberry. They do a really good job. Now that's a different, they're not a manufacturer, they're a retailer, I get it. But what I found is they had their general vibe, their general, you know, it's kind of like this is how all the everything you find here is going to be here. But they did such a good job of always showing me something that was kind of currently relevant, whether it be seasonality. whether it be um you know current world topics, um whether it just be things I purchased from them in the past, you know, thing things like that. Um they do a they did a really, really good job of keeping things um fr fresh, you know, and keeping this kind of what so what at that point I thought to myself this is almost like a six uh like a subscription box that isn't a subscription box because I can order what I want, but I'm finding myself buying from these few retailers not not once a month, sometimes once a week, you know, if they make it kind of advantageous for me to buy like that So I thought to myself, what if I started to do this where, you know, I have all these recipes, I have all these ideas. Why do I have to put them all out at once? You know, is it capital? Like is it manpower? Well like what what is it? And I think that there's each brand is gonna have a different answer for that. But what it allows me to do is give 100% gaff score. Do you know what the gaff score is?
Kurt Elster • 26:13.740
No.
Casey Bard • 26:14.139
The amount of give a fuck that you put into something. G-A-F, right? So Um I can put a hundred percent gaff into a honey habanero dry rub. The output tends to be, and this isn't just me, this is this is you listening, like somebody listening. The amount of gaff that can be applied towards that product, if it is if I'm only focused on one, two, three things Is way higher than if I'm trying to do an uh like an all-out new, a new launch, like a big collection. It's just impossible, especially with like a small brand like mine. I only have four employees here, so Um, you know, I can only we can only do so much per day. We only can turn so much out. So I thought to myself, this is a really good, what if I just managed residual product launches? Because product launches are pretty exciting. I get to, you know, I I've I've studied everything that Ezra has written on product uh Ez Ezra Firestone. Everything that he's written. And he and I worked together really, really closely in the um prior to 2020. Um, you know, they had used my testimonial. I used Zippify pages until I eventually hired a designer in-house that can that can apply this stuff. And I still it's It's an incredible product, but in order to keep these residual the residual income, I had to be able to sell things r they had to be able to reside more commonly. Um the cadence, the product release cadence had to be higher. So I think I know it doesn't work for everybody's brand, but if there is a way that you can essentially hold back, sell a product at a time, figure out ways, there's all these different things on what you can do once you drop a product. You know, you can you can complement them, you can contrast them. That right there, now we have three products, you know. Uh so that's that was really kind of what I thought. I said I thought I I like making money every 10 days Right? I like a a big drop every ten days because what I found is if you do that average, it's way higher than if I than if I don't, you know, if I start dropping. Um what I what I started doing was dropping once a month, which was attainable. Now it's every four to ten days we're doing a new product.
Kurt Elster • 28:19.960
Yeah, it f on the receiving end of it, it feels like One to once a week, two every other week. And it a hundred percent I know what's going on, and a hundred percent it still works on me. The urgency and the scarcity makes me buy. And I know like I have in my cabinet is all tact calorie seasonings, and I know which ones I'm low on. And so I I just watch the launches. And if it's something interesting, I'll try it. Um, because I know that what however you describe it is exactly how it's gonna taste. You mentioned earlier, like honesty and authenticity is important, and certainly it is. when you have to describe the product to someone especially and then knowing, oh, this, you know, hey, I'm low on wing sauce. I don't know if he's gonna have wing sauce when I run out. So all right, I'll just buy three bottles right now because I this is my chance It totally works and I pay attention to it.
Casey Bard • 29:12.540
Well, and the other thing that we do is like people try to call my bluff all the time, and and it works. It was like inherently for inventory management. Like how many bottles do I have? A hundred? Perfect. You know? So everyone always says like, you know, like, oh that's a good thing. You know, oh you're selling out. That's a good thing. Now what we faced moving into the, you know, you had asked about what about 2020, right? So what what happened in 2020? Um, to cap it, we grew four times, four X in 2020. Okay. Whoa! Yeah So that had some inherent challenges. Uh we you know we we hit some crazy numbers that I never thought this was gonna Become, you know? Uh but with that we ran into some manufacturing issues because guess what? The same plastic that we use for seasoning bottles is the same plastic they use for hand sanitizer bottles. So um there's no clear plastic. You cannot source pellets from Asia. There's nothing. Nothing. uh McCormick was was the you know they have their own facility to produce. It's not that we can't produce it, it's that we do not have the raw material to produce it. They have the machinery. They just don't have the raw materials There was a lot of imbalances in the spice trade because of uh you know travel issues and and importation issues um lids, you know, color black lids, red lids, lids with flippers, lids without flippers. That would that's just been that was my 2020 is trying to say, hey guys. This batch of X seasoning may be in a pouch. Is that cool? I had people I don't give a fuck if it's in a baggie, dude. I just send it, you know, so What a lot of people, it's not that easy. I have, I'm sitting on right now, at any given time, I have twenty thousand dollars in labeling. You know, it's not I just I have to it has to be compliant. I I can I can only fit four point three ounces of this rub in these pouches. I can't put a five ounce sticker on it. So now my designer has to redesign it. I have to figure out how many servings there are in here, I have to have everything approved through my manufacturing uh process. Then I have to have it printed and that takes a week. And then by the time I finally have it printed And because of this the low volume of doing it, it cost me 50 cents a thing. You know, every every every all these different things caused issues. So I grew four times in terms of revenue. But I had to spend a shitload more than I've ever had to spend to just assure that the brand was, you know, and I had to make some quick hires. I had to make some quick build-outs. I mean, this is this is um since Since uh was it this the tenth of February? So February tenth, twenty twenty. This is the third building we've been in since then. Um so we did, you know, we did three, you know, two moves in 2020 throughout it too. We moved in July, we moved in November. Um It was a lot of fun. I'm already trending to to I mean January crushed January twenty twenty. So you know, my big thing is uh what I found is in my customer ecosystem, um, people stay pretty happy, you know, because I've Things are like like you've brought up, it's uh a relatively inexpensive product. Um up until 2020 I had never had a return. You know, so we had already done like ten thousand sale twenty orders without a return. So people are like I had a guy who messaged me, what's your return policy? And I'm like, funny you said that. I don't have one. You know, I've never had to. Why? What's going on? And he just said it, you know, I remember the the first return was um oh my son my son bought me the same product my my wife did and I don't need two grill baskets so Like, okay, well, here's your money back, give it to somebody, because it costs too much to ship back. He's like, that's pretty much what my return policy is now. Um so learning all these different things, I mean that that's the 2020 was such a trial by fire, you know. I mean it was it was positive and negative at the same time. Coming out of it, it's it it was it was wild. Everybody started eating at home. Um, you know, we were a little different because we're in New York, you know, so it hit us a little early. Um, we had to figure out how to manage the COVID protocols and just in in our own warehouse. Um shipping and receiving. You know, we were doing single occupancy, but we were doing it twenty-four hours a day. So we would essentially had three eight-hour shifts throughout the day. Um the guys in the warehouse were amazing. They they took it with stride. I mean um it's it's been it's been crazy, you know, to to be all the sanitization that we've had to do with all the packaging and and you know, we've still maintained a majority of those of those practices. Now Um things are a little bit different, but but we've maintained um a lot a lot of that stuff.
Kurt Elster • 33:55.000
So No, absolutely. Uh you mentioned you had you had 20 grand you're sitting on 20 grand in labels. And I have noticed your branding and your labels are always amazing. Thank you. Talk to me about these labels. How are you How is your shit so cool?
Casey Bard • 34:10.419
That's what I want to know. I do mushrooms and go into the woods every weekend and I conceptualize. And I use a uh I use a um a former tattoo artist. Um he's been Aha! Um he's so that's you know that's a s that's like the secret that it's not a secret. You know, find somebody who's a dope drawer You know, it's so funny again, like don't d like like fuck Fiverr. I mean Fiverr's great for for a lot of things, but being able to work with a true artist You know, he at first he was charging me now. I uh I was lucky enough I was able to bring him on full time this year with everything that was going on. Um these guy a lot of these tattoo artists, you know, they they do relatively inexpensive Illustration that's really, really good. They're good at putting ideas on paper, right? You go in, you're like, I want a you know, a John Deere tractor with a potato driving it. And uh, you know, all these crazy shit. And they do it, right? I mean you see this, there's there's one in every corner. Um they're classically trained to take crazy ideas and turn them in, turn them into reality. I was lucky enough that, you know, the the the the design that Chris um provides is very similar to, you know, I have tattoos. He's drawn a lot of my tattoos. I like his style. That's me. Again, this is kind of it all comes back to Casey. I've I've kind of joked because the flavor, you know, it's usually like, let me taste it and I'll then I'll build the marketing around it. If I get COVID, I'm fucked because I I can't lose my sense of smell and taste because I'm the little like I'm I'm the nucleus here. Um, so that's that's really, you know, just just the fact that I'm a little bit of an asshole. I'm a little bit of, you know, I've been through a lot, I've been forged. So All these ideas, they just they I mean that's if I'm good at anything, it's probably that, you know. Um everything else is kind of a learned thing. I don't have many um tips on how to be more creative, so lean on people that are. And I think that tattoo artists uh in some part parts of the country right now are completely out of work. It's a really good opportunity to spend $100, $150 to have amazing artwork done. Now I was lucky enough again to find someone that understands that what these do have to be converted to to to digital eventually. And now he um Chris does all of my work from my um actually, you know, the design to he actually does the the full digital design of my labels too. So um I appreciate it.
Kurt Elster • 36:36.200
And they're they're quite extraordinary. It's fun. If you are in doubt you should so You should check it out.
Casey Bard • 36:41.160
I appreciate it.
Kurt Elster • 36:41.960
Let's you are just nonstop winning. Give me something you screwed up.
Casey Bard • 36:46.920
Um I'm not nonstop winning, but I mean I play that on TV. One thing I screwed up in 2020 was um I was forced into growing pretty quickly. Um I attempted to hire somebody to basically l CEO a second brand, paid him up front because that's what he was that was part of the deal. Um and you know, I don't have many, many, you know, details that I really even want to, you know, visit. But I paid him up front for about a month, month and a half, gave him, gave him some equity in the company, and he didn't produce. So trying to unfuck that that um relationship was very, very expensive. You know. Um so that that's kind of the big one. When I think of like the big, you know tens of thousands uh challenge that was that one. Um some other challenges and some other some other bumps. Um n you know listening to other people has been a blessing and a curse. So As I've continued to move through, I've just remote reminded do am I confident in myself so far? Which I've always been confident. So I I don't know how it is to not be confident in my business.
Kurt Elster • 38:04.740
So I'm sure there are people that are like That's a great problem to have.
Casey Bard • 38:07.780
Yeah, but I'm sure there's people that aren't in that situation, right? Like, well, I don't know what I'm doing. Well, ask yourself what to do and and make that first step, you know Um, I do I regret hanging on to my big boy job as long as I did. Um, I don't think because it was paying my bills, and that's I think the basis of all this with a family. You know, um that that's that's a uh that's that's what what I what I had to do at the time. Um I don't know, man. I can't think of a ton of mistakes. I you know I've I've kept my Um cut I've tried to keep my customers as happy as I possibly can. Um I've tried to answer every every big promise that I put out there. I've tried to answer it accurately. I don't have a ton of big, big mistakes. I wish I did.
Kurt Elster • 38:54.800
That would make for good TV, but Well no, that's good. That that is a that's perfectly good. I want to move you to the lightning round. So in your business What uh what's one thing you do every day that you wish you could automate?
Casey Bard • 39:09.780
Um well I'm working I'm working on uh this afternoon uh having a uh girl come in to interview for this position. But uh customer service has become something that, you know, I look back at the automation of my brand. Um What what what do I what do I what am I willing to kind of give up? Um customer service I don't believe has to still be done by me and it still is. You know, it's every broken bottle, every misshipment um is still kind of managed by me And what I find is it's taking me away from really what's moving the company forward. Um ours are so unique, I find it really challenging to automate. Not that, you know. Driving down the highway is pretty challenging too, but Tesla did a pretty pretty good job from what I've seen. So I you know, I think it could be done, but it's just like me having the confidence to kind of pass off customer service to somebody that has no um, you know, a frame of reference is gonna be really challenging. I don't I just don't know how that would work. So that's that is one of them. One thing I don't ever want to automate is the concept and design phase. You know
Kurt Elster • 40:13.760
I think that's where you need to you have the vision and the taste and you need to drive.
Casey Bard • 40:18.640
Well and that's that's one thing that like kind of as a as a as a to kind of cap this, it's like to know what you do Like what I just happen to do well. I do customer service really well, but should I be doing it? Probably not, right? Um uh but I'm also it's okay that I'm doing it because it's saving me money and it's it's the only reason that I, you know, I uh that that I can keep paying paychecks and that I can keep moving on is because I haven't just hired out everyone. You know, I I still own 100% of the company. I've never taken any money from anybody else. You know, I've borrowed some and I've paid it back. Period. Um So I don't have like that big bank account to just hire a staff. It's really been built like a cabin in the woods. Like this is what we have today. This is what I can accomplish today. And that's that's really that's really what what I've done.
Kurt Elster • 41:05.120
Uh all right, two two questions left and then we're we're leaving because I want to go make some wing sauce. Uh What's something that Shopify merchants or entrepreneurs in general are obsessed with that you just don't get the point of?
Casey Bard • 41:18.340
Um letting somebody else do all the work? Drop shipping? Like you know, the whole dropshipping thing doesn't really make sense. You know, I I I've I've uh I pop in and out of some of these Facebook groups and one of the challenges, I'm like, imagine if you just did the fucking work. Imagine that. Imagine that. Imagine if you just bought a few hundred inventory or or whatever that that number is. Imagine if you shipped from the states. Imagine if you fucking owned something, you know? Imagine if you took a risk on yourself. If you really believe this enough to steal somebody else's money, then believe it and and put some re you know, roll the dice a little bit. I th I find that really challenging and I'm really holding back.
Kurt Elster • 41:57.060
You know, the the next question was what's something weird that you recommend everyone tries at least once? And I think you just answered with it, imagine if you just did the fucking work. That's fabulous.
Casey Bard • 42:08.100
I agree.
Kurt Elster • 42:08.580
We're sticking with that.
Casey Bard • 42:11.440
Imagine that.
Kurt Elster • 42:12.240
Yeah. It's really that's got me upset.
Casey Bard • 42:14.240
Me too. Me too. There's been very few sound bites today.
Kurt Elster • 42:19.960
Uh you know what happened was I cleaned the desk and I moved the soundboard and it's just too far away. I really gotta lean. I just need to move it back. I I'll do that when I'm when I get off the call here. Casey, this has been absolutely thrilling. I love it. Um shared some great stories, some anecdotes. I hope this was inspiring for people. It should be. It was inspiring for me. Cool. Where Can people go to to get some salt?
Casey Bard • 42:50.920
Not nobody, because obviously some people do. But the word tactical and the word calories together, but not tactical calories. So tactical.
Kurt Elster • 42:58.540
So um dot com Yeah, T-A-C-T-I calories.
Casey Bard • 43:01.980
Yeah, exactly.
Kurt Elster • 43:03.100
Like tactic alaries.
Casey Bard • 43:05.260
Yeah, exactly tactical auries. Right.
Kurt Elster • 43:08.260
There you go. Tactical Ories.
Casey Bard • 43:10.580
Um I'm sure you'll link it. Instagram. Uh we started the TikTok thing. I just don't dance a lot. Um you know, we have a lot going on. I'm I'm working with a new some some new content creators. So it's it's it's a blast, man. Instagram is really where you'd find us um at Tacticalies. Uh we're always giving stuff away, always selling stuff. We have a product launch tonight, my friends, 7 p. m. Uh Raspberry Rum Chipotle Salsa. We're doing a our our our relaunch of it. I think the last time we sold it, it was out in a day. We have another 1200 jars of it and we're labeling right now. We're getting ready to sell it tonight. So launch more products residually. Hold some back. Don't put it all out at once. Don't show all your cards. Plan it out, even if it's every even if it's if it's if it's once a month, start there. Figure out a way to launch a new product, whether it's either be competing or complimentary, once per month.
Kurt Elster • 44:08.140
I will my advice is listen to Casey for he is wise and grab yourself something. Something delicious from tactcalories. com.
Casey Bard • 44:18.220
And guess what? I'm not gonna give a coupon code because I'm anti-coupon code these days.
Kurt Elster • 44:23.740
No, yeah, no, no. Well we don't need to be able to do that.
Casey Bard • 44:26.620
That's a thing. Yeah, it's a thing. Buy full price. You know, if you liked what I had to say, if you uh buy full price or don't, you know. contact me and if you do listen to this and let me know what brands you what what you have to offer. I would love to be able to potentially purchase it or not.
Kurt Elster • 44:44.359
Are you gonna drop your email?
Casey Bard • 44:45.960
Uh no. No. No.
Kurt Elster • 44:47.640
How do they get a hold of you?
Casey Bard • 44:48.599
At Tactical.
Kurt Elster • 44:50.119
All right. I got it. We will will well, I hope some people reach out and let me know let me know what you find.
Kurt Elster • 44:56.520
Casey, thank you. We'll leave it there.