Grand Slam Journey
76. Daniel Gluck︱Game, Set, Invest: From Tennis Prodigy to Investment Guru @ GroundForce Capital
Embark on a journey with Dan Gluck, a former competitive tennis player who's aced his way into the investment world as the co-founder and managing partner at Ground Force Capital. Join us as we explore the unique parallels between the discipline of sports and the dynamism of finance and entrepreneurship. Dan's narrative is a testament to the transformative power of a sports mindset in the boardroom, underscoring the vital role of physical well-being in achieving professional excellence. His tale is one of strategic rebranding and impactful investing, where the pursuit of robust financial returns goes hand-in-hand with fostering human health and environmental sustainability.
In this episode, we don't just talk shop; we delve into Dan's personal ethos, weaving together the threads of family, fitness, and leadership that define his approach to life. Discover how endurance sports like marathons and triathlons have sculpted Dan's mental fortitude—a strength he channels into his business ventures. His story is a rich tapestry that includes the founding of Health Warrior and its eventual acquisition by PepsiCo, illustrating the power of aligning one's passions with their entrepreneurial spirit. Dan's commitment to a balanced life, embracing both career ambitions and the joys of parenting, offers an inspiring blueprint for integrating one's personal and professional worlds.
As we wrap up the conversation, Dan imparts invaluable insights into the evolution of investment strategies in the face of burgeoning health trends. He reflects on the inspiring journeys of iconic figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger, drawing parallels to his own path. Dan's firm not only aims for financial success but also champions the cause of a health-conscious, sustainable future. Listeners will gain a broader perspective on the critical intersection of nutrition, public health, and the business acumen required to navigate the complex landscape of modern investment management.
Dan's LinkedIn
https://www.groundforcecapital.com/
Book Recommendation: Wrong Fit, Right Fit
Get 10% off Loerêver Balanced Compression and Activewear to elevate your confidence and performance
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
This content is also available in a video version on YouTube.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who may enjoy it as well, and consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also submit your feedback directly on my website.
Follow @GrandSlamJourney on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and join the LinkedIn community.
Embark on a journey with Dan Gluck, a former competitive tennis player who's aced his way into the investment world as the co-founder and managing partner at Ground Force Capital. Join us as we explore the unique parallels between the discipline of sports and the dynamism of finance and entrepreneurship. Dan's narrative is a testament to the transformative power of a sports mindset in the boardroom, underscoring the vital role of physical well-being in achieving professional excellence. His tale is one of strategic rebranding and impactful investing, where the pursuit of robust financial returns goes hand-in-hand with fostering human health and environmental sustainability.
In this episode, we don't just talk shop; we delve into Dan's personal ethos, weaving together the threads of family, fitness, and leadership that define his approach to life. Discover how endurance sports like marathons and triathlons have sculpted Dan's mental fortitude—a strength he channels into his business ventures. His story is a rich tapestry that includes the founding of Health Warrior and its eventual acquisition by PepsiCo, illustrating the power of aligning one's passions with their entrepreneurial spirit. Dan's commitment to a balanced life, embracing both career ambitions and the joys of parenting, offers an inspiring blueprint for integrating one's personal and professional worlds.
As we wrap up the conversation, Dan imparts invaluable insights into the evolution of investment strategies in the face of burgeoning health trends. He reflects on the inspiring journeys of iconic figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger, drawing parallels to his own path. Dan's firm not only aims for financial success but also champions the cause of a health-conscious, sustainable future. Listeners will gain a broader perspective on the critical intersection of nutrition, public health, and the business acumen required to navigate the complex landscape of modern investment management.
Dan's LinkedIn
https://www.groundforcecapital.com/
Book Recommendation: Wrong Fit, Right Fit
Get 10% off Loerêver Balanced Compression and Activewear to elevate your confidence and performance
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
This content is also available in a video version on YouTube.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone who may enjoy it as well, and consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also submit your feedback directly on my website.
Follow @GrandSlamJourney on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and join the LinkedIn community.
I joined when we were raising our second fund, but ultimately, for various reasons, it evolved to the point where two of my partners decided to step away from the business. My partner, mark, and I decided that we were going to move forward. We ultimately decided we wanted to change our strategy, to broaden our strategy. We wanted to change our name. We hired pretty much an entire new team, and so today we're operating under GrantForce, and when Mark and I were thinking about the name, we worked with a marketing agency and we ultimately had two main messages that we wanted to convey.
Dan Gluck:Everything we do as a firm is 100% commercially driven from a financial return perspective, but we also do, as you see, have this sort of halo around us around impact, and we genuinely want to continue to focus on businesses that are focused on promoting human health as well as sustainability from a climate and environmental perspective, and so we said we need a name that is able to convey our rigorous focus on returns and our disciplined approach to investing, much like a Goldman Sachs, a Blackstone, a BlackRock.
Dan Gluck:But we also want to make sure that we convey a message to our constituents that we do care deeply about the types of businesses that we're investing in that there's a greater purpose behind our investments, that we're really clear on what our mission and vision is for improving the world as it relates to people and planet. Think of brands like Patagonia as inspiration, and after a long process, we landed on the name Ground Force, which ultimately stands for grounded in excellence and a force for good, and so we think it completely marries the two main goals and priorities that we have as investors, and so we're really excited.
Klara:Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Grand Slam Journey podcast, where we discuss various things related to the Grand Slam journey of our lives Sports, life after sports. Lessons we have learned from our athletic endeavors and how we apply them in the next chapter of our lives, growing our skills and leadership in whatever we decide to put our minds into. My guest today is Dan Gluck. Dan is co-founder and managing partner at Grand Force Capital. Dan plays an integral and active role in all aspects of Grand Force Capital's business, including, but not limited to, the overall management of all firm operations, deal sourcing and leading deal diligence. Driven by his deep passion for physical fitness, sports and competitive races. Prior to joining Ground Force Capital, dan was co-founder and board chairman of Health Warrior, a plant-based superfood CPG company, which was created in 2012. The company's product was a 100-calorie chia bar, which became the number one best-selling new bar in the natural channel in 2013. Today, health Warrior products are sold in 13,000 stores. Complemented by a robust DTC platform, health Warrior was purchased by PepsiCo in October 2018.
Klara:In today's conversation, we cover Dan's journey from being a competitive tennis player to his experiences in consulting investment management, his entrepreneurial journey and now investing in businesses that help promote healthy and sustainable lifestyle and help catalyze the transition to lower carbon and regenerative food production. If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it with someone you believe may enjoy it as well. Consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. This conversation is also available in video on my YouTube Grand Slam Journey channel. This is your host, Klara Yagoshova. Thank you for tuning in, and now I bring you Dan Gluck. Hello, dan, welcome to the Grand Slam Journey podcast. So great to have you, thank you.
Dan Gluck:Claire, it's great to be here. Good to see you.
Klara:I've been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time. You have a fantastic background. You're currently the managing partner and co-founder of Ground Force Capital, but before that you had your own company for eight years Health Warrior that you actually successfully exited and sold to PepsiCo. You spent 15 years in investment management industry and prior to that you've been passionate about tennis and have played tennis competitively for D1 College and I'm so curious about pretty much your journey, some of the tennis mindset and all of your career steps and learnings you have had. That's my quick intro and why I'm so excited to have you on, but I want to hand it over to you Anything else you want to bring up or highlight that you want listeners to know about you.
Dan Gluck:Well, I think you did a great job summarizing my background and again, thank you for having me on the podcast. So wonderful to speak about you. Well, I think you did a great job summarizing my background and again, thank you for having me on the podcast. So wonderful to speak with you, enjoyed our prior conversations, I would say. Professionally, as you mentioned, I'm a former hedge fund manager. I'm an entrepreneur and founder of a business called Health Warrior and now I'm a managing partner and co-founder of a private equity firm.
Dan Gluck:I'm also what you didn't mention is I'm a proud dad of two kids. I have a six and eight-year-old and I really pride myself on the time that I put into parenting and being present with my children. And you talked a little about my tennis career. But I'm just a fitness junkie is how I would describe myself. That's my drug. That's where I get euphoric. Junkie is how I would describe myself. That's my drug. That's where I get euphoric. I've been an athlete since just a little kid, where I played every single sport. Then I narrowly got focused in on tennis and then transitioned that into endurance sports and triathlons, marathons, ultra marathons, anything that I can do to get my adrenaline pumping. I love doing Anything that I can do to get my adrenaline pumping. I love doing so. Those are the three areas in particular where I spend most of my time these days is business, family and my personal health and wellness.
Klara:Love it and I've certainly noticed that on your LinkedIn post and actually somebody tagged me on one of yours where you talked about the book Open, which I've also read. I actually discovered it maybe when, I guess, even launched at the beginning and I was going through interesting journey in tennis and you can find so much wisdom about actually tennis and life in it. So it's always great to get to know these serendipitous connections through LinkedIn and I look forward to diving into even your extreme, I would say sports. Ultra marathon is ultra running is something I'm definitely not planning on taking on and I feel like it requires just another level of perseverance from people.
Dan Gluck:So much of it's mindset right One step in front of the other is what I would say. It's probably more of a mental test than it is physical. Once you're obviously at a level where you've trained and you have some sort of base, you can put yourself into that type of event. And then it's all up here. You can will yourself your way through probably your last 10-15 miles of a 50 mile race, so to speak.
Klara:Yeah, the most similar thing I would compare to. We do these longer hikes every now and then we try to schedule them every other year. The last one we did was the Mount Everest Base Camp, and so it's almost similar. Once you get to the 4,000 or 5,000 meter level, you just have to trust, one step at a time, that you'll eventually get there and just do a foot in front of another, you a foot in front of another. I'm sure it's not the same as ultra running, but that's the most I can compare, I guess, from my perspective, to your mindset.
Dan Gluck:What do you share? It's very similar and I've done some mountaineering myself. I've climbed down in Patagonia, down in Argentina and Chile. I've climbed Mount Baker outside of Seattle in the state of Washington. This summer I'm going to be climbing Mont Blanc, actually in France. So I've definitely done some mountaineering, and especially when you start getting towards altitude, yes, it literally is just about persistence and consistency of one slow step in front of the other and staying balanced. So there's a lot of analogies between ultra endurance events and climbing mountains. For sure, I just love long hikes as well. Last year my wife and I hiked. We did the Rim to Rim in the Grand Canyon, which isn't quite base camp of Everest, or summiting some of the peaks that I've done, but still just an epic hike and a great journey.
Klara:Wow, how long did it take you the Rim to Rim?
Dan Gluck:It was like an eight hour endeavor, and that was with stopping down at the bottom of the canyon and having some lunch. So it's a very manageable hike for anyone who is reasonably fit Way to just escape. Not that I was planning on being on my phone or whatnot, but you lose internet connectivity anyway once you get into the canyon. So no phones for nearly eight hours or so and just an opportunity to be outdoors, connect with my wife. We love doing things like that. That's how typically we spend our time together. For date nights or a date weekend, it's typically something outdoorsy, some sort of adventure For our 10-year wedding anniversary. Actually, this year we're going to be hiking in Peru for four days to go to Machu Picchu.
Klara:Oh, that's a beautiful hike and I love the food in Peru. It was actually one of the first hikes we have done and I so underestimated the quality of food, because once you do other hikes after, it's like this food is awful, but they just cook you some of the best food you know, in the middle of nowhere, on a fire, and there are amazing cooks there, so I'm sure you will enjoy it tremendously, that's good to know.
Dan Gluck:No one has really alerted me to focus on the food. In fact, all the feedback I've received has been be careful drinking the water, because I've had many people say that they've gotten stomach bugs from drinking water. So I'll add that to something that I'm looking forward to.
Klara:Peru is known for its cuisine. Actually, lima, I believe, is considered the culinary city of the world, and so they have some fantastic food in Peru. I agree with the water, but I think that's everywhere At least. I have a sensitive stomach, so I just take it as part of the experience. Everywhere I go hiking, I just get something. It's just an added thing. You've got to manage, but it's part of the experience, at least for me.
Dan Gluck:Yes, if you're going somewhere off the beaten path, it certainly comes with the territory. In fact, we took our kids to Morocco and three out of four of us all got really sick, so at the time it wasn't so fun. But when I look back on it it's a little character building, I guess.
Klara:Yes, well, I love how we dove into already hiking, endurance and outdoorsy things but I do want to go back, even all the way, to your upbringing and just better understand what was your upbringing. Like you mentioned, you did all different sports, but what attracted you especially to tennis, and was there somebody who influenced you?
Dan Gluck:So I grew up on the East Coast in Connecticut and fortunately grew up in just a very loving household. I had an older sister and two parents that I just simply would say that I think what I most benefited from was the fact that they truly believed in unconditional love, and that was sort of their parenting strategy was unconditional love, and I think that's benefited me tremendously, as I felt supported as a child. They never pushed me in a direction that I didn't want to go. Necessarily they let me be who I was. I mean, certainly there were guardrails, but all of my initiatives were self-driven. All the sports that I wanted to play was just something that I begged to do, and I wanted to play soccer and I want to play baseball and I want to play basketball. And as a young kid I had posters like many kids posters all over my walls of all the athletes I was inspired by. I had a poster of Michael Jordan. I had a poster of Bo Jackson just do it. I had a poster of as I got a little older, lance Armstrong, pre him finding out he was a cheater or whatever his issues were. I still respect him, frankly, for what he's accomplished. From an athletic perspective it's all another story, but now that I remember it, actually the poster I had was after some of the controversy, I believe, or maybe it was right at the time, I can't remember. The quote was something to the effect of it showed him on a bike and it said something about everyone asked me what I'm on and it said what I'm on is my bike, like seven days a week, five hours a day, and it was like a whole quote about, basically, I'm just training and that's what I'm doing. It turned out maybe he wasn't, but anyway I digress and so grew up an athlete I don't know ultimately what.
Dan Gluck:It was at an early age that I started to play tennis and really took a love to the game. My dad did play, so I do remember vividly playing with him. He's actually a very good competitive player. He was probably a 4-5, 5-0 type player, so he was a very solid tennis player. I remember growing up playing with him and then it was around seventh grade when I made the decision that I wanted to specialize and only focus on tennis. Ultimately, I just said I want to be great at tennis that was really how it happened and quit all my other sports and again, it was all from a place where I was the one demanding that I play for my parents. They never pushed me into it and I kept saying I want more, I want more, I want more and that of all it's really. I would say. Seventh grade, which is around 13 years old, is when I decided to focus on tennis. I would say my parents are influential and then I was very fortunate to have two very influential coaches that have really changed the trajectory of my life, not only in terms of the tennis skills that they taught me but, more importantly, around life, and it's made me somewhat of the introspective and somewhat spiritual person that I am today.
Dan Gluck:One of my coaches who actually lived with us. For a period of time he was a professional player. Then he became the Argentinian Davis Cup coach and a very famous teaching instructor. My dad developed a good relationship with him and a close friendship and for one summer he actually lived with us and then, off and on, he spent some time living with us. I developed an amazing relationship with him.
Dan Gluck:This was back in the 1980s and I grew up in like a very I'm not gonna call it blue collar town, but like a middle class town in Connecticut. It wasn't Greenwich, connecticut, if you sort of know the zip code of Greenwich and at the time this coach was a raw vegan and he also was a Scientologist and he exposed me to just things that I could tell you that no kid in my town was being exposed to and it was really enlightening. I didn't go on to become a Scientologist, but he took me through some interesting questions and processes and shared his journey of life, and to see someone who was a raw vegan at the age of 13, 14 or so was very influential. And then I had another coach, similarly I mentioned. I grew up in Connecticut.
Dan Gluck:She was the head women's tennis coach at Yale University and I trained with her privately and she also just had a very spiritual approach. She pushed me really hard on the court, don't get me wrong, and she was a masterful coach. But the mind games helping me navigate the mind game was probably her greatest strength. And she also was a very spiritual teacher. She introduced me to Buddhism. She got me a meditation coach. I learned to meditate when I was in junior high school, which is again contrary to anything that anyone was doing at the even just call it in the eighties, but let alone where I grew up. And then the last thing also is sometimes if I wasn't playing well and she could tell I wasn't focused, she would literally make me stop playing. She would stop feeding me balls and take me through like a sun salutation for two minutes or so just to reorient my mind. And so two very influential coaches in my life and having parents who were unconditionally supportive was instrumental.
Klara:What stands out to me listening to you I've actually heard you talk about it on other podcasts, but I couldn't grasp, I think, the full sense of it until now. It's just this wide span of experiences for even the coaches, and whether it's, as you mentioned, the religious beliefs or meditation type of things, and obviously the physical activity always goes with it. But it seems like you've got such a beautiful diversity and foundation of what people nowadays call this health and fitness and wellness, because that's like all of these trends that are kind of becoming now more popular is like meditation asking some of the deep questions connecting to your purpose, knowing your why, and that seems like that really came to you in some ways early on through the influence of your coaches.
Dan Gluck:Very early on and again, as I said, it's been fortunate that I think I'm someone who's been very intentional in my life, very thoughtful. Sure, we can always do better, and that's my goal as a human is to constantly be a better version of myself, but I think it started particularly with these two coaches in my youth. So I feel very fortunate and what I love is I can't say I keep in regular contact with them. It's been now 30 plus 40 years or something 46 years old, but it was like a year ago. I reached out to both of them and just shared with them some of my memories, and every once in in a while I'll exchange an email here or there, and so it's nice that they stick with me.
Dan Gluck:And, frankly, what I've actually noticed is there's a reoccurring theme in that, and we'll talk about this maybe a little later, but in the last two years I started working with an executive coach or a life coach, and this one coach in particular I've been working with has been transformational in my life, in my later years in adult life, and so there's a theme throughout my life of just finding mentors and people that I admire, that I can learn from, be inspired by, and it's something that I'm going to continue to do for myself. It's also a gift that I'm going to certainly give my children, and as a parent, one of my goals is to just find them extremely motivating, talented coaches, whatever type of coach it is, whatever they need and they're looking for. But if my son's a soccer player, I'm going to go find him someone unique, not just on the skill side, but someone who also can sort of serve as a life coach as well. That's a commitment to myself and to my kids.
Klara:Yeah, but I also want to go back touch base on your parents and how amazing it was that they were sort of this open and welcoming to allow you to have these different experiences, because some people, I think, especially when it comes to religion, can get really kind of steered towards their beliefs in one way. So it seems like they've really been, as you mentioned, this unconditional love Perhaps they were coming from, just allowed you to experience and make your own beliefs and find out what fits, and they weren't steering you one or a different direction.
Dan Gluck:Yeah, 100%. They didn't tell me what to believe and I think they wanted me to go on my own journey and explore, and I certainly credit them to making me someone who's more open-minded and tolerant of multiple views out there in the world.
Klara:And so, going back to your tennis experience, I don't know if you still remember what really attracted you to the sport, and I find, obviously I have my own thing in tennis. But talking to other tennis players, I still find that my guests have their own thing that they really enjoy. Do you remember when you put yourself in the shoes of the seventh grader? Was there something specific that made you say, oh, this sport is really great, I want to fully focus on it.
Dan Gluck:I played team sports my whole life and I think anyone who knew me or knows me today would say I'm a great team player, but I think I like the autonomy and the independence you had on a tennis court.
Dan Gluck:It was me against me out on the tennis court, even though you're obviously playing someone else, but you have to be 100% accountable and responsible for how you show up on the court, and so I think there was probably something that I ultimately liked about that level of autonomy and the demands that it required of putting trust in myself. You know I rarely play tennis today which I do want to get back to it but every time I step on a court, I have this like amazing wave of nostalgia and it feels actually like home to me. When I do step on a court, I have this like amazing wave of nostalgia and it feels actually like home to me. When I do step on a court, it feels like home. So I think I just felt comfortable being on a tennis court and I had to be accountable for myself. I think that was just, ultimately, what I enjoyed most.
Klara:Yeah, I'm actually going to play later this evening, so I know what you mean about. When you get on the court, it's almost like your second nature. How often do you play now, dan? You mentioned not very often.
Dan Gluck:Literally never. I've played twice or three times in the past three years, for context, and before that probably was one time in five years. So sadly I just don't play. I've prioritized other fitness endeavors. As I mentioned, I got really into doing triathlons for a period of time and so I was competing at everything from short distance triathlons to doing some Ironmans. In my career I've done several marathons. I do a lot of Spartan races as well. So with a demanding job and with a family I've just deprioritized tennis. But it is something that I keep saying. There will be a point in my life where I'll get back to it. I think I'm getting closer and closer, but somehow all these other initiatives and fitness endeavors just keep taking precedent, maybe because there's newness to some of them.
Dan Gluck:I didn't grow up skiing and I started skiing later in my life. In the last two years I've discovered skiing and I'm obsessed with it, and there's a history and sort of a track record of myself. When I do things I kind of go all in, I'm pretty intense about it, and so my winters now are pretty much all focused on skiing on the weekend, so no time to go play tennis. We're fortunate to live here in the San Francisco Bay Area and drive up to Tahoe on a weekend and ski all weekend. And then also, most recently, I've gotten back into swimming again and I'm currently training for a three and a half mile ocean swim. So there's only so much time in a day that I just haven't prioritized tennis. But it'll come back in my life that I know it's gonna all come full circle. I'll be 9095 winning club championships.
Klara:You have all of these activities that actually take a lot of time and practicing three and a mile swim that takes a lot of hours just itself to get into the swimming routine. I mean running definitely, especially the long distance that you run, and skiing. You can spend the whole weekend, as you mentioned, on the hill and always be excited to ski more, at least for me. So yeah it's tough to prioritize other things.
Dan Gluck:It is, and I would say number one is I've gotten really good about how to be efficient training, you know, in terms of the actual workouts I do, as opposed to just going out when I'm training for a marathon and just slogging out 50, 60 miles a week, working in sprints and hills, so you can compress the time that I'm training. I've also been known for I love solitude on runs. But I've also been known for doing a lot of work calls on casual work calls while I'm running or putting on a weight vest and walking for 30, 40 minutes, just so I get in some miles and reps. And then also, I'm someone who is extremely disciplined how I spend my time. I manage my calendar to the minute.
Dan Gluck:I have an executive assistant that helps manage my calendar. She knows exactly when I want to plan my calls, how I schedule my workday, when I need the time to exercise and frankly, for me there's always these quotes around while everyone's sleeping or it's dark, and that's kind of typically what I do is I'm up early, five in the morning and my workouts are before my kids even wake up, in an ideal world. So headlamps for runs. My pool opens at six. I'm home by 645. If I get in a 3040 minute swim and then see my kids and get to the office pretty quickly thereafter. There's definitely a lot of regimen and strategic planning on my calendar.
Klara:I actually want to connect it back to your upbringing, because it becomes the same when you play tennis or any sport for that matter early on in your childhood. I think a lot of athletes become naturally very effective and very aware of the time investments because you're always shuffling many things school, then practice, back and forth. I actually was listening to some of the podcasts you were on. You were also passionate about entrepreneurship and business early on. You were also passionate about entrepreneurship and business early on. Seems like you're starting your own racket stringing sort of venture when you were in the teenage years. So I'm curious tell me about that synergy and how that idea even came about.
Dan Gluck:My father was a doctor and my mom started her career as a teacher and then sort of scratched her artist itch and did some art for a while and then ultimately translated that into becoming an interior designer. And so sure, they were business-minded, but they weren't running massive companies, they weren't in the corporate world. But I always had an interest in business at a young age and, yes, when I was a young teenager, I started a racket stringing business. It was called Cross Strings and I had business cards. I was making promotional collateral, putting posters and advertisements at all the country clubs, at all the public tennis courts, and created, frankly, quite a business.
Dan Gluck:You probably know from your tennis days for a good racket stringer it takes 20 minutes, 15 minutes to string a racket, and back then in the 1980s or 90s, when I was doing this, I was getting $10 a racket. That was my profit. I would charge $10 for the labor and then for the string costs, and so I was making almost $40 an hour, $30 an hour, which is well above minimum wage today, even, and certainly back then, for a kid who was 13, 14 years old. So I was making real good money and my dad taught me how to keep track of all of the customers. I had a customer spreadsheet sort of tracked all the sales and revenues when people paid me and eventually I became, quote unquote I don't know if I've received any award for this, but I was the main or the official racket stringer for the Yale women's tennis team.
Dan Gluck:Any award for this? But I was the main or the official racket stringer for the Yale women's tennis team I mentioned. One of my coaches was the head coach and a team of typically 12 people on a college team or so. I was getting you know 20 rackets a week or so and hustling down in my basement stringing tennis rackets all year. So it was phenomenal. That was my first I guess you could say entrepreneurial endeavor.
Klara:Yeah, it takes some skill. I actually tried stringing my own tennis rackets because, as you mentioned, it's expensive, even paying somebody else. So we got a stringing machine and I never could figure out the tension to a point where I really actually believed and trusted myself like stringing my own tennis rackets. I probably could have strung for some amateurs, but I didn't get to the 15, 20 minutes that you got done. So that takes a lot of volume. I appreciate just alone to actually get the process down and be swift with your hands getting the string through to get to that 15, 20 minute per racket time. Well done.
Dan Gluck:It was great. And talk about a lifestyle business. Talk about a lifestyle business. I remember in the summer bringing my stringer outside in my backyard and would just stand on my parents deck stringing rackets for two hours or so, making some money in the summers. It was wonderful, Good start to my business career.
Klara:So, transitioning to college years, you ended up accepting a D1 scholarship playing tennis. Tell me a little bit about that transition and even how did you pick the college you chose for yourself?
Dan Gluck:Unfortunately for my parents it was not a scholarship but I did get recruited to play. It was always my dream to play college tennis. I was loving tennis, you know, obviously throughout high school. Interesting stat my last high school tennis match I lost in the state I think it was semifinals to James Blake. Coincidentally, james and I trained together for years and we had the same coach, brian Barker.
Dan Gluck:I grew up playing with James. Actually he was a couple of years younger than me. I was a senior. I think he was a sophomore, so I think it was two years younger than me when he beat me in my last high school match, but I knew I wanted to go on to play college tennis. How I chose the school gosh, it was a long time ago but I don't even know how I ended up there, other than I visited the school, as I was visiting a lot of schools in more predominantly in the Northeast of the United States, and my parents took me on a lot of college tours. I had some friends who went there and also picked a school based on GPA grades tennis.
Dan Gluck:So I guess, if I had to think about it how I chose my school, it started out looking at my grades and looking at my GPA and looking at my SAT scores, what are the schools that I was capable of getting into and fortunately I was a good student and so focused mostly on sort of schools really in the top 20, 30 of the United States.
Dan Gluck:Then it came down to what size school, what type of school and also could I play tennis. And so through that process I had some of the Ivy Leagues as quote unquote my reach schools. So the Ivy, the tennis, was even more competitive than Colgate, even though Colgate was a D1 school and academically and I was kind of on borderline. To be really honest, I probably could have gotten on one of the Penn or Yale teams, probably could have gotten on academically, but it was not a sure thing. And at the time Colgate was kind of a sure thing based on my academics and sort of the team and the coaches' assurance that you're probably getting in based on your tennis and your academics. And so I decided to apply early and after visiting the school, I loved it, met a whole bunch of the students, met a bunch of the players and fell in love with the school.
Klara:How was your experience? How would you sum it up, reflecting on your college tennis years, including again business schedule? Going back to time management as an athlete, you're always shuffling so many things.
Dan Gluck:One thing is that I didn't play all four years and so I did get burnt out after my first year even of playing and so I ended up not playing my full four years, which, looking back on, I typically am someone who doesn't try to have regrets in my life because I'm just going to be happier with where I am today. But I would say it was definitely something I look back on and question whether that was the right choice. It clearly was the right choice because, again, I am where I am and that's the choices you make. You can't change that. Certainly you learn a lot as an athlete, you know, around time management in particular.
Dan Gluck:That was like as much as I was managing my time in high school. I think it was like a real wake up call to manage sort of particularly layering in the social component of college. The school I went to is definitely a very social school and I wanted to also sort of immerse myself in making friends and having some fun along the way, and so definitely a wake up call, but felt like I was relatively prepared and trained for all the time management skills that I needed to apply Overall between my time as a tennis player as well as the time as I wasn't playing. I had a phenomenal college experience. I loved every aspect of my college experience and some of my closest friends that I met during the college years are today. They are my closest friends, which, if nothing else and I can just look back on the bonds and friendships that I created to have a couple of friends that you know will be best friends for life and you've gone through years and years of experiences with then. I'm thankful, if nothing else, for that.
Klara:And so, through college, it seems like you then transitioned right away to the financial and investment management industry. You started after college your first role with Thomson Reuters, which sounds really interesting. So I'm actually even curious based on what you studied, how did you uncover this first role in finance and investment management, how do you reflect on it? And even anything you have taken, as you now shared, from your college and tennis experience that you see helped you excel in that first role? That is, I'm sure, very demanding.
Dan Gluck:So, interestingly enough, I studied both economics and religion at school. Colgate was a liberal arts school, so they didn't even have a finance degree that if you are engineering, if you wanted to pursue that, it was a liberal arts education, which the whole philosophy of liberal arts education is to ultimately train you how to think, and so that's exactly what I did, and it was interesting that I chose religion, because I'm actually not very religious. But I think ultimately all of those influences that we started talking about earlier in the podcast around the coaches that I had introducing me to Scientology, to Buddhism, that ultimately, I think, probably just piqued a curiosity in religion, in philosophy, in psychology, and so yet I still had this sort of business side in me, the entrepreneur who started CrossStrings, and at a very young age I used to have a fascination with the stock market. Interestingly enough, in fact, I was home a year or so ago and my mom had like a scrapbook and I saw a letter or an essay I wrote as like a young kid, as early as like fifth grade or so, talking about my fascination in the stock market. It actually was 1987 because it was about the market crash. I talked all about it and I actually said I want to work in the stock market. I probably really really fully appreciate what that was at age 10.
Dan Gluck:I studied both economics and religion. Ultimately, my first job out of school was in consulting it. It really came through a position, through career services, that a former alum ran a division in this consulting group at Thompson Writers. Previously it was a company called Carson Group. It was a small financial consulting firm. I went through all of the interviews for investment banking, which a lot of people you know the traditional large banks and the reality was I really had an affinity and an attraction to a smaller organization and there's a. I really had an affinity and an attraction to a smaller organization and there's a recurring theme of that. In my entire career I really have never gone and worked for a large you know fortune 500, you know size of company. I've always appreciated a more intimate type of setting and somewhere where, frankly, that I feel like I can have more responsibility, more autonomy and shine a bit more, which maybe goes back to what I was saying, what I appreciate about tennis and being on the court. So I spent a year there, really enjoyed it and worked with some amazing people and then just coincidentally got an opportunity to go and transition to the buy side and go over to the hedge fund industry and at the end of the day, I realized, after being in consulting, I learned a lot at the time, but I still had a real interest in investing. That was really as I said. I was doing a lot of day trading and just investing on my own, with my boss actually, who was my boss of my group. He was a couple of years older and he also was very interested in the markets, and so while we're at work on the side, I'm also managing a portfolio. And then when I got the opportunity to go to a hedge fund, I was obviously really excited about that and so I took that opportunity to go there, and that was only one year after I'd worked.
Dan Gluck:And I'll share one story that I'm always proud of sharing and I think it tells a lot about who I am and going back to a little about the influence I had from my parents.
Dan Gluck:But when I started my first job, my dad said I'm going to give you one piece of advice as you start your career, and he said you're the first person there and the last person to leave, and I did that every single day for a year.
Dan Gluck:So when I left my consulting firm and I can't make this story up when I told the senior boss that I was leaving, she literally said wow, she's like, I can't believe that. She's like. It seemed like you're so happy here. You're always the first guy here and the last guy to leave and she goes. Well, actually it makes sense that you're leaving now that I think about that. But I went home and I told my dad that and he said he just like nodded his head and he said, yep, that's the type of work ethic you want to have in life, and so I've always had that mentality and so that served me very well. So it was a great start to my career, worked with some great people and again, that persistent attitude working long hours, putting in effort paid off and set me up for the next 15 years of my career.
Klara:I do want to go a little bit deeper into the consulting, because you made it sound like studying religion and economics naturally led to consulting, which I don't see the connection there in some ways to extremes. But how did that lead you, dan, towards that? I'm curious.
Dan Gluck:My mom used to always say. She said you're either going to become a park ranger or someone working on Wall Street. Or someone working on Wall Street and for whatever reason. As I was in my junior and senior year and started working with career services and developing a vision for what my future would look like, it was pretty clear that I wanted to move in the direction of business, and so through that I started doing typically all the big banks and consulting firms come and interview on campus, and so I started getting exposure to investment banking and consulting and ultimately chose the consulting route. There wasn't that much more to it than that.
Klara:And my sister is in actually investment banking. I do know she has a lot of friends in consulting and so being first person in and last person out, that's some really long hours. When did you have to be in the office and when were you leaving then?
Dan Gluck:Now you're asking me a question from 24 years ago, but I don't know what the exact hours were. But I worked long hours and I did the same thing at my hedge fund for a long time, to the point where I literally kept a pillow in my office and would often sleep overnight, not just like a nap, but I did many overnights just because I'd be at the office till 10 o'clock at night, just like a nap. But I did many overnights just because I'd be at the office till 10 o'clock at night and I just say might as well not even go home, because I need to be back in at seven, literally just. You know, in New York you could just order food to your office and have a dinner and I'd just sleep under my desk.
Klara:I'm actually curious about your perspective as you look back and your what seems really successful as well 15 years in the investment management industry. Again, I'm looking at it from a lens of my sister, just kind of peeking in and seeing what she's going through. To me it looks like a very hierarchical type of industry and organization to where you're literally almost at the beginning, go through this burnout to where it's like the toughest ones who survive. It seems like early on they just put you through so much and you work until three and four that I know many people actually can't even handle it physically. So especially if you're someone who needs a lot of sleep, it's not a job for you. And those people sort of drop out early on within the first one, two, three years and sort of the ones that survived the first two, three years. Then you kind of progress and climb the hierarchy. But how do you reflect? And even anybody who's looking to maybe enter the industry or is part of it, what are your tips? Looking at it retrospectively?
Dan Gluck:You've got to really want it 100% because you are going to work really long hours, you're going to work hard and you're going to be pushed, and so you've got to want it. And for whatever reason, I think I'm just someone who's used to going back to sort of my personality, what I learned as an athlete I like being pushed when I get into something. I just want to do the best I can. I want to prove to myself, I want to prove to other people, and so I just took that mentality. So at the time it was kind of an afterthought where I wasn't sitting there saying this sucks, this was, it was my decision. We all have a choice in life to decide how we want to spend our time. My parents didn't tell me to do that. I think they thought like it was crazy, probably, and so it was just all self-motivated of this is what I want to do. This is exciting to me. I love the nature of the deal and also what I would share is I worked really long, hard hours at my hedge fund, but again, it was all self-motivated. The head of my firm, a gentleman by the name of George Weiss, who just last week, after 42 years of running the hedge fund announced that he was retiring and shutting down the firm. But he was retiring and shutting down the firm, but he was an amazing individual and an amazing human and an amazing investor who had been wildly successful, making tons of money, an incredible philanthropist and someone who really believed in treating his employees as humans, whereas a lot of investment banking firms and hedge funds did not do that. That's probably if I could actually give not only myself credit, but certainly can give him credit for creating a culture that was very unique in finance.
Dan Gluck:A story that I can share is that during my first review, I was two years out of college. I spent one year there. There was only about, at the time when I joined, 19 people at the firm. So again, history of and track record of finding small, more intimate places where you're treated with respect and you can be valued and you can get a lot of autonomy and have independence. So there was only about 19 or 20 people and I reported to another person. But at the end of the year, george sat down with me for a year in review and after my review I got up to shake his hand and say thank you and he grabbed my hand, but he pulled me in and gave me a hug, and after my review, I got up to shake his hand and say thank you, and he grabbed my hand, but he pulled me in and gave me a hug and he said we don't shake hands, you're part of the family, and I think it was.
Dan Gluck:When you have someone like that working on Wall Street, who was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, treating you though like a human and a family member and being compassionate and empathetic, that's probably contributed equally to sort of just my desire to win and work hard, because I worked for just a really good person and all the people at the firm. I think that they were there for that reason as well, whereas there are certainly people who had gone through our firm and left to maybe go to bigger firms, or maybe they could have made more money even but if you really wanted to sort of have a different type of relationship with your co-workers, then it made a lot of sense, and so I think that that contributed to my longevity, and that's also. As we talk a little about my current firm, I'd like to think we have a very unique culture within private equity and how we're treating our employees and how I think about employees because of how I was treated and respected.
Klara:I'm actually wondering. There's so much talks about bad culture. Now it seems like you are really I don't want to say lucky, but in some ways mindful where you're going to. So any other tips of helping people find that leader or that company that fits them? Because it seems like what really stands out to me as I'm listening to you. You were aware quite early on of like the environments that are a fit for you and were able to find them and then distill, I guess, from the job chaos which ones are better fit versus aren't?
Dan Gluck:Yes, it's definitely something that I've been very intentional about and thinking about. What type of environment do I thrive in? What are the feelings that I want when I show up to work? Who are the types of people I want to work with? What is my personal mission? What is the firm's mission?
Klara:What are my?
Dan Gluck:values? What are the firm's values? How do they work? What are the expectations? Is it hierarchical or is that more of a meritocracy?
Dan Gluck:And you talked about the hierarchical nature of a lot of finance firms. Fortunately, I worked at a firm for 15 years that was not hierarchical. Typically, in the pecking order of the hedge fund world, you have portfolio manager, you have analyst and you have trader. Typically that's kind of like the pecking order, so to speak. And what was interesting is, by the time I was 30, I was a portfolio manager and I had analysts who were actually older than me. And so if you did well and you were someone who proved yourself as I don't like saying this in those terms, but a moneymaker, which is what you needed to be in the hedge fund industry, you were awarded a lot of independence and autonomy. So I was managing my own team at a very young age and I said I had people working for me. You're older, so there was very little hierarchical structure.
Dan Gluck:The firm that I worked at for 15 years, which I thrived in and again, so, going back to your question, you have to know where you do well and some people like working within that regimented pattern and say, oh well, if I start here and do this and I jump through this hoop and I get here and I see my path, I don't think I looked at it as linearly. So I think there's a lot of work to be done. In fact, we have an operating advisor that works with us by the name of Andre Martin, and he just published a book called Wrong Fit, right Fit, and it's exactly about this. It's not just necessarily everyone talks about culture and saying, oh, I want to work in a firm that before you just say, oh well, they've got a great mission or vision, you need to understand what resonates with you and set yourself up for success in that type of environment. So I think, yes, I've been very thoughtful and intentional about that.
Dan Gluck:That's what I certainly would encourage most people to do, and I'll give a pitch for his book. He actually takes you through in his book what he calls excursions, and it's a whole chapter dedicated to questions that you can ask yourself and it's almost like a questionnaire that even has a Mad Libs-like form to fill out that ultimately spits out sort of a bit of a framework for you to really understand what type of workplace and what type of job even is most appropriate for you, and I think there's also for young kids, students or whatnot. There's plenty of resources, books or career services that they at least do tests like these. You can do personality assessments right Enneagrams, myers-briggs there's a lot of different assessments you could do to really just start understanding how you work, who you are, what your goals are.
Klara:Yeah, I'll check out the book. Thanks for the recommendation.
Dan Gluck:I'll send you a copy. We've got a bunch of copies here at the office.
Klara:Thank you. That'd be fantastic. I appreciate it, but I do want to go one more back to your career on the health warrior and you deciding to start your own business, because I totally see, as you're explaining your path, this entrepreneurship kind of the drive towards health fitness. It seems like you discovered chia seeds, going back to even your upbringing raw vegan, but at the same time, you have had this what seems like amazing culture, amazing job and career through your investment management, industry and background. So what was that jump about and what made you decide you know what 15 years in this industry is great? You decide you know what 15 years in this industry is great.
Dan Gluck:I'm now going to start and build something on my own. The seeds for starting this company, health Warrior that I co-founded began with a book, a book called Born to Run, which is all about this tribe that lives in the Copper Mountains of Mexico. They're known as the Tar Humana and they're known for their incredible endurance running feats. Their whole society revolves around running because they live in the mountains and the only way they can get around places is by foot. And then they were discovered because they started entering sanctioned ultra endurance races. And there was a writer who started covering ultra endurance marathons and discovered these men and women running these 100 mile races, wearing these flowing robes and running barefoot most of the time. So he ended up writing this book Born to Run, which most people ultimately know. Born to Run for just this incredible story of the Tarahumara, but also for the barefoot runners, because that was what they were known for. And then, if you recall, 15 years ago or so, the Vibram five-finger shoes that became popular. So much of that was all because of this book that came out and talking about the natural way to run is barefoot, and if you look at modern shoes, it puts you in an unnatural foot position. So, anyway, in the book, though, they also talk about the health benefits of chia seeds, because all of these runners would consume chia seeds during their run. Those were their energy gels, so to speak, and so, as at the time I was training for Ironmans and I was naturally intrigued by chia seeds, started consuming them myself, noticing a real difference in terms of my energy levels, and then I started telling a lot of people about them. My sister said I stopped drinking coffee because I felt so good, and it became part of her daily habit, and at the time it was just myself and one of my business partners at my hedge fund. We started. We're experimenting together with the GSDs. He was a former D1 football player and he was also noticing the health benefits, and so together we said there's a business opportunity here.
Dan Gluck:One of the ways I was inspired was I was an early investor in a beverage brand called Zico Coconut Water, which we'll come to because it comes full circle, because now my business partner at Ground Force was the founder of Zico Coconut Water, which his name is Mark Rampolla. What Mark had done with Zico was take a product that was indigenous to another part of the world coconut water, extremely healthy and relatively unknown in the United States, and he said I'm going to brand it and bring this to the US, and had tremendous success with that. So I saw what Mark had done with Zico and coconut water, and my business partner, nick, and I said we can do this with chia seeds, and so we sought out to go start this company. What we realized, though, is obviously starting a company while running a hedge fund is very demanding. And in comes my old college roommate and best friend at the time and currently today, who was in between jobs, and we said hey, we think we have an interesting business opportunity here. We're really busy working. You know our day job, so to speak. We can't take calls with, you know, people from Mexico and Bolivia trying to source chia seeds in the middle of the trading hours. That's not very responsible, and we said why don't you help us?
Dan Gluck:From that moment on, shane joined us, initially just sort of a consultant, but ultimately became a co-founder with us, when we all officially said let's go launch this business, and so Shane actually became the CEO, nick and I decided, actually, we were not going to leave our day jobs Just like hedge fund traders. We hedged ourselves and we decided to keep our day jobs, which was paying the bills to fund the business. And we funded the business for at least the first year and put in a decent amount of capital to get it off the ground to pay Shane. Obviously, shane had equity in the business, with us as an owner in the business and from that moment on we were very instrumental in the business, but we weren't running it day to day.
Dan Gluck:So I kind of got to eat my cake and with this expression yeah, have my cake and eat it too. By still maintaining my investment role at a large hedge fund but also now having this entrepreneurial endeavor on the side. And I was very involved early on in the development of the company. I was part of interviewing every single candidate. I was part of the ideation of the brand name, sitting there with the marketing firm when candidate. I was part of the ideation of the brand name sitting there with the marketing firm when we came up with the name Health Warrior and looked at 50 other names and designs. It was really exciting that we were building this business on the side and I got to be involved in the ideation and the startup phase but also still was able to maintain my role as a partner at the hedge fund.
Klara:I'm curious how much the hedge fund and obviously understanding the investments and financial world helped you in taking on, then building your own company, Health Warrior. And if you look at that, are there also some things that, oh, I haven't anticipated this. Maybe actually building my own company is not as easy, while I do have all of this financial and probably you had access to CEO and very influential people who are building successful businesses what it's like to actually have and live your own experience.
Dan Gluck:Yeah, it's a great question, and what I would say is the biggest realization for me was the human capital side of business and managing people and personalities, because our hedge fund, while we were a multi-billion dollar hedge fund and even when we had 30 or $50 million positions in companies, we were investing predominantly in mid and large cap companies, and so I'm not involved in running the company. I'm looking at sort of their financials, I'm looking at industry trends. I'm not so close to the companies that I understand all of the underworkings of how their team is coming together and the time and attention it requires to keep the team happy, to keep them motivated, to keep processes moving forward, and so I think that was probably the biggest wake-up call for me was how to find talent, how to manage talent and then how to retain talent as well, and so I think that was sort of the biggest wake-up call to me and I'm going to say something that might sound a little controversial but I'm going to share it because it is something that I've seen. But you talked about sort of the demands in finance. What I also learned is that while people are very committed in finance and banking and the hedge fund world to work a 60, 70, 80, sometimes 90 hour weeks. That's not so much in a lot of other roles and so I think my expectations of employees we started hiring were probably like wait, why aren't you working around the clock? Why aren't you answering emails at midnight when I'm sending an email?
Dan Gluck:So it took some adjustment to understand that not everyone wants to dedicate their entire life to a business. That said, I think we found some really passionate people that we created work-life balance. But they really were passionate about what we were doing and I think we had a company that was motivating them to work hard and created the right incentives and gave everyone equity in the company on our team and gave them certain adventure days because it was a very health oriented business, and so adventure days were days where you could just take a random day off and go skiing if there was great powder and you're on the West Coast, but then we just asked you team member to come back and report on it, share pictures, write a little story about it. So I think we created a great culture where people were motivated to work hard, but that was definitely also a bit of a surprise for me.
Klara:I want to touch on what you mentioned of market trends. So I'm curious, because you've been doing this financial analysis and investments when you were investing your own money to Health Warrior and you feel like, oh, this really should work, were you actually doing some of the analysis as well on the market? Or was it all just intuition? Because you've had that background, you've maybe seen what's happening in the world and you so believed in it.
Dan Gluck:And certainly in the investment management industry, whether it's today and or at my fund, intuition is not the way you invest. They always talk about emotionless investing. Everything we did was rooted in a lot of financial analysis, a lot of trend analysis, a lot of data analysis. When I really think about how we started Healthware, there was definitely a lot more probably intuition and gut as it relates to sort of the business, and it was something that I think I had a pretty good pulse on the market. I knew where trends were moving in terms of people were looking for better for you product.
Dan Gluck:As I said, I had this intimate knowledge of my current business partner, mark's business, zico. There are a few other businesses that I was watching emerge in brands, and vitamin water was like a huge success. That was a better for you Gatorade, so to speak, and a better for you hydration product. At the end of the day, it's still not better for you at all really, but at the time it was, and so I think I saw a lot of data points, but I wouldn't say this was such a quantitative, top-down driven decision where I said, okay, here are all the trends and here's the next superfood that's going to emerge. We found chia seeds, we knew the trends were moving in the favor of people, moving towards better for you and healthy snacking and nutrition.
Dan Gluck:And we said let's do this.
Klara:And so in 2018, you have been able to build impressive company it seems like a fantastic culture and you decide to sell it to PepsiCo and exit. And now you started and co-founded Grand First Capital. But I'm actually curious about the reasons for the exit. How did it feel? Because one thing is, once you exit, obviously hopefully you got amazing amount of money for it. But that exit of building something from scratch and then leaving it, what was that feeling like?
Dan Gluck:While we were self-funding for the first year or two, we then raised friends and family capital and then we did raise money from a private equity firm. And so the reality is and I can say this as someone who understood this, going in to having taking private equity money as well as now being on that side of private equity when you take private equity money, there is a gun to head at some point, typically where their model relies around selling businesses and returning capital to their investors. And so I knew that at some point we were going to be selling this company and I, frankly, was okay with it from the perspective. I knew what their business model was and I knew what the return expectations they had for their business and also, frankly, I also was looking at this as an entrepreneurial endeavor that I was looking I'm not embarrassed to say to make money. And so if I could sell the business and make a certain amount of money for myself, for my investors, for my friends and family, then I thought that would be a wonderful success. And then you'd like to think and we could talk a little about this that when you do sell to a large company like Pepsi, they have even farther reach to bring what we believe was a genuinely much healthier product on the market to the masses.
Dan Gluck:It didn't work out that well, ultimately because Pepsi didn't do much with the brand, and so there was some remorse around that in seeing that the brand kind of died under Pepsi's ownership.
Dan Gluck:But at the end of the day, I was very comfortable with saying this is a business and we have investors and that's what their goals are, and so when the time came to selling, there was some controversy.
Dan Gluck:You know at the time that we sold the business because, candidly, we had inbound interest from Pepsi and Nestle and a few other companies, just because our brand was growing really quickly. We were, at the time, the number one bestselling bar in the natural channel. Chia was like, if you look back to sort of 2017, 18, it was always being called like the hottest food trend, like always like the top five for those two years. So we got you want to call it lucky, you want to call it forward-looking but we just happened to have a company that was in the right place at the right time and so we had a lot of interest. Myself and my partners wanted to hold onto it for another two years, but at the end of the day, private equity firm had more consent rights with respect to what the ultimate outcome was for this company, and so they said this is the time to sell when you have bidders knocking on your door, you hit the bid and, frankly, they were right At the time.
Dan Gluck:As I said, there was some tension and looking back on it as a founder, as well as now sitting in my seat today, I think it was the right choice and again, everything works out for a reason because it ultimately was a great springboard for me to then go start a new career in doing what I'm doing today investing in emerging food and beverage and food service and food tech companies. So maybe we sold and left some money on the table, but it all works out because I wouldn't be where I am today.
Klara:Yeah, let's dive into that experience, because even looking at your career on LinkedIn and obviously listening to you, it literally seems like the quote from Steve Jobs you can't connect the dots looking forward, but you can always connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust in something like karma, and it just seems so beautiful how everything you've described from back your beginning and upbringing seems like really converging now, including your experience through investment industry and building your own business to now being the co-founder and managing partner of GrandForce, which I've looked at your website and I love what you guys do and the principles, obviously, how you invest. So tell listeners a little bit more about that and even maybe what the name stands for.
Dan Gluck:Yeah, happy to do that, but I'll interject real quickly. When you just talked about Steve Jobs quote, that's great and it reminds me of someone who I am very inspired by. So I have in front of me in my office I have what I call an inspiration wall and it's all pictures of people, or I have some book covers on there. I have a letter that my son wrote me that inspired me, and one of the photos that I'm looking at now is it's a triptych of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a bodybuilder, as the Terminator and as the governor.
Dan Gluck:And I'm so inspired by what he's done because, first off, I'm sure when he was a bodybuilder he never thought he was going to be an actor, and when he was an actor he probably never thought he was going to be the governor of California. And it turns out that he just excelled in all of these different areas in three very distinct careers. But if you look back now, been able to connect the dots forward to what he's achieved over his last 70 years or so, that's been very inspiring to me. I actually never heard that quote, but I love that. I'm going to go find if he gave that in a speech. That certainly resonates with me.
Klara:I'll share this speech with you and have it saved.
Dan Gluck:Please To answer your question. You asked about ground force. What does it stand for? So, first off, the history of our firm is that it's evolved quite a bit, and I joined a couple of years ago as the fourth partner in a firm that was previously known as Power Plant Ventures, where we were investing predominantly in businesses focused around plant-based nutrition. The thesis was, ultimately, that plant-based nutrition was better for human health as well as for planetary health, and so I had some partners who started a first fund focusing exactly on that. I joined when we were raising our second fund, but ultimately, for various reasons, it evolved to the point where two of my partners decided to step away from the business.
Dan Gluck:My partner, mark, and I decided that we were going to move forward, and we ultimately decided we wanted to change our strategy, to broaden our strategy, we wanted to change our name.
Dan Gluck:We hired pretty much an entire new team, and so today we're operating under Ground Force, and when Mark and I were thinking about sort of the name, we worked with a marketing agency, and we ultimately had two main messages that we wanted to convey.
Dan Gluck:Everything we do as a firm, everything is 100% commercially driven from a financial return perspective, but we also do, as you see, have this sort of halo around us, around impact, and we genuinely want to continue to focus on businesses that are focused on promoting human health as well as sustainability from a climate and environmental perspective.
Dan Gluck:And so we said we need a name that is able to convey our rigorous focus on returns and our disciplined approach to investing, much like a Goldman Sachs, a Blackstone, a BlackRock.
Dan Gluck:But we also want to make sure that we convey a message to our constituents that we do care deeply about the types of businesses that we're investing in, that there's a greater purpose behind our investments, that we're really clear on what our mission and vision is for improving the world as it relates to people and planet. And we said think of brands like Patagonia as inspiration, and so that was sort of what we shared with the marketing agency, and, after a long process, we landed on the name Ground Force, which ultimately stands for and a tagline we came up is grounded in excellence and a force for good, and so we think it completely marries the two main goals and priorities that we have as investors. And so we're really excited about the name, the name change and the brand, and as are the team, and it's been just a wonderful rallying cry for us as we plant sort of a flag in the earth here with this new fund and this new team and this new strategy.
Klara:And it sounds amazing. Actually, as you say, you did a great job, and so can you share a little bit more about what you're actually investing in and what are you most optimistic about? I know, again, this is an area that you're deeply passionate. Any of the trends, even perhaps, as we think of generative AI now LLMs everybody talks about that right, your investment and sustainability specifically, or health and fitness, and just a few contradictions perhaps this ozempic drugs and obesity rising. I just read an article, an email came. There's more than 1 billion people, or one in eight people, worldwide that are now estimated to have obesity, which is based on a new study. So some of these numbers are just astounding. Right, so there's a lot of things we can do about it personally, but yeah, how are you thinking about it from investment perspective?
Dan Gluck:Yeah, and, by the way, your statistics even more alarming if you add not only obesity but just overweight. Overweight and obese is something like 70% of the US population today. It's atrocious, it's a major problem. It is complex. I can't say I have all the answers, but certainly what I do believe in is the food system is one area that can be and needs to be fixed.
Dan Gluck:There is scientific evidence that food certainly contributes to all of the chronic diseases that we're currently plagued with, from diabetes to cardiovascular disease to obesity can all be prevented and actually reversed through nutrition. Of course, there are outliers. I'm not going to argue that every single person could be with diabetes or cardiovascular disease can cure it through nutrition, but I'm going to go on the record probably saying 90% of these ailments can be treated with food and proper nutrition. And so some of the biggest trends that have to take place forget even that are taking place but it's the movement away from ultra processed foods. I mean that is, you know, I think one of the number one killers in our society today is people eating packaged food that is just laden with seed oils and other unnutritious ingredients that don't serve anyone well. And so I think that one of the biggest trends, as I said, is just this movement away from ultra processed foods.
Dan Gluck:I think an area as it relates to that, as you get away from that and you move to food, is medicine, this whole concept, and I think there are some interesting companies out there that are creating solutions where they're creating meals and platforms that will ultimately become medically reimbursed by health insurers.
Dan Gluck:I think that's a great start and I think that's a huge area of development in an area we're spending a lot of time on. It's still early and nascent, but there are companies that are emerging and drug companies are beginning to wake up to understand that this is a solution and probably is even a more cost-effective solution than a lot of the other treatments that they have vis-a-vis drugs, particularly GLP-1s, which obviously, on Zempik, we've seen sort of a lot of talk in the marketplace. I think GLPs are being abused and they're not the solution for diabetes or weight loss. As I said, I strongly believe that most chronic diseases can be prevented and or reversed with proper nutrition and exercise. Taking a pill is not the long-term solution. In fact, I've seen some studies even that have proven that you lose up to 60% of your lean body mass on GLPs, and 90% of those patients actually end up just regaining the weight back, and so I think that isn't the solution in my mind and, as I said, I think with the right nutrition people can solve a lot of these problems.
Klara:Yeah, so thinking about where we go from this next 2024 is here. There's lots that's happening, including election year. People are struggling with weight. There's the Gen AI technology people are worried that it will replace us. What are some of the things that you think people should be doing more of or less of and you can take this from any angle, whether even you want to look at it for your investment lens where do you think are some of the opportunities that each of us can take action and get just a bit better?
Dan Gluck:My simple answer, but I know it's always not so simple for people to execute on, but it's more exercise, more sleep, more healthy eating, more introspective thinking, more healthy reading and less social media. That would be my sort of my thoughts around that. Yeah, you've got to be really disciplined and I think, with the right discipline around, taking care of your physical and mental health is so beneficial and yet it's so hard for so many people. I'd actually say for myself, I don't know what it is, whether I'm just call it lucky, but for whatever it is, I've always had some sort of ease with finding discipline in my life. And it's interesting.
Dan Gluck:Someone recently asked me who's overweight and suffering from type two diabetes and came to me saying like you know, just I'm really struggling with it because I'm really having a tough time eating healthy and staying motivated to exercise.
Dan Gluck:He's like how do you do it? And I actually didn't say this to him, but the reality is and I was embarrassed to say this is, I have the opposite problem. I have a really tough time not exercising and eating unhealthy. Because I eat unhealthy, I feel terrible, I feel guilty and if I don't exercise I'm grumpy and I also don't feel well. So it's almost like a hard for me to even comprehend how someone wouldn't find it easy, because I feel so much better and maybe it's just that some people never get the chance to know how good you can feel when you are eating well and when you're taking care of your mind and you're reading quality books and quality research or whatever it might be, versus wasting time scrolling on Instagram and TikTok and watching mindless TV shows. But for me, the feeling is euphoric, so I would just encourage people to go and spend some time create those habits, because once you start it's hard to stop, as you know.
Klara:Yeah.
Dan Gluck:Those healthy habits. Frankly, I just can't imagine not being able to do that.
Klara:We've talked about it with some of my guests on some other podcasts and I always ponder about that too and I also wonder, just because the experience you have so early in the childhood of understanding the benefits of the activity and how you felt, if you actually do it early on, it just allows you to tap into understanding your potential and how different that feeling is?
Dan Gluck:I would think so. I mean there's certainly a lot of studies from an academic perspective about the benefits of the earlier you start in school, the more benefits you have throughout, depending on certain indicators and markers in the educational system. So I would assume that translates to mental health, to physical health as well.
Klara:Yeah, speaking of I think there's a lot of just talks about the younger generation and some of the mental challenges they're struggling. I personally really believe if they just work out more and add more activity, they will actually be better off and they will have less time for exactly what you mentioned social media and you thinking about some of the mental problems, because running on the court, I think, especially in tennis, going back to where we started I just was so exhausted all the time because you spent all your energy chasing the yellow tennis ball that you don't have much time to think about some other problems. But, dan, it's been such a fantastic conversation. I could talk to you for hours and I know you have a busy schedule back to back and very disciplined and organized. So maybe any last things you want to share with the world and how can people find you or what's the best way to follow you? Anybody who wants to get in touch?
Dan Gluck:Great, I really appreciate it Also could likewise keep this conversation going for a lot longer. I look forward to following up with you and getting on the tennis court too. As far as people following me, I've become a bit more active on LinkedIn lately, so you can find me on LinkedIn and I've been sharing some of my thoughts around leadership and business and you can follow me there.
Klara:Excellent. I'll add it to the episode notes and I conquer. I enjoy reading your posts, so please continue. They're fun and insightful.
Dan Gluck:Great, thank you.
Klara:Thank you. Have a great day. If you enjoyed this episode, I want to ask you to please do two things that would help me greatly. One, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, spotify or any other podcasting platform that you use to listen to this episode. Two, please share this podcast with a friend who you believe might enjoy it as well. It is a great way to remind someone you care about them by sharing a conversation they might be interested in. Thank you for listening.
