Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food: Full Episode Transcript - Derek Wallace Introduction

Hello everyone. Welcome to Question Everything, a podcast all about learning from the successes and failures of those who dared to question everything well. This podcast is part interview, part therapy, and a little price is Right. We even have our own game board stacked with questions that'll make even the most successful CMOs totally sweat. I'm your host, Ashley Walters, chief Development Officer, and partner here at Curiosity. On today's episode, I sit down with Derek Wallace, who's the co-founder and CEO of Kalamata's Kitchen. In this episode, he shares why being afraid of doing nothing should scare you more than doing something bold. How can being a working parent actually benefit your career, and why can having a villain be as powerful as having an advocate? So grab a bowl of dolls and sit down because Derek's story of creating a fictional character, think Doro The Explorer meets Anthony Bourdain, captivates adults and kids alike.

Derek Wallace is the co-founder and CEO of Kalamata's Kitchen. But getting there wasn't as easy as pulling up to a drive-through. He spent most of his career in sales and marketing leadership, driving his bosses crazy and proposing concepts he was told were too outlandish and too bold. What Derek didn't realize at the time is at his core, he was an entrepreneur. After finding inspiration in the unlikeliest of places IE, season two, episode one of Chef's Table. Can't wait to dig into that. Derrick came up with his boldest idea, yet his vision was to help kids and grownups explore new cultures through adventures with food. With help from a girl named Kata, Derrick has spent every waking minute since working with the most talented and selfless people he's ever met to create a more curious and compassionate generation of eaters using food as a way to introduce them to new experiences. Welcome, Derek.

Hello, Ashley. How are you today?

I am so good. A little hungry, but I have been looking forward to this conversation. How are you?

Derek Wallace: I'm great. I've listened to all your podcasts, and I'm getting people hungry talking about food. That's part of what we do. So I hope that you have lunch plans for after this because if we do our job right, you're gonna be hungry.

I am door-dashing something now. I'm excited. So you and I go way back. I was like counting. I'm like at least 10 years, right? You were actually my client when you were in the corporate world, which I know we'll talk a little bit about today. And then we just recently reconnected. I kind of, I saw what you were doing, and we've been, you know, LinkedIn friends for a while and you reached out, and you actually sent my three little girls. So seven, five, and two. A little surprise from Kalamata, and it has literally changed the game for us in the kitchen. My five-year-old. I know I sent you a little video. She, she wasn't very Mm, let's just say she eats like chicken fingers and mac and cheese. It has to be pretty much white, right? For her to eat it. And I remember Christmas morning, we always make brunch for my family, and she was in the kitchen touching raw bacon and helping me make bacon, which was just like a 90-degree shift from where she was just a few days before that in her little Kamata apron. So, I know I have seen the benefits of this incredible business you're building.

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — From Kitchen Failures to Culinary Adventures

Derek Wallace: Well, I appreciate hearing that you sent me the video of your daughter, and those things just make our day. I mean, we do this to see the joy on kids' faces as they're going on the adventures themselves. What we do is we make the adventure their idea, Mom and Dad telling you to do something. It doesn't get a kid excited to try something, but if it's their idea in an adventure they're driving, then that's super exciting. So, thank you for making our day with that video. It was really awesome.

Yeah. Now, something I actually know about you is that you were terrible at cooking growing up, right? Like your mom, your parents used to joke that you couldn't even boil water without instructions. And now you've co-founded a multimedia children's property focused on food. You've been featured on lots of different news networks. You partnered with Chobani, which is a massive shift. How did that happen? What are you working on today?

Derek Wallace shared his story of how terrible he was at cooking when he was a child: 

I've always had a passion for food, at least in my adult life. Like exploring the world through adventures with food was a huge passion of mine, but I couldn't cook at all. And I think that that's probably why I am actually a pretty good home chef now. I think a lot of people would say I'm, I'm better than I give myself credit for. But there were really two things that came from that. First of all, I realized that being in the kitchen and things like that is all about confidence. And I think that there's a lot you can learn about taking risks in the kitchen and trying things and not worrying if things are measured. Exactly. That was something I didn't understand about cooking. But really, Kalamata's kitchen came from my passion for trying. One of the things that we focus on with Kalamata's Kitchen is encouraging kids to try things for the first time the second time.

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — A Commitment to Meaningful Impact

Derek Wallace: So where the world is whole of things around kids and cooking, many of which are super awesome, we're huge fans of the things that support kids cooking in the kitchen, but we also want kids trying things. And we are really more the kid's trying brand than the kids' cooking brand. So the things we're working on are all about, as you mentioned, our hero is Kata. Her sidekick is her stuffed alligator Aldente, who everybody loves, but it's all about using those characters to inspire kids to explore the world, both in their own community, nearby things, in their friends' lunchboxes, all the way to actually traveling to places. So comes to life through a book series. We have an animated series in development and a live-action series in development. We're always coming up with new digital content we put out there. We are just finalists for a James Beard award, which I think fully brought my life full circle because I have such a passion for this industry and somehow figured out a way for our team to get recognized for a James Beard Award without ever needing to cook something professionally. So that's back to your original question. My family would be proud that I get food recognition, even though I've never been a professional chef.

Derek Wallace: Camp Boil Water wins a James Beard Award. That is an evolution. We are finalists. But we are not winners. Genuinely, there are no winners and no losers, so we had a great tag.

That's true. All right, well, you know how this podcast works. We have a game board ready for you with 12 spicy questions, and the adventure is in your hands. You get to choose kind of where and how we go from here.

Awesome. Well, let's, let's roll with number five. 

Number five, okay. You live by the mantra. Everything we do has to bring something valuable to the world that's big. Tell me more about that.

Derek Wallace: Actually, I think that some of this actually, again, is really sort of born in some of the experiences that we had working together in the past. I think that the environment that I was a part of at that time often created something because we have the capability to create it but not necessarily match it with a need that's valuable to somebody. Also, I'm just inspired to add as much value to every interaction that we have, whether it's a child or one of their parents, as possible. So, from minute one, it was always about how we needed everything that we did to feel beautiful to a user. Whether it was something that we were creating digitally, whether it was a book we were putting in people's hands, we're currently published with the largest publisher in the world, but we self-published our first three books, which means that we had to figure out that entire process and make sure that we could overcome an obstacle of people thinking that self-published books were all POD, NDA band, not beautiful experiences.

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — Every Touchpoint Matters

Derek Wallace: So everything that we've done, we've thought very intentionally about what it does do for the family. How does it get a kid excited, and how does the physical delivery or the visual or audio delivery of it feel super special and beautiful to somebody? Because either something has to be entirely different than anything else people have seen, or it has to be the very best version of what it is. We try to balance those two things and make sure that people remember us people it is a crowded, loud world. They need to remember us. And we hope that we've done a good job of bringing, you know, value to people in every single touchpoint across our brand.

I love that. It's a very selfless act. I think a lot of brands can learn from that. Startups, even really successful brands. When you bring that kind of selfless mentality to the table, it's mutually beneficial because you can bring something very valuable to the world and then also make a profit from it. It's not one or the other.

Derek Wallace’s example: 

You know, I'll give you one small example of this. I was working with someone early on, and it was, it was someone who I really respected from a business perspective, and they were looking at the packaging that we were considering introducing. And it was expensive. We were investing, we were bootstrapping, we were investing our own dollars into it. And the box that we were gonna be shipping in, they said, you don't need this. Just do a white box with a sticker on it. And it reminded me of previous people that I had reported through. I thought to myself, if I showed them the least expensive box we could ship in, they would say, go find a less expensive box . 'cause It doesn't matter. That part of the experience doesn't matter. And I didn't believe that. I believe that every single part of the experience, from when someone purchased it to when it landed at their doorstep to how they opened it, made a difference as to whether people would remember us and believe in us and tell people about us or whether we were just somebody else in the world trying to sell something that people wouldn't remember.

So I remember this very important, influential business person giving me that advice and me deciding not to take it.

That's excellent advice. All right. Back to the game board.

I'm gonna jump to number nine. I think that's your favorite number. Am I right about that? 

That is true.

Do I remember that from one of your podcasts? Yes.

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food —  Overcoming Fear and Betting on Yourself

Number nine's, Mike. Hope it's a good one. Yeah. I should start putting my favorite question under number nine. Okay. So you've been quoted saying that right before you left your old career, you were more afraid of doing nothing than doing something bold. Talk to us about how you kind of got to that point in your life and any advice that you would have for others who are considering or maybe even struggling with what's next.

Derek Wallace's take on how you kind of got to that point in your life: 

I think that the tipping point in making a, making a move from perceived safety to perceived risk really takes an evaluation of what you're most scared of. Because a lot of people are working in organizations and environments where they convince themselves, well, you know, I do it because it's safe, but there's really nothing safe about it. You know, unless you're working for yourself, there's no absolute safety in large organizations. So, I was always afraid of making that leave. I grew up in an environment where the thing that I was most scared of was not having a job. I always say I'm terrified of heights and used to be more scared of not having a job. And I reached this point, I think it was mainly because my son was two and a half years old, and I cared what he thought about me.

Derek Wallace’s additional insights: 

I was wondering if I was going to maybe waste my time in a situation that seemed safe but I would never really understand what I was fully capable of. So that's when I hit this tipping point I was more scared to stay than leave, and the fear of trying something new paled in comparison to the fear of being stagnant. So, I know a lot of people who are in environments working in situations that they're not inspired by. And what I would say is when you find that thing that inspires you, it may sound like a cliche, but it is entirely accurate. Nothing else matters. It impacts everything in your life. It doesn't matter how much money you make, what your title is, what industry you're in. If you're doing something that you believe in and that you love, you're just a healthier person. You're, I'm a better dad, I'm a better person to be around. I'm a better husband. With all of these things, I'm more creative. I'm more likely to be successful for all of those reasons. But you really do need to flip that switch in your head where you realize that the real risk isn't staying, not leaving. 

That's really powerful. I feel this very deeply. I had a similar experience about four and a half years ago, and somebody told me to bet on myself, and that just really sat with me. If you're faced with an opportunity where you get a moment to bet on yourself, what do you do? And that's really just stuck with me.

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — The Power of Authenticity in Progress

Derek Wallace: I'll also say, too, Ashley, I'd imagine you can relate to this, is when you're thinking about that, everyone else around you knows you're gonna be okay. You're the only one who doesn't know it. You know? And I remember my brother Chris told me, because he had made this leap himself. He goes, Derek, your success in leaving is a certainty. It's not a risk. But I didn't believe him, and I love him more than anyone in the world. He's my best friend. And I thought that he was telling me something as a rah-rah. He wanted to see what was best for me, but he was totally right. I know that now, but when you're in it, you don't realize it. So the other piece of advice is really to pay attention to those signs and the people around you who are telling you and encouraging you that, you know, there is something really, really exciting for you. On the other hand, if you take a risk.

Derek Wallace: You have to have those people in your life; you have to identify who they are. I call 'em my front row. You know, they're the people who are going to cheer the loudest at every performance. They're also going to tell you when maybe you didn't give it your best shot that day. But having those people definitely sees something in you that you often don't see in yourself. That's great.

Couldn't agree more.

Love that. All right. Back to the game board.

Fantastic. Let's go to number three, please.

Number three. All right. Oh, man. I believe in this, too. So you say it's make it till you make it, not fake it till you make it. How does this mentality impact your progress?

Derek Wallace’s answer to how does this mentality impact your progress: 

Actually, I'm so happy that you included this question. I'm not exactly sure where you pulled this from, but it is, it's always been our internal mantra. And we were, you know, a startup trying to figure out how you build a business and how you go from an idea that was created on a sofa to something that has aspirations to be a globally recognized brand. And what we believed was you needed to show people what you were going to do. You couldn't just tell them about it. Particularly when you're trying to do something that's never really been done before. Mm-Hmm. , I mean, talking about something that's never been done before conceptually is a challenge for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that a lot of people struggle with vision. I really learned this. That vision is incredibly powerful. Unfortunately, many people don't have the power of vision, even sometimes in creative spaces, and they take things very literally.

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — From Concept to Reality in Business

Derek Wallace: So this mentality really is a part of everything that we do. It's building something conceptually but then talking about the ways that we can bring it to life in a way that people can tangibly understand what it is. Sometimes, you have a budget to do that, and a lot of times, you don't. So it's figuring out how you can put that in front of somebody in a way that they will understand it and see it coming to life. If they see it coming to life, it's no longer an uncertainty. It's a certainty. It's just a matter of whether or not they're gonna be a part of it or not. So this has been incredibly powerful for us, and we've seen the impact of it. And also the idea of make it till you make it, versus fake it till you make it. Primarily as we've worked with investors and people in the funding world, I think that they really responded to that and respected the mentality of, you know, I mean, this is gonna be just doing it. You have to do it. You have to make it. You can't count on somebody else to understand what you're trying to create.

That's great. Do you have an example? Is there a moment in your progress over the last five years when this really helped you?

Derek Wallace’s example: 

So, I think that one example is when we created our self-published books. We had never, we didn't, Sarah is an exceptionally talented writer and has a great deal of experience and expertise in children's literature. And there's nothing in the world Sarah can't do. But she'd never written a children's book before. So if we decided that we were gonna go out and start pitching a children's book, instead of making it, we would've spent probably four years just convincing an agent to take us on, then convincing a publisher, and we wouldn't have nearly the reach. And we didn't have that time. 'cause We had an idea that we wanted to be first to market on, so we just had to do it ourselves. So we invested in the books, and we created beautiful books, as I had mentioned, and gave Sarah the platform for her just to go.

Derek Wallace: Right. And that was the flagship of our content and bringing our characters to life for kids. And I remember, I won't say who it was, but we were sitting in a room across from the executives at one of the largest publishers in the world. And we were in their boardroom, a glass-enclosed boardroom with all of the iconic properties that they've created. It was the first publishing meeting we took, and we thought we were gonna have to pitch them, but they were pitching us and explaining why we should work with them instead of anybody else. They specifically told us, they go, we need to get the specs for your books because this is the most beautiful self-published book that they have ever seen. We were there represented by our agents, who represent the biggest names in literature. And at that moment, I realized that if we didn't just make it, we would not have been sitting in that room. And it was a pinch-yourself moment. It, it was like, I've described it as like living in a dream. I hope I never have to wake up from it, but to hear those executives praise us for what we had actually made, not just the vision, but what we had made, was a massive validation to us.

That's great. That's awesome. Great advice. Thank you. All right, we're back at the game board.

How about number seven?

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — Finding Inspiration in Overcoming Adversity 

Number seven. Okay. So I want to know who your villain is. I know that's a question you've asked yourself, and you've said that the desire to find something to overcome or something to defeat is a constant theme that even traces back to your childhood. Tell us more about that.

Derek Wallace’s take on who is his villain: 

I think that this ties perfectly with the question, everything sort of mindset. My family and I joke that if you've ever seen the Dave Chappelle show, where they have the Rick James bit, Charlie Murphy says that Rick James was a habitual line stepper. I think I may be a habitual line stepper, which is like, I'm constantly pushing, and I'm always trying to prove something wrong. I'm motivated to prove something wrong. If someone tells me I can't do something, I have to prove them wrong. So, I think of them in my head as a villain. They're the person that I have to prove wrong; they're the anti-me, and it motivates me to achieve at a high level. And that can manifest itself in very positive ways. And I think that there's no way that we as a team reach success.

Derek Wallace: I don't wanna say it's by any means all on me, but I think that the drive to overcome really challenging things is something that's helped us achieve what we have. But sometimes, that also means that I am the world's most giant devil's advocate. I question everything. I'm always asking things just to understand the thought process. But I also think that for me, my villain for me every day is, I think there's tremendous power in recognizing what you don't wanna be. And I think that there are a lot of people I've been listening to your podcast who talk about some of the mentorship that they've had and the powerful positive examples that they've had that have allowed them to progress through their career as it happens. For me, I don't have a lot of those examples in the career that I came from. I have a multitude of examples of leadership that I wouldn't emulate, examples of things that I would like to have seen done differently.

Derek Wallace: The result of an environment that doesn't empower people doesn't bet on people and doesn't allow them to operate in an environment that allows them to do their best work. Hmm. So I think my villain is really an example of poor leadership and me just never wanting to look in the mirror and see the person that I absolutely don't wanna be. I think that's powerful. I think that maybe it's me justifying the fact that I haven't had a ton of great mentorship throughout the bulk of my career. Fortunately, I'm now surrounded by amazing leaders who have been my mentors. But I think that you should never underestimate the power of the example that you don't wanna be.

That's great. I love that you can draw inspiration from those who have, like, greatly influenced you positively, but then also there is something to gain from those potentially negative experiences and not letting it get you down to the point of not being able to like, get back up and do your job, but actually allow it to, you know, push you into even bigger greatness. I think that's incredible. I think there are a lot of people who maybe would've experienced or are experiencing some of the things that you did in your corporate career, and they wouldn't have come out on the other side with such a positive outlook. So I love that you can channel that energy.

Derek Wallace: I think it's basically the same thing when you think about it. You have a very positive example. You see the positive outcomes of that, that example, and all of the ways that it can bring growth and excitement and culture and all of those things. That's one way of looking at it. Or you can see the example of the opposite of poor leadership, poor example, how it impacts culture, how it stifles growth, how it is kryptonite to creativity, all of these things. And you just say, well, I'm not gonna do that, I'm gonna do the opposite of that. And I think that it's been, I think it's worked for, for me and for our team.

I've even had some guests say, you know, when a retailer shot them down in the early days, they, I had one frame the letter where they said, no, you guys aren't ready for our retail store. And they hang it up in their office, and like, one day you're gonna see, you know, we're gonna be on your, on your shelves.

Derek Wallace: We actually have, so as you say, we have a list, and it's named after a person who will, I will not name, who is the first person who made me doubt if this was a good idea or not. And I wanted to partner with them on something. And they, they ghosted, they went away. They liked it, but then when they realized it wasn't gonna be all about them, mm-Hmm. They weren't interested in the overall mission. And I started, I lost sleep over it. I was afraid that maybe I had made a terrible mistake by doing this. And we have a list. It's, it's titled by their name, and we consistently add to the list of people that we strive to prove of.

Hmm. Motivation at its finest. Exactly.

All right. Let's do another one.

Number 11, please.

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — Finding Balance and Inspiration Along the Way

Okay. So I, so the question on the board is, how has being a working father impacted your career and the inspiration behind this question? I was asked this question at a town hall that I did for a news publication, and they said, has being a working mother positively impacted your career? Or has it had a negative impact? Like they really wanted to get to, you know, has it been beneficial at all? And my initial reaction was I don't know that it has helped my career. I mean, being pregnant was difficult, going on maternity leave, I was afraid for my job coming back. You've got all these added responsibilities, and you're juggling your schedule. And it was very, very difficult. But the more I sat on it in the weeks and months, and probably now even a year that's gone by, I've thought, God, I'd love to answer that question differently this time because I do think it's positively impacted my career. I think I've, I've become more empathetic and understanding. I think just really understanding, even just scheduling and family priorities and work-life balance, taught me a lot about that. And so I'm curious: you're a working father, and I know your son was a massive inspiration behind this line, but how has being a working father impacted your career?

Derek Wallace’s response to that question: 

So, I'm really glad you asked this question, and I really appreciate the inspiration behind it. So, thanks for sharing that. I think, to your point, my son was the inspiration behind it, and I sort of alluded to this a little bit earlier, is my son being proud of what I do and the people I work with is really important to me because in a lot of ways, really nothing else matters. And him being exposed to this entrepreneurial environment has always been for me where I look at risk. And, you know, anybody who says that they're running a business and isn't afraid of failure is just not telling the truth. , right? It terrifies, at least it does me, it terrifies you. But I've always realized that it is a success already based on what my son has been able to see me do and the exposure that he's had to this environment.

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food —  Balancing Parenthood and Entrepreneurship

Derek Wallace: So we once had a meeting in New York City with our publisher, penguin Random House in their offices with some significant players in the media space, like a really big studio. And Henry, my son at the time was probably five years old and had to join me because my wife was traveling for work, and we balanced this. And I said, Hey, Henry's coming with me. And I saw him in that boardroom, and he was coloring, and he was playing games, but he was exposed to some of the most influential decision-makers in media. And that was normal to him. Normalizing, being an entrepreneur, taking risks, betting on yourself, to your point, betting on yourself, coming up with an idea, and understanding all of the ways it can come to life, understanding where it may be flawed, where it's strong, all of those things. It's just the single thing that to me, made it such that there's no risk left in this for me because my son has had a chance to be exposed to that.

And some of the things that he says, I remember we were, we were selling some of the things that from when he was a child, we didn't need any more strollers, like sort of the travel backpack and things like that. And he was probably like five years old, and I was taking photos of them. At this time, we were doing investor pitches, and he walked up beside me, he looked at me and said, Hey, Papa, do you think someone will invest in these? And just the fact that he has been able to understand what it's like to go through this process is one of the most essential parts of the entrepreneurial journey. So, it's impossible for me to separate being a dad from how my career has gone.

I love that. And that separation, I feel like for so many years of my career, I was like forcing that separation, you know, I had to have, it was like work Ashley and family Ashley. And the older that I've gotten and the more kids I've had, I feel like there's beauty in the blur and kind of the fluidity of work and family, and there's just so many beautiful benefits that can have. So I really appreciate you telling that story. It's nice to know that fathers and men and dads are experiencing that same thing, too.

Derek Wallace: Yeah. We totally embrace it. We have it's very common for our team meetings to include a lot of kids, you know, in and around it. We actually have all of our kids as our advisors in our presentation deck. So it's, it's super influential. We embrace it. And to your point, it's really hard to try to separate these things. And why in the world would we not invite our kids to an important meeting like that? I see absolutely no downside and only upside all the way around. And indeed, no one in that meeting looked at me strangely because I had my son there.

I love that. We've come a long way. That's great. All right. You get to pick another number.

Okay, great. I'm trying to remember now which ones we haven't picked. Did we go, let's go one. I know we haven't picked number one. 

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — Three Pieces of Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

Number one. Let's go one. All right. So you broke up with the corporate world. You had a very successful career. I believe you were on the corporate side for over 17 years and worked your way up the corporate ladder, and then, one day, you called it quits. So give us your three best pieces of advice to anybody who is in the same situation you're in. Maybe they've got an idea or, you know, they do wanna bet on themselves. What can you tell them to inspire them to give it the old breakup?

Derek Wallace’s advice: 

I think that you need to view, number one is you just need to view the work environment you're in. It's just a relationship. And sometimes relationships are good for you, and sometimes relationships run their course, and then sometimes it turns to the point where the relationship is bad for you. And I think that you need to, number one, just pay attention to what those signs are. And you had talked about your front row, listen to your front row, listen to what they're telling you. It's really no different than in your relationship with somebody. And the people around you are like, Hey, this is great, or Hey, I don't know. I don't know what I think about that relationship that you're in. I think that you really need to pay attention to those signs and don't wait too long. I mean, pay attention to signs and make the move.

Derek Wallace: I think that positioning the risk of staying as being greater than the risk of leaving really for me was highly effective because it wasn't What if I leave, it was What if I stay? That was a huge unlock for me because I started to advance and see my life in 10 years and what it would be if I continued on a path that was really going in the wrong direction. And I think that that was, that was highly effective. And I think that my last piece of advice would be new things are super exciting, and that is going to come with stress for sure. But channeling that positively and recognizing what those positive things are, whether it's, you know, being in a new office or working with new people, or the opportunity to reconnect with people that you haven't had a chance to because your work environment had gotten so siloed. All of those things. It is just an entire breath of fresh air, and it is motivating for me. I think that recognizing those things and focusing on them when you do get stressed is really important to maintain your sanity, but also just to keep yourself motivated and on the right positive path.

That's great. You heard it right here from somebody who has successfully broken up. All right. I think we've got time for a couple more. What do you think? Are you having fun?

I'm having a great time.

Let's keep going. All right. Let's do number 12. 

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — Serving Adult Needs to Reach Kids

Number 12. Okay. Your business is deeply rooted in attracting Gen Alpha. What do brands need to know about this digitally native audience?

Derek Wallace’s response on what brands need to know about this digitally native audience: 

 Well, what I would say is that ultimately, we identify our brand. Our brand actually serves the needs of adults. And I think that identifying who your audience is and how you're speaking to that audience is super important. So a lot of people look at Kalamata's Kitchen, and they say, well, your audience is kids. Our audience is kids. As we continue to create content that's going to be directly streaming into the home, Mm-Hmm, So for us, we primarily focus on the adult need, which is, I want my child to be more adventurous with food. It's not just about I want them to eat broccoli and eat healthier. It is that, but it's also that I don't want them to be a vegetarian. As you were describing earlier, we don't want them, we sort of, like, have identified our corporate villain. Probably shouldn't. I mean, our corporate villain is Butter Noodle Guy.

Derek Wallace: And the Butter Noodle guy doesn't just like butter noodles. 'cause Butter Noodles are awesome. The Butter Noodle guy only eats butter noodles. And we think that that's a significant problem. So we're trying to combat the butter noodle guy that we think is an adult, and we need to serve a need for adults. Now, the characters exist for kids to love them. So currently, most of our content that goes directly to children is through our published content through our books, and we empower the kids to be the authors of their own adventures. This is Sarah's way of looking at how we engage the kids and get them to love our characters. So, she brilliantly does that in our books digitally. I think that for a number of different reasons, this is something that we are constantly challenged within how we reach this audience both through streaming content and through digital content in a way that marries up in a logical and cohesive way with our brand strategy for parents. Mm-Hmm.  and also is interesting to kids. Ultimately, what we exist to do is raise a more empathetic generation of kids. We believe that kids who grew up eating dolls, kimchi, and feta are more likely to grow up to be empathetic adults. So translating that into digital content, if we had cracked the code, I promised I would share it with you. But it's something that we're continuing to do and energetic to work with, you know, the right partners to make sure that we're responsible in that way.

We were talking about Kalamata, and someone commented that she's kind of like Anthony Bourdain for Kids, which I really liked.

You've sort of described her as Anthony Bourdain meets story, the Explorer. Yes. And within minutes of me coming up with the idea and then bringing it to the smartest personality, I knew Sarah Thomas it was to me, we needed a character that inspires kids the way that Anthony Bourdain inspired adults. That's what Bourdain did for me. Obviously, it was just recently, and it was Bourdain's birthday. And I was reflecting on the fact that I never really understood how somebody could be so affected by the passing of somebody that they didn't know personally. And then Bourdain died, and I got it because, to me, he had changed my life. And the fact that nobody had taken those ideas and those principles and introduced them to kids through a character like Bourdain did to adults was crazy. We couldn't believe that this didn't exist. So taking to your point, the idea of everything that ordained has done for humanity and introducing it to three, four, and five-year-old kids is so powerful. Our mission is to be unabashedly driven for that to live in the home every single possible way that it can.

That's great. All right. Back to the board.

Let's go with the number 10. 

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — Creating a Role Model for Children

Number 10. Oh, this is so perfect. I was hoping we were going to get to this one. So, coming off that last question, tell us about the process of creating a character designed to foster inclusion. I imagine that creating a role model for children is very challenging. So how did this happen? And then talk a little bit about the role De and I played and continue to play in your business.

Derek Wallace's take on the process of creating a character that's designed to foster inclusion: 

So I think that anybody listening to this will hear a common theme of it, sort of, kind of comes back to the villain. And I was exposed to an environment that was not one that celebrated inclusivity in the way that I would be proud of. Actually, one of the biggest things that I experienced was the adverse effects of toxic masculinity and misogyny in general. And from the minute that we had the idea for this character, she was a girl. And I am a huge believer in the power of female leadership. I've seen the positive impact of the amazing female leaders that I'm exposed to now. So, the hero being a girl was very intentional. Sarah talks about this character as not the kid that she was but the kid that she wished she had been. There is a lot of biographical information about this character for Sarah.

Derek Wallace: And Sarah is the child of South Indian immigrants. She grew up in western Pennsylvania in an environment where I'm gonna do my best to do justice to a story that she usually tells. But she grew up in an environment where, at home, she celebrated the amazing food that her parents would make, and then went to school in an environment where she would throw out that food and use her emergency phone money to buy a slim gym. And that was something that, you know, clearly we wanted to create the alternative to create a character that existed not just for little girls like Sarah, but for little boys like my son, who it's not natural for them to know what that's like. And what we wanna create is a, is a world where kids like my son and his friends will look at the doll in their friend's lunchbox and say, oh my gosh, I've never seen that before.

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — Challenging Adult Bias

That's awesome. Tell me about that. So this is a challenge. It's a challenge largely because it doesn't come naturally to many adults. Many adults don't naturally see that these different things can be exciting for kids. And we believe in the kids, we're betting on the kids. We believe that kids are more open-minded than grownups give them credit for it. And we think that we can use food to prove that. We have proven that in many different ways. And so for us, there are, there are challenges to it, and a lot of times that challenge is actually adult bias. And when it comes to the kids, we've seen kids will adopt a lot of things if they're put in front of them with positive energy. There's no reason why kids won't love this as much as a kid isn't naturally born understanding that they should like pizza. It's just more natural to them and more familiar. Shouldn't say natural is more familiar to them than a doll, but there's no reason why a doll can't be the thing that they grow up loving just as much as pizza.

Hmm. That's great—really great. Yeah. And here's Aldente. He's her little sidekick, right?

Derek Wallace: Everybody loves Aldente, and Aldente really is a tribute to the creative process I think that we've created at this organization because Aldente, as a character, was created by Sarah's now husband, Tyler, which is how I know Sarah. I was introduced to Sarah through Tyler, who's a great friend, and they were dating at the time. And we just build on each other's ideas. There is no ownership of an idea. In fact, many times, we start the creation process with, alright, this idea is really bad. I've said before, this is a really bad idea. And if we give it time, it can become a horrible idea. But if we give it time, it may be great. And we kicked around a lot of names, and the idea of an alligator named is so perfect. And I think just a tribute to the environment that we've created where we had like 15 different names that we thought were kind of cute, and then Al Dante came along, and it was perfect. And can't imagine our environment, our whole Kalamata’s kitchen world, without Al Dante being a part of it.

Hmm. Yeah, our family loves Aldente, too. All right, I think we have time for one more. Okay, all right. This is the last question. Pick a good one.

Which one haven't we done? 

I believe maybe two, eleven, and eight.

Let's do two. Let's do two.

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Derrek Wallace: Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — Unlocking Kickstarter Success

Okay. All right. Number two. Okay. I think this is an important conversation to have. So you guys, well, you got your start, and then you went to Kickstarter. So I'd love to hear that story. And I know that just recently, they published that Kickstarter has a 39 point 11% global success rate, which is actually extremely high, but that still means that most are failing. So, what advice do you have for anybody who's looking into Kickstarter to become part of that 39%?

Derek Wallace’s advice for anybody who's looking into Kickstarter to become part of that 39%: 

 The best advice I can give you, I'm excited to share this. There is a woman named Audrey Bellard, and her business is built around a character named Lily Huckleberry. And I believe that Kickstarter should hire her as an ambassador, I believe she's done five successful Kickstarter campaigns around the adventures of Lily Huckleberry. It happens to be in the publishing space as well, but it also gets back to the fact that it is a crowd. It's a crowded space, and you need to stand out. I think that one of the objections that comes with Kickstarter is that people have had bad experiences with it. I backed something, and I never got anything for it. We've experienced early on that people were calling it a donation, and we kept saying, we called it our Kickstarter store because we're like, this is not a donation.

Derek Wallace: This is not you spending money that you're never going to see. You are actually getting stuff for this. And people need to have the confidence that what they're going to get is accurately represented in the campaign. That it's to some degree of certainty going to come to fruition and that it's unique and beautiful. So Audrey Beliard does an amazing job with her Kickstarters, which includes her videos and the page that you visit when you see her campaign. And she was really inspirational to us. We were about to launch ours when we found her and her projects, and she's become an amazing ally and friend of mine. I'm inspired by Audrey's work. She's a super, super-talented person. But you know, my advice is Kickstarter is hard. It is so much harder than it looks. You have to have a plan. You have to understand that some of your best friends won't back it.

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Bringing Excitement and Curiosity to Food — Last Bit of Advice by Derek Wallace

Derek Wallace: We have people who are at our wedding, let's see if they listen to this podcast, who never backed our Kickstarter. Mm-Hmm. You can't assume that because you come up with something and you put it out there, all of a sudden, it's gonna hit a wave. There has to be a really, really strong plan around it. And you have to invest in it. It has to be something that it's, this is not money you are going to be given. This is going to be probably one of your biggest first challenges as, as an entrepreneur or as a person who just has an idea that you wanna see come to market. So I am thrilled that we did Kickstarter. It was really impactful for us. Our project was one of the most successful in publishing history at the time. I think that we were number 39, the most successful at the time, out of more than like 9,000 projects launched in children's publishing. So that was a great sign for us as far as identifying market demand behind our concept. But this is not gonna be easy. So, my advice is to go check out Audrey and take a look at the projects that she's done. You could still find our Kickstarter, but find some of those most successful projects and understand that you really need to commit yourself and have a, a, you know, a strong strategy for how you're gonna use it for, for positive for you.

Hmm. Thank you for that. We'll also link to both your Kickstarters and Audrey in the show notes for everybody.

That sounds great. I'd be thrilled if you did that.

Awesome. Well, that's it. That was a ton of fun, right?

Derek Wallace's last bit of advice: 

That was a ton of fun. And Ashley, I just wanna say that my memory of working with you, I just wanna share this, is that when we were working through hard things, and we were trying to do bold things, we were trying to do bold things. We would be in a room, and people would be sharing ideas, and I would be thinking, I wanna know what Ashley thinks. And it was you, and it was, it was the people on your team and some of your colleagues that were hugely inspirational to me and really was part of the motivation, sincerely, for me to realize that the greater risk was in staying as opposed to leaving. Because I realized that there were people like you out there that were doing incredible work. Thank you genuinely from the bottom of my heart, thank you to you and your team for being such an inspiration, and for all those reasons, it's been a real honor to be a part of your Question, everything podcast.

Well, thank you for saying that. That means so much. Those were some really great memories. We did some good work. 

I'm really proud of them. You did some great work. Great work.

Well, if anybody wants to connect with you after this podcast, what's the best way to do that?

So you can connect with me, Derek Wallace, on LinkedIn. I am fairly active on LinkedIn. You can also check out Kalima's Kitchen's website and our Facebook travel guide, which is served by travelguide.com. And also, I'm on Instagram as an official taste bud.

Awesome. Alright. Maybe we can have a meal together sometime soon.

That's high on my list of priorities. We gotta make that happen.

Awesome. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ashley.