From Shipping Container to Six Locations | Scott Sorensen - Sodabox

Scott is the co-founder of Sodabox, a dirty soda shop with six locations across the Triangle. He started the business in a shipping container in Apex with his brother Brent after moving to Raleigh from Utah in 2017.

Learn how Scott went from mixing sugar-free Red Bulls at a call center job to building a dirty soda empire across Raleigh. In this episode, Scott talks about why entrepreneurs are born (not made), the importance of speed over size, and why you should share your business idea with everyone instead of keeping it secret.

Plus: getting fired twice from the same pizza job, convincing a stranger to take a helicopter ride in Myrtle Beach, and why the "Sea Town Pops" drink honors his dad.

Resources:

• Sodabox: sodabox.love | @sodabox.love
• Scott's handle: @sodaboxscott
• Locations: Apex, Rolesville, Garner, North Hills Raleigh, Raleigh Boulevard, Cary/Morrisville

Transcript

Kayleigh 0:03

Welcome to All I've been Your Business with me, your host Kayleigh Bain, where we talk about authentic stories, really all the storytelling. And here today I'm really excited. If you're in the triangle or around Raleigh, you've maybe heard of Soda Box. I believe it's called Soda Box, right? Right.

Scott 0:22

Good.

Kayleigh 0:22

Great. Yeah. Great. Well, today I'm here with Scott.

Scott 0:25

That's also right. I was like, that's also right too, right?

Kayleigh 0:28

Okay, good. I did not miss it.

Scott 0:29

Soda Box Scott. SodaBox Scott.

Kayleigh 0:31

Oh, that's perfect. I love it.

Scott 0:32

I actually do have a handle of SodaBox Scott.

Kayleigh 0:35

That's great. Oh, I love it. So, all right, let's just get into it. Uh, tell us, what's soda box?

Scott 0:41

Um, so they're dirty sodas. And then the question is, what are dirty sodas, right?

Kayleigh 0:46

Dirty soda, that's half gone.

Scott 0:47

We just pour dirt, just pour dirt into the soda.

Kayleigh 0:50

Just straight dirt. Yeah.

Scott 0:52

Um, no, they're just they're fun sodas. Uh, this one's actually a seltzer. This is called the kind of dirty mango tango.

Kayleigh 0:58

I saw that. That's like all my favorite things into one. And I really wish I got that one, but I really wanted to try a soda one.

Scott 1:03

It is tasty. Yeah, I think that's like the rite of passage, is like a dirty, like Dr. Pepper or Coke with coconut and cream and stuff like that. That's like the classic, like how it all started.

Kayleigh 1:14

Yeah.

Scott 1:14

So I think you do need to do that, and then you can go branch into all the stuff you love and try the flavors you want.

Kayleigh 1:19

Yeah. I've recently discovered I love coconut everything.

Scott 1:22

Yeah. So I'm just, I can't get enough of that. It's a universal flavor. It's an interesting one for sure.

Kayleigh 1:27

It makes everything just taste so fresh. I don't know.

Scott 1:30

But what about coconut water? Honest.

Kayleigh 1:33

I haven't tried it. Well, no, it's why I have.

Scott 1:34

Have you had coconut water out of a coconut?

Kayleigh 1:36

Yes, it was terrible.

Scott 1:37

Yeah.

Kayleigh 1:38

It was awful.

Scott 1:39

It's it's like a little pukey sometimes. It's like a little like, and you're like, wait, this is like supposed to be refreshing. Yeah. But I I want to make the coconut water line because coconut water is the best natural uh hydrator. So it has a bunch of electrolytes and all this stuff in it. No additives and stuff. So I've always wanted to do like an athlete line that's based on coconut water, but I haven't gotten around to it. But it is funny that it is a particular taste. But coconut flavor and coconut milk is delicious.

Kayleigh 2:13

Yeah. Like what's your take on body armor?

Scott 2:17

Um the the like for I I mean, I don't know, like like prime body armor, like that category.

Kayleigh 2:24

Like, yes. Anytime I used to do marathons, and so when I did them, I always had body armor afterwards, and I love the coconut flavoring of it.

Scott 2:32

I don't think I've ever had that one, to be honest.

Kayleigh 2:34

It's really good. There's a fruit punch one, there's a blackout berry one. It's really good. Sugar-free ones, yeah.

Scott 2:39

I just feel like anything that's like it's just really hard to mass produce bottled beverage without it just being really bad for you.

Kayleigh 2:47

Yeah.

Scott 2:48

Like there's I mean, we it's a soda shop. It's not like we're like selling like the most healthy stuff here all the time. But um, yeah, bottled and stuff like that, that's supposed to sit on the shelf forever. That's one of the reasons why I like the fountain drinks because it is like mixed, fresh. It does taste different, it is better in terms of just flavor and everything. You can get all the sugar-free stuff too. Um yeah, I haven't been one of those. Have you seen the Gatorade Pediolite things now?

Kayleigh 3:15

I'm not gonna lie, PDLA freaks me out.

Scott 3:17

So there's like Pediolite, which people use for like hangovers and stuff, right? They're like, oh, I gotta get that in me. Yeah, yeah. Um, but I think Gatorade, people they saw that the people were using that for rehydrating things like that. So now they have like it's shaped just like Pediolite, but it's a Gatorade version.

Kayleigh 3:31

Oh, yes, I have seen those. I haven't I think I tried Pediolite for the first time a couple months ago. Because it was just one of those nights, and I'm like, I need I need to pick it up. It was awful.

Scott 3:41

I love the pause, one of those nights. Needed a hydrator.

Kayleigh 3:45

Nights.

Scott 3:46

Stop drinking dehydrating drinks.

Kayleigh 3:47

Right. I'm too old for that shit. I can't be doing that.

Scott 3:50

That's hilarious.

Kayleigh 3:51

Um, okay, so you do dirt, I said dirty water. Dirty sodas.

Scott 3:54

Dirty water, yeah. We do refreshers. We call them refreshers, the water-based drinks. So dirty soda used to mean uh you're adding coconut and cream specifically.

Kayleigh 4:04

Okay.

Scott 4:05

That's when it started. Started like 2010, I think, in Utah. There was like a dirty soda shop. And uh it was coconut and cream, meant it was dirty. Everything else was just like mix in random stuff. Now the whole category is dirty soda. So it can be Dr. Pepper with strawberry. That's a dirty soda. Doesn't it doesn't really matter? But we I liked dirty meaning just cream. So like this is the kind of dirty mango tango. So it's mango and it's kind of dirty because it's half cream.

Kayleigh 4:31

Got it.

Scott 4:32

So it's like you can get uh if you get a Dr. Pepper and we say, hey, do you want that dirty? That means add cream. That's how we use it.

Kayleigh 4:38

I got you. Have you ever had a dirty Alani?

Scott 4:40

No.

Kayleigh 4:41

I saw it's a TikTok thing I saw because I love um when I made it, no. It was terrible actually. I um I usually drink Alani's before I go to the gym. So it was like a new flavor strawberry crush, I think. And you put that with like vanilla protein.

Scott 4:57

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw the protein trend go through. We did we did a wicked drink through here, and it was a no, it was a Halloween that Alani had like a caramel apple.

Kayleigh 5:07

Yeah, a witch's brew.

Scott 5:08

We built it, yeah, the witch's brew. We had a witch's brew, we used their witch's brew. We actually bought out like all of those. We could find Sam's Club, Target. We went around and bought all the witches' brew in the area.

Kayleigh 5:19

Oh wow.

Scott 5:20

Yeah, I mean it's a good one. Yeah, it was a good drink. It was a good drink.

Kayleigh 5:23

Well, when I tried it, it did not come out good. It was actually trash. There's it like curdled, and that's what freaked me out. And I was like, I don't know if I could do a dirty drink. So it freaked me out.

Scott 5:33

Random what curdles and what doesn't. Like sometimes it's the sugar-free stuff that makes it curdle, sometimes it's just the quantity. It's weird.

Kayleigh 5:41

It also could have been my protein with sitting there for too long.

Scott 5:43

Oh, that's really curdling. That's gross. That's actual.

Kayleigh 5:46

Not gonna lie, I almost throw out my chunk dirty. It's pretty bad. It's not that good. I love the idea, so I'm glad you guys have brought me back to the dirty uh life.

Scott 5:56

This is all clean and nice and and not curdly.

Kayleigh 5:59

Yeah, no, that's not curdly at all.

Scott 6:01

Yeah.

Kayleigh 6:01

No, mine didn't curdle at all either, which was awesome.

Scott 6:03

It's a goal of ours to not have it curdled. No, no curdles. Yeah. So we're we're like a fast treat shop. You know, we do cookies and pretzel bites, and you know, we focus on our drive-thru. It's a it's an afternoon pick-me-up that's inexpensive. You can get alone or with the kids or whatever. Um, I loved energy drinks, still love energy drinks, and I would always mix those with orange juice or whatever. So I'd always been kind of mixing, because I just was like, I literally would drink energy drinks so often. You know how it started? That's how it started.

Kayleigh 6:34

Yeah, tell me, bring me back to like when it started.

Scott 6:36

My college job was a call center, and the call center had free Red Bull, and they only had sugar-free Red Bull. I think it's because my boss, the guy who was buying it, was like, he just liked sugar-free Red Bulls. So I would have a couple sugar-free Red Bulls every day. And I just got so tired of the taste, but I still wanted them. So I started mixing the sugar-free Red Bull with other things because I was like, oh, let's have like an orange one today. Let me get this like or like you know, whatever soda and mix it today so that the sugar-free Red Bull. So it was like that was kind of like my cocktail mocktail for my sales calls.

Kayleigh 7:10

Oh my gosh.

Scott 7:11

So I've been doing that for a long time. Um, and then this dirty soda thing started exploding. I was living in Utah, moved out here in 2017, and I was just kind of like, this is the South. Like, no one drinks more soda than the South. Like, there was no dirty soda shops anywhere on this side of the country. But there were like hundreds in the West. They were like all over Texas, all over Idaho, Arizona, Utah, of course.

Kayleigh 7:38

And so I was like, Wild.

Scott 7:40

Yeah, so I've been an entrepreneur forever, and I literally was just like, it's gonna come here. Like, we're this is gonna be the mecca. The south is gonna be the mecca of dirty sodas. So I put a pitch deck together and was like, let's raise some money, let's build out some dirty soda shops. Like, I think this is gonna work. Yeah, uh, invented the brand and made all the drink recipes myself. Like uh, and we started in a shipping container, so that's how we tested it.

Kayleigh 8:04

I think I saw that. So I do very I think I was telling you before I do very limited research. I get like my hot talk.

Scott 8:09

Your reactions to be authentic. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that.

Kayleigh 8:12

Wow, yeah, tell me more. So I saw that you started at a shipping container and you do it with your brother, or do you yeah?

Scott 8:19

So my brother and I, I've I have three brothers. Um two of them are like partners investors, and like they're they they're the two older brothers, and we're the two younger brothers.

Kayleigh 8:29

Okay.

Scott 8:29

So the two older brothers are like the wise ones. Like Yeah, they really are, man. They're they're super smart guys. Are they out here or are they back up west? So, yeah, so how happened was we had I had the oldest brother moved here from Philadelphia, and uh my family's pretty big. We're six of us.

Kayleigh 8:45

Oh, wow, okay.

Scott 8:46

And it was kind of like, hey, we're all we're literally, we're outside of Washington. And we had a sister in Florida, family in Utah, family in New York, like we were literally like almost all four corners of the country. And um, our dad had actually unexpectedly passed, and we were like, Well, this is dumb. We're like all over the country. Uh, where should we rally? And uh my brother had moved to Raleigh, and he's like, This place, Raleigh's pretty great. None of us had ever been here. And I was uh I owned a marketing agency online and stuff, so I was like completely independent. I'm like, yeah, I was kind of tired of Utah. Um mom still loves you, she still lives there, so I still love you, Utah. It's okay. Um, but um, yeah, I drove out here and never looked back. I absolutely loved it. And so we've recruited me and that brother recruited everybody. Got a brother that moved from Seattle here, Brent. He's the one who owns the soda box with me. Oh, cool. So I started it in a shipping container, and that's why I called soda box, because it was literally a soda box.

Kayleigh 9:46

That was gonna be my next question where's the name come from? Because that is so unique.

Scott 9:49

It was, it it literally used to be soda container. Was the first LLC container and it was like so huge, and then it was like, what if we just called it soda box? I'm like, damn it, that's so much better. Right, that's such a we rebranded, redid all the logos and stuff like that, and it was good timing because we sold the soda box uh to open up the first uh actual drive-thru restaurant in Apex.

Kayleigh 10:14

I was gonna say Apex was the first one.

Scott 10:16

Apex is what the shipping container was, and then just went down the road was there was a dry cleaner that was empty, and we're like, let's do that. Because we we couldn't we had a shutdown in October because uh shipping containers or um food trucks, you can't do drive-thru. You have to park and get out of your car, and so it just started getting too cold and sales went down. It's like, all right, let's shut it down. We need a real store. Got it.

Kayleigh 10:37

So yeah, is that a North Carolina rule? Is that like everywhere rule?

Scott 10:41

It's a everywhere, it's a general rule, I think. Just because like like most time that they're just not set up for cars, right? You know, and so if you see like the shipping container, whatever, most of the time it's like bolted to the ground, it's an actual building, it has water and a bathroom, and so it's like looks like it's a food truck, but it's a building.

Kayleigh 11:01

I got you. Okay. I know North Carolina has a lot of weird rules.

Scott 11:06

Yeah, they're all over the place. Apex was actually the most friendly county because they allowed you to not move your um food truck. A lot of places you have to move it every two weeks, like you can't keep it anywhere. And and Apex was like very pro, we want food trucks, we want like cool spots for people to go to. So they their laws are like you can stay as long as you want.

Kayleigh 11:28

Nice. I love Apex. Yeah, that's is that the one that's across from Dunkin' Donuts area?

Scott 11:33

Yeah, Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's is right there.

Kayleigh 11:36

Right. Um Habitat is right there.

Scott 11:38

Yep, yeah. That's it. Yeah.

Kayleigh 11:40

The OG. Yeah, the OG. So that's the OG. Which one happened after that?

Scott 11:44

Uh Rollsville. So we were like, oh, let's like go after um Raleigh, let's do as many as we can. And gosh, dude, Apex is here, Raleigh's here, Rollsville's here.

Kayleigh 11:55

I'll say it's not here.

Scott 11:57

It's up there. And so like our first store was here in literally opposite side of the freaking city and some Rollsville. Uh, another spot opened up that we just really liked. And uh that store's incredible. It's one of our best stores. Oh, cool. Even though it's out in the smallest city, and uh, but shout out to Rollsville, man, they kill it. Great employees, good fun. Um, the high school, everything just love us, and it's it's a blast out there.

Kayleigh 12:21

Oh, that's awesome. Is that near um what's out there? Nightdale?

Scott 12:26

Or is it past nightdale is more towards the ocean. It's more this is more north towards like uh Wake Forest almost.

Kayleigh 12:33

Got it. Yep. Clearly, I'm not from here. Where are you from? Upstate New York. Near Canada.

Scott 12:39

Yeah, so I'm a I'm a Seattleite and you're a the other corner. Where they yeah.

Kayleigh 12:44

My college was like right on the Canadian border. Oh, nice. So we were in Canada all the time.

Scott 12:48

Canada's great to visit.

Kayleigh 12:50

It's amazing. I I love Canada. If I could I'd lived there, but I'm not going back to the cold. It was terrible.

Scott 12:55

That's why I left Utah too. I was just like, I'm done with this. Like they have two seasons, it's either 100 degrees or it's zero. And that is disgusting.

Kayleigh 13:03

Like negative 30 with wind chill. Yeah.

Scott 13:05

Absolutely. I did we did one winter in Boston when we visited that brother up there, and I was like, I will never do this again.

Kayleigh 13:13

Boston's awesome, but not for a whole winter.

Scott 13:15

I've never experienced a northeast cold like that. Like it shh, it like penetrates your soul. It does, it attacks your bones. Like it's so cold, I just was like, I will never do winter up here again.

Kayleigh 13:26

Yeah, and I lived on a lake, and it was just always so I mean it was cool because my dad would like shovel and I would go ice skating while he did ice fishing, so that's fun.

Scott 13:33

Yeah.

Kayleigh 13:33

But other than that, it was terrible.

Scott 13:34

Yeah.

Kayleigh 13:35

I never want to do it.

Scott 13:36

And I have a sister in Florida, and that's like you go there in the summer, and it's like 90 degrees at 2 a.m.

Kayleigh 13:41

Yeah.

Scott 13:41

But winters are nice.

Kayleigh 13:42

Right? It's great. So that's your story. So let's go into um, I saw on the menu there's something that's called Seat Town Pops.

Scott 13:53

Sea Town Pops. So that's the one we named after our dad. So um from Seattle and from Pops, and that was he loved uh Diet Coke and blackberries, those grow wild. We call them sticker bushes.

Kayleigh 14:04

Sticker bushes?

Scott 14:05

Because they've got thorns on them, like they're weeds to us. Oh I remember I lived in Utah and someone had like in their garden a blackberry plant. And I was like, what is that? Like, my blackberries. Like they were like growing them, like harvesting. I'm like, that is a weed, that is a sticker bush, and we hate those. Like, I would chop those down with machetes when I was a kid, like they're the worst. But we had blackberries everywhere, so uh Seatown Pops is like kind of like an ode to Seattle and to dad.

Kayleigh 14:35

And you guys call them pops?

Scott 14:36

We call them pops, the grandkids, we call them pops, yeah.

Kayleigh 14:39

Yeah, I I had a pops, and then my dad, my dad is pops to my nephew. Oh, that's awesome. So yeah, pops, I was like, oh, I read I love that name. It's so cool.

Scott 14:46

Yeah.

Kayleigh 14:47

What would you say is a hard lesson you've learned with being a business owner?

Scott 14:51

Oh man, that's all the lessons that are all hard.

Kayleigh 14:54

Every single lesson.

Scott 14:55

It's it's it's harder than you think it's gonna be. I I think I think to be a business owner, you really do have to be like overly optimistic and overly naive. Um because if you're not a little delusional, like it's gonna work out, you'll quit. And then if you're not like naive enough, you wouldn't start. And so it's just like it's it's excruciating. Like I like people, I I have I have people call me all the time, like, hey, I want to think about starting my own business, da da da da. Like, I want to quit my day job, da da da da da, like why? You know, should I do it? I'm like, no. No, yeah, I like I I'm torn on it. Like I I'll so I'm not married to this idea, but I have I I really think this like entrepreneurs are born. I don't know if you can really train into it. Because it's like um or you're buying a business that already exists or something, but if you're doing a startup, like your your brain just works differently. Like startup brains and and and um they talk about this like the the classics, like Steve Jobs and and those guys and stuff like that. They really are just like they're people that are hard to understand because they just think differently. And I think that's why they started businesses because it's like I I remember my I had one job sitting in a cubicle every day, and that was it. I wouldn't I never did it again because I was just like, I'm I will die. I like I feel my soul melting staring at this computer in this box, in this corporation with this structure and this like career path that's like programmed, and it was just like I could, I could literally lasted uh in one job. Yeah, and then I started my own business, started that marketing agency, and you know, 10 businesses later, here's soda box. Um, but yeah, I don't know. It's the hard lesson is it's really hard. I wish I I can't sometimes I really wish. I'm like, I wish I was built for careers because a nine to five looks nice, and this is hard. Yeah, like getting a paycheck all the time. Come like and you and you you're okay like with like the same job every day. That sounds so nice.

Kayleigh 17:07

Sounds nice, but also boring as hell.

Scott 17:09

Well, but that's what I'm saying is I'm not built for it. Like I wish I was built for it, but I yeah, same. I would go crazy.

Kayleigh 17:14

Yeah, like right now, like I have a full I have full time plus my marketing business, plus the podcast, plus my events.

Scott 17:19

Yeah.

Kayleigh 17:20

So it's just like I just get bored.

Scott 17:21

My brain is just I cooking, you know, and it's just like I'm constantly thinking of the next thing. Exactly. It's like, yeah, I what was it's like the joke is like um quit your nine to five and work for yourself. It's like, yeah, quit your nine to five and work 24-7. Yeah. Like, what do you mean make your own hours? You have no life. Like I remember the first year or two into this, after Brett and I got, we built six of these, and we had two in the Lenovo Center uh for a while. Oh, that's we had like eight locations going, and we built them in like two years, like two and a half years. Wow, that's wild. It was nuts. Oh my god. And I remember being like not knowing when weekends would come and go. Like I couldn't, my brain didn't like every day was work. And so it wasn't like I had a Saturday. It was like that was the same as a Monday. And so like it didn't, I remember going a few months and being like, oh, what's a weekend? You know, like, oh yeah, like people like stop work like on Friday at five o'clock and then they they just ha enjoy a weekend. It's like I'm on my phone and I'm working, I'm thinking of the next recipe or the whatever, you know. Um, so yeah.

Kayleigh 18:36

It's definitely hard. And like finding people to like that align with you too. Yeah, um, I mean, that goes for every shape of life, but like the only reason I have a full time is because my the guy I was dating at the time was just like, I don't understand what your business is. And I was like, I run people's social media marketing, like, yeah, I do not understand. Um, but okay, and so shout out to the ex. Hell yeah. Thank you for pushing me. Uh but uh so I mean like it got me into the full time, so now I'm able to like have granted I have a nine to five, but it's not gonna be a forever thing.

Scott 19:09

I think that's the win. I think the modern day win is a job that doesn't kill you and then a side hustle.

Kayleigh 19:16

Yeah, because eventually, I mean, I would love honey gin to be back to full time. And ideally, like my goal with it is to bring on interns that like not sure if they want to be in marketing, but they know what they want to do something. Bring on interns, work with the small businesses, get them to pay whatever they can pay, yeah, and then work with the interns and teach them how to do it. And then in return, that person's getting marketing back. Nice. And then they can decide if they want to stay with me. And if they do, then cool, I have a new employee. Yeah, but yeah, I want to, I'm a I love mentoring um young women, anyways.

Scott 19:44

Yeah, me too. I I like that too. I like we are a lot of our employees are like um entry-level first-time um jobs and stuff, and so it's fun to be like, this is by the way, you need to show up on time and like you need to learn, you need to do a good job, you need to smile, customer service matters, and so it's fun to watch people go like take pride in having a job and being excited about their first job. Like, that's fun. I know a lot of like restaurants, I don't even categorize us as a restaurant, but technically we are. Um, they have a really hard time hiring. And we have a line of people that want to work here, and I think it's one because I think typical restaurants, you pay a little bit more and you kind of need that like you can't have a kid work there. You need college plus, you know, and so like that's a really hard market, I think, because they're trying to get a career or they're trying to get out of service or whatever. But entry level, people that want a fun job selling cool things. I mean, we we have blasts, so oh yeah, it's fun to like when we do trainings, it literally is like, what can we do to make the customer smile? And so it's like you know, fun phrases, and you know, we we most of the time, hopefully, when you come through, you get your drink, and as you're leaving, we say see you tomorrow. And so it like Oh, that's cute. Yeah, so it's like surprises and they're like, wait, see, oh, probably yeah, I guess so. Yeah, probably, you know, it's like I'll come back. Yeah, so it's like it's a fun way to be like come back, you know, we're expecting you, and and then uh get a smile. So it's it's a good time.

Kayleigh 21:17

So your first job, what was your first job ever? And how old were you?

Scott 21:21

High school, pizza place. Had to start in the back. I was a topper. I was topping the pizzas and I did horrible, got fired because were you not good at putting cheese on them? So it's like handwritten notes of like what the pizza is. I'm great at cheese, first off. First, but then there's like a code, and I don't know if I'm like a little dyslexic, which I actually think is popular in in um entrepreneurs. It's like ADD dyslexia, oh ADHD strong autism is like all like linked to like entrepreneurs. Um, but like what was it? It was O. Um, so it's like it's Like pea is pineapple and or or is it um pepperoni? Like so they have like all this this code.

Kayleigh 22:05

Okay.

Scott 22:05

And I put olives on a pizza instead of onions. Oh, those are two very different flavors.

Kayleigh 22:12

A very different flavor.

Scott 22:13

So I did it once and then did that twice, and then I forgot again and then I got fired. And then like a year later, they hired me again. Second chance. Second chance. And uh I didn't understand like the schedule was like on the hallway, and you you know, again, handwritten who when works when. I'd worked like three Wednesdays in a row at the exact same time. So I just thought that was my schedule. So I missed like a Saturday thing, and it's then it's right there. I'm like, well, I didn't know that. I mean, I guess it did, but I never checked it after the first day. And oops. So pizza guy, I did deliver for a little bit, and then back in the day before GPS, dude, guy that old?

Kayleigh 22:48

Where is it a map quest?

Scott 22:49

You so you can map quest it, which was wild. You can't do that for everything. So we had this giant map on the wall of all the roads, and you literally would go look up the address and go, they're here, okay. And you would just memorize, okay, I go down that far, I took a left on that one, got it. Did you get in the car?

Kayleigh 23:06

Nope. My dad used to have the big old atlas because he was a truck driver.

Scott 23:09

Oh, yeah.

Kayleigh 23:09

So we had we always had an atlas on us, and I remember he's like, Gail, get the damn atlas. And I'm like, I don't know what I'm looking at.

Scott 23:16

That's hilarious. The stress. We did have we would you we'd call back, and so it'd be like call back home base. Okay, I'm here and here. Where is that? Okay, where are you? Okay, you need to go two blocks down, turn right. Okay, cool, got it.

Kayleigh 23:25

Oh my god.

Scott 23:26

Yes, wild.

Kayleigh 23:27

Not for the week.

Scott 23:28

No.

Kayleigh 23:29

My first job was 16 at McDonald's because I really wanted to go to France.

Scott 23:32

You want to go to France?

Kayleigh 23:34

Yeah.

Scott 23:34

So you use your McDonald's money to go to France?

Kayleigh 23:36

Hell yeah, I did. My parents are like, yeah, if you want to go to France, you have to work.

Scott 23:39

Oh, I love that.

Kayleigh 23:39

Okay.

Scott 23:40

Nice. Yeah.

Kayleigh 23:41

So I did that, I babysat it. Made it happen. Yeah. And then so I'm from like the sticks, sticks of upstate. Yeah. And so we uh used a snowmobile. Oh, okay. And so we sometimes would they would snowmobile me in. I have all my gear with me.

Scott 23:56

To McDonald's. To McDonald's to work.

Kayleigh 23:58

Yeah. And then my mom would come pick me up later.

Scott 24:01

That's awesome, actually. And then I went to France.

Kayleigh 24:03

It was great. As soon as I got back, I quit because I absolutely hated it.

Scott 24:07

But then I I travel would do that too.

Kayleigh 24:09

Yeah. I mean, I've had every job you could think of because I was like, I don't know what I want to do. Like, I worked for a dentist. I've worked. I love events. Events are like my heart. Events and nonprofits, like that's where I live.

Scott 24:18

So like I worked in like school, you're giver.

Kayleigh 24:21

Yes. It's a fun, fun for me. Yeah. Um, hence why I started the podcast.

Scott 24:25

Nice. Nice.

Kayleigh 24:26

But no, I've I like all the jobs I've had because everyone's like, You've done what? And I was like, Yeah, I worked for a dentist. I know I forget that too.

Scott 24:33

I've had a lot as well. Like uh the the first time I would like worked for a startup, that's what like I was like, I want to do this. And I was an intern, and then I think over the four years I worked there, I had nine different jobs in like four different departments. Jeez. So it was like I was over customer service, then I was over product, and then when I finally made it to marketing, and I was like, ooh, I like that. I did sales and then it was like marketing. I was like, I like this. Crafting a message with an image oriented towards a target audience. Like that was a blast. So that's a sort of thing.

Kayleigh 25:05

Yeah, I'm trying to think because when I I lived in Myrtle Beach before I came here. Yeah. And I worked at the um, have you been to Myrtle Beach? Yeah. Okay, so you know uh Dirty Myrtle? The yeah, it's a rough place.

Scott 25:16

I had a good time. I did a little helicopter ride. People tell me that's a bad idea.

Kayleigh 25:20

I don't I don't usually go near the helicopters, but you know, as long as you can I mean you're here to tell the story. So my friend's husband's one of the helicopter people. Um yeah, I mean, I hear really cool stories. There's a good one I've just never done it. Yeah, but um, what's it called? Pirate's voyage. You know of it? I know of it.

Scott 25:36

Dixie's stampede Ripley's is there.

Kayleigh 25:38

Ripley's is there. There's uh Did you leave the beach? No, because that's all like everything, your name is on the main drive.

Scott 25:45

Yeah, I was that I didn't know anybody. I went by myself one time when I first moved out here. Oh, just to check out. Oh, and for the um helicopter, you couldn't do it with one person. You needed two, or you had to pay for the other person. I don't remember it was. I think they wouldn't take one person. And so I went back into the city and I literally found a person. I was like, I'm gonna pay it. They thought it was so weird. I'm like, no, seriously, I'm not a creep. Like, I just like you can take your own car, follow me, whatever you need to do. But like, I'm going on this helicopter ride, I need another person. They're like, Are you for real? And then they were like on the phone with like their mom, and they're like, Okay, no, this is actually happening. He's serious. And I ran up the we did the helicopter ride with a stranger.

Kayleigh 26:21

I absolutely love that.

Scott 26:22

Yeah, that was great. Great.

Kayleigh 26:24

The fact that someone trusted you is also like very shocking.

Scott 26:27

I tried to make it as as much as don't trust me as possible. Like, like, yeah, I'm not gonna follow you, and you don't have to get in my car, like just just just come there. Just need a plus one. Yeah.

Kayleigh 26:37

No, so I used to work at Pirates Voyage, which is a Dolly Parton company. And it used to be Dixie Stampede, now it's Pirates Voyage, it's all Dolly Parton.

Scott 26:45

And so she great things about Dolly Parton.

Kayleigh 26:47

Um Dolly Parton for president. I yeah, obsessed with her. She's amazing.

Scott 26:50

I've heard that.

Kayleigh 26:51

She's my idol, I love her. But so it's really cool. So she has the Imagination Library, which gives kids from ages zero to five a free book every single month. Because when she grew up, she was.

Scott 27:04

What are zero-year-olds doing with a free book?

Kayleigh 27:06

So, like a one-month-old, you know.

Scott 27:08

I don't know, I'm saying too.

Kayleigh 27:12

Oh, they can be read too? All the things, you know. That's fair, that's fair. But her whole thing was she doesn't ever want like a kid to go without like any kind of education. So that's her way of giving back to the education system. And so she's great. So that's kind of like where the nonprofit left.

Scott 27:25

What was uh you were for Pirate Bay? Pirate's Voyage. Pirates Voyage, and that was a restaurant.

Kayleigh 27:30

No, so it's like an entertainment. Um, so they had two giant pirate ships. They had a big old pool that had sea lions diving in and out. Wow. I have photos with sea lions, their names were Hans and Freddie.

Scott 27:42

Um, they like dogs. Yes, yeah, that's what I've giant wet dogs. That's so cool.

Kayleigh 27:47

Oh, they're the cool these things are massive. I mean, they're huge.

Scott 27:51

They're big dogs. Yep.

Kayleigh 27:52

Big dogs. And then at Christmas time we had camels. So I've been on a couple camel rides. Big camels? Yeah. Like at the Yeah, for the nativity scenes. Oh, right.

Scott 28:01

Jesus. Nice. She loves Jesus. Dog Harden.

Kayleigh 28:04

Yeah. Oh, yeah, she's great.

Scott 28:06

Country.

Kayleigh 28:06

She is very country. I love her. Yeah, it's good.

Scott 28:09

Uh maybe she should be president. Right?

Kayleigh 28:11

She's not that idea. She's got everything. She's in the right age bracket.

Scott 28:14

Like old. Super old. Can we not?

Kayleigh 28:19

Oh, it's so funny though. So, like from there, I realized I kind of like marketing. And so then I left there to go work at Myrtle Beach Pelicans, which is a baseball team.

Scott 28:27

Oh, cool.

Kayleigh 28:28

And I was like, I know nothing about baseball. Let's try it out. And I thought I'd be doing marketing.

Scott 28:32

It's the entrepreneur spirit right there. Right.

Kayleigh 28:33

And so instead I did sales. Yeah.

Scott 28:36

I knew nothing about restaurants and stuff. I'm like, yeah, look, how hard could it be?

Kayleigh 28:40

Right.

Scott 28:41

Put some ice in a soda.

Kayleigh 28:42

Yeah. Just a little ice. Let's shake it up.

Scott 28:45

Yeah.

Kayleigh 28:46

Oh man. But that's awesome. So you guys have six, eight. How many do you have right now?

Scott 28:50

So uh we're not in the arena anymore. Yes, we have six.

Kayleigh 28:52

Right, six. Yep, six. Do you still have some in the Lenovo Center?

Scott 28:55

No, no, we only did it one year.

Kayleigh 28:57

Oh, okay.

Scott 28:58

It was a good gig, it just didn't make sense. I got you. They're not, you basically break even to do a lot of work.

Kayleigh 29:03

And so it was kind of like I can imagine it's not.

Scott 29:05

Went to a lot of hockey games, though. That was cool.

Kayleigh 29:07

Hockey Jarvis is my number one.

Scott 29:10

Is that one of the players?

Kayleigh 29:11

Yes. Yeah. I'm a diehard hockey fan.

Scott 29:14

Yeah, we didn't have the crack out in Seattle until after we all left. And so like we never really got into hockey.

Kayleigh 29:19

Yeah. I mean, from upstate New York, my college, like we didn't have like football or anything. We had hockey.

Scott 29:24

Ton of hockey.

Kayleigh 29:25

Lots of hockey. That's cool.

Scott 29:26

I love hockey. Yeah, I want to get into Hurricanes more because it it was a good time. And arena's like a blast. Like that's super fun.

Kayleigh 29:32

I live like five minutes from it. It's amazing. Oh, that's good. I just walk there.

Scott 29:35

That's cool.

Kayleigh 29:36

Anyone that comes with me, I'm like, yeah, we gotta walk.

Scott 29:38

Yeah.

Kayleigh 29:38

And there's like, that's a mile.

Scott 29:39

And I'm like, believe me, it's better than parking.

Kayleigh 29:41

You're gonna pay $45 for that parking. You're gonna pay $45 for two drinks. Like it's gonna, you're just just do it. It's a mile. It ain't gonna kill you.

Scott 29:48

Yep.

Kayleigh 29:49

I also like to walk everywhere. From living in New York City, I'm just so used to walking everywhere.

Scott 29:53

Yeah.

Kayleigh 29:53

Oh, I love it.

Scott 29:54

I moved uh to North Hills right here, and there's a lot of walking. It's good. Love North Hills. It's a good time. It's a it's fun there, yeah. Lived downtown before that. Raleigh's pretty walkable.

Kayleigh 30:03

Super, yeah. Yeah. And they're just making it more walkable too, which is doing it.

Scott 30:06

The greenways are amazing.

Kayleigh 30:07

Yes.

Scott 30:08

That if you haven't discovered the greenways in Raleigh, they're bike riding or jogging, whatever, they're fantastic.

Kayleigh 30:14

So, do you know um they're bloggers? Uh, This is Raleigh.

Scott 30:18

Uh-uh.

Kayleigh 30:19

It's an Australian couple, they're super sweet. I've interviewed them for the show. Oh, awesome. And they literally go, not literally.

Scott 30:24

I love the Australians have a show called This Is Raleigh.

Kayleigh 30:27

Yes.

Scott 30:27

That's cool.

Kayleigh 30:28

Because they moved here, they got their green card from um the White House invited them. Nice. Because they're such big bloggers for the U.S. And it was their story.

Scott 30:36

It's so cool. Oh man, I wanted to come through. I want to meet them.

Kayleigh 30:39

But they talk about all the greenways and like which ones they really like. But they've done the whole biking from Durham down the bike tobacco trail, is that what it is?

Scott 30:47

That's cool. Yeah, tobacco. Sure. Yeah. Tobacco Road. Tobacco something.

Kayleigh 30:50

They did 26 miles and they said it's very flat. And I said, I want to do that.

Scott 30:54

I discovered, we're just I don't know if we're talking about business still, but I'm going to tell you about it. I discovered a trail. It's called Sea to Mountain or Mountain to Sea. There is a trail in North Carolina that goes from the sea to Tennessee. It is like 1600 miles long and it goes across the entire state. It's so cool. One continuous trail.

Kayleigh 31:18

That sounds so good.

Scott 31:18

And so you can just like hike portions of it. Um, but the record is one person did it in 30 days. So 30 days straight sleeping on the trail. Walk straight through it. That's crazy. But yeah, that's like Raleigh. I think I think North Carolina and Raleigh is like the sweet spot. It's like halfway up, halfway down, four awesome seasons. Like I like it. It gets cold, it gets hot. Spring and fall are incredible, beautiful. Weather's all over the place. It's a blast.

Kayleigh 31:46

So compared to Utah. So I've never been to Utah, so I don't know.

Scott 31:50

Utah is like there's only Salt Lake. Like it's like so. I did a whole bunch of like market research when I was doing the soda shops. And so there are like three million people in the entire state of Utah. So there are 10 million people in North Carolina.

Kayleigh 32:06

Got it.

Scott 32:07

Right. And so like almost all three million people live like between Salt Lake and Provo.

Kayleigh 32:13

Oh, okay. So it's like a small area.

Scott 32:15

Yep, pretty small area. And so Salt Lake's actually very similar to Raleigh in terms of like size. They're both like medium cities, but they're like a million plus if you zoom out enough. Um, but they have all the amenities and it's not too busy, it's not too crowded. You don't have like DC um traffic. It's they're great size cities. So they're very, very similar. So it's easy to make like how many of these can we build? Blah blah blah. And then there's the rest of Utah, which is like completely different. If you go south, it is you're on a different planet. I mean, Red Rocks, Arches, Zions, all those national parks are insane. But like, you don't you don't live there, you go visit there. Oh, okay.

Kayleigh 32:55

So no one lives around it.

Scott 32:56

Yeah. So when you say how is Utah, it's like, well, what do you mean? Because it's like I don't know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. It's like to live there, nah, I peaced out.

Kayleigh 33:03

Like, it's just like I was out so fast.

Scott 33:06

Yeah, no, I was actually there for a while. I was like there for eight years. Okay, whatever. But um, no, really was I was like, why do I still live here?

Kayleigh 33:14

Because when did you leave Seattle to go there?

Scott 33:16

So I went uh so 20 years in in Seattle, uh basically raised there my whole life, and then college went to Utah.

Kayleigh 33:23

Got it.

Scott 33:23

Okay, so high school, Utah, college, Utah, and then moved out. Got it.

Kayleigh 33:27

And then you were here in 2017.

Scott 33:29

Yep.

Kayleigh 33:30

Nice.

Scott 33:30

Yeah. So it's been good. So now it's like I think I've almost been here longer than I was in Utah now. So I think this is officially home.

Kayleigh 33:36

This is the I've been here in Raleigh longer than I've been in Merrill Beach. So I'm just like, oh, I'm like officially like corner.

Scott 33:41

I know.

Kayleigh 33:42

I'm a North Carolinian.

Scott 33:43

After it was like five years, six years, and then people were like, oh, so you're from here. I'm like, oh, okay. Sure. So sure, yeah. I've been here. I'm like, I didn't have to do like originally from here, and now I'm here. It's like, I'm I'm Raleigh, I'm a Raleigh, I'm from here. Yeah. Been here 10 years almost. Yeah.

Kayleigh 33:58

I'm happy I moved in 20. I mean, I moved the day everything shut down in 2020, March 12th.

Scott 34:03

Dude, that's when I moved downtown for the first time. I've never lived in a city my whole life.

Kayleigh 34:06

Oh god.

Scott 34:07

And I move in like right when the pandemic hits, and I'm like, downtown sucks. No restaurant, nothing's open. Yeah. It sucks.

Kayleigh 34:16

Oh, it was terrible. Yeah.

Scott 34:18

So when did you do that? When you moved here?

Kayleigh 34:20

Yeah.

Scott 34:21

From New York? From Myrtle Beach. From Myrtle.

Kayleigh 34:23

I mean, I moved to Garner first, but I had a roommate and I helped open a gym out in Fuque.

Scott 34:28

Oh, we have a soda box in Garner.

Kayleigh 34:30

Really?

Scott 34:30

Yeah.

Kayleigh 34:30

Oh, hell yeah. That's awesome. So where are all the locations? There's Apex, Rollsville. We know Garner.

Scott 34:36

Yep.

Kayleigh 34:36

Where are we right now? Raleigh?

Scott 34:37

I call it North Hill Six Forks, but yeah, Raleigh. And then there's there's one inside, there's one on Raleigh Boulevard. So there's one inside the loop. There's one in Raleigh.

Kayleigh 34:45

I'm really bad with road names.

Scott 34:46

Raleigh Boulevard.

Kayleigh 34:47

What's the loop? The five forty? So you don't, yeah. It's a belt?

Scott 34:50

ITB. You don't know what ITB?

Kayleigh 34:52

Um ITB is? I know. No.

Scott 34:54

Inside the belt?

Kayleigh 34:56

Oh, okay. So like I now know what that means.

Scott 34:58

So it's like house prices go if you're ITB. So you go outside the belt.

Kayleigh 35:03

I see.

Scott 35:04

They chill out a little bit.

Kayleigh 35:05

I'm so lazy. I don't want to travel that far.

Scott 35:08

Circle.

Kayleigh 35:08

Yeah. No. I'd rather just be next to things.

Scott 35:11

Okay. And then let's see, what are the other ones? We have one out in Carrie by Morrisville.

Kayleigh 35:16

Yes. I think I've passed that one a couple times.

Scott 35:18

So the Garner one, the apex one, and then like go down the loop. The Roseville, I think do we name them all?

Kayleigh 35:25

Roseville. Carrie Apex here. There's another one up there, Garner.

Scott 35:32

Raleigh Boulevard. Did we get them all?

Kayleigh 35:34

Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Scott 35:36

That's all.

Kayleigh 35:36

Wow, this is hard.

Scott 35:37

Don't let me forget one of my babies.

Kayleigh 35:40

Not the babies. All right, so last question. What advice would you give someone that wants to start a business?

Scott 35:45

We joked about this before. It's like, don't. I will shoot. I just think it depends on like who's asking, I think. Like if you're like young and you just want to start a business, absolutely. Like you're gonna fail. Like the like I I have uh I won't say who I I know a person very well and they're like, I'm gonna start a business, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. And they're like well into their career now. And they're like, I'm just looking for the right business, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, you're it's gone. Like it's in your soul. Like, you don't, you almost don't start a business because you want to, it's like because you have to. Um, uh, and so like if you're young and you're doing it and you feel called to do it, it's like do it. I I wouldn't I don't want to say expect to fail, but like, I don't know, I've done 10 businesses and probably half of them have like sold or made money or were profitable or whatever. The other half are like, oh, that was not a good idea. Like, dang it, that didn't, that deal didn't happen like I thought it would, or whatever. What advice would I give in general? Um I think I think a lot of times when we start businesses, we're like scared to tell people because we don't want to take the idea because the idea is so good. And that is not what you need to do. Execution is hard, ideas are not hard. And so not a lot of people are gonna execute. Uh I I mean, maybe in the day of AI, if it's that easy to rip off, it doesn't really matter. But yeah, I would say share, share, share, talk about it, talk about it, talk about it. Um most people you look up to are willing to mentor you. And so I would say ask for mentors. And so if you're like, Andrew, startup, you've done this before, will you go to lunch with me? Most people say yes. And so uh I would say ask for advice, look for advice, and then just go, go, go. Speed. Like they they what do they say? They say the um it's not the the big that eat the small, it's the fast that eat the slow. Yeah, and so it's like as long as you can execute faster than your competition, you'll win. Iterate, iterate, iterate.

Kayleigh 37:47

I love that. Yeah, no, that's that's a few pieces? Yeah, no, that was really good.

Scott 37:50

Nice.

Kayleigh 37:50

I think I've done roughly 20 plus of these. Yeah. And so far, everyone's either the hard lessons and advice and or has never been the same. Oh, really? Which I think is so insane to me. Because like I think I was telling you right before this, the only reason I started this, not only one of the biggest reasons that made me start this is when I had sold my business, I had something like very traumatic happen. Okay. Big, big bad stuff happened. So I was like, hell no, I'll never own a business ever again. Especially a gym, no. And so then when I sold it for one to two years, all the questions were like, what would you tell me to do? Like, what should I do? And I was like, No, who you go into business with, dude.

Scott 38:26

Yeah, but you don't know. That's a big one for us too. And we had we had partners that are no longer here and it was didn't go the way we thought it was, and didn't know people were capable of doing things that people do. That's a life lesson, man.

Kayleigh 38:37

It's it's rough.

Scott 38:38

It's rough actually. I would yeah, I guess that that would be the like logistics thing is like have if you're gonna if if money is ever exchanged or promised, have stuff written down. I'll say contracts, contracts, receipts, save receipts, trust but verify. Like if someone says they're gonna do X, then they also should be willing to put that in writing.

Kayleigh 38:56

100%. Like for me.

Scott 38:57

If they're not, that's the red flag. Get out.

Kayleigh 39:00

And what I like, I was 25 when all that happened. So like what I know now, I'm just like, oh my god, like why did I the guy that was selling the business to me and I did it, we just shared a lawyer. And at the time I was like, are we supposed to be doing that? And he's just like, Well, I'll be paying for it, so it's no big deal. And I'm like, something about this seems a little sketch, but okay. Right, but luckily, like that lawyer, like we all went to the gym together. Like, he was a good guy. Yeah, thank God he was a good guy and not like wiped it out, yeah. Yeah, but things I know now.

Scott 39:29

Yeah, yeah. I guess that's the point is like it's it is like it is like life lessons, like it, it's that's what it's for, I guess. Um, and I think too, it's like even if you do end up getting a job, like how many people in the resume have like looked at top line revenue, like done a balance sheet, like try to sell a product, create a good, like done market research, like all the things you learn in uh entrepreneurship is like real life skills that translate directly to whatever job you're gonna have.

Kayleigh 39:55

100%. That's good to do. Yeah.

Scott 39:57

Yeah.

Kayleigh 39:57

Well, thank you. Thank you. You were at a lot of good tidbits. Yay! Uh, where can people find you?

Scott 40:03

Uh so we've got um sodabox.love. So we're www.sodobox.love. That's our website. Uh sodabox.love is our handle, and then I'm SodaBox Scott. So you can find me.

Kayleigh 40:13

SodaBox Scott.

Scott 40:14

SodaBox Scott. Also. Cool.

Kayleigh 40:16

Well, thank you so much for taking the time today.

Scott 40:18

This has been wonderful.

Kayleigh 40:19

Oh, thank you. It's it's I always have fun. Um, I'm gonna finish my dirty soda and then drink a lot of water and then um call it a day. Yeah, I'm tired. These wipe me out. I'm just like, I go, go, go, I'm such a catalog.

Scott 40:32

Yapping's hard.

Kayleigh 40:33

Dude, yapping's I love it, but at the same time, I'm like, what am I doing?

Scott 40:36

So yeah, no kidding, tougher nap.

Kayleigh 40:39

Right.

Scott 40:39

Yeah.

Kayleigh 40:39

Well, thank you for watching. Uh do what you do best. Go like, subscribe, follow, share, all the things that you normally do. And don't forget, I got a Patreon that costs less than your coffee. So you should probably go do that. Right. Yeah, right. Nice old book. All right, well, thank you.