Hello and welcome to another episode. Today we are right here in Meyersdal Eco-estate touring another grand mansion. My name is Chad Rivera. This is the private property home shopper show and the home behind me is without a doubt absolutely incredible. But before we head off though, remember you can find your new home on privateproperty.co.za. Julian, thank you so much for having us here in Meyersdal Eco-estate. Tell me a bit about yourself and tell me a bit about your company Allegiance Properties. Allegiance Properties has been well established in the Meyersdal area, especially within the Eco-estate for a number of years now. I've seen properties grow from ground zero over here, just selling off vacant plots and then obviously seeing these monstrosity of homes that have come up within this estate. So it's been a really, really great privilege to see these homes come up and with the likes of people I've dealt with along the years, it's been so amazing to see such amazing architecture that has come into fruition over the time. Fantastic. So Meyersdal Eco-estate, we've toured it so often. A lot of the viewers are quite comfortable with what's going on here in Meyersdal Eco-estate. But what we've missed is talking about it as an area to live in. So give me some of the pluses of living here in Meyersdal Eco-estate and why a customer who maybe doesn't know about Meyersdal or who's maybe living in one of the other suburbs would want to move here. So the estate upholds the security that any individual that would want to be spending this type of money has to offer. It's 24-hour security. It's nestled in 115,000 square metres of land, of which only approximately 350 homes are nestled on the ground itself. The reason so little homes are nestled in it is because it's ample advantages for animals to freely roam within their estate. There's over 500 antelope that are in here, wildebears and giraffe that frequently roam amongst the green belt and so forth. So the estate itself is very unique, very family-orientated and it's an estate that really upholds the luxury of lifestyle that most bars want to pottake in. It feels incredible and it definitely doesn't feel like we're right here in Joburg either. Yeah, it seems like we're at the Kruger sometimes, you know, part of the estate. That's what it feels like. But what's also nice is what we're going to be going through in terms of this property. I mean, I'm sure you've noticed this property and you've seen it obviously come to fruition in terms of being on the market. So I'm quite comfortable to present this property to the public and say this is the home that you should be considering. And I mean, that's what we hear today is to talk about this property here behind us and give me a couple of your favourite features about this property. Well, I love the fact that it's a thousand square metres home, it's on a 1500 square metres stand plus minus, but also the architecture of what the home can offer, you know, any buyer that's spending this type of money wants to have that street appeal that a house can offer. And this home, I do believe has it. One of the key aspects of it is it's got a cinema room, it's got six bedrooms, six bathrooms, double garage on either side. And, you know, if Granny's coming along, it's always nice to know that there is a lift that can accommodate her into her own private bedroom, which is quite nice to have as an added feature. I can't wait to check it out, Julian. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Welcome home. And when it comes to real estate, allegiance properties deal with people. There we go. As you step into this home, you're greeted by this incredible entry hall with light streaming through the double volume windows, just above me, down lighting that matches the elegance of this home stunningly. And then just in front of me, there is that elevator that we mentioned in our intro, beautifully positioned and covered in glass, so it doesn't obstruct any of the views that Mayazal Eco estate is so well known for. This room is also air conditioned and leads immediately off to both of your double garages and your very own cinema room, which we're going to be checking out right now. Come with me. The cinema room is exactly what you'd expect from a mansion this size. It's large, has multiple tiers with several comfy reclining chairs and a multi-channel speaker system complete with a huge projector. But what makes this cinema room so incredible has to be the uniquely shaped bulkhead that houses smart LEDs. So you can set the perfect tone for all of your movie nights.  As an area, you can sit down, relax and watch a couple of movies. There's a grand piano here, so you can make this place your own. It's really nice to see homes that allow so many different types of designs and styling options. But this is not all because the rest of the home awaits. Let's take a quick walk down these stairs and see where we find ourselves. And here we are finally within the first living area that we come to. Now, this living area borders your kitchen. Above our heads, we've got beautiful bulkhead ceiling. This carries on throughout the downstairs area with recessed LED lighting as well as those speakers that are built in the ceiling that has become a staple of homes here in Mayersdoll Eco State. Then below our feet, we've got these beautiful, large, white tiles that really open up the space. The area itself has got plenty of room for the massive, all shaped couch behind me, underfloor heating, and then, as I said, leads directly onto your kitchen. And here we are within many people's favorite area of a home and that is the kitchen. Now, this kitchen can only be described in one way and that is ultra modern. We've got white enamel countertops that's broken up so nicely with dark brown cabinetry as well as plenty of silver elements. And those silver elements I need to mention right here because as you can see, this beautiful thing that you might mistake as a chandelier is actually an extractor fan. And this is definitely the first time we've seen an extractor fan be modeled into an art piece. And just below that extractor fan, we've got a glass melee induction cooktop. You don't want to use induction or you can't because of load shedding. They're full of it just to the right of that. You've got a stainless steel gas hob with two burners and to its left, you've got your chef sink, a staple in any home. Behind me, I'm sure you can see it glowing there, but we will have it in cutaways. Take a look at your very own built-in bar, full LED lighting to display your favorite drinks and then quick access to the garage. So if you're moving groceries straight into your kitchen and then into your cabinetry, talking about cabinetry built into your floor to ceiling cabinetry, you've got six melee appliances, two warming drawers, two ovens, a steamer and a microwave. So this home is kitted out with a kitchen that would even make a private chef blush. But before we go any further, let's move off just to our left and see what the scullery has in store for us. The scullery is perhaps the nicest we've seen on the show so far. It carries through the ultra minimalist design from the kitchen and it features some more unique bulkheads. There's plenty of counter and cupboard space, so you never need to worry about whipping up large meals for all of the glamorous parties you'll be having in this home. There are also two additional things and direct access to your courtyard, making this the perfect utility space. And what do we do once we've whipped up a meal for our guests that they're going to be talking about for weeks? Well, we head off to the dining room, come with me. And yeah, we are just around the corner, you find your dining room area. Now, this dining room area is incredibly spacious, enough space, in fact, for a 10-seater dining room table and then just above the dining room table, being a focal point and leading the eyes all the way up to these high ceilings is this incredible Swarovski crystal chandelier. And then on my right hand side is a corner window, leading in that little bit of natural light. And right next to your dining room area is your second lounge area. Now, this one is absolutely beautiful, spacious and the perfect place to curl up and watch a movie. And the reason I say that is because despite its modern appearance, it is right next to a gas fireplace. This gas fireplace is shared with the first living area we saw earlier. So it's a complete posture and a really nice feature. But front and center is a massive TV and that TV is flinked by two windows, leading in a lot of natural light, which makes this room work both during the night or during the day.  Just before we move into the bar area, I'd be remiss not to mention just down this hallway, you've got your guest bathroom as well as your downstairs guest bedroom. That guest bedroom comes with its very own en suite bathroom, all complete with a freestanding bathtub, single vanity and beautiful windows looking out onto the back garden. So it is still very private. And then moving a bit forward, we come to my favorite room in the home. And that is right here, your bar area. Now, this bar area is perfectly situated right next to a sliding glass door that leads out onto this manicured garden as well as pool area and wooden deck. But we're leaving that for last. Let's talk about what you get right here. Above our heads, we've got those built in speakers, fully air conditioned bar area that I love because of all these massive windows. Areas like this can get so hot. No such thing in this home. Just to my left, you'll see a glass auditorium that is currently decked out as a kid's storage area slash playroom. You can do whatever you want, let your imagination take while. But what makes this bar area my favorite room in the home? Other than, of course, it is beautifully laid out with all the storage space you could ever want. Well, it is because of this right here. A fully enclosed and automated coffee bar with its very own warm end rule. Opening up here, you get to put all your snacks and keep them warm while watching movies in your living room area. But closing this, let's walk outside and see what the garden has in store for us. Because this home is built with families in mind. We've got a pool area as well as a massive patch of grass. And then hidden just behind the stunning, stunning landscape garden is your very own private jungle gym and Wendy house. Trust me, your kids are going to love not only what Mayorsdal Eco State brings, but what this home in particular has. Now we have wrapped up the downstairs area. Let's take a walk off to the entry hall and decide how we're going to make our way upstairs to the top floor. Come with me. So this home has a beautiful, elegant floating staircase. But why take the staircase when you can take the elevator? So a quick open. And then we press this button right over here. See you upstairs. And here we are swiftly and safely delivered to our upper level where all the bedrooms are located. Now, because of safety, there are two gates located on the upper level both require just a small push and here you are. We've seen a lot of homes and this is easily one of the coolest ways to get to your top level. So come with me and let's take a look at what this whole upper level has in store for us, because trust me, it is a lot. And here we are standing in the upstairs pyjama lounge and this one is specifically quite special. For one, you've got a beautiful curved wall of glass looking out onto your top deck, as well as downstairs into your entry wall. It's perfectly positioned between all of the bedrooms upstairs to be a place that you can sit, relax and enjoy a movie without having to go downstairs and sit in the cinema room or one of the loungers. So it's got quite a cozy atmosphere. And what makes it all the better is just behind me. You've got a fully kitter out games room, wrap around couch, pool table and food table fit in so easily. And then between all the bedrooms right next to your games room is your very own fully kitter out gym, which we're going to start with. Let's take a look. And now with all the living areas out of the way, there are five bedrooms located on the side of the home, three of them on this wing and then two of them located on the other wing, one of those two being your master suite. So what I'd like to do is right next to the lift, we're going to take a look at the first bedroom and work our way counter clockwise all the way until we reach the master suite. Come with me and let's see what's sleeping in Meysdal Eco State in a home this fantastic must feel like. Our first stop on this upper level is the office. The massive space has plenty of natural light and carries through the bulkhead ceiling design we've seen throughout this home. The bulkhead houses the central heating system and a few lights which aid in brightening up this room. But with these high windows, the space is bright enough. The rest of the bedrooms have their own flair with a few unique features and decor, including different accent walls and bulkhead designs. But each space has plenty of windows, stunning light features and ensuite bathrooms. There's nothing more you'd need in a home like this.  So this master suite is divided up into a couple of different areas. Behind me, you've got your bed area, spacious, big, airy, everything we've seen before done perfectly right. The area is air conditioned, but just everything above it is your very own private lounge area, absolutely massive, custom marble field tiles, two windows with a cantilevered roof and windows built into that cantilever, letting in so much natural light as well as a really cool chandelier. Being almost a centerpiece, you've got your inbuilt speakers and everything else you could want from your own private space. But just off to my right hand side, you've here got your own walking closet that's divided into two different areas. Let's show you what this has in store. You have to admit it's pretty cool having your own private kitchen space in your master suite, but that first set of walking closets isn't everything because your second set of walking closets is right here and this leads off to your ensuite master bathroom and we're checking that out right now. Now, with that beautiful master bedroom wrapped up, the cherry on top has to be that it leads out onto your very own private balcony with an incredible view of the whole estate, but more importantly, it allows you to look down onto your incredible blue pool or stunning manicured grounds or even come over here and catch a really nice tan. And this unfortunately brings us to the end of this episode. So let's venture back downstairs so we can talk to you about how you can become the next owner of this incredible home, right? Jane Mazel Eco estate. And unfortunately, that brings us to the end of today's episode. So let's recap what we've seen so far. This incredible home offers six bedrooms, six bathrooms, two separate garages, as well as a whole host of other notable features such as a bespoke bar, a separate gym room, as well as a cinema room and lift, all for 17 million rand. Now, if you'd like to become the next owner of this incredible home, what I'd like you to do is contact Julian and Hamat from Allegiance Property and a big thank you goes out to Julian as well as Hamat for allowing us to show you this stunning home and all of its features. What I'd like you guys to do is like, share and subscribe and please drop all your comments of what you thought about this incredible home down below in the comments section and don't forget to hit the notification bell so you never miss an episode of the private property podcast or another episode of the private property home shopper show or we tour all these amazing homes. But for myself, Chad Rivera and the team at the home shopper show, thank you so much and we'll see you next time right here. Thank you and goodbye.


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Then I wanted to raise capital. So my first raise, we raised $396,000. And again, it was just me, employee of one, but employee wasn't being paid. So I was living off my savings and being very, very careful. I had my 12-year-old car and the AC had been busted for my little Honda Fit. So I had to buy a little cooler from Home Depot to keep the bars cold because it was super warm in the summers. I'm driving around, going literally store to store. This is Started to Store From. Today's guest is Susie York, founder of the snack brand Love Good Fats. As the name implies, the brand is centered around bucking the notion that all fats are bad. This notion began back in the 1960s when the sugar industry paid scientists to fudge their studies on the correlation between sugar and heart disease. Those scientists took their money and instead pointed the finger at fat. Susie admits falling for this charade, and she developed lots of health issues as a result. It was her own research that eventually set her down the right path, allowing for a more nutritious diet with more healthy fats and less sugar. Some might have stopped there, but Susie, a single mom and at this point in her late 40s, was driven to shift gears and leave behind a 10-year career as a marketing executive to start her own company. It is through her hard work and perseverance that Love Good Fats can be found in over 14,000 stores today. So listen in as we cover everything from how she managed her family, her startup, and her training for an Ironman triathlon all at the same time, why she thinks there are more hurdles to starting a company in Canada as opposed to the US, and why it is never too late in life to switch gears and become your own boss. Now, back to the episode. All right, everyone, welcome to the podcast. On today's show, we have Susie York, the founder of Love Good Fats. Susie, thanks so much for joining. Tell everyone a little bit about your company. Well, hi, Diego, and thanks for having me on. Hello, everybody. Pleased to be here. Our company is a fairly new emerging brand, Food Startup. We started just three years ago. The mission is to change how people eat, and really to kind of encourage a nutrition diet, high in good fats, very low in sugar, and overall feel really good about kind of making that shift. So that's why I called the brand Love Good Fats, and I started with bars, and now we have shakes, and we're in thousands of doors across North America already. I love it. I know I certainly love fats. If they're all good, like avocado, that makes it even more amazing. What was the point of which you wanted to start the company? Was it just a personal issue you were having in terms of finding things that just didn't fit your lifestyle? What was the impetus for starting? Yeah, for sure.  I had an executive, marketing executive job, and doing lots of traveling and trying to kind of balance everything. And by my mid-40s, you know, that type of diet and the lifestyle really kind of led to some health issues. I had cardiovascular, I had IBS. My tummy was upset all the time. And then I read a book, and the book was written by Nina Tichols, and it basically said that, you know, we got it all wrong in the last 40 years that we should be embracing fats and cutting out sugar and carbohydrates instead. So I was on a plane on my way to Natural Product Expo West, and I was doing consulting, and I kind of had in the back of my mind, I wanted to start my own brand one day, but that book was really the lightning rod for myself to change my diet pretty much instantly. I after 20 years of not eating fats, I'm like, okay, I need to do exact opposite of what I've been doing.  And so that's kind of where it started. I said, you know, if I want to drive change, I could write a book or I could, you know, help promote, there's all these different books now on low carb diets and higher fat diets and low sugar diets, but a better way to kind of get the message out is do what I've spent my career doing, which is build a brand and have the brand carry the message. So I kind of gave it a shot. And this sounds a lot like the keto diet. Is that right? You're just making it, I would say probably more approachable. Yeah, I mean, when I launched the, you know, I came up with the idea in March 16 and then I did that summer, I did all the consumer research and I started having prototypes in 16 and then early 17 and then turned the production machines on in early 17 and then out of co-packer and then that failed because co-packers didn't know how to make high fat, low sugar bars. So it was kind of a trial and error. And back then ketogenic wasn't at the forefront yet. It was really just about high fat, very low carbohydrates and low sugar, like really, really kind of aim for, you know, aim for zero sugar and keep below 25 grams a day if you can. And that was kind of the premise. Then, so I launched in September 17 and then ketogenic just kind of came with a full force wave in May, 2018. And my, you know, the brand happened to be keto friendly by being, you know, very high fats and moderate protein and very, very, very low sugar, one to two grams of sugar only, all clean ingredients. So I just kind of have the keto wave happened to kind of help me along. I've had a bit of bad luck in some things, but I've had a lot of good luck on a lot of other things. And that's one of them. I know your brand is basically a household name in Canada. Here in the United States, the biggest problem we have is sugar is subsidized. And so because it subsidized heavily, you know, all these companies have no incentive to move to something that isn't as bad for your body. And so what ends up happening is, you know, and it makes sense. That's how we get fast food and we get, you know, hamburger buns with all these preservatives and that you could literally leave it on a shelf and it would be fine for a year because there's no actual bacteria anymore. It's just heavily processed. That's amazing. I know that's something that's new to me. I recently spoke to HVMN co-founder who's, he's also big on keto and he actually sells ketones oddly enough. You can actually buy them for like 30 bucks. And so he, you know, he does well in the startup community for me. And this is really like, I consider myself a student of people like yourself in your company because for me, almost kind of like your journey, when I was a tech executive, I was working, you know, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. And at some point I realized everything I put into my body is essential because I need to be on essentially the whole day. And then I have to be home and be a husband and that if, you know, if we're eating big meatball subs, we're going to pass out and unfortunately the company's going to fail. And that's the first time that the light bulb went off for me, but it's hard because then you have to, it's almost like you have to go above all the noise, everything that's so accessible and things become a little harder per se. When you decided to launch, what were like the two or three things that you said, okay, we're going to, we're going to do bars, we're going to do, what was the product that you really wanted to enter the market with? Yeah. Well, once I decided to launch, at first I said, oh, maybe not bars because bars are so crowded. It's a difficult, expensive, high risk, high fail category to launch in. And I purposely kind of spent, you know, three months looking at every other category possible. But then with my business and marketing hat, it became really obvious that the reason bars is such a great entry category is that you get rapid trial. And with new products, it's all about trial. So if you have a $10 pouch of something or a $30 pouch of something or $40 bottle of something, you're automatically not going to get as much trial. And in package goods, the game is about awareness to drive first trial. We happen to have a bar that is incredibly delicious and it melts in your mouth and it doesn't taste like any other protein bar out there. And it's really just one to two grams of sugar. So you kind of get this like, wow, really, like how can this be a healthy, you know, natural product with super clean ingredients? Like how does this happen? And to be able to kind of really leverage that discovery, bars is perfect. You know, you can get three for $5 and you can try three different flavors. So it became pretty obvious. And I had worked in bars before my prior career. I was at Weight Watchers and I did consulting for a couple of bar companies. And so I was very familiar with the portfolio of bars and supplements and foods in my whole background. So it kind of all quickly made sense that if, if I kind of have this grandiose dream changing how North Americans eat in a big way, quick rapid penetration of bars, especially when you have a product that tastes so unique like nothing out there is really, really smart. And we saw that in Canada. You know, I launched in 10 stores in September, 2017 and then wind up in 50 stores and about 170 stores by Christmas. But six weeks in, we were at Whole Foods in Toronto and we were already having all the store managers tell us that OrgTel was kind of me and a few investors and board of directors walking into stores and saying, hey, how are our bars doing? And we were number one in two best selling within weeks, like within six weeks. So we knew, you know, in a world where there's 500 bars on the shelves, particularly, you know, and that the largest kind of Whole Foods store in the East here is in downtown Toronto. And, you know, within weeks, we're number one in two best selling. We knew like, whoa, like something's going on here. Cause as a marketer, I knew it takes a long time to build a brand and get, particularly, you know, we just had goals of like this being sustainable. Or if we sell a couple million dollars a year and, you know, slowly build the brand, I would have been really happy instead. We're like, what, you know, we're out of stock already. We gotta make some more, gotta make some more, launch innovation more, more, more, more. So it just went really fast. Every time I like go to any, so there's an air wand here, which is kind of like this natural, almost like a Whole Foods, but some people consider it a level up. Obviously we have Whole Foods here in Bristol Farms, a lot of great grocers. And my thing is always like, I just want a bar that's low carb. And it's so difficult to find. And last time I was in Bristol Farms, I actually saw your bar and I grabbed the peanut butter and chocolate one and sure enough, delicious. But more than that, it just makes sense, right? It's like, obviously, this is what we should be ingesting in our body. When you decided to launch, did you immediately raise capital? Did you bootstrap? Because given your experience, you probably knew exactly what was required to penetrate in a big way. Well, I pretty much knew, because I had, you know, I was a single mom. I managed to keep, you know, my home despite kind of the challenges and the costs in Toronto of doing that. And I had managed to put together some savings and my kids kind of school savings and stuff. So I kind of had like the three reasons for 35 years as to why I hadn't started my company, they all kind of were being checked off the list one by one. Like I had an idea. I had enough savings to start, but not enough to kind of keep going, but enough to kind of seed, seed, seed and bootstrap off my credit card. I kind of had, you know, I had time. So my kids were a little bit older, still not old enough, but certainly older that I kind of literally went from 5 a.m. to pretty much 9 p.m., seven days a week for two years. And I kind of had like the three circumstances came together. The idea was really, really good. So I shopped the idea to probably 200 people and it went kind of from, hey, I'm doing consulting, can we chat? Oh, by the way, I have this little idea tucked under my arm. Everyone wants to hear about the idea. And then the meeting wind up being, you know, 55 minutes on my new brand idea and five minutes on this kind of consulting stuff I was doing to pay bills. And so very quickly it became like, well, like not only is this a good idea, but when you're looking to raise money, you know, just call me back. So at first it was all scrappy. It was all my, you know, all my money to pay every single bill, all the samples, all the packaging, everything. And then once I kind of had samples, prototypes, I think we had over a hundred different prototypes initially when it kind of became time to like, okay, whole foods wants to list me and UNFI and Purity Life, the big distributors in Canada. And then, you know, kind of you'll go into 50 stores and then a hundred stores and then eventually 600 and 1600. Then I wanted to raise capital. So my first raise, we raised 396,000. And again, it was just me, you know, employee of one, but employee wasn't being paid.  And I had my 12 year old car and the AC had been busted for my little Honda Fit. So I had to buy a little, you know, cooler from Home Depot to keep the bars cold because it was super warm in the summer. So I'm driving around, going literally store to store kind of saying, hey, you know, we're listed at UNFI and you can kind of place an order and raising some funds. And it pretty much stayed, you know, we were, even though we grew really fast, the first four months we had a couple hundred thousand in sales, but then we had 5,000 percent, 5,500 growth the first year, another 500% growth the second year. Very kind of stayed close to bootstrapping. The one exception is I was always very generous with sampling because we just had a product that tastes so, so different. So at first I went to every single store manager that the head office of the natural health food store listed us and then I would go into the store when they had the product or I'd bring samples and then I had my iPhone and, you know, my Facebook is, if you look at the first videos, it's every single kind of store staff would try the bar and I'd be like, I'm gonna turn the phone on, is that okay? And then they would taste the bar and they're like, what if I don't like it? I'm like, you'll like it. And they were all blown away. So it was kind of fun. You know, it was all very scrappy, just authentic kind of first trial and kind of go from there. I wanna ask you this question. So we have a lot of people who wanna jump into entrepreneurship in terms of our listener base. We had one founder on who was having a baby and so she was raising capital while pregnant and I got to ask her, what is this like? You know, we see a lot in the news, females, it's a little bit tougher to raise money. And so I was like, how do you, how are you, what's your mindset going into this? And she said, I have the right team. And so she's like, not even concerned. I just love that answer. And it's an answer that a lot of people don't hear enough. Right? It's like, there's so much fear. There's so much of your own thought process that holds people back male or female. But I think there's always the question for female of what happens when I have kids. And I loved her answer, it was so direct.  And so I really wanna hear your answer as to, you know, obviously we as entrepreneurs do a really good job of burying all the difficulties. And it sounds like in your answer, you just put it aside. No, no, no, no, it's brutal. Like it's brutal, fundraising is really, really tough.  But at the end of the day, I had to hit the pavement and I had to kinda pretty much every single $10,000 was, you know, me reaching out and what about this? What about that? Another person and another person. And I'm also in Canada, you know, and everyone tells you initially, you know, there's only one route which is angel funding, right? You can't just kinda snap your fingers and get $2 million from institutional. It's really friends and family. I'm like, well, I have no friends or family that have, you know, even $5,000, right? So, but it is the angel funding and I tapped into all of kind of my prior relationships that, you know, I've been kinda this busy single mom going to work, turning around this brand, traveling. And I hadn't felt that I had prioritized networking that much over the last 20 years. But I kinda still, you know, went in the Rolodex and it's 10,000 at a time. And then some, you know, some investments took 10 meetings to kinda get. And it's really, really hard. A year or nearly two years into it, I had kind of, we were a team of five, but even then, you know, you're kind of five people and the fundraising was just me.  Canada is really tough. So, I don't know if I had known how tough it is. I don't know if I would have stepped into it. It's just, you know, I think the US market is a little bit different. And I think the statistics of funding that goes to women founders and CEOs versus men speaks for itself. The numbers are very dire in terms of the funding that women founders are getting versus men. And it's tough out there. So, in Canada, there's not as many VCs, there's not as many options for founders. So, I have, you know, hundreds of acquaintances that I've met through the last three years. I was in a little incubator program and we were 16 of us, but I think there's been a hundred brands in that incubator and thousands of thousands of applicants. And you're kinda, you're just hustling to try to get 300,000, 400,000. We wind up being very fortunate because I raised 400,000 in the first round and then I raised, you know, I raised kind of five rounds, 10 million, another 10 million, another 12 million in debt. So, I think we're smashing records for Canada, but in food we're the exception. Like there's not a lot of money. And my advice to Canadian founders is to not underestimate how hard it is. So, you have to bootstrap and count every penny and try to get the velocities because as soon as your brand is on the shelf and is selling, then doors open. But if prior to that, it's really, really tough because most of the startups don't kind of make the returns and many don't make it. So, it's not an easy world. That's good advice. That's something I tell a lot of founders when they're first starting to raise and they have a product with some initial traction. Usually it's at this point a little bit bigger than their friends and family. And I always say, look, if you can even take on your own debt to just get to the point where you have a distribution deal, like even a whole foods accepting it and then raising off of that, you're gonna save yourself a tremendous amount of your own company.  It's that velocity that a lot of founders are looking for. And I found, one of the things I found initially when I was kind of networking, everyone was saying, once you have like a deal, like a buyer, the larger chains, natural chains here, the law of laws or whole foods, once you kind of have a listing, oh, the money will just like pour in, right? Nope, because then I was like, hey, I'm listed at all these accounts, not good enough. How are you doing at these accounts? What are your logistics? Yeah, like so it really is, it's been quite a journey over the last three years. I've learned a lot. I hope to be able to give back, and right now it's still pretty busy, but I certainly have a lot of kind of insight for Canadian startups for sure, where we live in a little bit of a, I think a tougher world with less money, more conservative approach, it's harder to get some good numbers too. The country is 10% of the US. So I'm hoping that once I have a little bit more time opening up, I'll be able to share some of the trip ups to help other brands avoid the same pitfalls. I really love it, I appreciate that. And then in terms of, it sounds like you kind of hit it right, or maybe got lucky with keto that taking off, but in terms of the amount of education, so if you're in 2016, even 2018, I guess in 2016, it's basically just Facebook where people are a lot of social media and then it's transitioning during that time to Instagram. How much education or time do you spend on the marketing side of it with just educating the consumer on, hey, less sugar is good for you? Or do you, or not, or just say like, this is so delicious, you're not even gonna realize there's no sugar. The no sugar has from day one has been a key driver off the sales because there's a lot of sugar bars on the shelf and we just came a new brand on the shelf next to hundreds and hundreds of SKUs offering like 16 feet times four shelves of bars and our two little bars with kind of weaker branding because our logo is tiny, boom, we started selling. It's the low sugar that really made a difference but the analogy I use is the first kind of year my pitch deck had 10 pages on why fats are good and sugars is bad, fat is back and sugar is out. And then, if you look at my pitch decks now and my sales decks, there's not even one page, there's just, here's our positioning, here's our product, but I literally had, like I had clippings of all the articles, Time Magazine article, Fortune, all the scientific articles, all the quotes from Big Fat Surprise from Gary Tobes on sugar. I had kind of the kitchen sink on believe me, fats are good and sugar is the culprit and now I don't even, I say the brand name, I say one and two grams of sugar and they're like, can I taste it and then off you go. So it's a very different world. That's so great. And then obviously this world has evolved quickly also and so it's not just in terms of your marketing and then your pitch deck is obviously evolving but are there certain formulations to your product that you've had to change simply because the market has moved so aggressively in such a short time? Yeah, so the classic story of, again, my career started with Procter & Gamble, Frito Le Hines, Kamagra and then Weight Watchers. So I was in four or five large multinationals. It takes you a year and a half to bring the product to market, you do all this research and when you bring to market, you don't touch it after that. Emerging brands is like adapt, adapt, adapt, adapt, adapt. So you cannot be scared to tweak what you need to tweak and to move crazy fast. The speed I was moving was driving everyone crazy. I probably had the word can't said to me thousands of times and I was like, well, okay, well, let's work this through, right? I'm an engineer as a background. Let's unpack it. No, never done this this fast, not possible, can't, can't, can't. It's like, well, okay, well, let's kind of figure it out. And I think when a combination of factors, but I think if you go back and kind of talk to all the kind of the folks that did things that they never thought possible, they'll kind of looking back and saying, yeah, wow, like we'd never moved that fast. We'd never make those changes. It took kind of the right risk, but we certainly, you know, adapted the packaging four or five times with new packaging rolling out, adapted. Like again, at one point, I had over 250 recipes. Now we probably like were more than that now in terms of iterations and actual samples. And then I've done everything from, you know, all the heat testing in the oven and my kitchen, outside, inside, iterated, iterate, iterate. And the formulas did change, you know, the very first formula I had ingredients that the keto community was like, no, you know, you can't have this. So my, the coating had a little bit of sugar alcohols and there was a little bit of IMO in it. And no, no, you know, that, you know, we kind of remove all of that stuff pretty quickly and moved to cleaner. We added some fiber, even more. And we had the right fiber and the right fat, which kind of gives this magic formulation of feeling full or longer. And now we kind of realize we kind of stumble into the right combination of the right fibers and fat.  And it's a really clean bar, you know, you feel like we have hundreds and hundreds of people writing in and saying, I can't eat anything, like tell me he's always upset except for your bars. So, you know, we iterated, iterated, boom, boom. Like we literally had production every two months. And I was like, okay, now I want to change this, just this. And the R and D and the plant were like, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we need to. Duh, duh, duh. Why don't we dial this up, dial that up, dial that up. And they're like, you're crazy. And then in the end they tried it and they're like, ooh, wow, this is really good. I love that. We just made, you know, we improved our peanut butter chocolate flavors. I don't know if that one's on the shelf yet. Yeah, like it has like a bit of new packaging and it says new and improved and it's even sweeter. So you might not have tasted that, but it's noticeably, the taste is noticeably better. Like a more kind of intense peanut butter taste and even a little bit sweeter, still with one gram of sugar. So it's kind of nonstop, you know, we're never kind of got to kind of stop pursuing a high ground of taste and texture. And of course, I mean, one thing, at least I've noticed it here in the States is during COVID, this has become, you know, the consciousness around food has just taken a complete exponential hockey stick type where everyone's questioning everything around what they put in their body. And a lot of my friends are just losing weight because they're not going out as much. Obviously people are drinking, well, some people are drinking more, but I think just going out less is helping and contributing to weight loss. Do you guys do a lot of D to C? Have you seen during COVID, the grocery store section, you know, has obviously, at least in America is the only thing open for a long time. And so a lot of the grocery stores are just running out of things. How have you guys coped? Well, COVID has been really, really tough for the bar, the bar category. So on the go just kind of has been decimated. So at first, you know, March, April, we started kind of looking at the numbers and then we get, you know, weekly, in some cases daily, but we look at weekly sales and we're like, whoa, you know, like it kind of, like the category is just down and massive numbers. And essentially it's kind of like it tumbled.  So we, you know, we're kind of fortunate that the had the brand been a year younger than where we were, I think we would have been caught in this vortex where you're trying to launch a brand and you're just cut off at the knees, right? Like you need awareness and trial and you need to be on the shelf. You need the discovery of your bars and consumers are literally going in the stores with their mask, with their mission, with their listens. Like I don't want to just, I don't want to stand at the bar shelf and see what's new and pick bars. So we're fortunate enough that we were already in 14,000 doors and we had some discovery. The brand had enough momentum where the strongest keto bar on the shelf were in most of the accounts that we got listed were the fastest new bar on the shelf. So we're very fortunate that, you know, we're kind of breaking through the clutter because a lot of new brands are gonna have a really hard time launching and kind of surviving through COVID. So we're doing okay considering the bar category has really kind of gone down and we're a new brand but the discovery is not there. You know, you literally had thousands of consumers just go in stores and then say, okay, like let me try all these things and that allows the bar category to do so well. And that's not happening. Initially, it's now different, but the first six months, people just ate bread, you know, drank wine and ate bread. So, you know, ice cream, wine and bread makers, you know, we track on Google trends, you know, bread and keto, right? And it just did, like it went like this. Now it's kind of coming back.   And maybe not your generation, but certainly a little bit of the older generation is just like, okay, I'm eating carbs and bread. So now I think a lot of people have been touched by someone getting sick and realizing that, you know, if you just kind of inhale like carbs and don't take care of what you're eating and you're putting on, you know, five, 10, 15, 25 pounds is what we're hearing. And then, you know, there's still COVID around. Like first, you feel miserable and second, you know, the preexisting conditions are really, really damaging. So now there's a pretty big return to, okay, I'm not home, but I still have to, you know, work extra hard to eat clean. That's a great point. Yeah, they still have to take care of themselves and be very disciplined about that more so than before because now they can't escape, you know, you're literally just, and you have dogs, kids, all sorts of, that's a good insight. I remember I talked to Christie who introduced us from Mother Raw and, you know, one of the things we talked about was my generation in particular, we would never go into the freezer section.  They're early 20s and you go in their fridge and it's everything you'd expect, you go in their freezer and it's just ice, right? And so what I was telling Christie is what's been interesting and Google trends alerted me of this is people have been Googling like frozen milk, frozen goods, a lot more frozen bread. And so what ends up happening is it's almost like this, this market, this 21 year old, 22 year old who never used the freezer. Is all of a sudden now, you know, looking at the freezer section way more and it creates an opportunity. And these are just fascinating things to learn, you know, for my person, I'm not in it. And so for me, I'm like, you know, what is the world in the future look like? Really interesting stuff. Well, the behavior shift is massive in so many instances. We bought a freezer, right, in our home. It's just like, okay, we need a small, like not a full size, not the full size coffin freezer, but the half freezer because we're like, who knows what's gonna happen with our food supply? And then we're thrilled, right? Because the shopping trips are no longer pleasant. I love shopping and it's no longer a pleasant kind of experience to go in these gorgeous stores and to try stuff, all of the, you know, a lot of my meals were like, I lived, I think I visited over 90 Whole Foods in the US in the first year because we launched and we had national distribution at Whole Foods last February across the country. So I literally went to visit as many as I could.  Thank you, thank you. Take pictures, give out a free box to the staff. So I went and I kind of hit the pavement on as many stores as I could and I would eat out of the, you know, the meal, the warm food bars. We're not eating out of the food bars anymore.  So the behaviors have really, really changed. So it's important to adapt and to kind of make sure that we kind of keep on pace with the changing behaviors. It's so true. For me, there's a company where an investor in, it's called Good Milk and they basically make a four ingredient almond milk. So it's just almonds, water, sea salt and dates, all natural, super clean. And because there's nothing in it, there's no shelf life. It only lasts about seven days and it always came in these freezer packets and then you just add water and that was it. And so we have like a tremendous amount of these. And so I was talking to Brooke, the founder and she was the one that said, you know, we've never been, we've never done better because now everyone kind of to your point around the buying freezers and you have the option to store and it's mega healthy, which is great. I mean, I just love that the world is moving in that direction or at least is aware of that. As you guys come out of COVID, are you working on a need or just in general, maybe the timing of it was just there. Are you guys working on any different products besides bars that you can share with us? Yeah, for sure. Well, I launched with two bars in the fall of 2017 and because we shot up to best selling in pretty much all the stores, I launched two more mint and rich chocolate almonds. So we had four bars going into 2018 and then we got listed at Walmart, Canada and all the big banners here, La Blanche Canada and all the food grocery banners very, very quickly through 18 and then 19 we went to Whole Foods, so the US. So by the time we were launching in the US, we had six of our truffle flavors. So that's kind of our, you know, our kind of core initial launches. So they're our original and they're the soft kind of melt-in-your-mouth truffle type of experience. Once the fat kind of hits and melts and you're like, whoa, what's going on with this? It's light and airy and like no other no other bar I've had before. So we launched with those six and then as COVID was hitting, we are launching three new chewy nutty. So a new high ground of taste with our three new chewy nutty and shakes. So we have innovation in the second quarter and quarter two that was rolling out as COVID was hitting. So we kind of fortunate that our innovation was ready to go, was presented, was pretty much listed everywhere. We're very fortunate that the retailers, most of them didn't delay the planograms and then kind of say no after they said yes. They all kept kind of with the plan like so they had accepted our new items on the shelf and they rolled onto the shelf. So we're really fortunate that now we have, you know, our kind of six truffle flavors, our three new chewy nutty rolling in thousands of stores, a lot of the big banners, the Walmart and Whole Foods and Sprouts, HEB, Kroger, Keri, our bars, we have regular displays with them and they're bringing in the chewy nutty and our shakes are also available nationwide at Kroger. And that's more of a, you know, at home type of opportunity.  So we're very lucky that that's our innovation now like our eight or nine bars and our shakes and rolling that out in the US. We are working on, you know, 2021 innovation, but we just like the focus right now is making sure we get enough awareness and trial on what we're rolling out. So the timing worked out really well. I think you said this before, but I just want to give everyone a price point. Is it two for $5? Is that the price you said before? Yeah, like our bars are pretty much 229 and three for five is often like, you know, two for four, three for five is the price that you'll find them on deal. In Canada, we love to, you know, they just go by the box. So the box is 10% off pretty much everywhere and Canadians just buy a box. So in the US, it's still a world of two for four, three for five and mix and match is great. But again, the world of discovery is less than it was. So the promotional mix is really down in bars, but it's a pretty attractive price point. And you can, you know, you can pick six of them and give them a shot. Are there any other nuances you can share around being in Canada, but also in the United States? Or is there something you've picked up on where these countries do things? Some nuances just completely different or that just seems so foreign to you? No, well, I've been a marketer for 20 years in multi-nationals.  So I was kind of familiar with, you're always comparing, you know, per capita and your results and, you know, is Canada or the US stronger? On average, it's quite similar. And then I've worked on the last five years, 10 years on a lot of US brands, also from Canada where it was Canadian company marketing mostly to the US. The biggest difference is really around sweetness. That's kind of the one big thing that most marketers who work on both countries will know. Americans like sweet or stuff. Yes, they do. And yeah, like it's just so, whether it's, you know, it's chocolate or our bars are not very sweet. We've not put sugar alcohols in them. As keto kind of rolled in and across the country, a lot of the competitive bars and products are full of sugar alcohols and they're very sweet. You also have that cold kind of taste with sugar alcohol. So we've, our bars are not over the top sweet. They're filling and they have that, you know, sweetness that comes with the right blends. But it's not, you know, you're, you're not kind of getting a big influx. So they're great for, you know, for mornings.  So that's the big difference. I think is the, the sweetness profile, flavor profiles, you know, mint has always been stronger in the US. We've got a girl guide cookies, but you know, our mint in Canada just kind of went to number one selling. So mint, you know, happens to be very strong for both countries, but there's a lot of similarities. We have a more consolidated trade. So, you know, we have one big banner that's 30, 35% of the volume food and grocery. And then we have Walmart and we have convenience stores and drug stores. So, you know, we have a bit more and club. So we have a bit more consolidation. So it's easier to get to 80% of the market than the US. The US is much more work. There's much more regional and local banners. So that's a big, a big difference. But from a consumer behavior perspective, it's pretty similar. I always like to ask entrepreneurs this. I mean, you're clearly very passionate about what you're doing. Do you foresee yourself doing this again? Do you see yourself exiting soon? Or is this something that you want to run for the rest of your life? And maybe a legacy play here.  Well, Diego, I'm 53 and the last three years have aged me about 20. Like it's been nuts. You know, I kind of thought I was superwoman, kind of coming into this and I would, you know, whip off the hour commute and carpool and two kids's and lunches and breakfasts and this and that. And then, oh, by the way, I do an Ironman per summer. And I was just like, okay, you know, I got this.  Like plus the travel, you know, I've been away from the house like half the time. So really it's been the best, best, best, best three, four years of my life. We have, you know, raised and very fortunate to have Angel shareholders and now we raise a series A. We eventually need an exit play. We, you know, we eventually need to kind of, to pay back all the people who kind of believed in me. So there will be some sort of opportunity for an exit at one point. I am, you know, the most kind of passionate voice for the brand and from now from, you know, doing podcasts for sure I wanna, you know, do my own podcast, write a book, continue to kind of carry the voice until my, you know, my very last days on good fats and low sugar. So I think I will always be very passionate about this message in one way or another, but certainly we'll kind of welcome at one point slowing down a little bit. Yeah. Well, look, I really appreciate your story. I mean, there's so many entrepreneurs in general who always think like, and at least, you know, I never got caught in this, but there's a lot of people that think once they have kids, their life is over. It's almost this weird mentality we had in Silicon Valley where we have to do it before we have kids and you have to make the million before you're 30 because at 32 you die or something. There's this weird thought process. And I know my wife who she owns her own construction company here in LA and, you know, it's top of mind for her all the time. She's always looking for to speak to people like you oddly enough about the realities and that you can do this at any age.  And I think it's so important for you to share that message however you can. So thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing it here. But I think it's, I think more people need to hear this.  And you could do this easily again when you're 60. Who knows if you will, but you'll have the choice, right? The option is yours. For sure. It's been maybe 35 years to kind of have the courage to kind of start, but I also, you know, the 20 years of experience have allowed me to avoid a lot of the pitfalls.  So if you're kind of learning on the go, well, changing packaging is a big deal. Changing formulas is a big deal. If you can learn before you launch, which is what you learn in packaged goods, you know, where I kind of spent my career learning how to not make the mistakes like before you launch, when you're in the market, we can do the rapid evolutions that, you know, I talked about, but that's not like re-engineering the brand.  And when you're doing that in market, that's expensive and it's hard. So, you know, learn a kind of little bit on the basics of brand building and positioning product and price value and then how to grow a brand. And you can do that in a safer way where you're not risking your kid's university tuition, which is what I did, you know, kind of soak that up a little bit because it's high stakes when you kind of put your money on the table and kind of say, I'm gonna do this full-time. And you know, I don't have a safety net. You're reminding me. So I'm currently, I do real estate development and a number of these deals usually, you have to put, you have to put a lot of money up before you get to the point of actually deciding to go. And it's, and so you try really hard to, you know, make sure you know all the pieces, make sure you know all the moving parts where you get the pitfalls as you put it. And you do your best to basically de-risk, but we've been, you know, I say this, I've been fortunate in that we've been able to avoid losing money, but it's still one of these things where you just, you have to put it out there or else you'll never find out. And that's the tough part. It's tough. It's startups and, you know, more brands fail than succeed. So it's not, you know, for the faint of heart, but if you kind of balance doing the work prior and, you know, have a little bit of luck and kind of a lot of work and good smart work and, you know, very open to, you know, very open to feedback and input and move at a fast enough pace, then you'll be good. Oh, great. Well, listen, thank you so much for coming on. Tell everyone where they can find you, where they can purchase the product, all that good stuff. Good. Love Good Fats is available on our website. LoveGoodFats.com is available on Amazon.com at really easy to find. We're also in a lot of the major retailers. So Walmart, Kroger and all the Kroger banners, Sprouts, Whole Foods, we're in 14,000 stores.  So we're pretty easy to order with fast service. Try out the bars. We have a variety pack or just go to the store and pick the flavors that you like and thanks for your support. Yeah, they're great. The bars are great. So I can honestly say that and if it wasn't, I'd be saying it too. So thank you so much, Suzy. I appreciate it. Perfect. Thanks, Diego.


In this video, I want to talk about some of the plans going forward that I have for DTOS because right now DTOS, this is DTOS. This is DTOS with the Xmonead Window Manager is kind of my customized Xmonead desktop environment. But why limit ourselves to the Xmonead Window Manager when sometimes I like playing around in Qtile? What if I want Qtile as a Window Manager option in DTOS? Well, that's kind of where I think I'm going to go next. And what if you prefer going a more suckless route? Maybe you want DWM as part of DTOS. And maybe eventually we add other things. Obviously, the awesome Window Manager makes a lot of sense, one of my favorite Window Managers. And of course, we could explore other options down the road as well. Now, as I add more and more features to DTOS as it becomes more complex, I need to do a better job with outlining, note taking, obviously being an Emacs user.  So I actually created this org document earlier in the week to kind of guide me along with some of the work that I've been working on. So this is the DTOS roadmap. And before discussing anything else, I really wanted to be clear up front. Exactly who is DTOS for? Well, being that it's built around tiling Window Managers and kind of nerdy stuff. It's all about flexibility. It's all about customization, configuration, DTOS, who is it primarily for? I would say it's primarily for the ricer.  That's what a ricer is. And I think that is a big focus of what DTOS is going to be about. So I think the reason it's going to really suit the ricer is because DTOS, Window Managers. Window Managers I plan on shipping with DTOS are going to include, of course, Xmone, Qtel, Awesome, just to name three. Those offer almost unlimited customization and configuration options. Anything you want to do with those particular Window Managers, you can do. And of course, each Window Manager that comes installed with DTOS will already be customized or already be configured for you. So if you install DTOS, Xmone, add DTOS, Awesome, DTOS, Qtel, you're actually going to get a customized configuration. It's not just going to be a bare bones configuration like you would typically get with Arch Linux. And of course, I'm going to make some, what I consider, sensible choices with some of the defaults. Also, one of the things I want to do is I want to make sure that color schemes are a really big component of DTOS as far as already, I have 10 color schemes that are available in DTOS as far as with Xmone, add my current Xmone, add desktop environment where you have an option of 10 different color schemes to choose from. I'll have a demon you script that you can choose any of these 10 color schemes. And when you hit enter, you know, it will actually switch Xmone, add Xmobar, Khaki, Trayor, Doom, Emax, the Alacrity terminal level, change the color scheme for all of those in one go. And right now I've got 10 color schemes, but I may add more in the future because I think that's important again for customization just for the rising effect. I think DTOS is going to be attractive for power users because I'm going to include a suite of applications, fast, efficient, powerful programs, obviously Emax is going to be a huge focus that's going to probably be the centerpiece to all of these particular desktop environments, these window managers that I install. But if you're not an Emax user, don't worry, Vim will also be a first class citizen here. I'll probably package up some kind of Neo Vim config that has some sensible choices in it as well. Another big thing for me is I love playing around with different shills in Linux. So we're going to have multiple shills installed. And of course, we're going to have a lot of terminal based applications, a lot of 2E programs. So that really kind of caters to the more power user. Now it's also going to be for developers because one of the things I'm thinking about with choosing these window managers is I want a different window manager written in a different language configured in a different language. So obviously when you're working in Xmonad, you get to learn a little bit with Haskell. You get to program a little bit with Haskell when you play around with Xmonad. In Qtile, you'll get to play with Python. In DWM, you'll get to play with C. And awesome, you'll get to play with Lua. Obviously a lot of what I do with DTOS, especially the D menu scripts, all of that is done in Bash. Bash scripting will be heavily used in DTOS. Also DTOS will encourage participation from users to help in its development and that hopefully will encourage aspiring developers, people that are maybe new to scripting and programming and creating packages, maintaining packages and things like that. Because really I think one of the primary focuses with DTOS I want to focus on will be education. So the other user block that I think will be attracted to DTOS is those wanting to learn Linux. So if you want to learn how to create and maintain a package for DTOS, I'll teach you. So I'll make sure that anybody that wants to learn how to create an arch package, right? I'll show you exactly how to do that. I'll do that on video. Of course, one of the things is having my YouTube channel, I have this video platform where I can put all this information out. But we may also schedule some events, maybe like on a matrix chat or a jitzy chat or something like that, where I'll walk brand new users through creating an arch package. Because ultimately I see the primary focus of DTOS being to educate and to help building that next generation of Linux enthusiasts. Because right now I don't think Linux as a whole, the Linux community as a whole, I don't think we do a good enough job educating that next group that's going to come behind us. And then I created what I thought was a sensible choice of five window managers written in five different languages, again, for the developer theme, for the education theme. I'm thinking initially what I want to focus on are these five window managers as part of DTOS. And this will be optional. You'll have the option to install any or all of these during the DTOS installation. Obviously, Xmonad's already there. I'm working right now on packaging Qtile and DWM. And I will eventually get to awesome. I'm thinking about doing EXWM for again, there's Emax is going to be such a central focal point of DTOS. It makes sense kind of to have Emax as a window manager option as well. And that's what EXWM is. It's essentially an Emax plugin that allows you to log into Emax as a window manager. Now each of these are going to have some challenges as I start packaging them. Obviously, Xmonad and Haskell are challenging strictly for you guys. The user, I've already done a lot of the work on that window being that I've been working on this one here for probably nearly a year now. The next one I'm going to work on is Qtile. Qtile really is a much easier Xmonad. It mimics Xmonad a lot. The difference is it's written in an easier language, which is great because Python is a lot easier to work in, especially if you're a new user. The problem is Qtile is under heavy development. It's got a lot of people working on it and they're pushing out new updates on a pretty regular basis. So breakages could happen. So a config that's working in this version may not work exactly right in the next major release of Qtile, so I'll have to be on top of my game as far as monitoring the new releases for Qtile. DWM doesn't have that problem because it sees really no new releases that often and even if it does, you don't really update DWM through your package manager, right? I would actually go and grab the source code and rebuild it and repatch it and all of that. So breakages shouldn't happen with DWM as long as what you started with was working. Now the problem with DWM is the patching. It requires heavy patching and system trays. If you want a system tray as part of your bar, like I have Trayer here, as part of XMO bar here in Xmonad.  With Awesome Window Manager, the only real challenge is it's extremely customizable. It's got the most customizable Window Manager out there and because of that, you do have an overabundance of possible choices with the customization. It could be confusing. Like in some ways, Awesome does a lot and it's rather easy to get into, but then you could be overwhelmed by the amount of power and flexibility that Awesome does give the user. And EXWM has a major challenge in the fact that I would have to create a Emacs config just for EXWM and I would have to have another one for all the other Window Managers because I can't have my Emacs config load EXWM if you're not actually logging into EXWM. So that's going to be a little bit of a tricky situation with that particular Window Manager. So those are the five that I'm thinking about focusing on immediately. Others I may consider in the future. I'm not sold on any of those, but I wouldn't say that it's out of the ram of possibility that I wouldn't eventually include maybe one Floating Window Manager just for people that want a Floating Window Manager, but still want some of my configuration options for other programs. So I'm not against eventually maybe adding OpenBox or even something like ISWM, which is another Floating Window Manager, kind of similar to OpenBox. And of course, there's several other Tiling Window Managers I could eventually configure and add to DTOS, LeftWM and Spectrum. They're Exmonad clones. Both of those are exact clones of Exmonad pretty much, and they're in much easier to use syntax languages. They're not obviously written in Haskell, right? And they're not configured in Haskell. So, but I'm again, I'm not sure because I already have essentially two Exmonad clones, well, Exmonad and Qtile. I mean, do we want to make every single Window Manager just another Exmonad clone because they're all going to essentially do the same thing? I'm not really that sold on either one of them in DTOS, but I may keep it as an option in the future. And then, of course, we've got all of the manual tileers. You guys know I like Dynamic Tiling Window Managers, the manual tileers, BSPWM, I3WM, HerbsLift. I'm not a fan of them because I'm not a fan of them. I wouldn't spend much time in them. I don't want to add Window Managers. I know I'm really never going to use to DTOS because if I'm never really logging in and using them, things could break and go unnoticed for days or even weeks at a time or something like this. So I'm probably not going to package any of these three anytime soon. And I'm definitely not going to package Sway because it's for Wayland. I don't use Wayland because I have to use X for what I do with this video work as far as the YouTube channel and things like that. I have to check out Sway probably in a VM anytime I wanted to check it out. And it's an I3 clone. I don't like I3 that much. It just doesn't make sense for me to even think about Sway. Plus, if we want a Wayland option, the good thing is of these five Window Managers up here, one of them already has some support for Wayland Qtile, already has Wayland support. When you install Qtile, you actually get two options in your login manager. You have Qtile, and then you get Qtile and then in parentheses, Wayland. So if you want to explore Wayland, Qtile will be an option for you. Then I mentioned I wanted to have multiple shells installed. I may not install them all out of the box. I'm kind of debating that. But for me, I have all of these installed on my system. Bash, Fish, ZSH, Newshell, Conch, and then of course in Emacs, you get an extra Emacs Lisp shell called the E-shell that is amazing. So I want to make it easy to have multiple shells available on the system. And I'm going to of course make it very easy for you to change your default user shell. So if you want to switch from Bash to Fish to ZSH or whatever, as your user shell, I'll make that very easy. I'll probably create some kind of GTK application that'll make that process as easy as picking a shell out of a menu and clicking a button and boom, you're done. Now, some other stuff I've been thinking about because I know people that use DTOS have asked me about this. D menu and especially my DM scripts package are a big focal point of DTOS and the DM scripts package that is going to be if I do Super P H4 DM Hub, the DM Hub script actually lists all the other individual DM scripts and there's 26 currently packaged as part of DM scripts. And I have had people tell me that they love the DM scripts, but they would rather use Rofi than D menu. And there actually is a rather easy way to do this. DM scripts is already set up this way. There's a config file that typically goes in your home directory dot config slash DM scripts. You'll find a config file in that directory or if you don't, you'd have to create one. But there's a variable in that config, I believe it. The variable is just D menu all caps and that actually specifies exactly what the D menu command is. For example, I have the D menu command with the flags dash L for vertical lines. I think I have it dash L 20. So you get a preview of 20 lines. If it's longer than 20 lines, of course you'd have to scroll down a little bit, but you can change that D menu variable in the DM scripts config to just whatever Rofi command you want. And magically all the DM scripts will launch with Rofi, so that really is just one line and one config. And it would immediately change from D menu to Rofi for all the DM scripts. And again, I'll probably will automate that. Again, I'll do some kind of GTK application as part of some welcome screen probably or some settings manager. So one of the biggest things I've been working on here in the last few days is I need consistent key bindings across all window managers because one of the things right now is these window managers, some of them I log into on a regular basis. Some of them I don't log in that often. And then I spend so much time customizing each one, but not all at the same time. And I've developed different key bindings for some of these window managers. And sometimes the key bindings are different for doing the same actions. And it's kind of confusing. It's confusing to me sometimes when I log into some of my other window managers, right? So I want all of these window managers to be as consistent as possible with their key bindings. So the key binding to open a terminal is the same in all of them. The key binding to close a program is the same in all of them. The key binding to open D menus, the same. The key binding to open Emacs is the same yada, yada, yada. So three or four nights ago, I spent quite a bit of time actually working on my Qtile config to make it as consistent as possible with my Xmone ad config as far as the key bindings. I've also spent a little bit of time working on DWM to do the same thing. And eventually way down the road, I would like to develop more of a custom suite of applications, more of a proper desktop environment that can be used with any of these window managers. But I want to create eventually a DTOS welcome application, a DTOS settings manager, something I've been thinking about because I think it would be rather easy to eventually do this to create my own login manager, right? So instead of using something like SDDM, which is what DTOS uses now, that's a cute application and I'm doing more with GTK, but I don't want to do something like a GTK login manager like GDM, which is GNOME's display manager because it's complicated as hell. I guess a lot going on with that application. I just want something minimal, simple GTK. So I'm thinking about just creating my own login manager. I don't think that would be as difficult a project as what many people would think. And of course the big part of DTOS is that all of my custom configs, all of the custom applications that I create, we're gonna have of course a DTOS repository of software. I already have that. It's DTOS dash core dash repo. And of course you'll find that over on my GitLab. And then I created this to-do list that I was working on this week. So obviously the very first part of the to-do list here is make a video on the DTOS roadmap. So if I go into this empty pair of brackets here and in DOOM Emacs, if I do space MX for mark that as done. So you can think of space M for mark and then X to mark it. You see it changes the color. So I've already made the video on the new DTOS roadmap. That's what I'm doing right now. The other major change that actually required many hours of work this week was this item here. Instead of using one big repo for all of your configs, DTOS dash config, split them up for each individual program. So right now I have package builds to build all of the binary packages for DTOS. And most of those individual package builds will pause from one of my GitLab repos, DTOS dash configs. And this hosts all of my configs. Of course the problem is that this is gonna be a rather large repo if I stuff every single config file for every program that DTOS is gonna use in this one repository. Just for efficiency that just didn't make any sense. So like my bash config is one file, the dot bash RC but I have to clone this entire repository to get that one file when I'm creating the package DTOS dash bash. For example, same thing with my fish config or with Xmonad I only need the dot Xmonad directory. I don't need the directories in here for the Alacrity config and SXIV and Kube browser and things like that. So just doesn't make sense again for efficiency. So I split all of my configs up into individual packages into individual repositories. Let me show you what I'm talking about here. If I go to my GitLab at gitlab.com slash DWT1 and if you go to groups, you will see I created this DTOS group a couple of weeks ago. I did a video when I created this new group that way my DTOS projects and my personal projects are separate. I have DTOS dash configs again where I kind of stuff all of my configs that they go in slash etsy slash DTOS and then from here you can think of this as being kind of like your home folder, right? So you got dot cache dot config dot local dot Xmonad your dot bash or C file if you go into dot config you'll have the config folders for various programs. So I was stuffing everything into this one repo DTOS dash configs. I created this new subgroup within the DTOS group. I called it etsy because it makes sense. This is where all of those slash etsy slash DTOS config files go. And now I split it up to where they all have their own repo. That way, for example, when you're installing DTOS dash alacrity which is really just my alacrity config file that's all that is. Now you just get slash etsy slash DTOS dot config slash alacrity which is a folder that has alacrity dot yaml in it, right? Before building that package required you to get clone the entire DTOS configs repository again for one file and that just didn't make any sense. So now I have these, I don't know 15 or 20 new repositories for everything that gets placed in slash etsy slash DTOS. So let me go back to my org document here. I think I can go ahead and I could go ahead and tick that off as well. And again, that took several hours because I had to split the one big repository into like 15 different repositories. I also had to go and change all of the package builds for all of those DTOS related programs that would normally pull from DTOS configs. Now I had to go into each one of those package builds and specify the new repositories that they should pull their configs from. So that was actually a ton of work. Now the next thing, the major thing I wanna work on is getting these window managers straight. So right now still, Xmonad is the only window manager that is installed during the DTOS installation. But in the next week or two, I want to have at least these three window managers packaged up as packages that you can install from the DTOS core repo. I want obviously to package DWM Qtile and awesome. You can see here, I've already kind of got DTOS dash DWM packaged up. It's not public yet, so you guys can't go get it, but I'm pretty close to being done with this one. Matter of fact, I'm close enough. I would almost consider that one done. Qtile, I've got a pretty good start to it. I still wanna work a little bit on the key bindings. There's still some key bindings that are a little different than the Xmonad key bindings. Again, for consistency, but Qtile is really close too. I haven't started doing a DTOS awesome package yet. And that's gonna require quite a bit of work. I actually think my awesome configuration is broken the last time I tried to log in to awesome window manager on my machine. I noticed all I got was a black screen. So there was probably a major update to awesome that my config no longer works for, which again, is gonna take me some work. And then of course I made another note about making the key bindings match. Again, I'm getting pretty close to that. And then I need to make DTOS dash color scheme work for Qtile, DWM and awesome. So what DTOS dash color scheme is, is if I do super PC, this is this D menu script where if I choose the Nord color scheme, for example, it's gonna change to the Nord color scheme for XMobar and for Traer and for Kaki, which is on another monitor and for Alacrity is now using the Nord color scheme. Everything except Dumeemax, but I could do space HT and choose Nord here. But right now I haven't had that set up for any other window manager except Xmonad. So I need to make sure that it also changes the appropriate color scheme for Qtile, DWM and awesome. And of course eventually I want to incorporate in the DTOS installation script a way for the user to choose an option for a window manager. That way you can install or not install Xmonad or Qtile or DWM or awesome. Obviously you should probably install at least one, but if you don't want all of them, you don't have to get all of them. If you want all of them, you can get all of them. And how this is going to work, let me switch this terminal to this screen here. What I'm thinking about doing is just adding to the DTOS script these while loops. So while true, read this prompt. Do you wish to install Xmonad? Yes or no. And of course if the user chooses yes, I'll have it run a command sudo pacman dash s Xmonad, Xmonad contrib, Xmobar, you know all the programs that need to be installed to have your Xmonad desktop. Same thing with Qtile, same thing with DWM. Same thing with awesome eventually. If I show you that little test script in action, you can see this is just a mockup of how it might look. Do you wish to install Xmobar if I choose Y for yes? It'll run the installation for Xmobar, but then it would eventually do the while loop here where it asks me, do I want to install Qtile? Maybe I don't want to install Qtile, so I'll choose no for it. And then it's going to ask me, well, do you wish to install DWM? And maybe I do, so I'll choose yes for it. And yada, yada, yada. So that's how that will eventually work when I incorporate that into the installation script. No need to even start worrying about that yet because I still don't have the packages packaged up. I still don't have any of these in the repository, so this will be one of the last things I do and it will be rather simple to accomplish that. And finally, I want to get started on some of these GTK applications that I've kind of worked on, but I need to finish. I have a welcome program I've been working on for weeks, months even, for DTOS and GTK application written in Haskell that allows the user to choose color schemes and default shills and auto-start programs and things like that. It's pretty well fleshed out for the most part. I just need to actually spend some time, like set aside, you know, like a week to get some of this stuff done. And, you know, that's hard sometimes because I've got so many pokers in the fire, right? So many things pulling me in all kinds of different directions, but I eventually need to finish the welcome application for DTOS and then I may eventually package up that bye-bye program, the logout program that is just, let's see if it'll actually launch here. No, I don't have the binary here for bye-bye, but you guys saw that.  I made a video about that just a couple of weeks ago. So there you have it, that's my current DTOS roadmap and it shows you a little bit of what I've been doing here with my time in the last week. Part of the reason I haven't made as much content here in the past few days, or the content I've made has typically been content that didn't require a whole lot of time and effort on my part because I was really focused on getting these GitLab repositories straight and redoing all of my DTOS package builds and all of that stuff. So I'm really excited about this because this is stuff I needed to get done for a while. I've just kind of been putting it off because I knew it was gonna be a lot of work. Sometimes I just don't like work. And of course, as I build this thing out, you guys are gonna get content about it because especially here in the next few days, you're probably gonna get content about either DWM or Qtile, whichever one I get packaged up first. As soon as I get it packaged up and ready for installation for DTOS, of course, we're gonna be running through some installations on camera. And you guys are gonna get to see my new Qtile configs or DWM configs or whatever it happens to be. And I think that's gonna be interesting too because we need more tiling window manager content on this channel. Here lately, it's been Xmoned all the time because it's been my focus because of DTOS. And now when I have other things packaged as part of DTOS, it's gonna force me to use these other window managers as well, which is great for you guys that want more content about things like Qtile and awesome and DWM. So if you're interested in that kind of content, stay tuned to this channel. Before I go, I need to thank the producers of this episode. And of course, I'm talking about Dustin, Gabe, James, Matt, Maxim, Michael, Mitchell, Paul, Wes, Wanya, Bald, Homie, Alan, Armored, Reagan, Chuck, Commander, Angry, Dio, Kai, Dylan, Mars, Drum, Erion, Alexander, Peace, Archon, Vador, Polytech, Realiteats, Phyllis, Red Prophet, Steven, Tools, Devler, and Willie. These guys, they're my highest tiered patrons over on Patreon without these guys. This episode about the future of DTOS would not have been possible. The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these fine ladies and gentlemen. All these names you're seeing on the screen, these are all my supporters over on Patreon because I don't have any corporate sponsors. A corporation wouldn't sponsor me or anything depending on you guys, the community. If you like my work, when I see more videos about Linux free and open source software in DTOS, subscribe to DistroTube over on Patreon. All right guys, peace.


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The paper proposes a novel data-driven approach using long short-term memory, LSTM, network to model rainfall runoff in catchments with snow influence. The LSTM's ability to learn long-term dependencies is essential for modeling storage effects. The authors use 241 catchments from the camel's dataset and compare their results to the Sacramento soil moisture accounting model, SACSMA, coupled with snow, 17 snow routine. They also demonstrate the potential of LSTM as a regional hydrological model that predicts discharge for multiple catchments. Additionally, they show how process understanding learned at the regional scale can be transferred to individual catchments to improve model performance. The results indicate that the LSTM outperforms SACSMA plus snow, 17, highlighting its potential for hydrological modeling applications. This article was authored by F. Krotzert, F. Krotzert, D. Klotz, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


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