Ingrid: [00:00:07] Hello and welcome to Infinite Shelf, the human centric retail podcast. I'm your host, Ingrid Milman Cordy. Today's episode is special to me because you get to meet someone who is, well, really special to me. Ariellele Knutsen, also known as AK, has been the leader of the Nuuniverse at Nuun hydration for the past 10 years. She was a key architect in it's unbelievable story from being a super niche product designed for, frankly, an exclusive group of endurance athletes to becoming an absolute cult favorite to all of those who enjoy regular movement and a little daily sweat in their lives all the way up through the acquisition by Nestle Health Science in July of 2021. This was a huge accomplishment in the mission to hydrate the world and encourage everyone to have a Nuun in their water. We support movement for all, no matter if you're a nine time Ironman champion like she happens to be, or just go for a walk for your dog twice a day. Ariellele led Nuun down its path that many brands can only dream of taking developing a brand that is an identity. People live to be part of the Nuuniverse, with tens of thousands of applications each year to become a Nuun ambassador, and no it's not an affiliate program. It's just a group of everyday people who love movement and love being part of the mission to hydrate and enable a healthier, more vibrant life. Let's meet AK. Welcome to Infinite Shelf Ariellele Knutson, who I call AK, and the whole team that we work with at Nuun calls AK. Welcome. I'm so happy to have you.

Arielle: [00:02:33] Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Ingrid: [00:02:35] Yeah, so just a little bit of a PSA for the listeners here. Arielle was the person who rescued me from very, very large retail organizations and sort of put me under her wing in the startup sort of small, medium business world. And I have been so incredibly grateful. And frankly, I have told her this, but I will happily tell you all this, Arielle/AK has been the best boss I've ever had. And so I was delighted when she said that she would come and hang out with us on Infinite Shelf and share with you some of the things that she has taught me and the rest of the team that she has scaled from two and a half people all the way to like over 30 people or something crazy like that. When it comes to building cultures and building working environments and building brands that people love and don't want to live without. So I'm so grateful for you to spend some time with us here.

Arielle: [00:03:40] Thank you so much for your kind words. You're so, so sweet, and I'm excited to talk about this stuff because these are like my absolute favorite work topics, so let's dig in.

Ingrid: [00:03:52] Totally. Yeah, let's do it. Well, so a little bit of background on, you know, Nuun and your history with Nuun. Do you want to just give everyone like who you are and how you got to now?

Arielle: [00:04:04] Yeah, definitely. So I had been with Nuun for 10 years, so from 2012 when we were still pretty much in kind of startup land. I mean, not technically. We were in startup land for quite a while, but pretty, pretty small, scrappy team all the way till the end of this past year when we were acquired by Nestlé. So, Ingrid, it's exactly like you said, when I first started with the team, we were literally just a couple of folks, on the marketing team specifically. And the mentality behind the brand was different because it was just a smaller team, a smaller brand and a smaller audience that we were really trying to capture and talk to. Fast forward a few handful of years there in 2017 TSG invested in Nuun and the marketing team was about 15 folks. So we'd grown quite a bit over that handful of years to really develop more proactive growth strategies for the brand to help support awareness and distribution. And then fast forward a couple more years to this past year in 2021 where Nestlé acquired us, and at the close of the year, the team had grown to just over 30 folks, I believe. So, you know, big, big difference in not just the size of the team, but the kind of scope of how we thought about the brand, how we thought about marketing and all of our objectives. So it was a really awesome ride, a really, really complicated ride at times too, because at any given time during those, especially those growth years or growth periods that I mentioned, about a third to half of the team was like, you know, "under six months old," they were relatively new to the team. So not for reasons of turnover, but just because of overall brand and team growth. So that was a really exciting thing to be a part of.

Ingrid: [00:06:22] Yeah, I bet, and it's like this sort of equal parts really, really hard and complicated thing, but it's also just probably the time of your life, right? Like you're just thinking about this wild, wild ride. And frankly, at the end of it, I come in and I see this brand that you have had a massive, massive hand in creating and you've been able to accomplish something that is incredibly difficult and that is creating a brand, Nuun Hydration, that is not just a product that people love or a product that fits well into people's lives. But there's this identity connection that people have with like, I'm a Nuun person, and it's really similar to companies that are much, much bigger, like Peloton. You see someone does Peloton or has a Peloton, and you immediately associate things about them with them. And Apple. You know, Apple unlocks your ability to be this creative person, and there's an identity that is connected to that. And Nuun, for the runners and wellness athletes and everyone from endurance athletes to the people who run 3K miles in a week still can buy into this healthy active lifestyle identity through being part of the, what we call, Nuuniverse. And a really good example of this was, I'll never forget, one of the first two months that I moved to Seattle to come to Nuun, I was at the DMV and the person that was helping me at the DMV saw my mask, and it had a little Nuun logo on it. And he was so excited to see me and he was like, "Are you part of the Nuuniverse?" He literally said that to me at the DMV. And I almost died because it was so indicative of this like excitement that people have for absolute strangers when they realize that you have this Nuun identity in common. And it just was like such a great lesson in how to build brands. And I'm so excited to have had the chance to learn from you, but also have you here so that our audience can learn from you. And the main question that I have with all of this context is, all of Nuun is, not just Nuun, any company is just the people, right? The people and the culture and what that culture delivers in people or through people. And I'm curious how you were able to create a culture that was then able to deliver a brand that had that much impact.

Arielle: [00:09:13] Yeah, I mean, there's no magical answer, otherwise everyone would be able to do it right? But I think some of the things that I always tried to stay mindful of, that I think really made that difference and that impact for Nuun as a brand is look inside before you look outside. I think that there's a lot to be said for building a brand in a really, really authentic way, especially when you are a smaller brand or a small, medium sized brand and you don't necessarily have the dollars to just invest. So from the very, very beginning that, "Are you part of the Nuuniverse?" We've always treated our internal team as like they are part of the Nuuniverse. And yes, it's a job, and it's important that each person in their role performs the function that we need them to, but when we've looked at the team, the team is really a living, breathing thing. It's made up of all of these individuals, but [00:10:21] too often I think individuals and roles are looked at as very functional versus what's the sum of all of it together. So a high functioning team has to really be able to not just check the boxes of their functional job, but they have to really complement each other with hard skills, with soft skills, the dynamics are like ever changing and super, super complex. [00:10:47] But I think the magic really happens when an internal team that's working together to collaborate, to create a brand, it's like when they have that kind of brand and culture internally, the way that they bring it to consumers is just incredibly, incredibly authentic. And it's not a mission to make it seem authentic to consumers. It, like actually, really deeply is down to the core in how the employees on the other side of the brand work together. And so keeping those values really top of mind and intact, I think, has been a lot of what's made the difference for the company culture internally, but consumers really, really feel it. And it has allowed us to build incredible relationships with consumers, a really deep level of advocacy and loyalty that I think brands with more dollars than us would probably kill for. But you can't necessarily buy it with dollars. You have to buy it with some sweat equity.

Ingrid: [00:12:00] Oh, yeah. I mean, sweat equity is such a great way to say it, I think it's like there's been so much talk and love for the Nuun culture when it comes to people actually living the Nuun lifestyle together. And there's a lot of work that has been put into making sure that people at Nuun feel connected through movement. And I imagine in the past, it was probably through much more athletic movement. So you're like, what, nine time Ironman champion? Like crazy. I know you'll never say it, but I'll say it for you. You're like an extremely, extremely well-known endurance athlete. But me, who is definitely not that. I'm a yoga and Peloton person in a very casual way. I've always felt this integration into the team through even the form of movement that I have, and I never felt like inferior, or not able to keep up, or whatever. And that was something that I was afraid of. And so how do you balance the really, really strong culture of movement and like the roots of coming from being an endurance athlete and a team of endurance athletes as the leadership team to creating a welcoming environment for me as an employee who is not that. I'm certainly not a couch potato, but I'm not an endurance athlete. But and then that transcends from like me and my experience working there and out into the world because it feels like that is what you've been able to accomplish.

Arielle: [00:13:43] Yeah. Well, I'm glad. I'm glad to hear you say that because that's what we've always wanted to accomplish. That was the goal, so that it's felt by the team is so important and so meaningful. One of the things that I've always thought about and we've always thought about at Nuun is it's not about how you place, like in the world of sports and athletics. It's not necessarily, "Did you win?" It's "Did you do your best?" And so when we've brought the brand to life, whether that's like externally to consumers through marketing imagery or whether that's how we think about movement and our mission to, you know, be your own best at Nuun, it really is that "Did you show up and do your best?" versus "Did you win?" And so I think that having that mentality does really change how we think about movement and sports and our roots and how we invite new people into the brand, be it employees or consumers, because you don't have to win to be part of Nuun. You don't have to like be on the podium and run a hundred miles and get first place. But did you push yourself to be a better version of yourself today or generally? And if the answer is yes, it's like you're in. And do you believe that movement really has the power to change lives? Do you believe that movement is an important part of a healthy and active lifestyle? And are you trying your best to do that? And so from an internal standpoint, you know, as the company has grown, we've certainly made an effort to be inclusive in culture, in team activities, and even in how we interact socially to create that environment. I think the more tangible example is even externally [00:15:46] when we've thought about photography that represents the brand. Rather than focusing on somebody who's, you know, cranking out their last mile in a marathon and they're sweating so much and they look like they're going to die, we've tried to focus on like the finish line celebration, so people who did their best and high fived or smiling during exercise, even if it's a moment of sprinting it out that you're out there for fun, you're out there to be your best. And I think it's a nuance that's different than a lot of brands in our space. [00:16:22]

Ingrid: [00:16:24] Even just like culturally, when you know coming into Nuun, you realize how much homegrown talent there is there. And I think that the culture of giving people, like celebrating people trying their best and scaling up versus, like everything is for the win has actually created a safe environment for people to try new things without being afraid of failure, and I think that that has been a major game changer and enabler for Nuun to scale from where it was to where it is now, just having been bought by Nestlé. The people are there and they're actually working crazy, crazy, hard. And their goal isn't to like, win and be the best, but their goal is to match the other sort of like incredible output of passion and effort that the team puts forth. And there's this like emotional level of security that we all have in that as long as you're trying your best, your team is going to be there to help fill in the gaps and question you in a productive and, you know, sort of kind way. But to sort of bring you along and through the finish line because it isn't this like rat race to the top.

Arielle: [00:18:47] Yeah, absolutely, and I think one of the things, too, that layers in there as well as just like we've created a culture where everyone cares really deeply about doing their best and trying their best. And ultimately, everything doesn't always work. Everyone doesn't always knock it out of the park every single time, but it is never for lack of caring. And so when the team is at a high or during a time of harder work and trying to gut it out, knowing that every single person that you're working with, who you're supporting or who's supporting you, cares so deeply. Like you know that they're working hard. You know that they're trying and they're doing their best. And the connection that that creates during times of crushing it and winning, or during times of not, is really an important piece of what makes the team so magical.

Ingrid: [00:19:46] Totally. Totally. And so for those managers out there that are like, "Oh man, that just sounds like a dream," what are some just like very practical, tangible things that you might suggest to a manager starting out there that is in the Nuun from 10 years ago? What some advice that you might give to help create and instill this sort of comfortable but hardworking passion?

Arielle: [00:20:16] Yeah. So I think that, you know, this might sound obvious, but one of the first things that I always think about is knowing people personally, but not necessarily, you know, "Where did you go on vacation last?" And "What's your favorite sport?" Though that's great, too. But I think that really understanding each employee's not just their functional role, again, but what is their work style? What do they prefer? What do they like to do? What things are hard for them? And really understanding that each employee on a soft skills level is, I think, incredibly important because it enables you to provide guardrails and coaching that sets that individual up for success. And that, I think, is another the second place that I would go is ensuring that the guardrails that you set up for your team members and even between yourself and your peers are clear, they're understood, and they also give everybody space to do the things that they're good at that they take pride in. And I think that so often if a manager is under stress, their gut instinct is like tighten the reins when sometimes, most of the time in my experience, the better method is to actually loosen the reins. And that doesn't mean that you don't care. That doesn't mean that it doesn't matter what happens. But if you can provide clear guardrails and for a lot of employees in various marketing roles, especially digital, I think that that's, you know, there's very clear KPIs that you can set and some very clear "We're not going to go over here, but let's play in this sandbox," and make sure that the sandbox area is understood and then loosen the reins a little bit and have a mutual understanding of when do we come together to check in? What does success look like? But more often than not, I think that [00:22:33] the gut reaction to tighten reins is the opposite of what sets a team up to really perform highly together. [00:22:43]

Ingrid: [00:22:44] Yeah, that's beautifully said, actually, and just the thinking about how you manage people on an individual level and knowing the conscious and subconscious motives and the things that they feel comfortable doing and conversations that they're comfortable having and not comfortable having sort of goes into the type of leadership that we talk about at Nuun all the time, which is that concept of servant leadership, right? And so the concept behind it, actually, I might I might ask you to demonstrate what servant leadership looks like and how it played into the culture that was put together and evolved at Nuun.

Arielle: [00:23:33] Yeah. So [00:23:36] servant leadership is definitely something that the entire leadership team at Nuun talks about, and that I personally take really seriously. And I mean, if I were to boil it down to its simplest form, it's treating everybody across the team on a level playing field and making sure that you're serving them in a way that enables them to be their best. [00:24:02] So if as leaders were going to ask our teams to, you know, launch programs successfully and achieve results and do more faster, better, that's what we're all always asking, then the utmost servant leadership approach is in order to do all of that, your team needs something from you as well. So to be incredibly mindful about how do I need to show up? What do I need to provide my team with? What does each individual need from me to do the things that I need them to do and to go into every interaction, every conversation, every meeting, every challenge, every win with that mentality where it's more about everyone else and what their needs are, I think is really the way that I think about servant leadership and the way that I've always tried to show up for the Nuun crew.

Ingrid: [00:25:07] It's almost like if I had to put a visual to it. The role of us as leaders is to be like the water can that pours water on the seed to turn it into a flower, rather than like being the person that's standing on top of the soil, like tapping its foot and saying, "Hey, why are aren't you a flower yet? I need you to be a flower by tomorrow."

Arielle: [00:26:50] {laughter} Hurry up, flower.

Ingrid: [00:26:51] Hurry up, flower. Yeah, I mean, it's real. And I think that I've had a lot of different leadership and I have been a different leader. And I think a lot of what I've been able to learn from you is just some openness and humility and being able to just like listen to the team's actual needs and know their personalities. And I think it's also just like choreographing a dance. And not everyone is the same type of dancer or the same height, and it's not going to be this neat row of ballerinas that all look alike and are about the same size and proportion. It's this really beautiful but more chaotic dance of different personalities and shapes and sizes and perspectives that makes for this cool sounding symphony.

Arielle: [00:27:47] Absolutely. Yeah, and I mean, I think that that's sort of what I was getting out a little bit earlier in mentioning and sort of talking about like teams being a living, breathing, dynamic organism of themselves where you have all of these individuals and you have specific jobs or roles or things that need to get done, but ultimately, it's all always shifting and changing. And humans are complex. We are all complex. We all have different needs. We show up in different ways on different days because of all sorts of variables that our coworkers and colleagues aren't aware of. But  [00:28:37]the more people that enter the conversation and enter the room, even if it's virtual, thinking about what does everyone else need from me today versus what do I need? It just changes the game and how people work together and how people collaborate and ultimately and how much you can accomplish. [00:28:55]

Ingrid: [00:28:56] Oh man, I love that. What does everyone need for me versus what I need from them is a really great way to sum that up, I love that. I'm curious about... So growing a brand is not easy. Sweat equity is a big, big part of it and also just from your experience in all of the extremely competitive and high endurance like physical activity that you do in your personal life, where do you look when you're on that, you know, 100th mile of running or when you're like, "Man, I don't even know if I have anything left to give." What's the reserve that you tap into?

Arielle: [00:29:48] Oh, that is such a good question, I think it's for me, truly, honestly, it will sound corny, but this is just who I am, so sorry/not sorry. It really is about the people. So maybe for the hundredth mile of training or whatever, it's certainly different than in the work grind when you're having a rough week or a rough couple of weeks and everybody's sort of underwater and buried. But having been part of the Nuun team for so long and having been a big part of creating the team, creating the brand, and really creating the culture, to me, the people and that aspect of servant leadership is just like so, so deeply ingrained and part of who I am. So in those moments of like, you know, this is hard, we're all tired, do we really have to redesign the thing to relaunch it again? It really is about, you know, are all of our employees, ok? How do they feel? How can we set them up for success? How can I do something different better, completely, completely different, I don't know. But it really goes back to the people and that being a big piece of why we're doing it and, you know, working for a brand like Nuun that I am personally passionate about as well, I think has also made a really big difference that at the end of the day, your job can be hard, but if you believe in your team and you believe in the mission that your brand is trying to accomplish because you care on a personal level, then it makes the days where work feels like a job much, much easier than if you feel like you're on an island fighting a fight alone.

Ingrid: [00:31:50] Right, yeah, I mean, that's definitely at Nuun, I've never felt like I've been on an island fighting a fight alone. That's a big that's a big deal because that's hard to do. So, ok, part of leading is definitely how you treat your teams once you've hired them. What about looking for talent and building teams? How do you approach interview process? Are there interview questions that you like to ask? Do you think about the personality dynamics of a team when you're hiring, after you hire? Like, what does it look like to create this squad that you've been able to scale up and that's been able to achieve so many things yet be pretty diverse and have a lot of different perspectives and different ways for how they communicate or decision make. How do you do that from the offensive side trying to to hire?

Arielle: [00:32:52] Yeah, that's awesome. I actually love the hiring process, which is a good thing because we've done a lot of it.

Ingrid: [00:32:59] {laughter} You've done it a lot.

Arielle: [00:33:01] Yeah, if I didn't like it, that would have been a much rougher few years than it was. So I always, always, always outweigh aptitude and soft skills for functional experience. And I have to say that in almost all cases, that has served me and the team really well because I think that it is so much easier to teach a candidate or a new person joining the team, "This is how we x y z," because the reality is for most job functions, every single company, most companies, are going to do things differently. But if somebody steps onto a team and has a servant leadership approach ingrained in kind of who they are. If they have great communication skills. If they are an accountable person and can articulate that through previous work example, experience, and in conversation, then the reality is with some marketing foundation or some eCommerce foundation or whatever role they're stepping into the likelihood is that we can really teach them how to do what we need them to do. So a resume and an experience doing marketing for a marketing manager. Yes, it's important, but always, always, always what's most important to me is like, who is this person? How do they work? What are they passionate about? How did they treat other people in the workplace? And it is a balance of trying to make sure that you're bringing the right folks into the team because you want different individuals with different experiences, different backgrounds to bring fresh new thinking and continue to push the team to be its best. And you also want to make sure that there's the complementary balance of work styles and personalities. So this is another one that's like it's not a perfect recipe. But if you think about each new employee as what are they bringing as a person? How are they going to make the team better in soft skills or approach and not just job function, then that's just been something that I've done a lot of at Nuun and I think has really served the team well.

Ingrid: [00:35:37] Yeah, no, for sure, and I think one of the big words that you just said is in addition to like the soft skills and the personalities this concept of accountability kind of runs in a similar pattern from everything that we've been talking about, which is, you know, being passionate about what you're doing and doing your best, even though you're not trying to necessarily like win the war, you're just accountable because you care. And I think that is like another one of those if you're looking at soft skills and functional skills as a Venn diagram, that accountability component sort of sings right there in the middle because it's an indication that you care and that you also are willing to sort of like go the extra mile in order to get there. And most of the time, linking back into everything else that we've been talking about, which is like part of the dance is you're not going to be able to get there on your own. You have to sort of use those people skills and be caring and thoughtful about the people around you because you're also trying to be accountable for what is expected of you. So it's this like, yeah, I think it's really interesting to think through like what part of the recipe that personality is going to play in the sauce and then also making sure that they feel accountable.

Arielle: [00:37:03] Yeah. And there's a few interview questions that I usually ask to try to get a sense of somebody's level of accountability, also somebody's level of self-awareness. And I try to mix the questions up so that they're not always the same. But one of the ones that I always like to ask is the most recent piece of constructive feedback that somebody received in their current role. Like what was it and how did they react?

Ingrid: [00:37:31] Yeah.

Arielle: [00:37:32] Just being able to see somebody talk about something that maybe didn't go well at their current role or that they need development on and then own. So what did they do about it? I think that when somebody can answer that question in an honest way and also an articulate way, that's a great sign that they have that level of accountability. So I think that kind of stretching interview questions because sometimes some of these things are hard, hard to really get a read on when you have forty five minutes or 60 minutes with a person, especially in this virtual world, but really getting creative about the question asking to make sure that you're focusing deeper than just functional skills, I think, serves it well.

Ingrid: [00:38:22] Definitely. Yeah. So you don't want the answer of "I work too hard, and I care too much," for that interview question, right?

Arielle: [00:38:31] Right, exactly. You got it.

Ingrid: [00:38:33] {laughter}

Arielle: [00:38:35] I hear that one a lot.

Ingrid: [00:38:37] I care too much.

Arielle: [00:38:38] Yeah, I do hear that one a lot.

Ingrid: [00:38:42] {laughter} My favorite. I'm like, "Okay, nice to meet you. Thank you." Well, this has been super, super fun. Is there anything else that you think that we should talk through that I haven't pulled out of you? And, you know, I think you and I can, like, have another four hours together. But I'm just curious if there's anything you want to leave the audience with?

Arielle: [00:39:05] Yeah, no. You know, I think the thing that I would leave the audience with because we've spent a ton of time on my favorite topic, which is like employee development and culture and leadership and how that impacts the business. And I think that consumers know. I will leave you with that. [00:39:25] Consumers know when a brand is authentic and when it is not authentic. And [00:39:32] depending on the size of your brand, your consumer, they might have different expectations, but they know. And your employees are your consumers. And so [00:39:44] to really think about how your brand functions internally before you think about how it functions externally is the right order of operation to make sure that the team is sound and that the culture and the brand and the mission really, really are scalable. [00:40:03]

Ingrid: [00:40:04] That is such sound advice and so incredibly true. A continuous theme that we've been touching on this whole season and frankly, my whole career, is never assume that the consumer is stupid or is not able to catch what's actually going on. Consumers are incredibly savvy, I would even argue, they are getting even more and more and more savvy since they've had to wade through so many new brands and products and messages that have been thrown at them in the past 10 years, probably thanks to social media and all the DTC brands that are coming about. Customers have gotten so incredibly savvy about sniffing out the real stuff from the stuff that feels really inauthentic. And I think that you make such an excellent point in making sure that internally things feel good. And in order for you to create a brand and product and messaging and content that feels good outside, there's no way that you can actually do that in a sustainable way. You might be able to do it for a season or two and sort of fake the funk. But over the 15 years that Nuun has existed, it's just been more and more of, like you said so perfectly, the inside coming out and consumers have 100 percent taken notice. And that's been part of the source of being able to create a brand that people really identify with because they want to be part of the Nuuniverse.

Arielle: [00:41:45] Exactly. That's how you get fans at the DMV, for sure.

Ingrid: [00:41:52] Definitely. Definitely. Well, AK, I adore you. I am so happy to call you a friend and a mentor, and I'm so glad to have had you on the show. Thanks for coming.

Arielle: [00:42:03] Yeah, thank you so much. I love talking about all of this. So if you ever want to talk for four more hours, I'm game.

Ingrid: [00:42:10] Done. Done. {laughter} See you soon.