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EP #154

Mindful Drinking 2.0 with Sunnyside Co-Founder Ian Anderson

alcoholic minimalist podcast

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EPISODE #154

Summary

In this episode with Ian Andersen, Molly Watts discusses her journey of overcoming family alcohol abuse while championing a peaceful approach to alcohol. Through dryyouweary.org, she provides a supportive platform for incorporating alcohol-free days and expresses gratitude for the engaging feedback from her audience. Ian Andersen, Chief Development Officer of Sunnyside, joins the conversation, detailing the app’s success in reducing alcohol consumption by up to 75% for some users. With reports of improved overall well-being and fewer binge drinking days, Sunnyside’s digital experience, using pre-commitment and tracking techniques, facilitates a mindful approach to drinking. Watts and Andersen underline the significance of planning ahead, emphasizing the goal-oriented nature of habit change. As Sunnyside expands its user base and raises funding, the partnership with BrewDog signals a growing movement towards modern, approachable solutions for alcohol health. Encouraging listeners to take actionable steps towards a harmonious relationship with alcohol, Watts and Andersen showcase their passion for driving positive change through Sunnyside.

Welcome to the alcohol minimalist podcast. I’m your host Molly watts. If you want to change your drinking habits and create a peaceful relationship with alcohol, you’re in the right place. This podcast explores the strategies I use to overcome a lifetime of family alcohol abuse, more than 30 years of anxiety and worry about my own drinking, and what felt like an unbreakable daily drinking habits. Becoming an alcohol minimalist means removing excess alcohol from your life. So it doesn’t remove you from life. It means being able to take alcohol or leave it without feeling deprived. It means to live peacefully, being able to enjoy a glass of wine without feeling guilty and without needing to finish the bottle. With Science on our side will shatter your past patterns and eliminate your excuses. Changing your relationship with alcohol is possible. I’m here to help you do it. Let’s start now. Well, hello and welcome or welcome back to the alcohol minimalist podcast with me your host Molly Watts coming to you from it’s still raining here in Oregon folks. I talked about it on last week’s show the convergence of the Atmospheric Rivers was just a rainy soggy week. And it’s been rainy and soggy pretty much pretty much since then. Looks like we’re going to have a couple of dry days here and I am looking forward to it. How are you doing? Welcome to the second week of December, I cannot believe it that we are literally at the end of 23. That seems just incredible to me. And I hope your holiday season is going well. I’ve got a lot of events coming up next week. And I’ve made a plan ahead of time I hope you are too. And I’m looking forward to getting ready for dry you weary by the way dry you weary if you are interested, dry you weary.org My friends over at moderation management. The site is now live, you can register. And I would highly encourage you to register for the dry you weary extra dry version, it’s $25 for the month. That’s it that $25 goes to support an incredible nonprofit by the way. And for $25 you get 30 days of email support for dry you weary you get lots of events in terms of group coaching opportunities, we are going to have some meet the authors. We’re gonna have some prizes, we’re gonna have some freebies, and it’s just a fantastic opportunity to prioritize those alcohol free days, I hope you will go for it. I hope you will try to get a full 31 days alcohol free. But regardless, no matter how much you do, set your intention. And come join us for some support over on dry you weary.org That’s www dot dry you weary.org It’s run by moderation management. But I am a volunteer coach, I am a volunteer that’s just pro bono work that I do and I love to help people see the benefits of incorporating alcohol free days and dry you weary is a great way to do it. So go sign up today there will be a link in the show notes. I have a couple of prize winners this week. If you would like to be a prize winner, all you got to do is leave a review of the podcast or of my book breaking the bottle legacy wherever you listen to podcasts or wherever you might have listened, picked up the book. And you could be entered into a prize drawing. I have two prize winners each week. The first is a random prize drawing. And this week’s random prize drawing is from Spotify. You can leave comments on Spotify comments on YouTube those all count to and this is by one and one commented on the undoing the urge to over drink episode. And he said thank you for sharing your experience. The end when you shared about your father hit me so hard as I lost my father as well. God bless you and your family this holiday season. Molly one thank you so much. Thank you so very much. You are my random prize drawing winner but I wanted to share that comment because it was so so nice. I appreciate it. For my selected prize winner. This is because of the content of the podcast review. This was left on Apple podcast and it is k h in LBKH in LP says Thank you Molly for your podcast. I have been listening for the last several weeks and have been very inspired by the content. Thank you for all your efforts. I already feel a change in my life. K H Thank you so very much for sharing that. I appreciate it. And both you and 1k h and LP and one please email me, Molly at Molly watts.com. And I will send you out some alcohol minimalist swag. And I appreciate you both for leaving comments and for leaving a review of the podcast. All right on to this week’s show. I am very excited to share this conversation with Ian Anderson, who is the Chief Development Officer for Sunnyside. And Ian and his co founder Nick Allen, have been on the show. Gosh, it was eons ago now when they first came on. And it’s actually been a year and a half since Ian was on the show, kind of bringing us up to speed. So much has been happening with Sunnyside in the last year. And I just really wanted to have him on the show again, because I’m so proud of the partnership with them. And I’m proud of the work that they’ve been doing. And I want you all to hear about it. And hopefully check it out yourself if you haven’t already. And we talk about that more in the show. I really think you’re going to enjoy hearing about not only the great work that they are doing in the space of mindful drinking, but just if you’re a techie or if you like learning about startups, you’re going to enjoy this conversation too. Here is my conversation with Ian Anderson. Hey, Ian, thank you so much for being here. And coming back to the alcohol minimalist podcast. It’s like old times i i Just look. It’s been a year and a half. Plus, since you’ve been on the show, that seems incredible to me. Yes. I’m excited to be back and I also can’t believe that it’s been a full year and a half. I’m just trying to process everything that’s happened since then. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to in this in this short conversation, but it’s great to be back. Yeah. So Sunnyside so originally the very first time you and I talked you and I and Nick all talk together on the podcast that was now two and a half years ago and that was when Sunnyside was still cut back coach. And then we’ve gone through a brand change to Sunnyside and there’s been a lot still happening even in the last year and a half. So bring me up to speed on what Sunnyside has been up to in in how many people and what’s going on with who you’re helping become mindful drinkers and change their relationship with alcohol. Yeah, happy to give the overview and no thanks for giving me this opportunity to come back. I feel like we’re we’re good friends now and maybe exactly right. Do it again in a year. Hopefully, hopefully everything’s going great again. So just to kind of recap for anybody that doesn’t know, Sunnyside is the mindful drinking app that helps anyone who wants to change their relationship with alcohol really offer. We offer the easiest way for people to get started. We have absolutely no pressure to quit drinking when you join Sunnyside. In fact, we’re really focused on mindfulness and moderation. We think that tracking and planning your alcohol consumption is and will become as popular as other areas of fitness and wellness. Like checking your steps or tracking your fitness and others sort of areas of health that we we tend to track. So since we started, we’ve had about we’ve helped about 200,000 people cut out over 13 million drinks and add 2.3 million no drinking days versus the starting point that they came in on. So those are some some new numbers that we ran recently. And obviously we’re incredibly proud of that. Because at the end of the day, our job is to help people cut back a bit on drinking without actually feeling pressured to quit. And another thing that we’ve sort of evaluated since we last talk, I think we’ve sort of formalized this, we ran a study with a university to really analyze the data from our customers. Because you know, we can talk to our customers and they report really great results when we interview them or survey them but we wanted to run a proper survey. And we found out that after being with Sunnyside for three months, our subscribers on average are reducing their drinking by about 30%. And the key here is that that’s across the full population. And we zoom in a little bit on specific groups within our Sunnyside user base. Many are cutting back up to 75% many are cutting back up to two 50%. And we also asked members if they’re still drinking because this was one of the key things that I personally wanted to understand after we you know, been building the company for a while. Our hypothesis is that we can get people to cut back on their drinking and build a healthy relationship without having to quit I know I’ve said that a couple of times now. So in our survey we found that 98% of Sunnyside members still drink alcohol yet but they’re cutting back by 30 50 and 75%. So it looks like the little company that we started three years ago is doing kind of what we really hoped that it would. And eventually we want to be helping millions of people rebuild their relationship to alcohol, you know that you and I agree completely that it’s possible because that’s what I talk about all the time here the fact that it doesn’t have to be one or the other there, it doesn’t have to be black or white, all or nothing, and meeting yourself where you’re at and making a plan ahead of time. These are proven tactics that are built on science, the science of neuroplasticity, I mean, it’s the science of the brain. And that’s what makes what I you know why I’ve been so enthusiastic about our partnership and about using Sunnyside and sharing it with the people that are listening to this podcast because it is 100% not only possible and statistically proven, but you’ve used good science in the building of the tactics that you you set out with. So I congratulate you because that is phenomenal work. And what I also love about it is you you shared there’s, you know, there’s a full spectrum, right, so there’s people that are seeing a 30% reduction of 50% or 75%. Again, that kind of re emphasizes what I want people to hear this is possible. And any reduction that you make is better than you know where you’re currently at. That’s the bottom line. And increasing and prioritizing alcohol free days, adding those in and being able to create a more mindful relationship with alcohol will really improve so many areas of your life. Talk to me a little bit about what you see in terms of what your users are reporting back in terms of those overall benefits that they’re getting when they reduce their alcohol intake. Yeah, absolutely. I’m just gonna pull up some stats here that I have. I just want to kind of riff off some that you said really quick, and then I’ll get to those stats, you know, we accept anybody no matter what kind of pattern of drinking they’re they’re trying to change and that’s something that I think that makes Sunnyside really special. If somebody is maybe considers himself a binge drinker, or they’re drinking three glasses of wine a night or one glass of wine and night, these are all habits that can be kind of modified with fundamentally the same techniques that you were talking about these you know, way more about this actually. But you know, we do use a little bit of technique, scientific techniques in our programming of Sunnyside that sort of digital experience a lot of pre commitment and and tracking and planning. Yeah, but that the the neuroplasticity and the science and everything else but the people that you help people across the full range, it doesn’t it’s not a it’s not only for somebody who is just you know, wanting to cut back like they’re like I was a habit drinker, a daily habit drinker, right. So I was one of those person that was drinking three or four drinks at night. But on the outside people would have never said, Oh, you have a drinking problem, right? They would have never associated me with over drinking. But the amount that I was drinking was absolutely beyond those the low risk limits that I talked about, you guys don’t really get into that science of it, or that part of it. But the fact is that there were a ton of benefits that I that I have experienced by reducing that and, and you know, especially adding in alcohol free days, but what statistics Did you find? Yeah, so we, we have this really cool event in January called dry is January. It’s our take on the the ever popular dry January phenomenon. And we can talk a little bit more about why we call it dry wash. And then we interview people last year or survey people last year after the event was done, we had about 25,000 participants. And these stats I’m about to read are almost exactly the same as people that join Sunnyside at anytime. So will you just use these as a baseline but in general, when people join Sunnyside and practice more mindful drinking, we heard that 83% experience fewer binge drinking days, which is really, really important. That’s probably one of the most important stats because those are the days that can really throw you off, you know from sort of an emotional and physical and perspective and cause lots of anxiety. 80% feel a sense of accomplishment. 78% gain more control over their drinking 73% save money 64% experience more energy and focus 63% Sleep Better 62% experience overall, better health, and there’s a lot more to this as well. So what we see across the board is that these results tend to be universal with our members. We didn’t slice this by any specific segment like looking at people that were utilizing the platform more we just blended is across all of our members. So the results have been pretty phenomenal. And I think one of the more and more anecdotal side of things, we have this really great system where we can see what our members are writing in to us in an anonymous way. So we can we call it our customer love channel. So we share the things that our customers are writing to us on a daily basis, to really motivate the company and remind us of why we’re doing this. And every week, we see people writing in and saying, To their surprise that they had their first alcohol free day in, in three years, or maybe 10 years. And, you know, we’re not, of course, judging these people for having had that habit at all. We don’t, we don’t know why they had that habit, and, but they realized that they were at a point where they did want to change that. So just using these really basic habits that we help you build with, within the program, we’re seeing some incredible results. Like I said, those those stories that our customers tell us are almost better than the stats that we hear, because we’re really helping people improve their lives every day. I love that I didn’t know you had a customer love channel. Now I want to know all about it. That is That is phenomenal. And absolutely, I hear it all the time here too. When people I can speak from my own experience, because I had gone for really probably decades without having an alcohol free day. And now, you know, I’m I say I’m mostly alcohol free. I mean, I live pretty much 70% alcohol free life. And that, to me is mind blowing, like the fact that I could ever that I would ever be that that would be the life that I lead is it surprised me. So I understand completely when somebody has been incorporating alcohol on a regular basis. Having an alcohol free day is a huge deal. It’s a huge accomplishment. And hopefully, it encourages them to continue to, to add on alcohol free days. Because the the you know, I always say that the easiest way to drink glasses is incorporating alcohol free days because it you know, you’re going to drink less overall if you have more alcohol free days. So it just my preferred method of being mindful is to prioritize those. And then practice mindful drinking, when I do include alcohol in my life, I actually tend to totally agree with you. That’s my approach as well, I think taking alcohol free days, it stacks the good habits within your life. I mean, I noticed that if I get great sleep, because I didn’t drink, I’m more likely to work out, my anxiety is going to be lower. And it’s this sort of like habit stacking, that I really find kind of addicting. Maybe not the right word to use. But it really is kind of powerful to learn these other habits outside of maybe a daily drink or two that then for me personally have helped me deprioritize alcohol significantly, where I still enjoy drinking, every now and then. But I strive for more of the clarity that I get in the mornings when I get really good sleep. And I you know, I can focus on my physical and mental health rather than focusing on going out with friends for example, and escape. Yeah. And escaping, right. I mean, kind of getting out of it. Yeah, I mean, and let’s call a spade a spade. You don’t get to be the chief development officer of a startup without a lot of hard work and a lot of hours. And you would not be doing that if you were drinking every night. No, absolutely not. But I will say that my my sort of personal experience, it was around 2018. I probably talked about this on the last episode where I was working on a script. Can you tell us again, remember, I was working at a startup that got acquired by Microsoft. And it was a whirlwind. It was really exciting. We were doing we were doing really neat stuff. But I was also a bit younger and was working with a lot of people in a similar boat, we were kind of the first time that we have been through an experience like that. So needless to say, I think we would go out maybe twice a week to the bars and drink quite a bit. And it really took its toll on me I realized that I could definitely get by at work. But what what bothered me more was I just I didn’t like how I looked or felt anymore. And I think the thing about how you look is I could physically I was like gaining a little bit of weight. And I wasn’t I wasn’t my in my I wasn’t really being myself. I didn’t feel like myself. And so that started about it. I mean, that was one of the things that really caused me to take notice. And actually this sort of represents one of the foundations of Sunnyside I started tracking my own alcohol intake along with things like weight and calories. You know a lot of people do this. It’s not novel these days. We hear about the quantified self and people that like track all their daily habits. So I kind of got into that. But just by tracking and counting what I was doing, I created an accountability system for myself, which should sound familiar because fundamentally, that’s one of the main things that drives people’s success with using Sunnyside is simply tracking and accountability. Of course, we’ve built a lot more into it now. But at its core, Sunnyside is the one of the pillars is tracking in your alcohol consumption. And that’s another reason that we are such great partners and we align so well is because one of the fundamental pieces of what I talk about all the time, is what I call the doable drink plan. And I say doable, because one of the things that’s really and why, again, this approach of not being judgmental, and being very positive and not telling people, they have to quit completely. One of the things that really helps people is they make a plan ahead of time that they feel reasonably sure that they can stick to that’s the part that is so powerful in in terms of habit change. It’s taking the decision moving in out of that, in the moment mindset into a logical, more goal oriented mind that we use when we’re planning, right. But then also the accountability. So tracking afterwards. And what’s funny about that is like you say it, and we say it, and you’re saying like that’s what you were kind of doing and I you know, I did my work before Sunnyside was invented. And so I you know, I did the same thing. I was writing things down. The bottom line is the reason that you’re here talking about this. The reason that I’m here is because it works. Right? It actually works to change people’s habits, and it works to change. Ultimately, how you prioritize your relationship with alcohol. Yeah, that’s That’s exactly right. That the planning that you’re talking about, we do do something very similar in Sunnyside. So every Sunday, we pretty much at the same time everyone is texted a plan for the week ahead. And we do we do predict the plan, we put forth something personal that we think will be a good fit for you. But then you can fully customize it. And of course, we don’t condone or encourage drinking. But this is simply recognizing people’s sort of past patterns. So we propose a drink plan for lack of a better term for the week ahead. And then people can adjust it and yeah, it’s this. It’s this moment of sort of pre committing to the week ahead. That is one of the other pillars of making Sunnyside successful for so many people. And I think that in that moment when people are planning for their drinks ahead, they’re doing a lot more than just planning their drinks. They’re pre planning their health. They’re pre planning their workouts, they’re better sleep, they’re free. They’re starting to frame up their week in terms of how they ideally want to see it. One that’s not necessarily controlled around alcohol and going out or having drinks at dinner, but rather is prioritizing the healthiest parts of your life and then literally D prioritizing alcohol in that list. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Hey, everyone, just a quick break to talk with you about sunny side. Now you’ve heard me mentioned Sunnyside many times before you’ve heard me talk with Nick and E and the founders of Sunnyside and I just want to share with you why I am so passionate about this company. They are way more than just a drink tracking app. They are really about helping people create a mindful relationship with alcohol and they stand for a life that is about having more, not less. Right. There are more rested mornings more days when you’re feeling your absolute best when you have more energy and positivity. Sunnyside is not there to tell you to never go out to never drink but they are there to help you enjoy your life and to wake up and be ready to be your shining best. It is not an all or nothing approach. It is friendly. It is approachable, and it is absolutely judgment free. They want to be a solution that fits into your unique lifestyle. And I think that’s exactly what they’ve created. You can register for a free 15 day trial. Go to www.sunnyside.co/minimalist to get started. That’s www.sunnyside.co/minimalist to try Sunnyside today talk to me a little bit about what has been going on with I mean so you just you shared some of the big numbers in terms of the big all the people that you’ve been helping. Let’s talk about Sunnyside a lot little bit from just as a business perspective, because I know people are curious, like, it’s been, what, two and a half, three years now, almost. Since you’ve since you started it. How has that all been in terms of the all the challenges that come come along inherent with the startup? That’s a great question I’m running? Well, first of all, when we started Sunnyside, we grew pretty quickly, because we started out as this text message system, and it was right in the middle of the pandemic. And for one reason or another, texting people and making it this discrete experience, what just kind of worked really well, yeah. But after about a year, that we realized that as founders, we had a lot to learn. And so we kind of slow down our growth a little bit. And really focused on the product experience, which is important because as much as Nick and I, my co founder, Nick Allen, as much as we have sort of worked in technology companies and like to see things grow, it’s the user experience and the efficacy of the product that’s going to make or break this business. And if we if we’re not really good at, if our product isn’t absolutely amazing, people aren’t going to talk about it and share it with their friends and family when when it’s important to them. So that’s fundamentally the thing that we have to focus on. So we slowed down a little bit. And then within the past year, we actually three extra subscriber base in about the last 12 months. So subscribers being the people that are actually paying for the product. And we have about we four extra monthly active user user growth year over year, I’m just looking at my numbers here to make sure I got those right. And recently, one of the things we’re really proud of is for those who are kind of know the, the tech terms and slang, we did raise our Series A, we just announced that a little while ago. So that’s been really, really exciting. And I would say, not a lot of consumer companies have been getting fundraising in the past 18 months, it’s been a really hard market, the fact that we were able to do this really validates the need and the need for this segment of sort of health and wellness technology. In other words, alcohol health in a more approachable, modern way for consumers is something that our investors believe is is here to stay. And one of the things that our investors really believed in was us building the best end user experience for the consumers in terms of actually being able to help people cut back on their drinking with with at a low cost point at a low barrier to entry in something that doesn’t feel like it’s pressuring you to quit at all. So it really validates the market. And it validates our approach to the market, to the problem that we’re trying to solve. So I believe that in the next five to 10 years, you know, there’s there’s a couple of companies out there that we think we could be as big as not that that’s necessarily our goal. But I think in terms of having an impact on people’s lives. So calm is one that we’ve talked about a lot of comments like, it really helped normalize mental health for a lot of people and change the way that we talk about it. Personally, I feel like 10 or 15 years ago, if I told my friends I was in therapy, you might get teased. But these days, it’s like, right, it’s like a badge of pride. And I think companies like calm really helps change that. So we believe that we’re on the start of a path toward changing the conversation around alcohol, where it’s much less, there’s much less stigma, it’s okay to raise your hand and say that you want to change your relationship to alcohol. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a problem. It may, of course, we can’t ignore that. But for most people, just dipping their toe in and wanting to make a change doesn’t need to feel like riddled with shame and guilt. It should be assigned something that you’re proud of. And I think that’s that’s really what we represent right now. Yeah, that’s exactly parallels my mission really to make it something that people just look at just like we just like you said, like it’s tracking your numbers. You know, I’ve talked I think you and I’ve talked about it before, but this idea that like, you know what your blood pressure is, you know, how many calories you basically need to eat on a daily basis to maintain your weight, right? You should know your alcohol numbers like you should know how much it what it feels like when you have a drink what it feels like in your body when you have two drinks, but you know what I mean? You should understand that and you should know how much you’re drinking on a weekly basis. If you’re wanting to maximize your health because it is a substance that is you know, toxic to the body. We got to pay attention. You can’t just like go oh, it’s no big deal. You know, it’s it is something to to be mindful about, but that doesn’t mean that we have to completely eliminate it. I mean, yes, there’s definitely great advantages people, people enjoy living life alcohol free. And that’s wonderful, perfect if that works for you. Awesome. And there’s still room for so much benefit for people, especially for those people that are drinking at that higher level, the you know, a higher level to reduce that down to a mindful level every week is where the maximum where that’s where the biggest impact is. Yeah, I love that. And I think we also have people that join Sunnyside who don’t actually cut back on their drinking, I think it’s kind of an it’s not, it’s not as common, but there are people that join because they want to become like truly more mindful drinkers than for a lot of people. That means introducing habits along with drinking. So it’s as simple as lower ABV drinks, right? Rotating with water. One thing that my wife and I have been doing a lot, if we have a drink, it’s chugging electrolytes before bed. Just just because we, you know, you start to, you start to learn what, what alcohol is depleting out of the body, and things like electrolytes is just a nice way to be mindful when you are drinking. And there’s other, you know, I’m sure foods and other liquids that can help support. So I think it’s important for me to emphasize that mindful drinking can come in many different flavors, it really does start with some cutting back, but it also involves improving the habits around alcohol consumption when you are drinking. Just again, sort of reiterates the the, the way that Sunnyside goes about this, why I think it’s so different than other companies. It, you come at it from a lot of different angles, a lot of different perspectives. Tell us more about what is what’s going on now with the the I know, the tech space program is still there. But you also have the app now and you have some more coaching options available for people as well. Yeah, absolutely. After the series A that we just raised, it gives us a little bit more capital to really do what we’ve wanted to do with the product for a long time, which is make it absolutely the best out there. So we have big plans in the next you know, 18 months to really double down on the product product experience and make it something that’s truly like loved by all of our members, we think it’s we think it’s good, like, we have a good number of paying subscribers and but at the end of the day, we know that our product needs to be better and better. So one of the things we’re doing is simply getting more resources to help us, you know, see the whole picture when it comes to the product experience. But some of the things that we’ve done recently are introduced the community, which I think you’ve seen, Molly, yeah, so it’s been around for a few months. Now it there’s a little community tab in the app. And it’s sort of a controlled conversation. It’s not just an open forum. And that was actually by design, we wanted to make sure that the conversations that we’re facilitating are really positive and always have a focus. So every, every day, we have a new prompt in the community, and people can respond and also support each other. And so that’s been a really great addition to the core product experience. And then we are introducing other levels of coaching. We have a premium tier now that members can join to get more hands on coaching, which is something that our members have been asking for a lot. So when you join Sunnyside, you can’t you have the option of texting with a real human. Not everybody does it. Because it’s not necessarily something they want to do. But it’s there if you need it. And then when people do need it, they’ve been asking for more. So we’re trying to work on a way to provide more human touch coaching for people that need it. We’re on the right path. But needless to say there are you know, some interesting challenges that come along with that as you as you’re growing the company. And then the the thing that we just launched recently is challenges. And so last year, we launched the driest January challenge, but it was It wasn’t fully baked in the product product experience. Now we’ve actually rolled out challenges within the product experience and for driest January this year which if you are using Sunnyside right now and you go to the challenges tab, it’s it’s taken over with Dr. January because we want people to really join join that experience as a community. And because we know it’s a big moment for a lot of people. But what we want to do to evolve challenges is make more micro challenges as opposed to instead of just 30 Day challengers. We’re going to design things like to dry days in a row or you know four or five dry days in a row and let people really hone in on these like micro challenges that break them out of the mold of their equally plan and give them you know, more things to look forward to and more ways to up their game when it comes to their health during the week. And we think that’s going to be really exciting for people and also a way to like, I think bring your friends along in the experience more and more. So that’s that’s kind of what’s immediately on our roadmap, the stuff that I can talk about, at least right now. Yeah, okay. Yeah, cuz there’s still there’s things going on behind the scenes yet. Yeah. No at all yet, of course. Well, so yeah, to dry us January. We’re gearing up for it right now. You’re doing dry ish. I’m doing dry weary. It’s all the same. You know, I do. Yeah, I do try to do I mean, I promote doing 31 days alcohol free. You know, it’s good reset I, that. I think a lot of people go into it. They’re really thinking, Oh, I can’t and so you know, it’s not like, I like you to I like people to set the goal. And then it’s, there’s no shame if you don’t need one made if you don’t make it but let’s set it and see how we do. But talk to me about your partnership with BrewDog. Yes. So BrewDog is an international beverage company focusing mostly on beer and I think they started in the UK. I think my my wife and I actually visited the BrewDog brewery years ago in 2018. Just by coincidence, so they’re pretty well known. And they approached us and asked if we wanted to collaborate for dry ice January this year and we excitedly said yes. So we are going to be de create partner beers throughout the year like seasonal partner beers. Wood they’ve never done a non alcoholic partner beer before until now. So they’re going to do a Sunnyside beer. Oh my gosh, I love it. That is called dogs like I get a lot of people in my group are BrewDog fans not out. I mean, the for the NA beers. specifics. Yeah, in the NA, so they haven’t in a beer subscription box right now. And they sent me a bunch. And I actually really liked them. They’re, they’re really tasty. So I love what they’re doing with the NA beers at ours is called sunny AF, which is alcohol free, but also has kind of a clever name to it. And we got some cool canned designs. So we are those are going to be sold on the BrewDog website. And they’re really excited about it too. Because you know, Sunnyside represents one of the largest if not the largest digital community for mindful drinkers. And it’s just a nice cross pollination of efforts around mindful drinking, I think BrewDog has seen pretty fast growth with that subscription box service and with their non alcoholic beers, just like many other companies are, you know, athletic, and many others out there. So we’re we’re very tickled to be to have been invited into this effort and then be working with some great people there. It’s very, very exciting. Nick and I early on, we kind of have joked about having a sunny side beer at some point. So this isn’t it’s not like we’re actually brewing this, but it does feel like we’re crossing a bit of a threshold there. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I can’t wait to try it. I’m excited. I love the the and I love setting AF That’s awesome. Well, okay, II and I, you and I could chat for ever, and it would be so much fun. And I love hearing everything that sunny sides doing both on a global perspective, in terms of the business, one of the reasons that I’ve always been so enthusiastic about my support for the company is you and Nick are both you’re really good guys down to earth. I know it’s a business, but you work at it with a passion that is very obvious to me. Whenever we talk, and you’re doing it for all the right reasons, you’re invested in helping people make really significant changes in their life. And I for one, just think that’s really cool. I super appreciate that. Yeah, it’s a passion project for Nick and I first and foremost, I’ll just, you know, say this part of the story again, you know, Nick, Nick’s parents both have not drank for 30 years, and consider themselves recovering alcoholics. My mom passed away from alcohol related issues when I was 11. And my dad, who unfortunately recently passed away, also was 3030 plus years. So we’re Thank you, I appreciate that. But you know, what a great inspiration he was to me and my my siblings, and I always knew that I would want it to be a jet be part of a generational shift within my family. I mean, that problems with alcohol go way back way bigger than I even mentioned here. And to be here, building a company that’s already helped this many people. If this was all I did was Sunnyside, I’d be perfectly happy. But I think we have a big a lot more in front of us in terms of helping people. So yes, I really appreciate that. And it truly is a mission driven business for us at the end of the day. Yeah, that’s obvious. All right. Ian Anderson. Have a very happy holiday. I will look for or to hearing all about the sunny A F when it’s out and check it out. And yeah, please. And for those of you who haven’t already checked out Sunnyside you can do that at www.sunnyside.co/molly We’re gonna send him there. Some trash Molly or slash minimalist. What are the two? And thanks so much again for being here. Thanks. Bye. It’s always a pleasure. Thank you for listening to the alcohol minimalist podcast. Take something you learned from this episode and put it into action this week. Changing your drinking habits and creating a peaceful relationship with alcohol is 100% possible. You can stop worrying Stop feeling guilty about over drinking and become someone who desires alcohol less harm join me in making peace with alcohol. It’s my six month online course and group coaching program designed to help you build sustainable change. Give me six months and I’ll help you create peace.