Build What Doesn’t Exist: Beau Spaulding on Product Innovation, Resilience & Entrepreneurship

Beau (00:00)

So when we looked into it a little further, we peeled the onion back a couple more layers, we realized there was an absolute huge market opportunity for a genuine product that has not existed in the United States before, which is a rarity. So we jumped on it, as you would imagine. Fast forward two and a half years later, Elevado Cigars is born up live running. It is the first company and cigar manufacturer that’s ever been approved in the United States for

a premium long filler cigar with a patented infusion process of THC.

Quentin Edmonds (02:04)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Q Edmonds. And if you’ve been following me enough, you know what really gets me excited is when we get a chance to peek through the lens of someone different. We all can literally be doing the same thing.

But still, because of our processes being different, we’re going to learn something different from each other and just the idiosyncrasies of it all. But today, I think this is definitely an avenue I have never explored. So I believe today you’re gonna really find out something new. And I’m excited because we’re gonna tie it into real estate. And that’s I’ll tell you how we’re gonna tie it in right here. What we’re gonna talk about, a lot of real estate owners, they in the possession of.

And so this is actually something new that you’re probably in possession of that probably really wanna pick your interest. And so I’m so excited. I’m excited to talk to and peek through the lens of now. He just told me call him Beau So I’m just gonna say Mr. Beau how you doing today, sir?

Beau (02:59)

Good Q. Thank you for having me.

Quentin Edmonds (03:01)

Absolutely, man. Thank you for being here. And listen, sir, I’m a tight man. I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your major focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little origin story, how you got into the space that you’re in. And then tell them where you are in the world, man. People love to connect and know where people are geographically. And so Mr. Beau sir, you have the floor, my friend.

Beau (03:23)

Thank you. I’ll keep it concise and direct, from a background. So I’m definitely a tech nerd at heart. My background is a solid 25 plus years in the senior executive and tech space. Several years ago, a colleague of mine asked me on a product innovation question, and I was absolutely baffled that it didn’t exist.

So when we looked into it a little further, we peeled the onion back a couple more layers, we realized there was an absolute huge market opportunity for a genuine product that has not existed in the United States before, which is a rarity. So we jumped on it, as you would imagine. Fast forward two and a half years later, Elevado Cigars is born up live running. It is the first company and cigar manufacturer that’s ever been approved in the United States for

a premium long filler cigar with a patented infusion process of THC.

Quentin Edmonds (04:14)

Yeah, love it. You won’t lie. Sweet, concise, and to the point, man. I absolutely love it. You gave me a little bit about how you got into the space. I always say this by every podcast, Mr. Beau, destiny has no wasted moments.

Right? Like we learn from each leg of our journey. If we’ve been in other businesses, we learn from that. Businesses that have failed or may have success, businesses that we’ve sold, like we learn from each part of the journey and we wind up landing where we are today. So I would love to know throughout your journey, throughout your building, what has the journey revealed to you about yourself? Has it revealed discipline? Has it revealed humility? Like what has this journey meant to you?

Beau (04:51)

Yeah, that’s a great question. The journey has been wrought with successes and failures, without question, right? And every time that I would go do something and it didn’t work, or it didn’t work the way it was supposed to, or I was discouraged. There’s one component, I don’t know why I keep referencing it, but I will. Everybody remembers Angry Birds.

Angry Birds was the fifty-ninth attempt to make that work. They failed fifty-eight times before Angry Birds. Wow. So for me, resilience, persistence, drive, dedication, all of those components that cause you to get back up and figure out where you went wrong

Regardless of whether you think it’s your fault or not, you have to analyze where you went wrong. You have to be able to pick yourself back up and you got to get back on the bike.

Quentin Edmonds (05:39)

Yeah,

Beau (05:40)

And that’s ultimately, if I look over the last 25, 30 years of my professional career, it’s happened multiple times. Right. Multiple times. And the successes are there. When the successes are there, of course, everybody loves and they cherish those and it’s, hoorah. The failures is where you really have opportunities to learn.

Yes, sir. And I think having the being lucky enough to have the mentors that I did who could put those into perspective and say, stop kicking yourself in the backside for it and just really analyze it, right? Analyze it and figure out how you could physically navigate a different path, knowing that the failure is now there. And that’s been hugely impactful.

Quentin Edmonds (07:04)

Yes, sir. No, I appreciate that, man. I appreciate that reflective answer. You reflect the introspective. I often say failure is fertilizer, right? Like it’s literally

Beau (07:13)

That’s great.

Quentin Edmonds (07:16)

failure. And if anything about fail fertilizer, it’s messy. Sometimes it’s stink. Literally, sometimes it’s shit. People use shit as fertilizer, right? But if you allow the nutrients to do what it do.

It transforms it into something that’s plush, that’s green, that has a different smell to it, that actually could be edible, right? Like the failure is just fertilizer. So don’t look at where it’s starting. Think about how you can just literally tend to this, plant this and watch something beautiful grow out of it. So yeah, man, I appreciate you saying that, man. Business owners, so that there’s just

some simple things that cross over when it comes to business that it has to be a confluence with. And those are operations, right? We have to have good operations, good systems in place in order to be successful. So I would love to know from your vantage point, what is maybe one operational thing you’ve put into place, let’s say the last two years that has really helped you be successful.

Beau (08:10)

From being in the large business enterprise standpoint, dealing with from startups to fortunes to fortune fives, right? I have absolutely learned the hard way that outside capital or outside interest or outside investment or outside help is not based on your sole business plan and what you think you’re going to go do. It’s based on the people

Who are going to help you get there. And I think there’s far more credence put into the people that are there to be able to physically execute the goal than it is to just look at the piece of paper and say, well, of course, this is going to work because it’s on paper. The true people are not there, it doesn’t matter how good the idea is. You’re going to have a very limited aspect of success, if any, if you don’t take care of the human capital component.

And I think that has been lost in the last two years, quite frankly, because of the AI push. Agentic agents are not there to go replace staff. They’re there to be tools so that a group of 50 people can now have the productivity of a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty, versus saying those fifty people now are going to lose their job because this miraculous agent is gonna do it for free, right? Or even better. And

That’s a very, short-sighted approach that a lot of CEOs are taking, a lot of business owners are taking, and it’s a critical mistake. Every single time it’s a critical mistake.

Quentin Edmonds (09:27)

Yeah, now I love it. And we actually gonna come back to people because I love talking about people and I’ll tease it a little bit. I love talking about relationships. And so we’ll come back to that because I love that people is part of your process. You would think

That carry weight with more people within that business, but to each his own. But I’m so glad you highlighted it. So we’re gonna come back to that. I wanna know what’s next for you, sir. What’s your next goal? What are you looking to solve or scale next?

Beau (09:52)

Our next goal is to continuously increase our distribution, really. Because now that the company is there, again, it’s the first time in US history this has ever been approved. So at a federal level, at a banking level, at an operational level, this product is also ninety-five percent imported, right? It is not born here, it’s an imported product. So the

Increase of our distribution, the increase of our retail distribution, the increase to the connection to our customers is absolutely the next foreseeable phases, right? And whether it’s years, fiscal quarters, I know it’s gonna be a while. But I have a very concentrated focus in that direction. And I don’t really have a preset finish line cue. I just know we’re going to get farther down the path every single month. And the more momentum we can gain, the farther down the path we’re gonna get.

Quentin Edmonds (10:41)

Yeah, love it. Love it. All right. I told you we was gonna come back to it, man. So I love when people come on the show, I love hearing their personal perspective when it comes to healthy relationship building, right? Because you said people is part of process. So what’s your philosophy on building healthy business relationships?

And also, what are some people maybe in business that has helped you? Maybe mentors or people maybe that you didn’t help. Maybe you’ve helped mentor people. But just give me your perspective on healthy relationship building. What’s your philosophy on how doing it? And what are some relationships that has helped you?

Beau (11:15)

I had to think about this question for a second because there’s different layers of people. And I think I have to define that first, right? You have operational people that are gonna execute daily production aspects, you have senior director manager people who are gonna oversee those, you have senior executives that are gonna help you drive where you need to go and make sure you get there. Every single one of them, no matter where they are in the organizational structure.

There needs to be weekly deliverables that are attainable. Right.

Quentin Edmonds (11:44)

Yeah.

Beau (11:45)

So I’m very big on goals. I’m very big on monthly goals, but there’s no way I have never seen a company or organization that’s going to hit a monthly goal that doesn’t break it down by week. Yeah. Consecutively. Because if you get 16 days, 17, 20 days into the month and you are not 65% at your goal, you’re not going to make it.

So the ability to have that infrastructure or that discipline, to be able to break the departmental goals or the operational goals or the positional goals down to where they’re absolutely attainable on a weekly basis allows us to have far more flexibility based on making sure we’re at the right phase of the month, right? That things are happening the way they’re supposed to. And if there isn’t,

For me, it gives me an early heads up that there’s a potential problem or there’s a constraint or there’s a bottleneck or there’s some issue that we need to proactively address, but it can be done in a really, for lack of a better word, polite way.

And it also emphasizes that you don’t have to micromanage people. Right. By doing things on a weekly basis, you don’t have to micromanage them because again, if they can’t perform, then yes, you have a decision to go make.

Right, as any organization would. But when people know that their accountability is on a weekly basis, I personally feel and have seen that they’re far more apt to attain it.

Quentin Edmonds (12:57)

Yeah, so well said, bro. So well said, man. Now I’ve been asking you a lot of questions. So before we get to how someone can reach out to you, connect with you, I want to make sure that if you came in with a message, that you can land that message, right? So maybe you came in with a message about your business, about you, like whatever. I just want to make sure that if you came in with a message.

That you stick that message. So I want to open up the floor. If you have any last thing of inspiration, education, motivation, or even when it just comes to just getting the word out, I want to make sure you land the message if you came in with that in your heart.

Beau (13:31)

Man, you need to replace broadcast media with your questions. They’re not fluff questions. I love these. They’re real substance depthful questions. You hit things from mentors, you hit things from coaches, you hit things from teachers and professors that I’ve had, you hit aspects of friends and

Circles of influence that I’ve tried to garner and ho and foster and cultivate and respect and ultimately they become assets. Yeah. Right. So those things become assets.

It’s a fantastic question, but to be able to hit sort of a message moment.

Yeah,

It’s just a matter of keep it real versus try and find some pithy thing to go say is to keep it real, right? And transparency and honesty is the first two, right? If I can keep transparency and honesty, a lot of the remaining details definitely fall into place as they’re supposed to. So from a business standpoint.

In this particular business, there is such a fundamental necessity to listen to our consumer and to our customer because we are in a new product category that has never existed before. So everything I have is preconceived notions, or everything that financial models have told me, or anything that is some agentic agent that’s going to report back details, all of it is subjective.

To what does the consumer actually want and what does the consumer feedback actually provide? And to me, that removes a lot of the noise that you can get lost in. And the more that we focus on the customer in this particular business, in this particular case, most of our efforts on continuous innovation, accessibility, customer service, all of those things are solely focused around what the customer’s feedback to us is.

And that’s one thing I know in this versus others, we’re gonna focus more attention on that area than anything I’ve been involved with in the past.

Quentin Edmonds (15:18)

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Beau, man, I appreciate you, sir. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, sir?

Beau (15:28)

They can go to ElevadoCigars.com. They can hit Sales at Elevado Cigars. And if somebody’s looking to contact me, that’s probably the best way to do it, is sales@elevadocigars.com. I’m sure we could put up a link or something of that sort and be able to give them a directional focus. But that is by far the best way to get a hold of me, is that basis.

Quentin Edmonds (16:30)

Love it, man. So, bro, let me say three things to you sincerely. We’ve been talking about no fluff. So I say this sincerely, man. One, thank you for your time. I know how podcast goes, right? You got a host, you got a guest, but I value your time. Like you could have been doing anything else in the world. And so you really shared with us today. So, one, thank you for your time. Secondly, man, thank you for what I call the gift of your integrity, the gift of your authenticity.

Because I believe when we show up as our authentic self, we spread seeds for people, the listener. And we don’t know when those seeds are really going to take root and grow, but the seed is there. So I really believe, man, you came on and you spread some seeds that can really take root at any given time. So thank you for that. And lastly, man, thank you for the way you think, man. Thank you for your perspective and bringing that mindset to this platform. I appreciate you coming on, sir.

Beau (17:15)

Thank you, sir. I greatly appreciate being here. I appreciated the invite. I knew it was going to be a substance conversation after we had thirty seconds to talk.

Quentin Edmonds (17:25)

Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more, man. So listen, y’all heard Mr. Beau. His information is in the show notes. It was transcribed, so it’s there. It’s in the show notes. The links are there. But definitely make sure connect with him. Definitely. Please reach out, connect with him. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here because I promise you, I keep promising y’all, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Mr. Beau So, sir, I say thank you again. And everyone else, y’all have a fantastic day.

Beau (17:53)

If there’s any way we can further assistance or help, obviously I would love to. Thank you very much.