Alongside University of California-Berkeley teammates, former NFL running back and Baltimore Ravens Pro Bowler Justin Forsett created a sanitary wipe to help athletes on the go stay hygienic. 

Despite the challenges they faced as Black entrepreneurs, Justin and his co-founders encountered immense success, being featured on Shark Tank, Fox, CBS, and NBC, and landing partnerships with Target, Crunch Fitness, and Pharmaca. 

After rebranding to HustleClean, the founders devoted their company to doing more than selling products. They established a sports scholarship program to provide opportunities for underserved youth to play sports. Justin and his company also brought support and awareness to communities in need. 

He joins the show to share how his faith shapes his heart and pushes his hustle.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast from wherever you're downloading us this week. Our guest today is Justin Forsett. Justin, well, he knows what it takes to hustle. The former NFL running back. And Baltimore Ravens Pro Bowler averaged 4.7 yards per carry in his nine year pro career, landing him on countless fantasy football rosters between 2009 and 2015. He also played for seven different NFL teams. But Justin knew he wanted to harness the power of hard work and strong teamwork off the field as well, alongside University of California Berkeley teammates Wale Forrester and Wendell Hunter. Justin created the shower pill, a sanitary wipe that helped athletes on the go stay hygienic, despite the odds being black male entrepreneurs. Justin and his co-founders encountered immense success being featured on Shark Tank, Fox, CBS and NBC and landing partnerships with Target and Crunch Fitness, along with others. Renamed Hustle Clean, the founders devoted their company to being more than just a brand. They established a sports scholarship program to provide opportunities for underserved youth to play sports. Justin and his company also brought support and awareness to communities in need. Responding to the Flint, Michigan, water crisis, Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Puerto Rico and the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Justin joins us on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast today to share more about the faith he needed to shape his heart and to continue to drive his hustle. Let's listen in.

Henry Kaestner: Awesome. Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I'm here, as always, with William and Rusty. Gentlemen, good morning. I see that you're both wearing your college football colors, which is apropos for today's guest.

Rusty Rueff: Yes. Yes, I'm sporting my Purdue boilermakers. Black and gold. Black and gold, in fact, coming to you from West Lafayette, Indiana. Where I am right now. Yeah.

Henry Kaestner: This first time we've ever broadcast is kind of like ESPN College GameDay, like where you're actually there.

Rusty Rueff: I think it is. I think it is. It is like game day right outside my window. So it's really great.

William Norvell: That sounds like a travel trip. We need to do pick a team. Go

Henry Kaestner: Road trip. So we're really into college football. And today, of course, we have Justin Forsett with us. And Justin played his college ball at the University of California. So he's a bearer guy, which we think is really, really cool. And as I was saying beforehand, I'm a Baltimore on. I'm from Baltimore. I'm actually very proud to be from Baltimore. I'm poking fun at myself a little bit. But Charm City is the home of the Baltimore Ravens, where Justin was for quite some time and did an awesome job there. So, Justin, without further ado. Welcome to the program. Thank you for joining us.

Justin Forsett: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be on today.

Henry Kaestner: Absolutely. So you are a hero to many well beyond Baltimore. You're a Faith Driven Entrepreneur and you have gotten out there and answered the call to go beyond football and get out there and innovate and create work with some partners, bringing a product to market. And there's just a whole bunch of different angles that we can take this. But I'm hoping if you can just get started, give us a quick autobiographical flyover. A lot of people are going to know about your football career. Most people aren't going to know where faith entered in. Maybe some lessons that you learned while you were in the NFL. Just want you to just give us a quick overview. But what we want to spend time on today, of course, is just really understanding your journey as a Faith Driven Entrepreneur and your reliance on God and what you've learned. And with all the talk about what's going on with name, image and likeness, your particular perspective on that that might help guide us for those of us who are parents of college athletes. My son just made a commitment to be a college athlete, and you have this sense in perspective. I think this can be helpful for us as entrepreneurs, for us as parents of athletes, and then just for us as Christ followers, so but who are you? Where you come from?

Justin Forsett: Awesome. Well, I appreciate again the opportunity to chat with you guys. Today is truly a blessing. I grew up in a small town of 3000 people called Mulberry, Florida. It's a little bit outside of Orlando, in Tampa, central Florida. Very humble beginnings. Not a lot of people make it out to accomplish their dreams and goals and aspirations in life. Normally, you leave high school, there's a big grocery store called Publix that is headquartered in Lakeland, which is my neighboring city, which was the big city to us. Or you go in to this furniture, or we had a big phosphate mining industry where most of folks would go into for work and occupation. So that was kind of my upbringing. I grew up in a family. It was five of us. My mom and dad's in the home. I was the middle of three boys, so I was a middle child and financially unstable early on. Bounced around from place to place. Never owned anything. I remember times when I had to take baths with bottled water. I remember running from the repo man parking our car down the street and walking home because we couldn't afford to pay our car. No. And we couldn't afford to lose our only form of transportation. I can recall doing my studies under candlelight, reading my R.L. Stine Goosebumps books under candlelight. If you remember the old series as a popular one for me as a child and at our lowest. Being homeless, living out of a motel at the edge of town. And I remember during that time, like as a 12 year old, I couldn't control those things. Right. Those are things that I didn't have much power over. But what I could control was how I thought about those bits of adversity that I faced. And I knew I wanted more for myself and I wanted more for my family and my future family. And I was determined not to allow those things to happen for my future family and my kids that I didn't want them to deal with those things. So my love and passion for football came about when I saw a guy on Sunday named Barry Sanders. I was playing on a terrible team. My apologies to anybody that's a Detroit line, fans out there, but I would just watch and I was fascinated with him because he was this guy small in stature like myself, and I watched him dip and dash through defenses. I would watch him electrify stadiums all across the country. And I was like, man, this is what I want to do. This is going to be my vehicle out. And I just work hard as I could. My dad was a preacher, so I have faith in me. I accepted Christ at an early age and my mom would always tell me, Hey son, faith without works is dead. So you can believe and have faith, but you've got to put in the work in the time. So I remember just going out and even though people were telling me, you're too small, too short, too slow. That constant theme throughout my entire career, going all the way from Pop Warner, all the way to middle school to high school, I just get work and being disciplined, excelling at what I could control in life, have an extreme faith. And I ended up. Quick story as we talk about Notre Dame and Stanford, both institutions that I've not had a really good experience with in a number of ways. One, being an Cal bear. We just those are our rivals. And then I got a scholarship offer from Notre Dame at a high school after my senior year after no one wanted me. And then a week before signing, they told me they didn't need me anymore, so, yeah.

Henry Kaestner: Oh that's not cool

Justin Forsett: Yeah. It was it was not cool. But I remember as a 17 year old kid getting that news, going down into my basement, crying my eyes out like just like praying to God. Like I'm feeling like, you know, the prodigal son's brother, right? I'm just like, God, I'm doing everything you asked of me. I'm doing the work. I'm going to Bible study. I'm reading my word every night. I'm praying to you. I have a relationship with you. But why is everyone else around me having all the blessings that I'm desiring God, like you have to show me something. And I remember the only thing I knew how to do as a kid and as a young kid of faith was opening my Bible. And that was the first time when I feel like I really experienced the presence of God in a really authentic way. I remember I flipped open my Bible and I just let it pop open. I was like, God you've got to show me something. I just flipped open. And the verse that I landed on when I just flipped it open, it was Proverbs 3:5-6, which says Trusting Lord God with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, acknowledging him in all your ways. And he'll direct your path. And I felt right in that moment I could feel this warming sensation come over my body. I felt as if God was wrapping his arms around me and letting me know that it's going to be okay. I just had this peace that nothing in my situation had changed at that moment, but I felt like God had a plan and a purpose and it was going to be fine. And He was reassure me of that. So a few months later, after college, signing day had happened. At the time that was in February, someone got hurt, at Cal and we sent out some tape there and end up going to UC Berkeley. They offered me a scholarship and you know, had a great time there. Play with guys like Aaron Rodgers, Marshawn Lynch and I were roommates and freshmen at the same time, met my wife and I end up going into the NFL for nine years and being a Pro Bowl running back for the Ravens. Is that a high level?

Henry Kaestner: So there's a lot there. I love the fact that you grew up as a child of a preacher and and that you set to Jesus early. Then you made that faith your own. Sounds like when you were 17, you flew through pretty quickly the college and the NFL side of things. Can you just walk through just a little bit about that, about what you learned so you're relying on God? Do you feel like you've been let down? And in you very much had been by Notre Dame, and yet you persevered. What are some of the things that you learned as a professional athlete that you think prepared you for this season that you're in right now?

Justin Forsett: Wow. There's a lot that I felt like being a professional athlete that really shaped and prepared me for this season of entrepreneurship and as a family man and father of five kids and a husband. But during that time, I just faced a lot of adversity and a lot of resistance throughout my career from college, even when I stepped on campus, it's like, Man, what are you doing here? Like, you're a two star recruit, you know, we've got another guy here that's, you know, right up the street in Oakland named Marshawn Lynch, who's the number one running back athlete in the country at the time. And he's sort of a big deal and. They didn't know if I would make it there and I just really off the field. Berkeley is a lot different than Florida or Texas, these places that I grew up in, and it really shaped my faith and who I was, my identity. I often hear most people it in a fake background. They say when kids go to college and they lose their faith. Right. And I really don't believe that that is the case. I believe that kids go to college and they lose their parents faith. They never really owned it for themselves or had that really authentic relationship for themselves. So that's what you see when that happens. And for me, it just really allowed me to understand why I believe what I believe going to an institution where they're not, you know, promoting Jesus on every corner. It's not in the Bible Belt. And as an athlete, it just really told me, one, I had to be a student of the game. I had to really understand and my responsibilities and the goals and work well with others. I had to be able to prepare well and manage my time well because there was no parents there watching over me. And that kind of helped propel me because it was so competitive both academically and athletically on the field. It really propelled me to really handle the NFL as I would go on and, you know, get drafted in the seventh round, pick 233 in 2008 for the Seattle Seahawks, you know, get cut, fired six times throughout my career, be demoted, face some injuries before even getting an opportunity. When I got to Baltimore at age 29, in the seventh year of my career, to really show who I knew I was all along, to be that Pro Bowl running back and get a big contract.

Henry Kaestner: So it was until your 29.

Justin Forsett: Yeah, 29.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah. Because it's you know five yards carry type of stuff in. You had been just persevering all that time. I don't think that I appreciated that you're that deep into your career before you really finally get your moment.

Justin Forsett: Yeah now that you see that, the overnight success stories aren't really overnight, right? It took me really 15 years. If you add up all the years of me from high school and college to really get that like acknowledgment among my peers until like that age, 29.15 years of doing the same things over and over again, just like being committed to the process, being disciplined and overcoming adversity. I see it all the time. Like, everybody wants a breakthrough, but nobody wants to be broken. But I feel like in those broken moments in life, like God is showing us and shaping us into the men and women that we need to become to really accept and that really to thrive in those moments and those opportunities that he seems our way to really elevate. So those were the moments like this, all those years of challenge and opposition, like just really using those things to fuel me, to make me better. And then, you know, at age 29, things start popping for me.

Henry Kaestner: So I had to just mention one thing because I'm just immature this way. But I've got to imagine that you coming from Florida were a better golf cart driver than Marshawn Lynch.

Justin Forsett: And it's funny with that whole golf cart incident, because I was in the locker room at the time when that happened, but he is by the way but a golf cart driver than me because he did actually a really good job of steering that thing.

Henry Kaestner: He's got more YouTube videos on his golf cart driving than pretty much anybody else has ever driven a golf cart. I'm going to hit it off to Rusty and William here in a second. But before we go there, I do want to ask you to just talk a little bit about being a student of the game. I think that that really applies for entrepreneurs. And I'm going to presume that you're continue to be a student of the game. But during your long career, what did that really mean? What did it mean to be a student again? What did you learn as a pupil? Where did you learn as a student?

Justin Forsett: You have some really great mentors and great leaders around me to really help me and show me the way. And for me, being a student of the game is one is this. It's doing everything you need to do, crossing every t, down, every eye, preparing yourself for a moment and for your opportunity so you can seize it. And I think it's being more than ready because I think there's a difference between being ready and being prepared. Being a student. The game is all about preparation, not readiness or not just readiness. I feel like being ready is just a state of emotion like we can be. It's a heightened sense of awareness, right? We can be ready for something but not necessarily prepared for it. And I feel like preparing as a student, you have to be prepared. You have to do the work, you have to put the time in. You have to understand your space. You have to understand your role. You have to understand the goals of the team or the company that you're in. So that's what it meant to me. And I pride myself of just really understanding, always being thirsty and hungry for knowledge and being humble enough. I think that's what being a part of it. Just always knowing that you can never stop growing like you don't know everything, right? You can always be growing, always be learning. And that Pete Carroll used to tell us all the time, the three worst words you can ever say is, I got it. You never have it. Just keep working like this. There's always something you can get better at. So that's kind of what I think about.

William Norvell: Wow, that's good. Thank you for walking through that. William here. I want to transition a little bit to how some of that story prepares you for your entrepreneurial journey that you're on right now. I mean, so. You know, that's obviously better than I do. But, you know, coming in as a black founder is not easy. Right. Just statistics are not in your favor again. Right. You chose another path where it's just true, right? 1% of venture funding goes there. And there's some great people. We've had guest on the podcast trying to address that and trying to fix that. But it is yet to be fixed. Right. I'm curious if you could share how those experiences, to your point, prepared you to go on this journey that you find yourself on now?

Justin Forsett: Man, that's a great question because it's something that I get asked a lot about. You know what's harder? Entrepreneurship or, you know, being an NFL. And they're both very hard. And I believe that the things that I got in football like, really helped me on the entrepreneur side because I deal with a lot of the same things, just like the work ethic, we talk about discipline and commitment and overcoming rejection. Like throughout my entire life people told me, Man, you're not big enough, you're not fast enough, you're not strong enough, you're not going to make it like do something else. And in entrepreneurship, you see those same thing, like whether it's investors raising capital or partnerships or retailers, they like telling you why you won't be successful. And I believe entrepreneurship is really difficult because, you know, unlike football, football can be very detrimental to the external. It can be very detrimental to your body, like physically damaging to your body and your just outer being. And entrepreneurship can be very detrimental to your inner being. Right? It is a wage of war daily on just like you're problem solving constantly. People sending negative comments and criticisms your way. When you face rejection, you faced adversity, putting out fires left and right, and then it can be very lonely and isolating at the same time. So you see a lot of depression. We see a lot of anxiety, we see a lot of burnout. And we also just see divorce. We see, you know, high rates of there. And then we see identity issues because just like football, I you know, I was surprised as I transition from sport to entrepreneurship. And it's like they always tell us man don't find identity in sport because that's something you do all your entire life. You know, I've been playing football since I was seven years old. So because at some point football is going to be in. We talk about NFL standing for not for long. At some point it's going to end. So what do you do? Do you have a value based on your performance on a football field or identity in your job that's going to leave you? No and same thing in entrepreneurship, we see and it's even harder for me. Like this is something that you do every single day. It's hard to turn off right. It's 24 seven. Unlike football, there is no offseason, there is no built in day of rest if you don't do it intentionally. It's just a lot of decision making and a lot of people find their value based on, Oh, if I get this deal or if I raise this amount of money or whatever, if I hit these milestones of my P&L statements, look this way, and you see a lot of those same, you know, results of, again, divorce, depression, anxiety and stress that comes with this. So there's a lot of things that I felt like football really prepared me for to really handle this. But also I felt like God use entrepreneurship to really shape and mold me into the man that he's calling me to be, to dig deeper. And so I'm learning even new things on this side, even outside of what sports taught me.

William Norvell: Wow. You said so many good things in there. I want to double tap on a couple. You mentioned so many different roles we have in life. You know, my co-founder and I, when we started, we're both married and the first thing we said, you know, if the business succeeds and our marriage fails, the business failed. Right. And we tried to hold each other accountable that through the first year and remind ourselves of that commitment we made. But it's hard sometimes. And and then the second one, the identity just getting wrapped up. I'm curious if you you know, because you have such a unique experience, right, where you went into a career where you knew there was an ending point. Right. Running back. So, you know, whatever, 30, 32 like you just don't play running back to your 45 years old, right? Until recently, no human played till they were 45 years old. But, you know, one guy's doing it. I'm curious what anchors that identity for you? How do you anchor yourself? And maybe it's not daily. Maybe it is if it is or weekly or what do you put around you both from a faith perspective or from a community perspective that helps remind you who you are first and how much more of that matters compared to who you are as an entrepreneur?

Justin Forsett: Oh, man, great question. Again, I think for me it's been intentional with my time by the most valuable thing that we have is time. And if you allow entrepreneurship to control your life, it will gladly do that. It will suck up and drain up every single ounce of you. Right? But we have these other roles. Like I didn't start off in my career as an athlete. I didn't just want to be an All-Pro football player, I want to be all pro businessman, I want to be all pro husband, I want to be all pro father. And that's the same to this day, I feel like I'm anchored in my faith, my purpose in calling, like I feel like I'm called to encourage and inspire. Right. At one point that was in football, but now it's in entrepreneurship. And I'm intentional about getting up in the morning, working out, praying, reading, doing devotions every single morning, because I do think it is a fight daily that I specifically, personally I have to fight because I'm one of these individuals that I also believe there has to be a little bit of obsessiveness into something that you're doing. Like I don't believe in the traditional form of balance, so I don't think I can give the same a lot of time to every single role that I have as a man, as a father husband, entrepreneurship. But what I can do is that same level of vigor and energy like I have to give that that time, that quality time. To me, being as a husband, as a father, as in my entrepreneur, in my business. So I have to be intentional about that and carving that out. So I'm grounded and rooted by like, man, I got five kids all and I and I have a wife who've been blessed and been married for 12 years now. I want to like you like if I sell this business $4 billion and our business fails like that is not success to me. Some entrepreneurs that is okay, but not for me. That's not the value, a metric or measurement of success for me. So I'm very conscious of that because my life is crazy at the moment is I need to be rooted in grounded every single day because I can be pulled by the current of life, you know, in any given time. So prayer reading, accountability partners. You know, I lead a life group here at my church, so I'm always involved in doing something that's going to anchor me back to like, okay, I just keep the main thing. The main thing.

Rusty Rueff: It's great. I want to go into your entrepreneurial journey, but I I'd be remiss. I mean, I don't think we get to have a guest who probably can give us a perspective like you're going to be able to because you just talked about identity and you talked about, you know, how hard you worked and you got to the NFL. So what should we think of this whole name, image and likeness thing and the transfer portal? You know, you saw name, image and likeness. When you showed up in the NFL and you start to pave there, what should we think about, you know, 18 year olds who are now facing this? And what's your prognostication of where this is going to go?

Justin Forsett: Right now? It is the wild, wild west. When you talk about name, image and likeness. And, you know, there is still trying to figure things out. I like the fact that guys can get paid for their name, image and likeness. Right. Because, again, a lot of the athletes, you know where the colleges are going to make money off of the players. You know, most of them are going to go pro at something or at least in their sport, they're going to go for something else. And then there's a realistic possibility that some of these folks may get some injuries that may not allow them to, you know, be fully healthy for the rest of their lives. They may be battling something that for their entire lives. Right. Whether it's a knee, or, back, whatever it may be, that they're going to have to battle and now they have some type of form of conversation that they can fall back on. What I feel for me, because as a brand, as I look at it and I'm as a former athlete, I think the capital is not enough. I think that we have to do a better job of preparing and equipping and changing the mindset of these athletes, you know, not just putting money in their pockets and, you know, educating them, of course, on like financial literacy now, because now they're going to pay taxes and do all those things. And this is something that is important to understand. But like knowing the fact that less than, you know, 1% will go pro less talk about the NFL, less than 1% will go to the NFL. Like how can we equip them and shape them so or at least give them the tools necessary to allow them to thrive. And when sport is done, when it leaves them and it could be four years after. So how I look at, NIL now as a brand as I we're working right now with our school and trying to provide this platform on a program where they're going to get on the job training. They're going to be able to learn from entrepreneurs. They're going to be able to jump on a salesforce with Hustle, Clean our business. They're going to get paid for their name, image and likeness, but they're going to get the tools necessary to thrive after sport. And they're going to get those, like, foundational, like, okay, how we turn a profit and, you know, margin, gross margin, what that is talk about EBIT. But we're going to talk about how do you save I'm going to talk about how do you build brands and how do you sell them? The importance of like just understanding, you know, this landscape in this marketplace that we're going outside of sport and how their skills translate to this and really well. So that's kind of how we think about the NIL and what we're looking at doing it.

Rusty Rueff: Yeah, now it's good. And, you know, add on the fact that you're trying to teach delayed gratification to anybody. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's going to be. It's just a little tough, I think. So you've got a great entrepreneurial story because you saw a need in the marketplace that you were experiencing personally. You went. And chose some co-founders. You launched a venture. You actually got a chance to launch that venture and try to get a deal on Shark Tank. I mean, you've walked through a lot in your entrepreneurial journey. You could do founder 101 for us right now, you know. What did you see? What was the opportunity? How did you pick those two co-founders? And then what have been the learnings now from going from Shower Pill to Hustle Clean as it's now named?

Justin Forsett: Man, we got we got more time on the clock. It is there's a lot to unpack there.

Rusty Rueff: Two minutes offence?

Justin Forsett: Okay, we can run that. So one Hustle Clean is a mission driven self-care brand for the act of lifestyle. So what we are essentially is a line of restorative self-care products to help every athlete, fitness enthusiast, adventure with hygiene, wellness and recovery with the big goal to eliminate toxic hustle. We saw a need play mistake within our space. As athletes, we were always told like to produce results at any cost. Right. We were told that, you know, to run your body in the ground as long as you produce and do your job is fine. But what we would see is, like we talked about early in entrepreneurship, we will see from that anxiety, depression and burnout, hygiene issues because we're time poor individuals. And we were we had a demanding schedule and there are a lot of demands placed on us. And when it came to self-care, personal care, there was nothing within the space. We saw Gatorade for hydration, we saw muscle milk for supplementation. We saw Nike, under armor, Adidas, you know, what have you for apparel, but nothing when it came to self-care, the closest thing that we had self-care, personal care was a hot tub and cold tub. And that is nice to have within a locker room work, but it only touches the surface. So we saw that there was things that we could provide that resonate with our consumer and with this group of people in this community that we understand well and provide them, you know, some really good tools that allowed them to hustle healthier, if you will. And we started with hygiene because we all sweat. We're all on the go. And once you address this moment when a shower is optimum or not possible, so we created this disposable washcloth and antibacterial towel that they remove sweat, dirt and body odor and just put it on the marketplace and grew. And it started with two partners of my college teammates that we knew each other from college, and we're always coming together in the offseason to work out. When I was in the NFL and one was in the firefighter services and the other was an EMT. So we started this brand course and grew it essentially off Amazon and then started going into brick and mortar retailers like Target, Macy's, Kohl's, REI, Myers now and it's been a long journey of just like a lot of rejection, a lot of adversity, even internally like. So now it's two of us that are founders within the company now. And we had a buyout situation with our third founder. And even in that, just like, you know, God has been faithful to us and we've been learning and growing, you know, again, going on places like Shark Tank, bring awareness to the brand, you know, unlike any other level that we've had and just see an inflection point. It's like, man, every time people kind of count us out, this is a constant theme of like, don't think, oh, man, this is too bad, is not going to go anywhere. You know, God is faithful. So yeah, that's kind of that, at least a high level of it.

Rusty Rueff: That's cool. That's great. Can you dig a little bit more into if you feel comfortable talking about, you know, working with your co-founders and going from 3 to 2 because that's not an uncommon phenomena.

Justin Forsett: Yeah. Yeah. And it was probably the hardest thing that I've dealt with in business at least one of the hardest thing because no day is the same and there's always things coming up. But that was because it was a personal level. And you talk about, you know, having a relationship with three people in life happens. And then, you know, at some point, you know, you have your requirements and things that you have to do for your family and people kind of just grow apart of just like I got to take care of my niece. And the business is not necessarily that I'm one which we get. We understand that. And so we got to that point where it's like, okay, we're going to have to make a decision. And we understand like what the core strengths and capabilities of the company were and what the team was and how we were. And we had to make a change. And, you know, we got through it. It was hard, it was tough. And so a lot of emotion tied to that. But I feel like all of that really helped us move, then propel the business even faster and more efficiently now and for all parties involved. But I would be lying to you to say that it was a it was smoother, it was easy to go through that process because I'm a person that loves I love people and I build relationships and we have relationships with that, with our third co-founder as well to this day. But it was very difficult. You know, I think the issues were I think that we see especially in the startups, that people that have companies and have partners, you have this term. Patrick Lencioni was the author of a book called Advantage and The Five Dysfunctions team is really great. He had this concept called artificial harmony, right? And I believe that when you start companies with people that you are friends with or family with, you can have this concept of unofficial harmony where you are afraid or you're not willing to have healthy conflict and dialog because you're afraid to, you know, step on toes. And you just it was just something that we experienced early on and we felt like, okay, we have to fix this issue. And I believe that over time that was something that we grew and we got better. We got better even to this day. Like, you know, everything is open now. Nothing's personal it is just business. And we do it with love and kindness as we can. But that was something that relationship component with us from moving from 3 to 2, it was difficult, but it was the best thing for us.

Rusty Rueff: I know two of you share the same faith. That all three of you.

Justin Forsett: Yeah. Yeah, we did. We did.

Rusty Rueff: Oh, okay. Cool. That's cool. That's cool. Now and you and you started is it with the current co-founder that you still have or with the one who left that you started your founders church partners?

Justin Forsett: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was all three of us. We're all together. We all started at the same time. And then we had the one that left and then the co-founder that you see Wale, who's on the Founders Church podcast with me. He was a groom's man in my wedding. We've been very close since day one, so there's a lot of trust and love with that partnership.

Rusty Rueff: That's awesome. Of course, we love podcasts, so, you know, this is your chance. Tell us a little bit about Founders Church podcast, because as I understand it, it's a safe haven for people to talk about and for you guys to talk about things that are really actionable in a community. And so.

Justin Forsett: Yeah, yeah.

Rusty Rueff: A little bit of that.

Justin Forsett: Yeah, you did a great job. No. Yeah. So we feel like our podcast, we wanted to encourage and power and equip entrepreneurs with the space to let them know that they're not alone, give them some success stories, but also some lessons and some losses that we've experienced. And some entrepreneurs that we bring on that they experiencing firsthand just like, it's okay not to have it all together knowing that you're not alone and encouraging, but keep going and keep pushing. And that's kind of where it was birthed. And it was like we saw like a lot of minorities having issues within the space. Like we talked about early. We saw just generally like the identity crisis within entrepreneurship that we wanted to address the loneliness, feeling in entrepreneurship that we just wanted to talk about, have more open dialog and discussion. And we also need to share our faith too in the platform.

Henry Kaestner: Rusty What do you think about you and I doing like a package deal for name, image and likeness for like the middle aged runner crowd? I mean, I can say charity. I think your tagline is like, shower to the people, right?

Justin Forsett: That's a campaign that we have.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, yeah, shower to the people. We're going to go ahead. And we like to close out our time together by going through a lightning round. These are going to be simple questions. I'm going to do a couple. William's going to do a bunch Rusty will jump in. Rusty's got some and they're fun. I think they're fun, but you can't take more than 20 seconds to answer each one. Okay, so there's a rules. And I don't know that you're.

William Norvell: You don't want to know what happens after 20 seconds. Just don't test it.

Henry Kaestner: This is a great distinction for you to know that you can never be prepared for this, but you can be ready. All right. All right. So I'm to start off, first one is a new favorite question I like to ask is, what's your favorite charity or mission that you like to give to and why quickly?

Justin Forsett: Um, there's a number that we do. I would say we have a charity. It's called Free Play. It's our initiative and charity to give back to you sports athletes that have been priced out. So whether it's like if you want to participate in the sport, we provide equipment, we provide registration fee, we provide travel. If you're going out on events, you want to go on a hiking, camping experience. We kind of foot the bill there because costs is going to skyrocketed for the industry.

Henry Kaestner: Yes, it does. The youth sports vortex, I can speak from experience. Okay. Number two, thank you for that as free play. So everybody should have free play and I hope everybody goes ahead and looks at the hustle white. I'm going to get some. That's my commitment. Okay. Number two, you spend a lot of time in Baltimore. Where is the best crab cake? And there is a right answer to this and a lot of wrong answers. So the pressure's on.

Justin Forsett: It's actually in Annapolis and I'm going to go the boathouse in Annapolis.

Henry Kaestner: So I love the boathouse. The boathouse is good. I would tell you that. I don't think the boathouse is as good as chicken roost if you want to do Annapolis. Okay, I'm with you on Annapolis. The chicken roost. Crab cakes. Outstanding. Thinking about Baltimore, though. Have you ever been to Faidley?

Justin Forsett: I have not.

Henry Kaestner: Oh, man. Faidley in Lexington Market was unbelievably good. And where there's cocoa, there's there's a whole bunch of stuff. But for those of you that are coming through Baltimore, do not find yourself just going to just kind of the the chains Phillip seafood houses once was a thing but it isn't anymore. Okay all right. So Boat House is also just a great place to hang out. Annapolis is awesome. Okay, on you guys.

William Norvell: So so for our listening audience, Justin gets 20 seconds, but Henry can talk for a minute about crab cakes.

Henry Kaestner: Yeah, I know. That wasn't fair.

William Norvell: So that's that that's a that's a host flex, right that if I've ever seen one. Alright Justin we are going to bring some fun if you have one most memorable moment or NFL game that stands out to you.

Justin Forsett: Running through the tunnel at pro bowl in 2014, 2015 season in Scottsdale, Arizona.

William Norvell: Oh, that's good. That's good. What's next for Hustle Clean and how maybe could our audience participate in that? Is there a way we can help out?

Justin Forsett: Oh, may yeah just support man? If you go on our website, you'll see us in Target or any of our locations. REI, Myers' as you know buy the product support us that way. Follow us on Instagram, tiktok what have you at hustle clean we're planning on you know again what is being a brand that's trying to push forward this concept of like okay we can hustle in a really healthy way and we're trying to eliminate the toxic hustle that we see within the culture. So just trying to be a little small part of it.

William Norvell: Amen and last that I've got for now. If you had one piece of advice for an entrepreneur starting the journey or in the midst of the journey. What comes to mind?.

Justin Forsett: I would say. Busyness doesn't mean production a lot of times is entrepreneurs and even myself, you just get caught up in trying to do a lot of things. And the art of entrepreneurship is that unlike football, if you work really hard, you have a lot of success. Like if you work, I'll work the other men. Usually you'll have a lot of the success. But entrepreneurship, you can work hard and not see a benefit of the work that you put in, but you got to learn how to work hard and the right things. So you're doing a lot of motion. Doing an activity doesn't mean success. You got to be making sure that you're doing the right things and spending your time wisely. So that's my encouragement.

Rusty Rueff: All right. I've got two. And then we've got to turn it back over to William to bring us to close. All right. So the play the play is yours. The ball's coming to you, you know, and you look across the line of scrimmage. What's the linebacker that's over there that you look at and go, Ooh, he made me nervous.

Justin Forsett: Hmm. Well, no one ever made me nervous.

Rusty Rueff: I like that.

Justin Forsett: Uhm tough linebackers that I faced. I would say Patrick Willis was one, just a freak of nature. And as always, when I think about not necessarily I got a ball in my hand because I wasn't worried about getting hit. I was more about pass protection and making sure protecting the quarterback because a lot of guys thought because I was on the smaller side that they could just run through me, but that was the easiest protection for me. So if you run full speed from one end to other, A to B and you think, going to run over me is not going to happen because low pad wins and I was pretty strong. So it was more about those guys that were super athletic and get I can move around, be quick with me. That was tough. So Patrick Willis had a combination of speed and size.

Rusty Rueff: All right. And in my last one. So which would you prefer? Another Shark Tank presentation or fourth and one? With a TD opportunity.

Justin Forsett: Oh, another shark tank opportunity. Fourth and one right now. I would say, you know, football is great, but, you know, my knees and my back, you know, and I'm not trying to guys get bigger and faster now. So I'm just like, I don't want to take another shot. I'm over getting hit by 300 pound on Sunday. So I would definitely say Shark Tank.

Rusty Rueff: All right. Good. Well, it also says you've moved on. Yes. Which is a good thing. That's a good thing. All right, William, all yours. Thank you.

William Norvell: Justin, this has been such a gift to have you with us and share in so much wisdom with us. Just thankful for your story and thankful that you take the time to share with us and our audience. What we love to do at the end is just invite you to share a piece of God's word that maybe you're meditating on, maybe something you read this morning in one of your devotions, maybe something you've been meditating on for months or even years. But we just love to always recognize how God's word is always moving and always encouraging and just invite you to share something with our audience that's been meaningful to you.

Justin Forsett: Yeah. I would say. Do not grow weary in doing good works for in due season. You will reap the harvest if you do not give up that's Galatians 6:9. Especially for the folks that will be listening here on this podcast. Like it is hard out there right it is this very difficult and challenging environment where there is, you know, economic issues that we are seeing, political issues, societal issues that we see, it can be very difficult, you know, to try to lead and drive a business. And let's talk about this other day to lead a family, you know, to be the husband and mother and all these other responsibilities along with running a business it can be very difficult. But I just want to encourage and like not to grow weary and doing those good works that you're doing like stay the course because God is faithful, even though where we will feel like times that we want to give up or it seems like it's overwhelming at times like by God does not have those feelings right? Our strength comes from Him and I want us to lean into that, like knowing that, you know, go back to Romans 8:28, to all things, work together for the good of those that love the Lord. And are called according to his purpose, like even at the challenging moments, is working for your good right. And so you have to understand and know that every day, like God is just shaping you and molding you into the man and woman that you have to become within this business in order to reach the next level. So, yes, stay the course, keep fighting, excel at what you can control, but at the end of the day, you can't give up.

Henry Kaestner: It's good word. Justin I'm grateful for you, your time, your story, your faithfulness. And I'm actually also really grateful for you, given some props to Patrick Willis, who is a [....] guys at 49 ers and I hadn't thought we'd end the podcast this way. I don't think anybody on this team did. But Patrick is a Christian and has a prayer and he talks about his faith and he says, and I think that this is a good thing to leave on a good note for us as Faith driven entrepreneurs lead on. And it's as follows No matter the outcome of a game, my number one goal is to glorify God. I always pray, Lord, I don't know what today's game is going to be like, but I pray that you blessed me to go out here and play for you. Be a soldier for your army. Go out here and lead this team the way you want me to lead it. And if we can take that on as football players or athletes. Yes, but as you pointed out, that's a season. Athletics is a season. But getting out there and leaning into our vocation and innovating, creating and serving the community and coming up with redemptive products and services as you have with Hustle Clean, that's something we can do. And it's also an acknowledgment that there is a battle, there is an army, there is a real war that's going on. It's not of flesh and blood. But if we go in with the full armor of God into that battle, we got a chance, at least in knowing the God of the universe. So, Justin, you've helped us do that today. Thank you for that. And gosh, it would be great to get together and get. Yeah. Buy you a Faidley's crab cake. Yeah, I'm getting out there. I'm buying my hustle clean. Thanks for being with us now.

Justin Forsett: Thank you so much. I had a great time.