Bear Handlon: Building A Startup While Serving As A U.S. Navy SEAL Officer

This week Andrew talks with retired U.S. Navy SEAL Officer and entrepreneur Bear Handlon. Bear is the Co-founder & CEO of Born Primitive, a fast-growing global lifestyle brand in the fitness, athleisure, & outdoors market. He launched Born Primitive in 2014 — just months before joining the U.S. Navy. He went on to serve 8 years as a U.S. Navy SEAL officer while concurrently building Born Primitive from the ground up. In this conversation, Bear shares powerful ideas & lessons he learned as a Navy SEAL and how he still applies those frameworks today as an entrepreneur & CEO. This episode is filled with actionable ideas on how to improve your focus, compartmentalize tasks, attract people with similar values, & so much more. Show Highlights:0:00 - Intro2:37 - Lessons from Red Bull marketing department3:35 - Product vs. Brand5:57 - Starting with yes6:59 - Owned vs sponsored property8:53 - Monetizing owned events9:15 - Starting Born Primitive with 1 of 1 prototype11:46 - Learning from free resources13:05 - Starting company while beginning Naval officer training15:42 - 8 years as a U.S. Navy SEAL officer17:44 - “Perfect amount of dumbness”18:13 - Focus19:04 - Benefits of repetition20:27 - Balancing structure of bureaucracy with scrappy startup life21:30 - Calibrating expectations24:58 - Projecting authentic values26:31 - Maintaining culture as company grows36:58 - Sticking to core values** Follow Andrew On Social **Twitter/X: @andrewhmosesInstagram: @AndrewMoses123Sign up for e-mails to keep up with Andrew's podcast at everybodypullsthetarp.com/newsletter