Stefan Lagerqvist: Full Episode Transcript

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Hello everyone. Welcome to Question Everything, a podcast all about learning from the successes and the failures of those who dare to, well, question everything. This podcast is part interview, part therapy, and part Price is Right. We have our own game board stacked with questions that'll make even the most successful CMO sweat. I'm your host, Ashley Wolter, CMO and partner at Curiosity. On today's episode, I sit down with Stefan Lagerqvist, group CEO at Nick’s, a better-for-you snack brand that's redefining the ice cream and protein bar categories. Between global wins and tough lessons, today you'll learn how Nick’s took a bite out. of Halo Top's market share and why they're open to imitators. Stefan's best advice for CMOs going all out on in-person events, and how Nick’s uses a lot of data and a little cynicism to fuel their insane growth. So grab a pint and prepare to spoon a sweet. This episode is equal parts chill and insightful.

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Stefan Lagerqvist: Stefan introduction 

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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This episode's guest is making ice cream history. Joining us all the way from Sweden is Stefan Lagerkewitz, the group CEO at Nick’s, a global snacking brand, and our newest client. Since taking the reins in 2020, he has transformed the brand into a major player in the better-for-you snacking space and, most recently, received some unexpected fanfare from a real housewife. With stints also at P& G and Unilever, Stefan knows a thing or two about CPG marketing at its finest. Stefan, welcome to the show, and thanks for playing your part in making Question Everything a transatlantic phenomenon! Thank you so much, I'm so excited to be here! I mean, is this your first time in Cincinnati? Yes, it is. Oh my gosh! Which is a bit of a shame, being a P&G person.

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I mean, I had to leave the company and see two other companies before coming here. And you were telling me a story today; you went on a run by P& G headquarters, and it was your first time. I had to take a selfie, so there might be a LinkedIn post about that or something. I love it. Well, thanks for coming on the show. I'm super excited. Our team is actually upstairs right now doing our first onboarding for some cool work that will come out in 2026. And so, you know a little bit about this podcast, right? So I've got 12 super spicy questions on a game board. Control is all in your hands. You get to decide where we go first. I don't know what's behind those numbers; you don't know what's behind those numbers.

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Stefan Lagerqvist: The unexpected business challenges of extreme growth

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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And we'll see where the conversation takes us. Yep. All right. So why don't we start with number 10? Number 10. OK, any reason why 10? I think it's my favorite number, but I don't know why and where. It came from. But it has always been with me. OK, I like that. All right. So, I've read that you're a believer that growth can often come from tough lessons. What is one of the toughest lessons you've learned in marketing? So, in the earlier days of my time with Nick’s, we raised quite a lot of VC money and went into food tech. And coming from a background with a company where we turned every dollar and money was so scarce, and suddenly you have money, and it's easy to solve every problem by throwing money at it.

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And in our case, as we scaled up, we did that by also hiring a lot of people and building a big team. And we grew a lot, but not in line. With how much we invested in the team. And then, of course, the challenges start coming when the investors expect results, or you promise results potentially. And you start seeing that just adding more people or investing more in, if it's brand or brand activities, we're not confident in doing the right thing. That's challenging. And ultimately, in our case, it led to us laying off a lot of people. And I mean, our company starts and ends with its people. That's why we are who we are and why we have been successful.

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So that led to a lot of tough conversations and a lot of self-reflection, which nowadays, when someone says should we hire someone? to do this. And you're like, are we really certain we've tried everything so that we don't just create the person who we might not be able to give a proper role, give proper onboarding, and have them be meaningful for the team? So what would you do differently today? Or do you guys do anything differently today because of that? Yeah. So today, we are a lot more cautious, especially in bringing in full-time people for, I mean, new problems, new opportunities, challenges, whatever it might be. So we might try to start with working with agencies, or I mean, these days you can always check if there's something you can solve through AI or other.

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choices we have. We're doing more. What do you call that? Offshoring. We have a team in the Philippines that helps us with some administrative tasks. So it's really about figuring out, can we solve this internally? Can we have someone doing it for us, where we don't need to hire them full-time? Because it takes a lot to onboard and to make sure you develop your team. And if you don't develop them, they will not be happy either. So it's not a win for anyone. Yeah. And you've got teams in Europe and in the US too. So are you treating those teams similarly or differently in terms of growing them? No, I mean similarly in trying to build one global company. So the way we are structured now is with a global leadership team where the different functions have managers that look after them. And some of them are based in the US, and some are based in Sweden.

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Stefan Lagerqvist: Uncovering your true target consumer

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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Awesome! So we're in all time zones, so we can work 24/7. OK, so I got to ask anything from like a marketing or a campaign perspective: any hard lessons? Like one that we just talked about upstairs was an influencer program that you did. I don't know if you want to expand on that or if or if there's something that comes to mind. We've done a couple. I think the biggest and toughest learning we had was when we started the company, we built the entire. brand based on a hypothesis about the target group: an urban active family. We call them with the idea that they would buy candy for their kids. And if it was a healthy alternative, they would buy that instead. So with everything from design, messaging, product development, everything was catered to this target group.

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And then when we actually invested in consumer research, we realized that this target group had the lowest awareness, the lowest consideration, and zero preference for the brand. So that was a tough lesson in like know what you're doing before you press the scale button. That's interesting because your target now is completely different. Yes. And you had, I mean, I love that you like sought the information, but then you were willing to change because of it. You didn't dig your heels in and try to go, you know, against the data. No, I mean, if there's one thing you learn from, I mean, the likes of P. G. or Unilever and any similar companies, I mean, data wins or it's you need to have a lot on your feet to be able to go against what the data will tell you.

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Stefan Lagerqvist: The Nick’s product that outperformed Snickers

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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That's good advice. All right, let's go back to the board. Three. All right. So Nick’s has experienced rapid growth. Was there a moment where you sat back and said, okay, we're onto something really special here? I think one of the more exciting times very recently now is in Sweden where we launched a peanut and caramel ice cream bar. Not very different from a Snickers bar. And we worked on the project for a very long time; it was difficult to find an ice cream factory that could actually make that type of product. And at the time of launch, it was almost like, yeah, this product that never hits the market, will it even be good? We made a big effort to drive distribution with it.

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And within the first eight weeks of launch, it was our second biggest ice cream SKU. Within three months of its launch in the biggest retailer of Sweden, it was the same size as Snickers. So that was a real-like explosion that just, I mean, everyone believed in the concept, but it had taken a while to get it to the. But just seeing that sellout was very impressive. And also, obviously, the anecdotal feedback you get from friends and family, because you will know when you put the product in the, you give it to your friends. Everyone will be nice to you and say, yeah, I like it. But there are a couple of points where people go like, I bought it again. I really bought it several times. It's so good.

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So why do you think that happened? Was it just like the right time? Or I think in this, with this particular product, we really find a white. spot in the market because there is no product like it. I mean, a better view proposition is an ice cream bar with a fantastic taste wasn't available at all. Are you ever worried that, like Mars, or you know, the big guys are going to try and just copy what you're doing? And if I mean, it would be fantastic if they did because I think that would grow the market immensely. I also think it would be fantastic for the consumers around the world to get healthier snacking products, so it would be good. It would be difficult for them to compete head on, even if, of course, they would do good.

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But having worked at Unilever, for example, so in Sweden I worked on the biggest detergent brand. We had 50 percent market share. Yeah. And we saw environmentally friendly brands coming in or environmentally friendly propositions. And we were equally environmentally friendly with our products. So we tried to start claiming it, and tried to develop ranges for it. But we didn't represent that. So we could never beat them on the greenest part of the spectrum of consumers. And I think it would be a similar case here, like a Mars or a Snickers; at least short term, they don't have the trust or authenticity to come in with a super healthy product and be believable. That's right. That's right. All right. Let's go back to the board. And we take seven.

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Stefan Lagerqvist: How to evaluate creative without paid testing

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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All right, Number seven. OK, I'm super curious, especially being a new client of ours. How do you evaluate creative? I mean, I've seen some of the work you put out there, and it's great headlines, bold, catchy. So what's kind of your philosophy? For us, we are fortunate enough to have Johanna on the team, who is head of brand, and she embodies the target group. So a lot of the work she puts out there is good, and I put a lot of trust in that. I know I cannot judge it by my own feelings because a lot of the stuff we do is definitely not built for myself. So it's really about finding the right people who you trust. And in our case, because we can be quite edgy in our marketing, it's sometimes quite scary when we show the board and our investors what we do. Not to speak of the latest glow job we did for the brand. When you sit in a boardroom, that can be pretty awkward representing it.

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Creatives are more difficult to evaluate objectively if you don't have the data, and we typically don't spend money evaluating a lot of the creatives. So then it's more about finding the right people who you trust and then let them make the decisions and don't believe you know best yourself unless you are a rock star in this and really do know yourself. What about creative testing? Or do you buy into all of that? Or do you just like to put it in market and let the market test it? Given we do a lot on social, it's so fast. So, I mean, live becomes the, we go like with outdoor media; of course, we go to some of the things we know work and maybe stuff that has been resonating really well on social, but we rarely test stuff.

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It's more like if we talk claims hierarchies, for example, yes, we will test that. Or if we want to talk about protein, like how does the consumer want to, how do they want to have it talked about? Should we talk about the grams of protein, should we talk about the percentage of protein, or something? Yeah that we test but then once we have that we go Okay all right. Let's go back to the, five. All right so I heard that you nerd out on cynical business management so I got to know what started your cynicism and has it helped you or has it hurt you with launching Nick’s and really revitalizing and bringing this brand to life. I think it starts with sort of just my personal traits for good and bad.

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Stefan Lagerqvist: Why cynicism is necessary for business growth 

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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I'm very very rational. The finance background? Yeah, that probably plays into it. That was the second part. So coming into P G, which is data driven, and then starting in the finance team, yeah, it's the most both data and numbers driven part. I've seen a lot of good leaders that I've been impressed with in my career that dare to make decisions. And typically, that comes across as cynical because you will have 10 people who say, " Yeah, but what about this? What about that? And when you line up all those individual choices, they're all good ideas, but you can only choose one or two, and then you need to be. And sometimes almost to the point where you're rude to prove a point or like you drive the data all the way to the end.

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So, an example we had was we got an idea from our team, and the idea was, okay, why don't we print a QR code inside the lid of our pints? If people scan it, they can get the coupon. for a protein bar so we can drive cross-category conversion. Great idea! And now the execution of it was sort of developing this whole thing, changing the printer setup so that we could print the QR code and everything. And it was really expensive. And then I was lukewarm to the idea, and the team pushed really hard. And then I just started with okay, and that year I think we sold maybe 5 million pints in a year. So I said okay, so if we sell 5 million pints, let's say I'm super generous.

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So 10% will actually scan this code. That's 500,000 consumers. They will get the coupon. And if I'm generous again, maybe 5% will actually buy something that's 25,000 And it has cost us I don't know what it was 100,000 make it up Like it would be cheaper to just give away the bars for free like why are we doing this And I think that's the way it comes across as being cynical like driving the data to the point of like do you realize this is a really bad idea If on paper and when you just look at it it might look exciting but again it's rooted in data So did you do it And of course sometimes people then come to us and like yeah you don't believe in my ideas I think you're evil But again show you have a good business case and then we'll do it I like that All right Note to self All right Back to the board Eight Okay.

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Stefan Lagerqvist: The keys to pulling off the best experiential marketing 

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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So, I know sampling events are a huge part of your strategy. What advice would you give to other CMOs marketing leaders to help stand out with these, like, in-person type of events? So, I think there are two key parts to it. And we are right now out sampling in New York City and Philly. The first thing is to really, really understand your logistics. And people go, " Yeah, we do. We understand the logistics, but do you really?" Just as examples for an ice cream brand, that will be anything from how much ice cream can you store in your freezer truck, when that ice cream runs out, where are you going to refill from? But where are those warehouses? How many warehouses do you need and how do you make that happen?

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If you break the cold chain for too long, the product will start melting. That becomes a Or if you sample directly from an ice cream van, if you open the door too many times, you will not be able to keep the cold inside the van, and you start running into all these problems. And when you sit in an office and discuss it, it might sound ridiculous, but yeah, yeah, we will take care of that. But when you're out there and your ice cream starts melting, it's a big problem. Or when someone will come with a great idea to, I don't know, sample chocolate bars in Texas in the summer, they will melt. In 10 seconds, you will give people a melted thing they put in their pocket.

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Worst case, the package breaks and they will hate the product, and it won't be a good exercise or experience. Even if they open it and it's just melted, so it's really about thinking about that. Okay, when you get the brand in your hand, it needs to be a good experience. Can I deliver on that? Another example was when we launched detergent, like Tide Pods, but for Unilever's equivalent in Sweden. We wanted to go out and sample. We sampled on a rainy day. When you sample a caption and it starts dissolving, people put it in their pocket. It was a terrible experience. for so many people. So it's really thinking through: does it really make sense? Will it work? Will the consumer be able to, if they are going to consume the product straight away or use it?

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Are the conditions the right ones? Because it's so easy to get overexcited about, yeah, we just give them the product; it will sort itself out. And the second part is, again, people and the staff who will sample the most difficult thing. And it's the most painful thing: again being cynical and feeling like a bad person when you go, like, that person is not doing his or her job; they're on the phone too much or they're not showing up looking well and rested and just they are not behaving nicely to consumers. Because you have this one chance with someone representing your brand to someone who might never have experienced it. So really putting a lot of effort, both in terms of what is the brief. How do I ensure I get the right people?

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But then also, if they are not the right people, you need to be on it like every day and say, okay, if this person can't shape up, we need to have someone else. Yeah, it's casting. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So does the math math on sampling? Can you take it that far down? Is it paying off? We have a very big difficulty in tracking it data wise. Obviously, we try to make all of our marketing activities come together as one if it's a campaign and then at the same time go big on social you do some influencer marketing, and which is driving which is difficult to say for us. The business has been doing well over the years.

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So we do believe in our marketing mix where sampling is a crucial part, but it's also part of, I mean, our key benefit that we beat everyone on is taste. But if you have a better-for-you proposition, people will not believe that you taste as good because they expect the trade-off. So for us, it's crucial to have people try it because I can tell you 20 times that our ice cream is fantastic. You might still not believe it. So how do I put the spoon in your mouth, and you will experience it? Okay. All right. Let's go back to the board. 12. All right, so you're in a boxing ring right now. You're in one corner; Halo Top's in the other corner. Why does being a challenger brand excite you so much when you're going up against these big behemoths?

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Stefan Lagerqvist: When challenger brands truly challenge legacy brands

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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So, having sat on the other side, think what a lot of big brands do, not intentionally, but that's what they end up doing: you play defense all the time because you have such a big market share that it's almost difficult to grow beyond your brand proposition; it won't carry out in more niches. Whereas, as a challenger brand, you can pretty much do anything. And, of course, with less to lose, you can risk more. And typically, there's some risk-reward benefit. So I think that's one exciting part. And then, all the paths to decisions I think, is what excites me a lot in being in a challenger brand compared to being with the big ones. I mean, by the time you have signed off on a concept, you're six months behind the time you had planned to launch it in a bigger company.

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And you water down concepts so much that the brilliant idea at the end of the day just becomes that plain vanilla. So, the ability to keep the edginess, and if that wasn't the best decision. You're gonna survive, and it will not be that big of a challenge. Whereas if you're a super, super big brand, it might be a bit more painful if you take a step in the wrong direction. Yeah, I mean, as an agency, I can tell you a lot of that is what excites us too: being able to approve big, bold ideas quickly and not having that slow pace, because by the time you act, the moment's past us. So I appreciate that. Is there anything that you, I mean, other than their budget, but anything you admire about a Halo Top or other big ones?

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In the Halo Top in particular, they invented the category. I think that was massively impressive. I mean, being able to be at Unilever at the time and just saw how this one startup brand just shook the entire industry. It made Unilever try so many different initiatives on better-for-you ice cream that weren't very successful. And because, I mean, Unilever's right to win was just, I mean, with Ben Jerry's and the Magnums and the really indulgent brands. And suddenly, Unilever tried to start fighting on the better-for-you space with those brand propositions that couldn't carry it. And seeing a challenger brand really shake up the industry, that was very impressive. I think there aren't that many brands that could, or that stand as standalone brands before.

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I mean, now Halo Top got purchased, but they got really big on their own before that happened. And I think that's super inspiring instead of having someone who gets acquired or fed into a bigger machinery so much earlier on in their journey. Yeah, yeah. All right, let's see what's next. Number one. 

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Stefan Lagerqvist: How Nick’s retooled their marketing approach for the US

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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So we noticed that OG flavors like cookies and crumb and triple chocolate were replaced by more traditional flavor names. Why was this shift important for you and for the business to win with the American audience? We launched in the US back in 2019, we piloted a bit and then launched Meaningful in 2020. We did not have a concept we fully liked in Sweden because of what I shared before. We had those insights that, OK, our target audience is wrong.

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So we gave the team in the US free hands to just try whatever you want to, so we get something that you feel you can stand behind and sell. So then they came up with the concept of Swedish style light ice cream. And of course, as a Swede, you sort of wonder, OK, what is Swedish style ice cream? I've never had it, but it sounds cool. And as part of that concept, the product names were made in Swenglish, so choklad everywhere, choklad as we say instead of chocolate everywhere, which is fun, of course, but when a big portion of both product research and purchases are done online when you have a product name that people can't spell, or we have our three letters in our alphabet that are not even available here.

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When you start using those, people can't even write them. A lot of challenges come across, and people don't really understand what you mean. And so that was like part of the challenge we experienced along the way. And then, now for 2025, we decided that as we had two different brands then— one in the US and one in Europe— still Nick’s was the brand name, and the logo itself looked the same. So that was very good that we kept that. But then we said we have to develop one global. brand We cannot sit and develop assets for two brands and campaign ideas and everything. So, we did a lot of consumer work in 2023 and to build an entirely new global brand during 24, and that went live into the market this year.

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So we're super excited about that. That's awesome! And it's doing really well, right? Yes, we have got so much positive feedback, and then sales are looking good as well. So, are you honoring your heritage, your location, like the Swedish lifestyle at all? Or no, is that going to go away? Right now, we are not at all. And we had a conversation today with the team: like, could it be something we should feature more? I think it's always difficult. I mean, at least as a Swede, to say, Ok, how well will that resonate outside? Of course, we think about ourselves as great people and everything we do is fantastic. But is that the same elsewhere? So it's definitely something to explore, but not something that we're pushing for today. More to come.

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Stefan Lagerqvist: How Bethenny Frankel became Nick’s #1 fan

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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I see it a little bit in the humor and your boldness and little acts like that. So it'll be cool to explore that together. All right, let's go back to the board. Number six. OK, so I'm just scrolling online the other day, and all of a sudden, I get one of my many Bethany Frankel videos that I get all the time. I've tried her bagels; I try her chicken salad like anything she recommends, I'm usually adding to cart. And all of a sudden, she's holding a pint of Nick's ice cream. And it's kind of backwards. I, you know, I saw a little bit of the logo, but it's not in full view. And I sent you a note, I'm like, did you pay for this? This is incredible! She loves your ice cream.

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And your response was no, no, she just did that on her own. So tell me a little bit about this video and what's happened since. Yeah, so we obviously identified her a long time ago as a potentially interesting person to work with, but I mean, you always have a ton of priorities. So we never went forward with it. And as part of the brand relaunch now this spring we have sent out a lot of gift boxes to influencers and that has generated a lot of ripple effects. So I mean consumer reach, just as a reach media is one thing, but all the people we identify are to some extent that bigger or smaller influencers, and a lot of them have shared stuff.

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So that has generated excitement for other people wanting to work with us and more are reaching out. And in the case of Bethany Frankel, we actually played hard to get because her team reached out to us and said we love your ice cream and we would like to do something. So please contact my team. And again could you send some ice cream and for both we said OK, let's see what happens. We can't pursue this right now. And then just a few couple of days later, she posted this video and it went really big for us. The engagement has been super high and we got so much help from her audience as well. And when people started going, because, like you said, I mean of course, intentionally didn't share the brand name that clearly and didn't write anything about which brand it was.

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So people would write in the comments, like, which brand is this? So many people are like, it's Nick’s, you have to try it. So it's been super exciting. And a lot of people afterwards doing the same type of testing and commenting and sharing what they thought about it. So, yeah, it was a really fortunate and exciting happening. Well, it was very authentic, which I think is probably part of the reason why it was so successful. So, have you reached out to her since? And can we, like, are we going to, like, manifest a Bethany Frankel activation in 26?

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I was on vacation last week and haven't sort of followed up on these things. And then, first thing when I go back for vacation, I jumped on a flight here, and now I'm here. So, let's find out. I think maybe we collectively will find out today. That's awesome. To be continued.

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Stefan Lagerqvist: A lesson in influencer marketing

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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Influencers are just a big part of your strategy. I know you guys have worked with the Kardashians in the past. You work with small influencers, there's big influencers. Like any lessons or learnings from an influencer marketing standpoint? I think what you just said is so important with the authenticity that if it, whatever you do, regardless if it's big or small, if it comes across as too just paid for and you have someone who just produces some content, they post it and no one cares.

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It's very difficult to get any engagement through that. Whereas finding the people who, regardless if you pay for it or if it's people you partner with otherwise, the ones who really like your product and what you are doing. I mean, they will by far do the best job. And I think that there's a lot of test and learn in that because you will never know someone who might seem like a perfect influencer for you, the right audience. You love their content, but then you hand them your products and it just doesn't work. So again, getting back to being data-driven, I think influencer marketing is such a challenging part of it because you can, of course, have hypotheses. You can track what you've done in the past and say, based on what we have done, this should work.

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Stefan Lagerqvist: How Nick’s balances their messaging to be both fun and functional  

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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But yeah, there's no certainty. Yeah, that's right. All right, let's go back. to the board I think we have time for one more. Okay then we go for number nine. Love it. All right. So I want to talk about messaging a little bit and I also want to talk about your tone of voice because I think it's really unique and there's a lesson there, I'm sure. So one thing that we know to be true about Nick’s is that it is better for you, but the list of better for you is pretty long. Like it is keto friendly, it's low calorie, it's sugar free, and that's just like the tip of the iceberg here. But it's also ice cream and you guys balance this like function and emotion really well.

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So I'm just curious if there's a secret here or some insights that you can share on how you're really balancing that functional and emotional or fun playful messaging and why. Was there data to support this? Yeah, I think this is the biggest challenge we have in terms of brand and finding both a tone of voice but also like claims or messaging hierarchies. The biggest data insight we had was time we launched a brand. We were a very activist brand; we were very angry. So the payoff was join our fight on sugar. So, dear sugar industry, eat this or don't sugarcoat your message; your products are bad for everyone. Really angry and then screaming no added sugar, join our fight on sugar. Then we realized that every consumer on this planet knows that sugar tastes great.

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So if you're kind of saying I'm taking it out, then they will assume you taste like crap. And even in a functional category like protein bars, like taste and texture are still the key preference drivers. So that led us to understand, okay, we cannot only go with the functional claims; we have to be something more, and we have to lean in towards the key category drivers and for our preference drivers. And the good thing for us is we develop all our products ourselves. We have our own factory, so we can— I mean, we have reached a level where our product tastes really good. So we can really stand behind such a messaging. So that's why we have been able to and chosen to lean a little bit more heavy on the taste and texture experience side, to tone down the better-for-you claims a little bit.

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Then, of course, when you are in store at point of purchase in some of these categories, you just have to know what the key drivers are, and you need to claim them on pack because that's how the category works. But higher up in the classic marketing funnel, we have chosen to dial that down. And your tone of voice talks a little bit about the out-of-home campaign that you did, the headline there, just what goes into some of this. copy and like the brand tone that you guys have created. So one of the brand, one part of what the brand Salesforce is, we want to be flirtatious. Definitely not sexy or tacky. So it's a fine balance. That's why I'm grateful that Johanna is good at this and it's not me who makes the decisions or calls on what we put in there.

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But obviously, with ice cream, it's easy to talk about ice cream instead of ice cream. How do you eat an ice cream? You might lick the ice cream. So we had one campaign, which was we bought three huge billboards on the highway between Philly and New York, where the first said, eat me, then lick me, then spoon me. And that was complimented with have you ever spooned a sweet? And right now, our big payoff is lick me till I scream, written as ice cream, of course. And so that is, but that's something that stops people, something that's that makes them. Oh, did I just read that? So yeah, really trying to break through. And again, not being plain vanilla because yeah, some people will be offended.

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We had a retailer whose name we wrote on on the billboards, like available at. Fortunately, Clear Channel could help us kind of paint over that retailer at that time. It was a bit of heated conversations internally. But again, I rather have people reacting to it than no one caring about it. So, that's part of what we try to do. That's good advice. All right. So, we like to end these episodes with a little this or that rapid-fire questions. But before we do, we're going to do a quick costume change. All right, here we are, all decked out in our Nick swag. All right. So, another thing that we do here at Curiosity every now and then, only for special guests, is something we call Dot Fun Hot Ones.

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And it is a hot wing eating conversation. And so, I thought, what better thing to do with your first trip to Cincinnati than give you one of the hottest hot sauces at our beloved restaurant? We are going to each down a hot wing, and then I am going. to try and get through the this or that What do you think Are you down I'm flattered If you can do it And of course All right Let's go Let's go Cue the wing OK Yeah We need some nice ice cream And do we kill the whole thing I'm probably not going to kill the whole thing Cheers OK Oh I'm scared Oh yeah It's already hot Really

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Stefan Lagerqvist: Closing remarks 

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Learn more about Nick’s on their website

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Yeah Mm hmm Yeah that was Oh is that good Are you I was thinking about licking my fingers but I was like can I have a napkin There's this All right Are you ready This or that Midsummer or Fourth of July Midsummer Midsummer I knew you were going to do that Bethany Frankel or the Kardashians Bethany Frankel I love that A dinner party or a dinner reservation. Dinner party, Ikea or Target? Target, dad joke or dad jokes? Dad jokes, I'm going to need one tonight. Ice cream or protein bars? Ice cream. P& G or Unilever? That's it, my friend. Thank you so much for coming on the show. What's the best way for people to reach out to you if they want to learn more? Thank you. LinkedIn always works. And do not bring hot food. Cheers! Yeah, cheers! Woo! I'm sweating. Yeah, that was, it's still all over my lips.

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