Travis Thein
📍 Minneapolis, MN | CPG Startup Founder of Sol Soils
📝 Editor’s Note
One of the joys of being the parent of a two year old is how excited we (I) get when coming across a fire truck, mail truck, garbage truck, excavator, front loader, or backhoe.
Previously, my walks around the neighborhood were to clear my head or listen to a podcast. Now it is a massive game of I-spy with me embarrassing my wife by yelling about spotting a BIIIIG truck.
During those walks I’ve also noticed a trend where our neighbors are really leaning into their holiday yard decorations. I’m still upset with myself for not buying the 10 foot skeleton from Walmart during Halloween. However, I caved and we now have a giant inflatable firetruck in our yard with Santa, a reindeer, and a Christmas tree on top. The vicarious joy I get from my two year old yelling to go see Santa each morning is worth it.
Without further ado….
Why Travis?
Travis came highly recommended from Bo R. The two were classmates at UNC business school and Bo mentioned Travis had a really interesting start-up. More details on the start-up, Sol Soils, at the end of the profile.
Follow Travis on Instagram @travisthein or @solsoils
Self-Description
I’m laid back and don’t take myself (or really anything I do) too seriously. I’m a huge Kansas Jayhawk basketball & KC Chiefs fan hailing from Kansas City originally.
Travis’ Recommendations
Written in his own words…
Digital Tool
One of the girls on my old team at Target mentioned using a project management app called “Monday” to track progress and owners of the various aspects of prepping for their first baby to arrive. I thought that was a really good idea and immediately googled it to play around with it and see if I could use it for my startup. I signed us up that day and we immediately started using it daily to keep each other informed on what everyone is working on, the status (not started, working on it, stuck, or complete) and it lets you build a number of boards with different structures based on your specific use cases. We have used it in a number of other ways as well. I would definitely recommend Monday or a similar app to help keep your day to day and longer term strategic to-dos organized.
Brand
Right now I’m loving pretty much everything Vuori has to offer. It’s so comfortable, soft, stretchy, and the fit in general beats most other athletic or, I guess you might call it, dressed-up casual attire I’ve tried. It’s similar to Cuts or Legends, but I like the style a little more.
A store called Jaxen Grey in the Twin Cities—and now a new loc in St. Louis—focuses on creating a high-end experience for guys to find new online brands like these and actually be able to see it, feel it, and try things on before deciding. And they give you free drinks along the way. Not a terrible situation. Rhythm, Marine Layer, Faherty, and a bunch of others are also main stays in the shop.
Well-Being
Exercise during the workday
One thing I chose to prioritize above all when COVID started is exercise during the workday. Once everything chilled out in 2021-2022 I still kept the calendar block on my Outlook and told any new potential boss about this when interviewing, and it was surprisingly never a problem. They appreciated the transparency and overt work/life balance prioritization. So my 11:30am-1:00pm is sacred on my calendar to have travel time both ways and enough time to hit a Life Time class M-F throughout the week. Obviously it doesn’t always work that way, but shooting for 5 days a week helps keep me around 3-4 days of consistency usually.
Food and Drink
If you ever find yourself in Minneapolis for a night, Bar La Grassa is absolutely worth your time! I don’t think of myself as an Italian food genre guy, but it’s amazing. Everything is made fresh in the open concept kitchen, and their soft egg & lobster bruschetta is outrageous. It’s legit lobster claws mixed with soft scrambled eggs, truffle, cheese, butter, and the bruschetta is really just a vessel to consume it, but sheesh. It’s one of the few foods I think about on a regular basis.
Professional
Think Multiple Steps Ahead
One thing I’m constantly challenging myself and others I work with to keep as a mindset is thinking multiple steps ahead. The value of this became clear when I was building financial models that would need to live for years and eventually move to new owners after I moved to another role. Once I started dabbling in coding it officially burned itself into my mind as a mantra. In both basic situations you have an option to make something quick that might be a little janky to use as a bandaid, but it gets you past whatever your current hurdle is. From my experience, that’s almost always the wrong decision to try to save yourself short term pain. It can easily lead to nightmares down the road that cause you much more stress and time investment to correct. Thinking through the next big (or small) decision in your line of work with a focus on the next few quarters or even years and the most likely few outcomes that might impact what you’d decide to do today is a worthwhile exercise! I.e. - doing something that pre-builds in flexibility for a few different future outcomes will make tomorrow you much less frustrated with today you.
Music
Mint Playlist on Spotify (EDM)
Before moving to Minneapolis to work for Target HQ after business school, I hadn’t listened to EDM really at all. Then my Target group of friends started taking me to EDM shows at The Armory, a super cool venue that had recently been refurbished (I believe it was literally an armory for the military way back when) and opened as a music venue like 5 years ago. Somewhere along the way I found “Mint” playlist on Spotify, and it’s updated regularly with great EDM finds. One of my top playlist hours per week, for sure.
Plug
Plants became an unexpected pandemic passion of mine that wouldn’t stop growing. It started outdoors with me converting areas of my lawn that I didn’t love (or want to mow anymore, honestly) into native perennial wildflowers. When it got cold—and in MN that means cold, cold—I decided to buy a bunch of cacti since they’re all so unique and interesting and they all seem to flower and fruit in unique ways. Something about how many people killed indoor plants fascinated me and I started researching and mixing my own soilless… soils.
And on a group trip with friends one of my buddies was like “let’s start a business related to plants since you’ve done so much research on them.” And we all started kicking fun, interesting ideas around. The next day I realized we could probably sell my soils since they work better than anything on the market and you can’t buy these styles in most stores still. So we have successfully started to close that gap with chunky/gritty potting mixes that retain a more appropriate amount of moisture for plants in an indoor setting and they make it so much easier to keep plants alive and thriving!
We sell other things like hard to find amendments, decorative soil toppers, and will soon be releasing other options like fertilizers and beneficial microbes.
Want to get in touch with Travis? LinkedIn or text (816-589-3679)
P.S. here in the South it is officially Caroline Cakes season. I feel like I have a fiduciary duty not to recommend a $70 cake but if you know, you know about the 7-Layer Caramel Cake and you hope to get one for Christmas.
Love the love of a two year old's all-life joy and learning a bit about Sol Solis! But would respectfully request that you don't call your female colleagues at work "girls." It makes you - unintentionally I'm sure - sound incredibly patronizing.