$[$ Music $]>>$ There's nothing quite like going into a grocery store and seeing your products sitting there on the shelf, or getting that email from a customer and saying this is just, this is the best honey I've ever had in all my life. So here at Desert Creek Honey, one of the really unique things about us is we do everything. So it's a huge source of pride that we are one of the few companies left that actually produce, harvest, bottle, and sell all in the same company. I was definitely a bit of an oddity in high school. I mean, it's not every kid that goes around keeping bees in their spare time. There's certainly a mentality in our generation, the grass is greener on the other side. And if you can just work for yourself; you set your own schedule, everything is perfect, you know. Most people don't realize the sacrifices that come along with that. And in my case, I kind of sacrificed my high school days. I mean, I didn't go to parties. I wasn't hanging out, you know, prom or anything. I was working. I was working bees. I was building a company. A couple of years ago, we get a phone call. And it's from a producer from the show Billion Dollar Buyer. $>>$ We're buying raw honey in five$-$pound jars. So let me see your bid. I$\text{'}$m going to give you half of my honey business. I$\text{'}$m going to buy $125,000$ pounds from you. That's $$343,000.$ Do we have a deal? $>>$ We have a deal. $>>$ We have a deal. $>>$ At the end of the day, we were able to negotiate a deal with Landry's and supply them with their honey. There was a lot of fear early on with how could we ever stand out. And so those were fears we had to fight through and come up with creative ways to stand out despite not having millions of dollars to pour into advertising. And so it's kind of a great time to be in beekeeping if you can keep your bees alive. And that's the struggle. Because we're losing, as an industry, about $40$ to $45\%$ of these are lost every single year. It's pesticides. It's a varroa mite that sucks the bees' blood. It's new diseases that are coming in from overseas. And all these things are kind of hitting the bees at one time and causing them to collapse. And that's the big key in my mind, is in the past, I never gave up$.$ And no matter how hard it got, no matter how hard I had to work, no matter how creative I had to be$,$ we always found a way to make it work. And so much of that goes back to the employees. $>>$ I love working for a small company mostly because here, we're like a family. It's less like work. $>>$ So many of the people that work here have worked here since the very beginning. I mean, the first few people I ever hired still work here. If I had a $9$ to $5$ job, I just wouldn't know what to do with myself. So I mean with small business, ultimately, every company is about people. And so that we can be a company that takes care of those who work for us$.$ And then we always, I always hope that no matter where we go$,$ what happens, that we're always a company that consumers can trust. When Blake Shook started Desert Creek Honey, he was just a teenager. He worked long hours, often missing school events and dances, to tend to his bees. As an adult, his ten$-$day honeymoon was the longest time he had ever spent away from his bees. Blake even says, $$If I had a $9-$to$-5$ job, I just wouldn$$t know what to do with myself.$$ In this example, Blake is referring to which factor that influences entrepreneurs?

Flexibility

Survival

Independence

Challenge