The Big Leap EP#54 - How to Get Back Up QUICKLY After Being Knocked Down

Hi, Gay Hendricks here, and I think you're going to love this episode of the Big Leap podcast. My big takeaway from it is the awesome way people have to get back up after being knocked down and how the key thing in the entrepreneurial world is to just expect that you're going to hit rough turbulence now and then, and how to get out of that is such a key thing. And I think you're going to love what our guest today, Dave Collina, has to say about it.

All right, and what I love is, first of all, I met Dave through a show that I was involved in called Elevator Pitch with Entrepreneur magazine. He has the grit, the guts, the determination, and the hustle it takes to be successful. And he is operating in one of the hardest industries to succeed and make money in, which is the beverage world. First of all, you're going to hear a really unique story about his product, but also the stuff that matters most and what he's doing about it. So this is a great opportunity for you to learn about an industry that has huge upside, but also how to build and grow a business like that. And it doesn't matter what you do for a living. You're going to learn something here. And, Dave, how about you?

Those are tough ones to follow, guys, but I'll do my best here. And I'm not blowing smoke. My big takeaway is how good it is and how nourishing it can be to reconnect with old friends. It's been a while since I talked to you, and you two are two of my favorite people on the planet. So this was really pleasant experience for me, and I appreciate you for having me on.

Well, you're welcome for that. This is the Big Leap, and we will see you on the inside.

Hello, everybody, and thanks for joining us. I'm Gay Hendricks, along with my good buddy and fellow pirate, Mike Koenigs, and.

We'Re here in a very special version of our podcast today because we're talking about a couple of my very favorite obsessions in life. One is, of course, entrepreneurship. And as a entrepreneur since the 10th grade, I mean, my 10th year of life, when I was pedaling watermelons by the side of the road in central Florida. It's always been a great fascination to me how businesses get going and how they can be made big. And we've got a great guest today to talk about that. The other thing that I've been obsessed with all my life is water. I grew up in central Florida, where water tastes awful. So I was always after a decent drink of water when I was a kid, because when I would go visit my aunt and uncle up in Washington, D.C. man, the tap water there just tasted great. And so when you're in Florida, where it's hot, water is a big deal. But anyway, I've been on a lifelong quest for great water, and I've probably tried every bottle of water on earth. And when I came across this gentleman we're going be working with today who makes this amazing substance, if you're watching this O2 water, then I got really fascinated with how he did it and how he put the whole thing together. So we're going to be talking to him shortly. Mike, what's on your mind this morning, this afternoon?

Well, first of all, I'm going to tell the story about how Dave and I first met, what led us here. But also, like you, I've been an investor in some CPG products. So you were an early stage investor in Kavita. You've got a great story about that. I invested in Bulletproof Bulletproof coffee early on. And I'm also an advisor to an investor in another company called Good Idea Beverages, which was founded by the same folks who started Oatly. And the reason I bring this up is the business of beverages, the business of consumer packaged goods is really, really, really hard. Really hard. And the battles and the big leaps that founders need to face are. Are very challenging. And you'll hear Dave talk about them because we're going to grill them today on some of the challenges and the big leaps he's faced. But the quick backstory is I was in a guest or a judge on Elevator Pitch, which was started by Entrepreneur magazine. It's kind of like Shark Tank. I met Dave, he stood on stage, and I fell in love with who he was right away. And my immediate reaction is this guy's got grit. He's the kind of person that investors want on their team because he's gonna go the distance. He's not gonna let anything stop him, even though it might kill him. You know, it's like he just keeps on going. And I know that's something that as an investor, you look for someone who's just gonna go and go and go and never take no for an answer. So he's here today because he's proven himself, shown some grit, but he's also got some exciting things he's going to share, too. So I don't know if you have anything else you want to add about the consumer package goods side of things, and the grit and the hard work it takes to bring a business to an exit. But you want to tell the quick Kavita story, and then we'll get into bringing on Dave here.

Yes, I had the good fortune of being invited to taste a beverage that was made by a local person here. And she's got a classic name. Her name is Chakra Earthsong. And I think it'd be fair to describe her as a hippie and.

No, not a. Not a feathers and crystals hippie from Ojai, California.

My little town here is kind of a joke about how many hip people live here. But anyway, I think it's very fitting that this beverage should be invented by a woman named Chakra Earthsong. But what it was was a type of. It's like kombucha, but it's made a different way that produces less alcohol and is, we think, a better product. But anyway, long story short, I loved it. Katie and I tasted it, we put money into it, and we got to watch it go all the way from that kitchen tasting with three or four of us, all the way to being sold to Pepsi for $225 million a few years ago. So, ladies and gentlemen, it was definitely a personal best for us. And so I saw the financial.

The great power of making something. If you can get it through all the hurdles of being a consumer packaged good, which are awesome, then you've got a good shot at something. Because whenever possible, I like to invest in things that are largely made of water. To me, that's a smart investment strategy, because while there's scarcity of it, there's plenty of it around, and fewer and fewer waters are tasting good now. So before I get on a water rant, I want to introduce you to Dave Colani, who's the brains behind amazing new company called O2 Water. Dave, welcome to the Big Leap podcast.

Thank you, guys. I was just thinking before this how great it was to how great it's going to be to see you. So thanks for having me.

Yeah. So tell us, what was the big leap that got you here, and what is it exactly you do, why should we be interested in it? And how is it a big leap in your life?

Yeah, well, there have probably been several big leaps, probably more than I care to recount, that have gotten me to this very place. But I can tell you that the first one was rooted in my first entrepreneurial endeavor, which had nothing to do with CPG or drinks. I was about, let's see, around 10 years ago, I was working in financial services. I had a pretty demanding Day job in corporate strategy. I was in my mid to late 20s and I was a co founder of a private nonprofit charter high school that serves underprivileged youth in Columbus, Ohio. And that was the first time where I had an idea and working with several others, I was able to bring that idea to life. And that idea did not manifest itself in finished form as a PowerPoint presentation, for example. It manifested itself in its finished form in an actual tangible school with real students who were coming from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. And now I'm very proud to say six classes have graduated. Krista ran Columbus and that school has a 99% high school graduation rate, which is unheard of for that area. So I had a really, really powerful and positive experience building something and I wanted more after that and I wanted to build other stuff that could have a positive impact in society too. So like a lot of first time entrepreneurs, I decided to look around and try and scratch my own itch. And that was ultimately what led to O2.

Yeah, well, O2 is an interesting. I don't know of anything else on the market like it. Tell us a little bit about what distinguishes from other water based products.

Yeah, so. So as the name might suggest, it is super oxygenated and that is probably what makes us most special. I would say it's also probably the most challenging thing from a manufacturing standpoint. We do. But O2, you can think of our product as really clean, functional hydration products. We have a water product that's just still water with minerals in a can because plastic sucks. And we also have a line of sports recovery drinks. So think healthy alternatives. Gatorade, very high electrolytes, very low sugar, and they just taste awesome. So I'd say just as much about.

What'S not inside O2 as I would what's inside O2. Very clean, stripped down formulation that doesn't include anything artificial and really nothing that your body doesn't need.

I really, I've tried, I think all of them now and I really like them because to put it bluntly, they don't leave that icky taste in your mouth that Gatorade does, basically.

Yeah, we get that all the time. Totally. And you know, I credit that to spending a whole lot of time on the original formulation for O2, probably hundreds of iterations. I stopped counting at a certain point. And I also credit it to what's not inside O2. I mean, O2 doesn't have anything artificial. There's no, you know, there's, there's no coloring agents in O2. There's no preservatives, so when people drink O2, it just tastes clean, you know? And granted, I'm biased, but I'm glad to hear you say that because that's what we were shooting for, Guy.

Glad to hear. I always tell my students that being an entrepreneur, you have to get familiar with. Well, when my daughter was little, she had a thing that was called Bobo the Clown. I'm sure they still make them, but it has a heavy bottom. And you punch it and it comes back up. And you punch it and it comes back up.

That's a pretty good.

That's about entrepreneurship in a nutshell.

Yeah. And the reason I mentioned that I say don't judge yourself or.

Evaluate yourself on whether you get knocked down. The key metric is how long it takes you to get back up a hundred.

Yeah, totally agree.

And expect being knocked down, because that's the nature of things. And I wonder, could you describe, in as gory detail as you want, a couple of your knockdowns and how you got back up? Yeah.

Where do you want me to start? Present day or past tense?

Whatever the biggest unleaps were in your life. Yeah.

Well, I'll give you one from the early days. It's a pretty big one. That was probably the first time I've gotten punched in the face. And then I'll share one from present moment, which is just another punch in the face. Stops hurting after a while. You just keep getting back up.

When we made O2, we knew that we were setting out to do something very, very different. The whole oxygen thing, that's real. There's about seven to ten times more oxygen in our product than normal water. And it's in there because we put it in there, and we put it in there with purpose. And so this requires a little bit of specialized machinery and equipment. And so not every manufacturer can make our product. Back when we were first starting, there was literally only one in the United States that I could find that can manufacture our product to our specifications. And what I said earlier about O2 not having any preservatives, that's also true. And that's also fairly uncommon, especially in kind of the sports drink category. So we set out to do something very, very different. And what a lot of people will remember from high school chemistry is that oxygen breeds life. Right? Oxygen, it's a life giving agent. It's a life giving element. And that means similar to kind of the good stuff about that, there's some bad things about that, too. So, for example, if you leave out a loaf of bread overnight, or you can credit oxygen to the mold that's going to form in about a week, right? So going back to first production run of O2, this was not the best manufacturer in the world that we were partnered with. In fact, part of his process didn't work as well as it probably should have. And what that led to was I don't know how many defective cans, but enough to almost give me a heart attack. I remember I was driving through our first major, major event where we've got a pretty large following in the CrossFit space. And this was really the tip of that spear. We were doing a big CrossFit event.

In Cincinnati, and I was driving from Columbus to Cincinnati about maybe six weeks after our first production run. I crack open a can of O2, I drink it, and there's like this. This slimy substance that I taste, and I'm like, oh, my God, what is that? Right? So I pull over to the side of the road, and I had. Thankfully, this was back when I was doing all the deliveries out of the back of my car. I had about 60 cases worth of O2 loaded up, and so I randomly grab another, you know, another case and open it up and take a can of O2 out of it. I drink it, and it's that same sort of slimy substance. And now I'm on the side of the road furiously pouring out cans onto the pavement, seeing what the hell is happening with my product. And I would say maybe one out of every ten cans had. Had. Had formed growth because they were not properly manufactured. And that was devastating to me, at least at the time. That was devastating, because when you're first starting out, arguably the only thing that matters is how do people like your product? And like, you guys know, you only get one first impression. And I couldn't imagine how many first impressions were beginning with a slimy substance in a product, right? So I get to my destination, my mom's place. I was crashing at her place on a Friday night, getting ready for the big event on Saturday morning. And I go through the same process of just randomly choosing cans and seeing if there's any common theme that I can associate with the defective cans. And it turns out the ones that were most defective were a little squishy. Okay? So we had just manufactured about 150,000 cans. And the only way to really, truly identify which cans were defective was to squeeze them. So that's what I did that night, was I went through about 720 cans myself, squeezing them. And, you know, the defective ones I pitched them, and the good ones I kept. And we did the event almost flawlessly. The following day, there was one defective can that we. That we found. And then over the course of the next four months, I and my business partner would spend our weekends squeezing cans and discarding of the hundreds of thousands of cans that we had on hand, discarding the ones that were not very firm and hanging on to the ones that were. And we survived that crisis, and I'm proud to say we've never had to deal with that issue again. But, man, was that a punch in the face.

Boy, that has a couple of eerie familiarities to our early days in Cavita. Because we couldn't find a cap that would work with this particular project. And finally, that was a big breakthrough is just finding the right cap. It also brought to mind when we launched the Spiritual Cinema circle Back in 2004, our first month, we sold 2,400 memberships. And so we were very excited, and we ultimately would have about 25,000. But just getting that first 2400 was huge breakthrough. And so our first shipment of the 2400 Premier Discs, that was all on DVDs back then.

500 of those 2400 started calling us, saying, where's our thing? You know, it's been six weeks now. Anyway, it turned out the post office had lost 500 of them, was sitting in a part of equipment. In fact, that's what we got back from the post office. These were found in supposedly empty equipment.

Oh, no.

20%.

I ended up FedExing the missing 500 to the people, which I remember was like eight bucks a pop, which just put me underwater at the time. We were running on this thing a margin, but that was the kind of Bobo the Clown moment, you know, to try to get back up from that and just keep on plugging. So I really resonate with that. Well, what's the next big leap for you where. What you got your eyeballs on these days?

Well, I was. I was telling Mike before. Before we started, I've been spending an ungodly amount of my time on. On some really unsexy stuff this year, like finance and operations and soon fundraising. And so where I've got my eye on is getting back to what I really love doing, which is sales and marketing. And that's what I'm good at, too. So I'm super excited to do that. As you guys know, last year was just a banner year for O2. And there's a whole probably separate story behind that. And it could have been, Mike, because I met you in January and then won that contest, so maybe that was the right foot to start off on.

Bam. I'll take all the credit, thanks.

But last year, you know, in a year that really probably should have business, for those who don't have much context, a big part of our business then and now is wrapped up in gyms, selling O2. And if you. If you made it through Covid, you know, a lot of industries suffered, and gyms were among the worst to suffer. And so last year probably should have killed O2 alongside many, many gyms. But we. Not only did we survive that, but we really thrived. We did some very cool and innovative campaigns that were designed to help our gym owner community through the pandemic, especially at the height of it. We pledged 50% of our profits from every sale at the start of the pandemic to gym owners. We ended up generating almost a quarter of a million dollars of cash to give back to about 2,500 local gym owners, independent gym owners. And then we did a. We followed that with a marketing campaign that was designed to help them retain members that ended up winning best marketing campaign in the beverage category of 2020. We ended up beating out Oatly and Ocean Spray for that award, believe it or not. And so as a result of these things, we grew our business dramatically. I mean, our DSE business, 10X, our gym business actually remained intact. And year over year, it was our best growth year ever. And so this year, 2021 feels like, is the year that I probably should have had last year. This year has been my Covid in a lot of ways. And I was thinking leading up to this, what. What was the thing. What was the big leap that I took this year that I kind of fell flat on my face on, and it was putting all my eggs in a basket around fundraising from traditional food and beverage venture capital groups. I set out to do that earlier this year, spent a ton of time creating a pretty nice deck and reaching out to a ton of VCs and having, oh, my God, hours and hours and hours of pitch conversations, only to not get anywhere, which was a surprise to me based on how great last year was. The thing that kept on coming up was we just weren't big enough. Weren't big enough, weren't big enough. And so it's been challenging to recover from that. But we've got a great solution plan that I'm really excited.

Well, that's really great because I know sometimes having done a number of pitches in my Life. If you get a string of solid rejections, it's a Bobo the Clown moment like no other. It's really hard to back up from because you got a room full of really smart people.

And they've seen everything.

But I subscribe to this gay. And maybe you do, too. I think that you can often learn more from failures than you can success, definitely. And these really smart people are a source of data as well. And after getting the same data back over the course of about three months, nonstop, I realized it was probably time to change our approach. I can't change what industry we're in. I can't change how incredibly competitive it is, but I can change our approach. And so we pivoted.

Away from that strategy and that approach. And since then, you know, I feel like that's really when things started to fall back into place, is when we made that move.

Yeah. Fascinating. Well, congratulations on getting back up from some pretty big.

You know, like, getting back up off the pavement. You've seen the scene in boxing movies where the hero has to come back from the edge of the. Of consciousness. And I think entrepreneurial activities, one of the things that nobody tells you about, that I know of anyway, is all the emotional stuff that goes up and down and sideways.

A roller coaster.

Yeah, it really is. And you have to kind of expect that. Otherwise, if you try to keep the roller coaster from going as fast as it's going, it feels worse.

Every. Totally. Every successful entrepreneur that I know, if you actually have, like, an authentic conversation with them, you don't talk about all the great stuff, talk about all the shit, you know, because there's a lot of it that you spend almost all of your time on. And so everybody has these stories of getting knocked down, but the common theme that I see with the successful ones is you just keep getting back up, man. Keep getting back up.

Well, I love your attitude. I'm an investor now in another company that came after Kavita, but is in the same general area. Our product is Flying Embers. Oh, yeah.

I'm a fan.

Oh, good. I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, it's. It's going like wildfire.

I bet it is.

And one of the things that made the old company Kavita, work, this is a brand new thing, but it's founded by the same guy who's a real genius named Bill Moses, a good friend of ours. He lives up the hill from us.

But one of the things that he is kind of betting this on is that people are going to be thoughtfully consuming beverages or I say, consuming beverages much more thoughtfully and mindful in the coming years. And so flying Embers, for example, is hard kombucha. It's got a little bit of alcohol in it, but the concept is a big concept in beverage now called better for you alcohol. And this has probiotics in it in addition to a little bit of alcohol. And it tastes great too. Doesn't hang you up and hang you over. And so that's one of the reasons I think you're really onto something here. And by the way, I discreetly under the squeezed my can and I'm happy.

To report that we're safe.

So there's no limp cans on your side?

Absolutely no limp cans. Literally or metaphorically.

I love it. Well, I've got. Oh, go ahead, Gay. What were you going to say?

I was going to kind of begin to move. I know Dave's on a tight schedule like just about every other CEO in the whole wide world. And we're really grateful for the time you were to able. Able to give us today. But in the time remaining, Dave, is there any big thing you want to leave our listeners with? We got hundreds of thousands of people out there taking big entrepreneurial leaps. What do you got that if the last breath you had to give, what would you tell them?

Yeah, well, I probably should have made a coupon code that everybody can use. So maybe we'll put that in the description.

You can make one up and then you can drop it in there. That's fine. We can send you some business.

I dig it.

Plus, I know. So make one up and we'll use that. And the other thing you can do is tell us about. I know there's something super exciting that's happening as well.

So these will rival each other for excitement. The One Big Leap 30 will get you 30% off your first purchase of O2. So check that out and I promise you you're not going to regret it. We do offer a 60 day money back guarantee that we almost never have to use. So drinko2.com, bigleap30. And then the second thing is something that I'm really excited about. When I talked about changing our approach earlier in the summer, this approach was a pretty dramatic pivot away from the one that we were on. But I think it's the right one for a number of reasons. By the time that this podcast, we will be live with a crowdfunding campaign.

To raise a couple million bucks for O2 so that we can continue to really build upon the momentum that we've gathered and reach eight figures in revenue next year, actually, which is really exciting. So that crowdfunding campaign will kick off early December. And it's on a platform called Seed Invest. And the way to access that is seedinvest.com o2 and in addition to investing in a company with integrity, our values are honesty, humility and hustle. You can also invest in a company that is making sports drinks that you can actually feel good about drinking and waters that Gay loves. And there are all kinds of perks associated with investing in our company that are on top of the financial, the financial gains that are hopefully going to be realized, like Kavita, for example. But I'm really proud of the work that we're doing in the community and I'm really proud to invite anyone who's interested to learn more about the opportunity to become part of our team and join our community.

Well, good.

I love that. And one thing I will add just for a gaze, in my perspective is we can't give, nor are we giving investment advice or money advice here. We're not attorneys, we don't play them on tv, and we're not registered financial advisors. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Anything you say or do may be held against you in the court anyway.

So.

But, but that, that link again is seedinvest.com o2 got it.

And that's, that's importantly. That is the letter O and the number two.

The letter O and the number two. Okay, you got it. That's really good. We'll remember that. Well, I'm sure we're going to be hearing lots more about it and I know I personally will probably click that.

I'm hitting you guys up soon.

Wait.

Well, it's been a long time coming, Dave. You busted your butt. And anyone who can get this far and do what you've done is you've been through the ringer and I'm proud of you. I'm proud to know you. And also just see your. Well, you have the hustle, so those values definitely hold too. I think you could add grit to your brand values as well. But. Yeah, so maybe Gay, I'll let you wrap this up and then we'll. Well, I'll do a little bit of a thing at the very end, but yeah, go for it.

Thanks. Well, I think this whole area that we're talking about, the idea of useful beverages and nutraceuticals and things like that are really. So.

I've invested in a number of things like that and I think they're all very useful and Dave's product I really took a shine to because of my passion for good water. And so I really wish you well with it, Dave. And I really want to stay in touch with you as things go.

Absolutely. Thank you.

All right, well, I'll wrap it up again. To get a discount and try O2 out, go to drink02.com Coupon is BigLeap31 word and to learn more about the crowdfunding campaign, that's@seedinvest.com 02 and in the meantime, if you'd like to learn more about gaze and my Big Leap experience, you can head over to bigleappodcast.com apply or you can text BL28559553958 and of.

Course you can text Gay and me.

Too with any comments questions you may have. So with that Gay Dave, it is always a pleasure to connect with you guys and can't wait to see in the next episode.

Here's to many Big Leaps.

Thank you guys.