Art of Startup War Xicama™

Foreign. It's Brian. We are on the art of startup war. Now, what that means is that every week I bring you a phenomenal investment opportunity, and I only bring investment opportunities that we have invested in ourselves. Now, as always, you should check them out. You should do your diligence, you should make sure you're okay. But I am telling you, we are putting our money into this company because we believe that this is a company that is going to break through massively in the consumer space. So we're going to talk a little bit about it afterwards. You're going to find out all about Jicama, you're going to find out all about Superfoods. You're going to find out about which beverages sell and which beverages don't sell. And most importantly, you're going to find out what a breakaway product looks like from phenomenal founders who have the influence to be able to bring this all the way to the finish line. So, first and foremost, Mona and Craig, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Brian.

Thank you, Brian. So excited for this. Thank you.

It's going to be fun. Now, most of the folks who are listening to the show are investors, and they're all looking for those companies that can really break through, and they can break through in multiple different areas. So we're going to talk about the genesis of the product, and I think we're definitely going to start there with you, Mona, because a lot of the time, there's so many products out there which are just the same as every other product, and they add a tiny bit more sugar in there, or they add another color purple or. Or orange or green or something else, and then that becomes the beverage of the day. And what I really love about your story here, and I actually think it was a. There were two major factors, actually, that really convinced me almost in our first meeting that I wanted to invest. The first one was that we got it introduced by another venture capitalist. Now, I have to say, it's a big, big, big deal when I get a phone call from another venture capitalist saying, we have this incredible company, phenomenal founders, unbelievable product with ingredients that are gonna just drive you crazy, and a taste that you're gonna absolutely love. And I want to invest it, I. E. That other investor said that I want to invest in on the next round. For me, something's gotta be terribly wrong for me not to want to invest in there. And then when I met you guys and I actually saw what you were trying to create and where it was coming from, I absolutely love the story. So let's start. Mona, if you don't mind. Share listeners the story of jicama and where it came from and what the types of responses you started to get at the beginning. And then we'll go a little bit deeper into my first reaction when I had it as well.

Beautiful. And thank you for that. Yeah. So I have to give a bit of my backstory for you to understand how it all came to be. So today I'm a registered holistic nutritionist and a celebrity wellness educator. Ten years ago, though, my life looked completely different. So I come from the corporate world. I worked for a lot of luxury beauty companies and on paper it seemed amazing. Brands like Dior and Tom Ford. I was traveling the world doing makeup for celebrities. But typical corporate scenario, I completely burned out. There was a time in my 20s when I was 40 pounds overweight. I was told that I was never going to be able to have children. I was on beta blockers for heart palpitations and that led to me having two heart surgeries, foreign electrical issues. The story to me is crazy because if you look back at how I was brought up, my father's Indian, East Indian, my mother is Danish, and I've only ever known my mom to have debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. It's an autoimmune disease. Growing up with my father's heritage, he would take us to live at an ashram every summer in Valmoran in Quebec. And ashram, for those of you who don't know, it's a spiritual center. But the foundation is really based on food is medicine, movement is therapy for your body, meditation, being in community, being outside. So here I was as a kid, being told to meditate, to eat all of this really healthy food. But by the time I got to my 20s and got to this fashion world, I threw it completely out the window and went the opposite direction. It wasn't until my second surgery where I was lying there on the surgery table, all of the wires going at my heart, where I'm like, what am I doing? This is ridiculous. Like, I know how to heal my body. I know how to use food as medicine. And that's when I threw in the towel completely left, went back to the ashram that I grew up at. I became a nutritionist, a yoga teacher, and a meditation teacher. I lucked out right off the get go. I started working with a lot of professional athletes, you know, very driven, high profile CEOs. But I couldn't figure out, you know, there was still a big gap between their resources and their health. And as I was creating their meal plans, I would often use jicama, this root vegetable that doesn't look very pretty at all. But it was a perfect substitute for me to be able to talk to people about gut health. So gut health today is a massive trend, but back then, people weren't really talking about it just yet. But with my mom's autoimmune disease, it was always front and center for us. So jicama is a root vegetable that's really high in prebiotic fiber. Prebiotics, unlike probiotics, which everybody knows they feed the good bacteria in your gut. When you feed the good bacteria in your gut, you naturally repopulate a really healthy ecosystem. It's also low in sugar. It was a perfect swap for things like crackers and cookies and stuff like that. Has been part of my life for a long time because of my meal planning with my clients. So to flash forward then, it was just a couple years ago that we were about to have our second baby. I was able to have one baby.

Oh, by the way, sorry, Mona, just to go back to gut health for a second because this is a. It's something that people talk about, but I don't think people understand the true impact of gut health on folks well being. I mean, it leads. I always believed that back in the earlier days, I always believed that, well, gut health means that if you have a bad tummy, then, you know, you feel bad. Maybe I didn't realize it was tied in to all of these other things that can happen to you, like everything, even to the extent of things like Alzheimer's, like things which are the furthest thing away from your gut because it has all of these impacts. If you don't mind, if we could just stick on gut health for a moment, because I want to then look at how jicama, and especially what you've built, can really tie in to actually being. And we're not looking for magical cures here. Right. What we're looking for, to your point earlier on, is to be able to have a healthy life food balance that positions us in our best possible place to be as healthy as we possibly can in the future.

And I love that you said that because for me, getting healthy, I had to stop looking for the magic pill and the fast solution. It really goes back to doing the things that we know are good for us. And I always say this is a return to nature. So the world of gut health is still emerging. Scientists are still learning things every single day. But what we can say that really validates it is that gut health is the root to all health. Anywhere from allergies, digestive issues, imbalances with sleep, mood disorders, anxiety and depression as well. Lots of science behind that. Our physiology, whether somebody is more prone to getting cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity, the list really goes on. And how they can relate it back to this ecosystem of trillions upon trillions of cells, bugs, viruses, bacteria that live within our gut. For a long time we were doing things to our food system, to our using a lot of products that were essentially killing off this good balance of bacteria in our gut, which some scientists and doctors that I work with today will say that we've basically been killing this ecosystem, which is bringing up the relevance of why there is so much imbalance today. The wellness industry is a trillion dollar industry and yet there's still a rise of things like diabetes, cardiovascular disease and obesity. Right? Well, why is that? And so I think that there's a big trend right now. There's going to be a shift that happens that goes back to this idea of trusting in n being outside, getting our hands in the dirt, eating what the earth gives us. And when we look at the benefits of things like fiber, prebiotics, fiber specifically, that our body actually can't digest, that's what jicama is. And because of that, it goes in, it becomes this bulking agent within your gut. It feeds the good bacteria, as I said before. And so without even taking a pill or probiotic or popping a magic solution, there's lots of gut products that are out there. The fiber from the hick itself will tend to feed this ecosystem. And there's lots of studies that are based around it. You can actually buy jicama root as a supplement in Asia. And the nostalgia around it is quite beautiful. So when we speak to somebody here, when we, Craig and I go into these markets and we buy cases of jicama, somebody will always have a story and say, oh, my grandmother used to give it to us when I had a stomachache when I was a little kid, or she used to use it on her skin. So the relevance is there and we're really kind of turned on by the nostalgia behind it. But I think that as this awareness around gut health moves forward, there is going to continue to be this food is medicine philosophy. Right? Food isn't like medicine. Food is medicine. And although as a brand, we didn't want to create something that was so, so, so healthy, we wanted to keep it a little bit fun and something that really tasted good.

Tasted good as well, and it tastes amazing. I brought it home and I said to you before, my wife is the worst critic in the whole world. She would say she's actually the best critic in the whole world, but I've had enough failures. To you, it's not always so. Right. But your drink came in our house and was delicious from the first moment, all three of it. And it's hard to describe when explaining it on a podcast, but it just kind of. And I know it's healthy, but that wasn't my first impression when I got it. It's kind of like it hits the back of your throat and there's a party straight away. It just splashes against it and you can feel all of these different tastes which are hitting you as it goes inside you, and you immediately feel like you want another one. It's very, very, very, very, very peculiar as it tastes and absolutely delicious and gorgeous. And so was that the jicama that you put into it or was that just the additional ingredients you put in there too?

So you know what I definitely have to say, so we have jicama as a brand. We have three ready to drink beverages. And we partnered with these award winning beverage, we call them architects called Bar Lab or Broken Shaker. And together we kind of concocted these three different recipes that we thought tasted along with some trends that were coming up in the market. And at the very early stage of our brand, we were actually asked to be at Coachella with Barlap with Broken Shaker and we took our cucumber ginger flavor there. And it turns out that after two weekends, we ended up being the number one selling beverage after water. So this to us was kind of.

Like the wind towards the, like a Coachella. That's a big deal. Anybody who's even close to the water at Coachella is killing it.

Exactly. So we knew we were onto something. And I really think that people were turned on at the idea of like, oh, I can actually have, you know, a functional cocktail that really tastes good and I know is actually healthy for me. Now, the ready to drink that we have today going to market are without alcohol. But we do offer it as a recommendation that if you do want to add in alcohol, you can do that as well.

Amazing. So wonderful. So you developed it, you put it together, you'd worked out the theory of what you were creating. How difficult was it on the logistical part of the journey and actually turning it. And then afterwards I want to come over to Craig and then start looking at the business side of the journey. So when you took it there. But start first, if you don't mind, on the logistical side, like, one thing is coming up with the concept, coming up with the tastes, and then saying, oh, this is going to be really good. Another thing is actually creating the entire back office to make it work.

You know, we were so excited at this idea and kind of like our conversation with you, with the people that were coming into our lives. People liked the taste and the flavors, and so we just went full force and we actually tested out every single way that we could use jicama as a drink, believe it or not, as a flower, as a skincare product. And we just kind of kept coming up against these bullseyes that just really tasted great. So obviously the drinks were our passion, especially with our partnership with our mixologists. So we wanted to really focus on the three flavors that we had. And I would say it was after two or three tastings that we figured out that we had three winners. And if I see them, you know, there's kind of like three different types of personalities that we hit on. We always ask, what's your favorite flavor? It kind of gives us some insight into the things that you. That you like. But I would say that the process itself, looking back, was quite easy in terms of figuring out the flavors to go to market with. Yeah, the back end and the canning and where Craig's going to come in and speak to everything else is a completely different story because we have to go through this process us quite quickly. We made a lot of mistakes first in the beginning, but yeah, I would say that we work things out very quickly based on a lot of the feedback from the people who support us.

Craig, fill us in with some of the gaps here.

So as we were creating the first off, we started with a two ounce shot. We started our first goal because we knew that Erewhon was interested in our two ounce shots, health shots. So those were spirulina and jicama, all super healthy brain food, all this kind of great stuff. But we realized the scalability, cost, refrigerating, all these kind of different things to creating a shelf life of only 40 days was not where we wanted to kind of put all our efforts at first. Then we got introduced, as Mona says, to the Sidel Group. The Seidel Group owns Ace Hotel, Freehand, Broken Shaker, mgm, Nomad, Huge. So their mixologists, which were the GQ nominated winning mixologists in the country, a friend introduced us, and they just happened to be juicing Jicama the same day we called them about jicama, and they're like, we love jicama. We love jicama. Let's do. Wasn't as easy as a process, as we discussed, because one, we only found out about Coachella two weeks before Coachella started. So we were in a crazy mad dash. I was living on a canning floor for three days, watching the process come in, bringing in jicama, skinning it, moving it from one. And this is in Texas. So I'm going from Houston to Dallas to middle of nowhere, packing, making this. All fresh ingredients, watermelons, all these kind of different things. Giant truckloads bringing in. People are, like, trying to figure out how to use this stuff because they've never dealt with it before. So it was a real kind of crash and burn. Crash and burn. Ah, we got it. So. But we knew from the flavoring in the. In the fort, in the lab or in our kitchens, we knew we had the taste. The next stage is once we knew we had something great and once we knew we hit the success at Coachella, the next question is, how do you scale it? That's really where the expertise and the grinding understanding of how to create something that can taste the same over one can or a million cans, that really led us into understanding each one of our ingredients supply chains to get there, you know, are we cold storing it so all these different things. So we really took our time, even though we didn't have a lot of time to figure it out. Luckily, the success of Coachella did a lot for us because not only did they take our core mix and create it into something, you know, adding tequila and then adding sparkling water, we realized that success, if we took the time out of it that we had this really natural, great product, the next thing is, how do we get it continuous in the can? And so we spent basically from Coachella to September of that year really selling our cocktail mixes and the things we had made for Coachella. And that was great. But we knew that we didn't want to be a little boutique beverage company. We wanted to take over the world. We knew we were onto something. When we first started, everybody's like, you guys are crazy. Like, jicama, what are you talking about? And then Rachel Ray came out and said, jicama was a superfood of 2000 of moving forward of 2019 and into the future. And then suddenly everybody's like, oh, you're onto something. Especially prebiotics with Mona. And then we spent that time getting the canning together, the labels, you know, the legal around it Getting trademarks, all those kind of different things to run up to our first semi big run for us of our can product. That. And let's go back to February of 2020, when we were all living a wonderfully blissful open life, planning for Coachella 2020, because we were chosen by Coachella again to be there with a different flavor, our spicy watermelon, because they did it with tequila. And then. And things happen, like coronavirus. We were meant to be on Virgin cruise lines. We were going to be spread throughout all the Seidel groups, hotels into minibars, all those kind of different things. Very focused on food services because we had the partnerships by which to do that. And then Kahi came in and a bunch of other big distributors and they wanted to distribute. And then that was all leading to our launch at Coachella at 2020.

Wow. And I would say, look, that is obviously terribly bad luck as far as the rollout. And bad luck for. Bad luck for all. But great luck for us. Great luck for us. I gotta say, good luck for them.

Bad luck for the audience, because we didn't get that. Hope was gonna get that push from Coachella to really bring us into the next thing.

But I'm striving for a bigger point here, Craig. Like, we got to invest in you thanks to all of this stuff happening. So it was a huge success, meant to be. We may never have met you if all of this stuff hadn't happened. I don't want to say thank you, Covid, but I'm just saying, like, there was some really good stuff that came from this because of this.

Everything happens for a reason. Everything happens for a reason.

We are in there with you. And by the way, I love this story, especially because I believe there's three types of brands. You get the types of consumer brands that they get pushed through, and they're not great, but they get pushed through because of money. Sometimes. Sometimes, like, folks have got a couple hundred million dollars of VC money to throw at them, or maybe it's a huge celebrity who throws it at them. And then you get the other types of products, which is probably that's 2% of the products. And then you get the 90% of the products, maybe 95% of the products, which are the ones that. It's just really hard. It's really, really, really difficult. It's difficult to get the first shop, difficult to get everything. And then you get your brand, and your brand is just the brand that people just want to be successful. And all of these people who are building Relationships like Coachella don't bring fools in. They don't bring in brands that their audience are not going to adore. It's not about. Like, it's about. They have to adore them. And for you to come out the other side as being the number one brand there after water, it speaks absolute volumes. And what that says is that this whole market is right there waiting for you. It actually doesn't matter. I think in some ways, like, joking aside, I think this has been a really good thing because it's allowed you to really create the structure and the foundation to deal with the huge amount of sales that are going to come out the other side. Because, by the way, here's what's going to happen. I am finding myself in the dojo, turning on our smart TV and playing Tomorrowland. Now, I have never been to Tomorrowland or I have not been to Coachella. Like, I generally haven't had time, but I am now aching to go to a festival because I feel like I've been locked up for a year. Like, that's. And I'm even happy if it's something on TV that I can watch. So what this says to me is, the world is gonna be so desperate for experiences when we come out. Look, March, April this year, or May, or whenever it is, but I think it'll be pretty soon when we come out of this. The world is gonna want experiences. And the only question that's gonna be out there is, is your brand going to be recognized as the. This is the healthiest brand that you can possibly go for, and it's really good for you, and it will really take care of you, or is this the funnest brand in the entire world? And I'm 25, 30, and this is my representation of how I want to enjoy the world. I want to enjoy the world with something which feels great and it tastes great. And if I want to throw a tequila in there, I can throw a tequila in there. But if I just want to actually take care of my body for the day, I'll take care of my body for the day. And that equals fun. So I know that's a lot of stuff for me to say, considering I'm interviewing you.

We are not a diuretic. We are. You know, what's interesting is we spent a lot of time formulating, and, you know, there's, you know. You know, you have a devil and an angel on your shoulder. Like, devil's. Like, make it taste fantastic. It doesn't matter what you put in. And you Know, you know, the angel is like, you really want people to be super healthy. And so you're always trying to find the balance. And because there were times where we were. You're always debating. But then we found alternatives. Mona can speak to monk fruit instead of using other sugars and she can speak to it much better than I. But we started finding ingredients that had a long shelf stability, which is huge right now. We can be on a shelf for 12, 14 months where a lot of these juice brands are. My friends, they're just tossing juice and you know, they're meant to be environmental and they're meant to be recyclable and they're meant to be all these things. But I'm saying, like, how are you environmental when you are throwing half your product away every 30 days? So we thought finding that balance between the two was really important. And Mona can speak to that too.

Mona, rift a bit on that for me, please.

Yeah, Craig and I, from the beginning, you know, when I was out there looking at, I'll always try everything. My clients are asking about all the coconut waters, all the kombuchas, all of the elixirs that are coming out with these really, really medicinal quality ingredients. Yeah, I'm a nutritional, so I'll drink things because they taste good. But often I'm looking for something that actually tastes good that I want to consume more of. Right. What we really loved about JICAMA1, the fact that it's so innovative, it's sustainable, it's a first to market product. We've got the science to back it up. The nostalgia that's also around it is really, really great. But in the products that we're producing with it, unlike coconut, it doesn't make everything taste the same. So it's got that versatility which is really, really cool. And I would also say, like, just in terms of the benefits of it, it's a type of thing that you can consume multiple times throughout the day. When we look at jicama itself, you know, just one serving of jicama gives you, you know, 40% of your vitamin C for the day. When we look at going back to when we were speaking to probiotics or prebiotics for and its impact, there is research that shows that it benefits your sleep. Optimizing gut microbiome is also going to boost your hormones. When we think about, you know, how many people, I always ask, how many people want to wake up with more energy every day, that's me. And I love being able to give this product to my Clients, they come back to me and they say, wow, I didn't need that afternoon coffee. I just felt like I had a natural boost of energy, which is great. And then looking also at how we chose our sweeteners, when Craig mentioned monk fruit, you know, there's a lot of studies out there that are looking at stevia and looking like. Like, hey, maybe it's not the best thing. For the gut microbiome, we know that sugar tends to fuel inflammation, so we've gotten our sugar down really, really low, and we're using this really amazing monk fruit sweetener instead. That is all natural, but it doesn't give it that really kind of bitter aftertaste as well. So it's got a lot of versatility.

Fantastic. And then what comes next? So you've built this incredible product, and I think people, when they're. When even when you're talking about it, you know, you can taste how awesome it's going to be. You started this incredible traction. I know you've had offers that's been coming through from the retail stores as well, which is, again, highly unusual. I mean, even when I was speaking with you recently and I said, hey, maybe I can get you into like, xyz Huge big box. You said, yeah, they've already approached us and we're just going to wait until we can bring out this amount of products so we can support them. So, literally, you have the world at your feet. You're in a Christine Aguilera moment in her prime. Right. So what comes next?

Such a great 90s, right?

I just show my age. Oh, God. Listen, at least I didn't say Andrew Wrigley. Right. I would have been in all kinds of problems then. Yeah. So what comes next? Where are you going to take to. Because now your product is very much developed. The business plan is very much put together. You know how you're going to launch it. You've got the backing of financial institutions. We are just one of the first of many that are going to come in the back of it. You're not going to have any challenges raising investment here, full stop. So where do we go in 2021? And Craig, if you want to take that one, because it's going to be a little bit about the.

Well, I think what I wanted to lead into a little bit is I want her to lead into her celebrity, the people that are. She's living in right now and how that. And how they love it, from Will Smith to Cesar Millan to Jillian Michaels, how we're directly influenced inside that Community of star power. So I think Mona should speak to that part.

Yes, please. And I was being very subtle with it only because I know you both have got unbelievable influence within your own spaces. And it's because. And it's not an influence of, oh, I'm your friend, let's go for coffee on a Saturday morning. Because it's good. It's an influence of respect whereby both you, Craig, on the entertainment side, and you, Mona, within how you're the celebrities and folks that you work with and that, you know, they lead better and healthier lives because they know you and you've been on TV many times for this before and you're in their living rooms going through this. So that respect is going to directly translate into jicama. So I would love to hear back what they've said, and especially guys like Cesar Milan who are investors in other companies we have, and yet Happy Bond and other companies as well. So, yes, please. We'll start with you. And then, Craig, you're very humble about yours, but let's layer in you as well there, too, because this is something that really also boosts a business personality power.

You know, I get really excited about this education process, right. To really educate everyone to what Hikma is, because we know that there might be a bit of a learning curve that comes with. With some people. So we started this process a while ago. I was fortunate enough to work with Will Smith and the entire Smith family on Red Table Talk, which is Jada's TV series on there. I brought in Dr. Mark Hyman, who's a famous functional medicine doctor. And together we showcased the superfood smoothie that I created for Will Smith, which had jicama in it. And since then, it's been this evolution. So I worked with also Julian Heff and her whole Kinergy team that ended up touring with Oprah Winfrey, also putting jicama on their protocol as well, giving them jicama drinks as well to take on the road with them. And I'm now back on with Will Smith. So he has to lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks, and he's got a production team behind him. We're documenting everything, and we're really showcasing the power of food to heal. He loves jicama. He loves our coconut flavor. So before he even knew that it was my drink, his assistant let me know. He's like, you're on your third can. Do you know that those are Mona's drinks? He's like, what? Yeah. So that's been a really cool ride with him. So hikama is on his meal plan right now. And I was also on the doctor's TV show where I showcased a little bit about my upbringing, the power of food to heal. Use jicama again. I had all of the doctors drinking jicama juice on television and they absolutely loved it. And then I've got an article coming out in Vogue magazine in India about the healing powers of jicama featuring some of my smoothies as well. So the education process is gaining even more momentum, especially after our partnership with you and like the excitement that's coming our way. There's a lot of great things in the book along this kind of partnership that I have with some really great celebrities and people in my life right now.

Funny. Anya from our cohort sent me over a video of Cesar yesterday feeding his dog. Is he giving his dog some jicama as well?

He should be. It's great for their tummies.

So is it as good for animals as it is for, for humans? I don't see why not.

We actually discussed, we actually discussed, I don't know if this will ever make it, but we actually discussed with Caesar because he was doing a new dog food of doing a jicama version in the dog food. Obviously it'd be not part of the brand, but we talked about gut health for dogs and their immune needs as well. And he was, I think it's so.

Important because they can't tell us, right? You know, we love our dogs but they can't tell us when they don't feel so well.

Brian, really what we're building is we're building a food company, a food and beverage company and jicama, our drinks, is our first thing out of the box. But to Mona's point, for the last year we have been in with scientists and labs analyzing jicama, finding its effects, you know, on, you know, Japanese study and type 2 diabetes and how it improves people's lives. We've created flour that, you know, pre pandemic was going to be sold through, you know, all these different gluten free bakeries. So it's, you know, we, we didn't go rush into the drinks because we thought that was our easiest to market. We really did a scientific study of the benefits of jicama. You can ask me anything about jicama and I'll, I know it. You know, we even went to Sayulita to Mexico to meet with our farmers. So it's, you know, in many ways, as much as we're discussing drinks, what we're really talking about is a much, you know, as much as we say coconut is one thing, but they are a great example of what coconut has done over the last five to 10 years and now it's in every aspect of life. We even created jicama sugar as a low glycemic version to go in because we, someone said, oh, Starbucks is going crazy looking for, looking for different types of alternative sugars. So we have this, it's not a secret anymore, but we have this product that we have that's very difficult to work with and that we have figured out.

And I love that you've said now the interview is complete because now investors realize this never had anything to do with the drink. Even though the drinks are incredible and even though it comes through. This has to do with building the next honest company. But for really good healthy foods, that people can actually just live healthier and happier lives from taking care of their bodies and moving away from the fast solutions and having long term solutions which and I use this word really carefully, are delicious. That's the thing. Imagine a food and a food, a drink and everything that kids and adults can have that's good for them, that's good for their body, that's healthy, that doesn't taste terrible and actually tastes delicious.

And to your point, like my background being in entertainment and some of our current investors are well positioned producers in children's space. So what they're hoping that we get to a level of is that they can take our products and put them into children's versions with squeeze boxes, whatever it may be, because we know kids, our kids love our jicama and kids love it all together. So. And we know that that is also another opportunity for us into the marketplace. So it's, we have, there's so much, there's so much. And it's, it's it. And what we've learned over the last year is the focus. And you know, we really liked the other day you said, you know, you're not pivoting. You can't pivot when you've never really, you've never been in one direction. So you know, in many ways we are gathering the fruits of our labor and our understanding together. So when we do, when we are moving out into the marketplace, when new opportunities present themselves, we are already there. Trader Joe's tried to buy out all our recipes out like a year and a half ago, but they didn't want the brand because the brand wasn't anything at that point. They just knew we had some kick ass Tortillas made out of jicama, cake mix made out of jicama, cookies made out of pasta made out of jicama. All these kind of different things and they're just like. And they said, we're going to give you some money. And we said, well, what happened to our jicama brand? They're like, well, you don't have a jicama brand, so we're just going to take your recipes.

And that's all changed now, by the way.

Yeah. And we've decided to really put the money on us.

So investors out there, we've spoken for 45 minutes and I hope you now finally get the idea it was important for you all to understand journey of how the product has actually got to here. But you have to understand and see the vision of where it's going to. These are multi products that will be launched in lots of different markets, all with the same purpose, with people who love them. And at the same time, while they love them, it's healthy for them. Name five other products out there that can actually tick those boxes. You've got founders that are deeply engaged within the influencer and personality space, have got strong domain expertise in this area, have already built the brand, the product is already out in the market and 2021 is going to be the year of scaling that 2020 was going to be. You guys and girls just get lucky to get involved in this because you're hearing it right now. So if we can finish off with maybe a three things and I'll let Craig, just your email please, the website URL and then your vision statement for the company. And then Mona, if you could finish us out with your vision statement for the company. So if I'm going to say in five years time, what is jicama? And you're going to tell us, Craig, and then Mona, you finish us out with the same thing and then let's finish it there and then all of our investors know exactly what you're doing, what you're building and what this has the capacity to be in a couple of years time.

Great. My name is Craig Goodwill. My email is craigqfoodsinternational.com Our URL is Jicama Life. It's Jicama with an X.com and our vision statement. Where do we see ourselves in the next five years?

Or what's our five years time? You're sitting in a bar with someone and they're saying, man, I cannot believe that you and Mona have got to this stage. You created. Boom.

I Think. Where we love. Where I would love to see ourselves. Where I would love to see ourselves in five years is that we have a internal. What do they say when an in house name when they say when people in five years. I'd like to see Jicama as a household name, but not only as, but as the drinks, as being a flagship for the rest of the food company to come. So what I see is investors and people coming to us is that, yes, we are entering in because we love the vision of what Mona is and what the drinks are, but we really love that you guys want to take over the world and have a massive food company that relies on this idea of food is medicine and it should taste as good as it is good for you.

I love that actually, because you're talking about the brand of jicama with an X, which is your brand being synonymous with the actual thought of jicama itself being a great healthy substitute. And when somebody's talking about going to get a jicama, they're actually going to talk about getting a healthy, delicious juice.

Jicama should no longer be an ingredient. It should be a brand and a lifestyle that we want to live.

I love that. Okay, so Mona, over to you. You're in a bar, your best friend is there and he or she are saying to you, I cannot believe what you've built. Jicama to me is.

And take what I just said if you want any part of it, because it's, well, better coming out of her mouth than mine.

All right, So I would say, you know, we did it. Jicama is positioned as the world's next superfood brand through a product that tastes incredible. We are part of a solution that is changing the dialogue around healthy living from the inside out and making it fun and approachable and really taking this idea that healthy living has to be hard. There is no more crash course, hardcore anything to it. It's really about taking a product looking at nature, what we can use naturally as a source of something that can help us heal and be happy from the inside.

Oh, that was really good, Craig. I don't want to say it was better.

You know, it's way better. We want, Mona really wants to democratize healthy living. You know, it's, it's the idea that not. It should not only be for wealthy people and it should not be a class product. It should be we are here to democratize healthy living and provide access to it for all everyone want.

I love that. And, and in today's day, with everything happening from GameStop to every other injustice across the board. There has never been a better time to do this. You guys are awesome. I am privileged, privileged, privileged to be part of your journey. I am lucky, lucky, lucky to have been able to invest into you. We're going to build an incredible company, and we'll be there for you all the way. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you.

You. Thank.

Thank you.

Thanks, Brian.