From Startup to Shark Tank: Jayla Siciliano’s 10-Year Beverage Journey

Hello everybody, uh, welcome to Drink Up Happy Hour. I guess it's happy hour here in Minnesota, but in California, I guess you're kind of right after lunch and a little, just try to stay awake. It is hump day, right, Jayla?

I've got tea.

Yeah, you got tea. That's one of my favorite things to go to. So Jayla Siciliano, did I pronounce your name correctly?

Siciliano.

Siciliano. Okay. All right. So a guy from the South trying to pronounce, but welcome to Drink Up. I had the dubious pleasure to be on your podcast, Seed Talent Podcast. Is that the right name? I think I was on there.

Seed Money.

Seed Money. See, I'm thinking talent, Seed Money, Seed Money.

All good.

Uh, so I've already, I've already butchered the start of this. So stick with me for 45 minutes, everybody. Jayla, don't run off on me. But before we get started, I just wanted to call a couple of our sponsors. We always do this. Uh, Jay Williams from Freebird. We all love Jay Williams. He gives me free product. So I'm one of the first people to actually talk about his brand, but Jay is blowing up. He's just gotten into Walmart as an example.

What is it? What's the beverage inside?

It's water. Water.

Cool.

I love the can. And it's called Freebird.

I love the can.

Yeah. And it's called Freebird. You know, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Freebird?

Yeah.

They did not have a trademark on the name Freebird.

No way. Oh my God.

Yeah, exactly. No way. And he's into NASCAR as well. But Hopefully Jay, you know, sometimes he'll join us in the thing, but I'm sure he's out trying to sell some water today and continue to expand his empire. And I know that you can appreciate that. Also, I'd like to call out my company, Bev Assets, my partner Alicia Vargo. Hopefully introduce you to her one day. And then Adam Smith, tardy again, Adam. Adam had missed one of the best podcasts of the year with Jayla, but Adam owns Alias Advising and he's an operations guy. So, If you're looking to get the product in the can, find a can, the label that goes on the can, talking to the formulators, the co-packers, you'd want to talk to someone like Adam Smith. And then finally, Rocks Advising with Ryan Hallermann. They're a group of folks that basically it's like a community of folks that have come together and have brands looking for co-packing, commercial strategy, money, that group tends to help. But with all that being said, all the advertisements are out of the way. We have Jayla, by the way, just real exciting. This is our second Shark Tanker that has been on the podcast. So we had Adam Kalanine from Bottle Keepers, which is, uh, he had made a product to let you know that basically it was like a bottle that you could take a bottle, not a can, but it basically kept it cold. And he developed that, him and his wife, and he developed several companies since then, but I think it was one of the top episodes on Shark Tank, but then we're not talking about him today. We're talking about you. And I had the pleasure to be on Seed Money with you. And, uh, we were just talking about the journey. I thought we'd just continue our conversation.

Sure.

Once you tell us a little bit about who you are, you know, and why you wanna be on Drink Up and the whole bit. But then I would like to get into the journey of a beverage founder, cuz I'm sure there's a lot of information that you could share with this group. Cuz one thing you told me was after 10 years, you decided to Yep. Right.

Happy to share that story because not enough people share it.

Yeah. So let's, let's, we'll get into that story, but a little bit about, okay, you know, who are you? How do people find you? You know, why Drink Up and talking to our community?

Yeah. Um, so I think first and foremost, I've always been a product person, you know, way, way back. I started my career in product development and then I had this brilliant idea to launch a beverage and I thought it'd be so easy after After being in product development and design for shoes and bags for 7 years, you know, one beverage, one SKU, that'd be super easy to do. And so I basically gave that a good 10-year run, and it was an absolute roller coaster. That's, you know, what landed me on Shark Tank. I went through the whole fundraising process in 2000, which was super fun. And then, you know, I totally— my idea of success has significantly shifted over the years. And You know, where I'm at today, I kind of overcorrected after that experience and I went back to corporate for a little while. And then I was like, what am I doing? I don't want to work for anyone else. And I realized, you know, I started that company with this goal of selling it for $100 million and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I don't even know why. I just thought that's what you were supposed to do. But today, you know, I'm a mom of a 9-year-old. I prioritize, like tonight I'm going to Outrigger. I'm training for a race, you know, which is basically like team sport canoeing out on the ocean in Santa Barbara. We just got back from Fiji. So my life priority at this point is really like travel, exercise, my family.

And your blood pressure's down because you told me your blood pressure was very high when you went to— we'll get into later, but that you had to make a decision for yourself, right? So now you're having fun, man. You're just living life, right?

Which is great. Yeah. Living life. You know, I'm still building. I went into a totally different industry, so I still have my own company and got into real estate investing. But yeah, I, I realized I was killing myself. What was I working those 16-hour days for killing myself? And so, yeah, I've had a big, a couple of big shifts and pivots. I've zigzagged, but it's all kind of landed me where I'm at.

You're working 16-hour days. Wait, you know, beverage brand, you don't have to work that hard. You just find a distributor, right? And, uh, it just magically happens. Or maybe if the distributor returned your message, I think I returned your message, but maybe I didn't.

Yeah, I think I did.

I still have that email too. I still have that DM, which is, I got to screenshot that. That's funny.

Yeah, that was like, uh, yeah, like 15 years ago, I think we said, right? That I reached out to you for distribution.

So. Yeah. And I didn't respond.

Yeah, no, I think you did. And I don't know what happened. I'd have to go back and look, but yeah.

Probably a typical distributor move. Hey, you know, Jayla, you know, we have a lot of stuff going on. This happened to a brand, by the way, just so you know. So I have a brand, I'll call 'em out, Mason Dixon. They did, they'll do 10,000 cases this year in Pennsylvania. And then I will not name the distributor. But the distributor sent a nice note. You know, we've been going back and forth, sent a nice note. Hey, look, it's not you. We're all full up now. I'm like, you're full up? So now, like, you only, like, what's the window to get into distribution? '07?

Oh my gosh. That's crazy. Yeah. Right.

Wow.

But just—

So what is, so, so, so where are your journey? So you Fiji, um, and I'm sorry to interrupt. So this is how we roll, by the way.

Yeah. Oh, all good. No, keep it going. Yeah.

Fiji, you got the 9-year-old, uh, you're in Rigger, something Rigger with, uh, you doing this stuff out in the ocean. But your, your day, what's your day job? Like what do you, what do you do now?

So my day job is we started investing in vacation rentals and I ended up building up a management portfolio, one on the East Coast, one on the West Coast. I sold the East Coast portfolio last year. So right now I'm still managing the properties we own as well as manage for other people. I've got it highly automated, so I probably spend about 15 hours a week on that, but it's pretty darn lucrative for the amount of time and effort and stress Doing that. And we're, you know, always looking at buying new properties. So I'm always just kind of scouting out. We're developing some land in Vermont, stuff like that. And then, but you know, all of that is great.

Call you and maybe get a kind of a deal on a vacation rental somewhere if I want to go set up shop and do the podcast in Vermont.

Yes. Or come out to Santa Barbara. Yeah, it'd be fun in the middle of winter.

I told you the story about Susan. I would drive from LA And we would drive up and we would get some wine and we'd sit on the coast. We'd go up the Pacific Coast Highway and we'd go up to Santa Barbara and then we'd do that. What is it? The, uh, the big parade that they did, uh, winter solstice or something?

Summer solstice. That is my favorite holiday here. It's the best parade ever. Yeah. It's coming up in June. Yeah. Super fun.

I'm inviting myself over. I'm inviting Susan. I'm going to come see you soon.

Yes, please. That'd be awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah. So all that is great, but—

So you're, you're, you're, you own property all over the US.

Yeah. But it's, the problem is I'm not really doing much to help people and I've always, and it's not really, you know, it's, it's kind of boring business, right? There's not that much excitement around it. Like I do enjoy the real estate side, but I always loved that startup environment, but I have no desire right now to start another startup startup. So, and I've always had people asking me for help on how to raise money after Shark Tank. I was mentoring for the Founders Institute years ago. And so I kind of was like, this is great, but I'm not doing much to give back. So that's what led me to start the Seed Money Podcast 2 years ago as a way to really help early-stage consumer product entrepreneurs. Because—

Yeah.

When I was raising money, I always felt like the outsider. I felt like everybody in tech had the secret sauce and understood how startup fundraising works. I didn't live in Silicon Valley. I didn't understand. I didn't have a big network. I didn't have wealthy friends and family. I felt like such an outsider, and so much of the content out there is from this VC perspective, and I wasted so much time pitching VCs, and so I felt this obligation to come out and bridge this gap for early-stage CPG brands and entrepreneurs who need funding to grow, but either aren't positioned for VC money, or they just don't know where to start. They don't have wealthy friends and family to get started. And so I just felt compelled to help and shed some light on the process.

I love that. Are you open for me to introduce you to some folks that kind of need that knowledge base?

For sure.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah.

Like I was talking to, uh, you know, my friend in New York and we represent his brand and I won't say his name out of respect, but he's like, I got 3 months worth of runway.

That's so stressful.

Right. And I'm sure you've been on that path and I'm like, hey man, I hear you. Um, uh, I want to help as best I can. We're actually looking at a company because we do like a commercial strategy. We'll do like route to market. But we know we're not, we're not the money people. We don't know that world. We can introduce them to people that know that world, but most people, they have limited runway. So maybe we can get into that too before we get into, I mean, I don't know where you want to take the conversation. I know where I want to go is because everybody I talk to is looking Yeah.

Whatever you want to cover, I'm happy to. Yeah. I think that's—

Okay. So, you know, Cindy comes out with a brand, you know, or Bobby has his brand, right? And they have this ambition and they're going to scale it and sell it to 3 to 5 years. And I think that brands, there's kind of 5 things that happen with the brand. There's the test it phase. There's foundation building. There's actually growth. And then the 4th stage is actually scale. And then the 5th stage, if you ever get there, is to actually sell it, right? And within there, there's about a 93 to 95% failure rate, but everybody needs money somewhere in there. And then the money probably looks different in each one of those stages, I'm assuming. Right. So I'm a brand and I just started. How do I, what's the, what's the first step to go get money?

Well, I think the first thing is there's no one-size-fits-all way to do it. Everybody's situation's different. Here, here's what I see. I'm going to say what I see people happen and what I, or what I see, you know, people do and what happened and what I did that was kind of a mistake and how I would have done that differently and what I tell people now. So I think you get this idea. Everybody has this, like, I need $2 million or I need $500,000, right? That's this like number. And they've scrambled together a pitch deck, right? Or pay somebody through the nose to do a pitch deck, which you don't need to do anymore.

They've done that with a brand called Vivintus. And we can get into that, by the way.

Yeah. Yeah. Lots to say on that. But I think people end up trying to raise money for like step 4 and 5 that you're talking about of those 5 steps. And really you want to start off, I think there are a few companies that scale really fast and really far. And if you get that momentum for whatever reason, who knows, maybe you get some like crazy marketing plug or celebrity endorsement that really gives you a huge boost, like, or something you couldn't have predicted necessarily. Right. But you don't want to plan on that and you don't want to try to raise money for that because everything—

I think that happened to Adam with Bottle Keepers. I think something happened where they got some immediate exposure. I believe him. I have to go back and I'll get you, I'll send you the podcast. But I think that happened. Like something happened and went viral. I think he posted something on Facebook and all of a sudden like, oh my God, like they have a thing and they were lucky a little bit, I guess. Right?

Yeah. And that's great. And I think what happens then, and I just spoke with a woman the other day who fell into this same thing. Then you start going, oh, the money's gonna start just coming in. We're gonna start spending like we're a lot bigger than we are. And so, so much of it is almost like raise some money, but spend and budget like you're bootstrapping. 'Cause that's how you can avoid being in that position of we only have 3 months runway left and we're, we're—

So cash, cash burns real. You need to get in to protect the cash.

Yeah. And it is so hard to do because distributors, people in marketing are telling you, you gotta spend, you gotta spend, you gotta spend, you gotta expand.

Yeah. Someone like me, I'm like, yeah, we have boots on the ground, but we're a retained agency. This is what it's gonna cost. So I'm like, it's less than it costs a dishwasher, but in most, a lot of cases, like it's too expensive for them. Yeah.

And so I think staying focused. So first of all, you know, I guess if you need some money, look within your own network first, but find out what is the exact amount you need to hit the milestone that's gonna make you more fundable and the milestone you're trying to hit. Is something that is going to be like repeatable traction. So not just getting on Whole Foods shelf, it's like, if I pick one retailer, what will it take to get sell-through consistently and then use that traction to go raise a bigger round? But I think people try to go too wide. I did it too, too wide, too fast, and spend too much out of the gate and you just end up like, you know, your options become so limited because you're too, you're under-resourced for what you're trying to do. So I think staying focused, raising money based on the next milestone that you need. And then once you do catch that momentum, then yeah, you can go out and try to push a bigger round. You know, if that's your goal.

Is there a playbook people can get from you in order to do that when they talk to you? Is there a playbook you discuss with your clients to say, these are the steps you need to go through? I mean, are you available to have those discussions with folks?

Yeah, I do. So I've, I've got like some freebie things on seedmoneypodcast.com, like a pre-fundraising checklist and stuff like that. And in May, I'm going to launch office hours where I can get on and just start answering, because it's really hard to give general advice because everybody's situation is so different, you know, and at a certain point you just need to know, like, here's where I'm at, here's my resources. I have a great network or no, I have no network. What? Help me talk through different options and strategies. So I'm going to open up office hours in May because I feel like I can do all this free content on the podcast, but it's like ultimately everyone's situation's a little bit different.

You know, I love that. You know, we, we consult and we'll do like, you know, a 30 to 90 day sprint and it's super inexpensive because you got us like on retainer. Like, I'm like, look, like, yeah, we have a scheduled like weekly meeting, but if you need to call me on Saturday, I'm going to pick up the phone because you're my client. I'm retained. And you, you got that either 30, 90 days or longer. And some people keep us on for a low retainer just cuz they need advice. They like need to be advised, hey, I'm going into this distributor, how do I handle this? You know, or I need distribution over here. So we do that work. So I think that's an excellent idea. When you, when you actually come out with it, if you could share it back with us would be great cuz we'd love to—

Definitely.

Share with our community. And there's certainly people that I was thinking about you, uh, today and I was thinking seed talent, I was seed money. But I, I think people don't know where to go. They're like, I'm trying to raise money, you know? And we've, we've tapped into certain people that, you know, that I think we've talked, talked, and they help. But I think we're going to people that are going to later stage.

Oh yeah.

Like our brand Viventus, we just need a half a million dollars. That's it.

Yeah.

And we're having a hard time finding it.

Yep.

You know, and there's a story, there's a backstory behind that. But the reality is, I think we all realize if we wanna do it, we gotta put our own money in. That's maybe the first round. I don't know if that's true or not.

Yeah, I mean, I did a whole episode on the importance of showing your own skin in the game. Like if you're not willing to put, you know, some decent risk towards what you're doing, it's really hard to expect other people to do that unless you're at that point where you've got like momentum. But, you know, that's a much farther, like you said, those are further down conversations. Typically, if you're looking for $500,000, under a million, you gotta have some skin in the game. And it, it takes just a lot of talking to the right people.

Yeah.

You know, which it takes research, like it's effort. It's not a quick, um, Yeah.

Someone's asked me, do you have a list of like family offices and all this stuff? And I'm like, I've certainly, I mean, you probably know Josh Wan and I mean, I have people that, you know, that the guy knows everybody. I mean, he would do that, but Josh will tell you, I don't come to a cap table for $300 million or less. I mean, he, he told me that. I'm like, yeah, it was like an eye-opening to me. I'm like, really? I'm like, you don't wanna make like a couple million dollars off this deal? This is a great deal. He's like, no. It's not worth this. You know, he was polite and he talked to us because he's my friend, but man, it's just, it's, it's difficult. So what are they? So, so people, you have the podcast, you're, you have this, you're this global person across the US, you know, but like, let's just get into beverages. If you don't mind, can we pivot a little bit?

Yeah.

Just like, like, what are the, so you founded a beverage. You contacted me 15 years ago. I, hopefully I responded. I think I did. I can see the DMs still, like I said, but like, what were the, what were the things, what were the steps that you took in order to launch this brand? All of a sudden you ended up on Shark Tank. Did Shark Tank, was that the defining moment that your brand, like all of a sudden the light opened up and, and, uh, and the rest is history? Walk us through your journey. You know, what, what happened?

Yeah. So I was always really active and healthy, but I also grew up loving to party and have fun. And I worked for Diesel Footwear and Burton Snowboards and there was no shortage of drinking.

You go to San Diego State too? Is that probably where you went to school?

No, UCSB Santa Barbara. Yeah.

So, okay.

Okay. Um, but yeah, it was heavy, heavy drinking environments that I worked in and I was teaching like kickboxing at 6:00 AM.

And partying, partying at 7 PM then, or at the happy hour.

Yeah, basically like, you know, sleeping 2 hours and going to teach kickboxing. Really, you know, can't, can't pull that off at this age. That's for sure. Barely pulled it off then. But, you know, I think the non-alcohol thing, I mean, there was a lot of pressure to drink then. There was no like, I'm not drinking tonight. That was not a thing, or at least Maybe I wasn't strong enough to say that, but it wasn't a trend like it is now. And all you had were like the wine coolers of the '80s and then regular wine and alcohol and beer. And I wasn't a beer drinker because I just got like too full. So I started making wine spritzers, like soda water in my white wine, and I could sip on that. I spent a lot of time wakeboarding. I could hang out. And then my guy friends were asking me for a wine spritzer and I was like, why is there nothing on the market? So this was back in 2004 to '07. And so I saw this gap in the market. Skinny Girl Margarita had just sold and I was like, I'm going to create this product. This is so needed on the market, you know, and I want this for myself. So I quit my job and then I realized, I was like, oh my God, what did I do? And all my friends and family. So yeah, so I, you know, I quit the dream job and I had no idea where to start. I had no connections in beverage. I had no clue how distributors worked. I had no idea. I realized I kind of bit off more than I could chew, but this like sheer determination was behind me. I had told my friends and family I was going to do this and I was so determined to do it. So over the course of probably 2 years, I was like writing a business plan and talking to bottlers and distributors and just trying to talk to people, pick up the phone. And then I realized, uh, wow, I have blown through all my savings. I've cashed in my 401. I've run up credit cards. Like, what am I doing? You know, this is, this is not sustainable. I went back to bartending at night. I was like consulting. I was just doing whatever I could to make ends meet.

So you blew up your entire career in your universe doing this dream.

Totally blew it up. Yeah. Quit the job way too early, but just thought, I thought I'd have it off the ground in like a, you know, 6 months to a year, just totally naive what it actually took. And also, you know, with alcohol. It is easier now, I will say. Then you had, I had to have licensing in all 50, you know, in any state I was going into, even to ship direct. Half the bottlers, they have, you have to have a license to do sparkling. You know, you have a, have to have a license to do below 6% or 6.5% that falls under FDA guidelines, not, you know, so it was figuring out, it was, hadn't been created yet. It was really a new category. So fast forward and I'm like, oh my God, I need to raise money, I guess. Okay. I, I'm going to figure this out. And I ended up going back to school for my MBA because I was like, I don't have—

So you're broke, you have no 401k, you've launched this brand. Now you're going to go spend more money to go get your MBA.

Yeah. Let me go take out loans.

How much pain do you want in your life? But okay.

I know. Yeah, seriously, we are so ridiculous, the things we do. So I was like, I need, I don't have a wealthy friends and family network. You know, I grew up middle class, comfortable, but I wasn't going to go ask my parents for a bunch of money. And You know, my friends and you know extended family. So I was determined through the MBA program to go to every networking event possible and just meet people. And I ended up in a pitch competition. And you know, I ended up it was like $125,000-$150,000 to figure out how to raise money, which is ridiculous. Nobody should spend that. You know, so all that to say, I finally after 18 months of pitching investors, I mean hundreds of. The things that I had men say to me, like, well, I would invest, but if you get pregnant, you know, I'm gonna lose my investment. Oh, you wouldn't believe the things people say. And, you know, those things like creep into your subconscious too. Like later I thought, I can't have kids. I have to put everything into my company. You know, it's crazy. The, the investor feedback creeps in cuz you put them up on this pedestal. So 18 months later, I found my lead investor, amazing woman. She was the former CEO of Wendy's and other beverage companies. And she agreed to be my lead investor and put in $100,000. I think it was $100,000 if I could round out the full $500,000. So I was like, okay, I got my lead investor, I've got my terms. We were doing convertible notes, and I went out and found the rest of it. And, you know, finally closed that $500,000. It was off to the races. We were ready. The only bottler that would take me at the time was in Michigan. Nobody in California would take us on. So I flew to Michigan.

You mentioned bottlers. So explain that. Is this like you're talking about the Coca-Cola network or are you thinking like a co-packer?

Co-packer. Yeah.

Co-packer.

Okay, got it.

Yeah. So I worked for Coca-Cola, so we'd always refer to the— we didn't refer to them as distributors, we referred to them as bottlers because we would ship them the syrup and then they would bottle it. So all intents and purposes, they're co-packagers.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, we would ship all the ingredients there and they were bottling it. So, so anyway, I, um, we ran our first production run and the first bottles, you know, start coming off the line, had tomato floating in them. They didn't fully clean the lines. I was like, oh my God. So we lost a bunch there. Finally got that cleaned up.

Did they charge you for that, by the way?

Not for the bottling, but I lost all the raw materials. You know, it was a, it was a lot of raw material. So got that cleaned up and I can't remember how many cases we ran, but it was a lot. They shipped them back to our warehouse in California and we start shipping to customers and the boxes are showing up soaking wet. The caps are leaking. And I lost $100,000 worth of inventory, which less than there, but they, their minimums, they were the—

Your 401. You got your MBA.

Yeah.

You know, you, you lost $100,000 worth of inventory and you kept going.

Kept going. Well, I had to, I mean, you know, you don't have a choice at that point. Or I didn't feel like I did. So that bottler ended up going out of business 6 months later. I didn't know they were in a downward spiral. They had a lot of issues, you know, going on. So I went back to the bottlers in California. Now that I had a fancy website and a customer, you know, lined up, I found a bottler in Northern California that was willing to take us on. And then I, I had an advisor who was like, you need to go on Shark Tank. And I'm like, I don't wanna go on that show. Yeah, all good. Through all of this, I will say the one thing I did is I was totally honest with my investors. I kept them updated every month. I did board meetings. Like, I didn't hide any of this. I was fully transparent with the issues, and they ended up reinvesting. And so I think it's an important lesson to, to be transparent and keep your investors updated. You know, a lot of entrepreneurs don't do that. They problems and they just hide to some degree. So don't do that. So anyway, long story short, I ended up on Shark Tank, got a deal with Mark Cuban, but I, this was like my Hail Mary, you know, 'cause I was on the verge.

So you, you go on the Shark Tank.

Yeah. So Shark Tank was really kind of the Hail Mary, um, because at this point we had spent so much money on legal to get licensing for alcohol inventory. So we were You know, running out of money, but I had gotten into Whole Foods after getting rejected 3 times. I finally got Whole Foods to give us, you know, a test, a local test market.

Was this before Shark Tank or after Shark Tank?

Uh, this was before Shark Tank, right before I was like, had just, when I, when my episode was recorded, we had just shipped in like our first, well, I say shipped, hand delivered our first cases to our local Whole Foods.

Wow.

And so I went on the show and you know how the show works. Like you can't ask for that much money if your valuation's in the toilet. Right. And so I was pretty honest on the show and I practiced like crazy to prep for the show. And I mean, I was in a really bad spot, so it was either that or we were basically going to have to close the doors. So I was only asking for $150,000, which in the beverage space is like nothing. At this point I had raised, I think it was like total $750,000 was in the company. And Mark Cuban's like, my wife would love it. I'll invest. So he invested and he was way more involved than I thought. And after years of, you know, trying to get distributors and trying to get retailers, Shark Tank airs and all of a sudden everyone's coming to you and wants to carry the product. And we ended up going, you know, too far, too fast for the money we had. I was killing myself because I have to like prove, you know, Mark Cuban's like watching, you are Really trying.

I mean, he had a thing with Mark Cuban then. Would he call you and say, hey man, what's going on?

Yeah. He was really involved.

Yeah.

I thought I would never talk to him, but he was actually involved and I would talk to him, email with him and he would help and open doors. Oh, but that he wouldn't do further equity investments. So he was financing inventory runs. We were paying it back and we had a good few years, but it just, we needed more money. We were trying to, we did an aluminum bottle trying to go into Vegas. But there was no shelf space for this on the, at the grocery store. So we were mixed in with all the wine. Now there's a whole non-alcohol, you know, low alcohol section that people go to, but I was trying to educate the consumer from the main wine section with, you know, 200 wine labels. How do I get them to know what my product is all about?

So you were too early.

Way too early. Yeah. I think I was, 5 to 7 years too early. So the year that I decided to close it up, and it, it was the most, it was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made in my life. You know, it's not easy. And luckily my main investor, she just made it so simple. She's like, you're under-resourced. It's not for lack of hard work.

Yeah.

The category isn't proven and you don't have the resources to educate an industry, an entire customer group. It's very expensive to do that.

Right.

So that year that I closed it up, White Claw launched.

Okay.

And that was really the first one that came out. And they, they really established that category of a like trendier, cool, lighter alcohol option, you know?

Yeah.

Different option from the wine cooler. So had I waited a few more years, might've been a different outcome, but is what it is. You can't always control market timing. There's things that are outside of our control.

Things happen for a reason too. I mean, you know, it's funny, White Claw. So I was with a distributor, Breakthrough, when they launched it. We represented Mark Anthony at the time. And I remember they asked for like our forecast for the year. We said something like, yeah, 10,000 cases. I think the first year we ended up doing like 100,000 just in Minneapolis, by the way.

Oh my God, no way.

And I think they do over a million cases a year. I think it's gone down a little bit because of all the different entrances and the whole bit. We're at a point where we're doing a million cases a year just in Minneapolis, not the whole state of Minnesota.

Minneapolis. Oh my God. Yeah. So when I was meeting with distributors—

By the way, what's that?

When I was meeting with buyers and retailers and distributors, they would be like, nobody wants less alcohol. Then everybody was like chugging Jäger and Fireball and, you know, all these things. And they're like, nobody wants less alcohol.

That's so— now everybody does. That's like the whole market.

Everybody does.

Yeah. It's like, I mean, I mean, you know, it's like, it's like you think it's like every time you open the headlines up, it's like Armageddon for the liquor business.

Yeah. Now I know I can't get over now, like the no alcohol. I was having a hard time selling 6.5% and now it's like the no alcohol trend is huge.

Oh, that's amazing.

Um, so yeah, it was, it was pushing a boulder uphill for a long time and a lot of hard lessons learned, a lot of fun too, but, um, At a certain point, you know, my health was taking a toll. My relationships were taking a toll. And as you know, my bank account was not, you know, seeing anything.

I've been doing the math in my head. I mean, that's just, uh, it's, it's amazing that you were able to pivot though. And so when you, when you hung up the cleats, so to speak, what was the first pivot? Was it right into the property business or you had a hospitality business, didn't you? Or something like that? Or Is that you?

Well, so I was, I decided at that point, okay, we've put off having a family. And because of, you know, I didn't think I could do both, which was ridiculous.

Yeah.

So I had my son, I took a year off to just like decompress. I sold through our inventory. I wound everything down, which is an extremely painful process, like go through all the stages of grief. You know, it is not fun. It's a lot of soul searching. A lot of yoga. Like, I don't even know what I'm good at anymore. Like what I, I don't even know what the heck can I do?

Yeah.

And so I was like, I just need to get a paycheck for a while. So I went back to a corporate job. I took a job with a winery for like 6 months.

Okay.

And then they went under. There's like so many wineries go under. So then I took a job as, um, VP of sales and marketing with a music company here in Santa Barbara. And the CEO there was this amazing woman. The founder was very challenging, but the CEO that I reported She was amazing and she really gave me my confidence back. And I really realized how much I learned through that process and how resourceful I was and like all the out of what a great out-of-the-box thinker. And, you know, I could multitask like you wouldn't believe. And then I realized like, I don't want to work for someone else. I'm totally capable of running a business.

Yeah.

I overcorrected going back to corporate and, you know, once I got out of the baby fog a little bit more, I was ready to like take on a new challenge. And that's when I started the hospitality business and started Started investing in short-term rentals.

That's amazing. You know, it's funny. I think my partner, Alicia Vargo, and I told her the other day, I might cry by the way, but you know, I lost my job about 4 years ago, it'll be 4 years. And I didn't become an entrepreneur because I wanted to. I became an entrepreneur because I had to. Right. So I have ultimate respect for you and others that just dive in and do it. I'm pretty much risk-averse. Like I wanted the paycheck on the 15th and the 30th. Man, I've been doing this thing for going on 4 years and it's the most amazing thing, but it's not easy. Mm-hmm. You know, and, but my, what my partner did, much like your CEO did of the company, she lifted me up and she helped me believe in myself and like my self-worth. And I'm like, I can do this. I have a, I have, I have almost 40 years experience to share with people. So I just very much appreciate that.

Yeah.

All right. So with the remaining time, we ask the most important question. And then we'll ask anything that we didn't cover that you want to cover off with us. But can I ask you a question?

Sure.

It's the most important question.

Okay. I'm ready.

What is the difference between success and failure?

Ooh, the difference between success and failure. I don't think you get one without the other. I think you learn better lessons from failure. I mean, you learn, they might be harder, but they're life-changing lessons that shift your whole, like, person, everything that you are. Successes are fun and they should be celebrated, but the failures are where you're, you know, that's where you grow. And you, without those, I don't know. I think you, you don't become as of a full person as you potentially could be. You have to have the failures to be challenged through those situations. So I don't know. That's my answer.

No, I love that. As a follow-up to that, You obviously shared your journey with us this afternoon, which very much respect it. You know, a lot of people aren't as open about that. I'm very open and appreciate your openness because it's not always rosy, right? So with these, these failures you had along the way and obviously great successes, what keeps you going?

Ooh, that's a good question. I mean, I love helping people. That's like really, like, I love doing the podcast. I met with 2 founders yesterday who are going through like some really severe challenges and they reached out and, you know, Just being able to share like my experience and what got me through those things makes it all feel like life is worth it. So that keeps me going. And I think obviously my family and my son, you know, I just, it's so fun being a mom. He's my best creation, I always say. But yeah, I think it's, it's just, I, I love creating. I love being challenged and I love, like, I'm such a a lifelong learner. And for me to keep learning, I have to keep being challenged and trying new things. So I have no doubt, like in 10 years, I could be doing something completely different 5 years from now. And I also love the uncertainty of, I have no idea what I might be doing again in the future.

Who knows?

You know? So that's what keeps me going. It's just like the fun challenges and growth and learning. It just, it keeps life interesting.

You're a light of brightness that I think you bring to the world. And, uh, for the, the trials and tribulations that you've gone through. You, you launched a brand, you're $100,000 in the hole before you even began, you know?

Yeah.

And then you go, then, you know, after you, you kind of fast forward, you get your MBA, another $100,000 probably that you put into it. Then you go work for this winery and you're, you're, you cashed in, you know, and then you decide after 10 years of this struggle that you close down the brand. And, uh, now you're here and you've built a very successful business and you're bringing knowledge to the world. And that's very much appreciated on my part. And hopefully people that find, you know, this podcast can find you. What didn't we discuss today that, you know, first of all, like, how do people like find you? I guess that would be a question. Like, if they want to find you, what's the best way to find you?

LinkedIn is probably where I'm most active these days. So connect with me on LinkedIn. Okay. Send me a message. The Seed Money Podcast, if you search that on YouTube or any, you know, podcast platform, I've got tons of great interviews and tons of strategies. You know, I really try to listen to what challenges people have. And if you have a question, I just started doing this, you know, I'll, I'll cover, do an episode covering that topic and background on it. And I just love studying this stuff. So I stay pretty in the loop on kind of what's going on in the world around fundraising. But yeah, LinkedIn is probably where I'm most active.

Okay. And then, uh, how to, like, what didn't we, like, anything you want to leave with the audience today that, that we didn't discuss that you would want to maybe convey to everybody?

Yeah, I think that, you know, starting a company is hard. Um, and the thing I've learned is like, if you can master like holding onto this vision while also remaining a little bit detached from it, Is such a powerful place to be because you can't always control the outcome of something, you know, and but you have to hold that vision in order to keep going. You can't you can't do what we do without having this like vision, and if your vision is to be a billionaire and you know whatever, that's fine too. That's not my vision, like but that is fine. So whatever, if your vision is just to like have a lifestyle brand and make half a million a year, that's okay too. Like it's so easy to get caught in. Everyone else is doing this. I should be doing that. That should be my goal. But really, like dig deep and figure out what like your personal, what you want your life to look like, and then hold that vision. But like at the same time, be detached because it might not be this venture that gets you there. It might be the next one. But if you just stay focused on like that entrepreneurship path, like it'll all work out some way, shape, or form. And I say that because I never would have imagined that I'd be doing what I'm doing now. But I'm so like happy where I landed. So it's just interesting how life works out.

I love that. I always use the word destination. You got to know where you're going in order to get there. And then you got to have a map and that map might change along the way. Like you kind of said, it's like, I don't, you know, it's funny. I get up every day and I don't want to sound like I'm Forrest Gump, but it is like a box of chocolates. You don't know what you're going to get today. I mean, at noon I could be being fired by a client and at 2 o'clock I've signed up 3 clients. It's like, you know, there's highs, lows, and lows every day.

Yeah. What's that? Entrepreneurship, highest of highs and lowest of lows every day.

Yeah, it's, uh, it's true, but you gotta, you gotta jump in. It's funny. Uh, I don't know if you've met Josh. I think I mentioned Josh Wan. I always call him out occasionally, but I remember when I started this journey, the first person I called was Josh Wan. I mean, I knew he was an entrepreneur, founded Forest Brands. He developed, you know, beverage brands. Now, and now he's like, does this Founderland. Are you familiar with Founderland?

No.

You should go participate in Founderland. Just Google it. And I'm happy to connect you up with Josh, but they're selling tickets right now. It happens like in October down in like Los Angeles.

Cool.

And they bring all these people that you want to go talk to. They're there.

Fun. Yeah. I'll check it out. Yeah.

So you should just reach out. I'll make an introduction to Josh, but you should reach out. I don't even, I lost my train of thought, but You know, it's, you know, but he told me, he said, this is what it is. He goes, you gotta be willing to play in the mud.

Yeah. Oh, that's, yeah, great point.

I'm like, okay, I'm, I'm, I'm ready. I'm mud ready. And there's no safety net. I mean, it's like, you know, there, there isn't because you don't know if you're, there's like a $100,000 deal that closes or whatever, but I'm learning a lot. And this was, this was so awesome. I'd ask you to remain on the line with me. You probably know how this works. We gotta make sure everything downloads. And I wanna thank everybody that joined us today. This will be a podcast in the near future. I'll probably move this one up in the line because I just love it. And I'm going to do like you do. I'm going to do a little newsletter or whatever, and I'm going to use your person to help me go do this. But this was great. Uh, you can find Jayla at the Seed Money Podcast. You can find her on LinkedIn as well. Reach out to me if you have been struggling to find her. We very much appreciate your participation with us on Drink Up. It was fun. Thanks for joining us on Hump Day.

Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for having me and thanks for doing what you do. I think you, your service can help a lot of people avoid a lot of mistakes that they could be making on their own. It's, it's tough. So having good people around you who know the industry is important.

Yeah, I appreciate that. We were, you know, I tell a lot of founders, I'm like, you're not ready for us yet. And they go, what do you mean? I said, you know what? The best thing you can do is go in the market like this. I'll just tell you a story quick. It was India. Yeah. And India founded a whiskey brand. I said, India, the best thing you can do is move to Houston and you actually build your brand yourself the first year. Go find 100 accounts. And then after you get 100 accounts, when you're ready to actually in a growth phase, that's when you should hire me in the growth phase.

Yeah. That makes sense. Yep.

Yeah.

Love it.

Well, thank you. Happy Wednesday.

Thank you.

Bye-bye. And that is