Welcome to our live show!

Uh, Dan, welcome to, uh, Drink Up Live. Really appreciate it. Uh, before we get started, just a couple callouts to some of our sponsors. First, I want to call Alicia Vargo of Bev Assets. Thanks for sponsoring, uh, Drink Up, uh, Live podcast. Really appreciate it, Alicia, and also appreciate you joining us, uh, every week in the, uh, comments. So, uh, thank you. And then also Adam Smith from Alias Advising. Adam can't be here today, our co-host. He's celebrating his mom's birthday, so I think that's a good reason not to be here. So Dan, sorry about that, that he's not joining. And then from Rocks Advising, Ryan Hellman. Ryan, thank you for joining us. And as always, you've probably heard of this guy, Dan, but Jay Bird, Jay Williams with Free Bird. Uh, he sponsors our show as well. He's been blowing up out there with NASCAR, continues to expand and, uh, taking the world on fire with, uh, his, uh, water. So thank you always, uh, uh, uh, Jay. But, uh, Dan, uh, welcome to, uh, uh, to Drink Up. We're really excited to, um, have you today. As you know, this is live, raw, and real. Uh, oftentimes people will show up in the chat, sometimes they don't. Just depends. We, we run on Saturdays, so people have lives. And maybe they will be here, maybe they won't, but thank you for joining us. So it's funny, I was reading your, your little caption and you're a snackologist. What is a snackologist?

So it's a word I coined, I think at least, because I hadn't seen anyone else with that title. But there's a geologist, anthropologist, and I'm a snack food scientist. So why not Snackologist?

I love it. And then, so you're a certified food scientist as well, which the name Snackologist, what is a food scientist? I kind of know, my daughter actually studied food science at South Dakota State University, just to let you know. But maybe for everybody joining us, what does a food scientist do?

So food scientists is a very broad range of roles within the food industry. Food science itself is an interdisciplinary study that ranges from food chemistry to food processing, food microbiology, manufacturing, food safety, regulatory, and it is a very intense study I went to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and I had a concentration in health and wellness.

Oh wow, okay.

Yeah, that's always been my main passion. So what does a food scientist do after you take all those science classes and you decide you want to stick with it?

The hardest class, by the way, was Chem— Chemistry 101, wasn't it? No.

Yeah, or chemistry— chemistry 2 was harder. I actually— organic chemistry, uh, was easier for me than chemistry 2.

My daughter almost dropped out because she struggled with the first chemistry class, and she got with a friend that was becoming a doctor, became a doctor, and he got her to say— something clicked in, and all of a sudden all the chemistry, other chemistry classes after that got better. But all right, I interrupted you, sorry.

Yeah, no, I mean, chemistry is like math on steroids, and I think what your daughter did was really smart because you gotta find some way that that stuff relates to you, something that it ticks. Because if you can't find something that you like about it, it's just gonna seem really abstract with the regions and the compounds. So it's, it's really, uh, it's not easy to stomach, pun intended. But as, as you proceed through food So, in the food science program, I think what the most important thing is to find one of those classes that you like, because the class out of the program you like the most is what you're going to end up doing as a food scientist, to answer your question. So for me, the class that I took that actually got me to transfer into the program was a food product development seminar.

Okay.

I was lucky enough to have it taught to me by the department head at the time, who also used to be part of the FDA. So he brought a lot of insight about the industry, was really passionate about the industry. That's why I actually signed into the program, and I knew when I took that seminar that this is what I wanted to do in food science, product development. So that's what I'm— that's what I've been doing for the last 20 years. A lot of other food scientists will do regulatory and work in the FDA. You can work in regulatory in the private sector. Work at a CPG company, consumer products goods. You can work as a nutritionist. There's a lot of nutritionists study food sciences. So a lot of programs are food science nutrition kind of combo. You can work as a private practice nutritionist, or you can work as a nutritionist for a food brand, helping with the labels or nutritional strategy, which is really popular at big companies. trying to work with marketing to figure out what should the nutritional hierarchy callouts be for this brand. So the nutritionist angle on a private sector is really interesting. And that's just a couple of the jobs that someone can do as a food scientist, but it's actually pretty broad.

That's awesome. You know, it's funny because my daughter, uh, so South Dakota State's known for dairy sciences And when she came out, she ended up working for Ecolab, you know, like working in big like cleaning facilities or whatever. Then her friend Kara ended up like running a plant or whatever. But Kirsten now is in pharmaceuticals, or she's like, uh, she's sold like medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, you know, hence the, um, being, I guess, a STEM major, all intents and purposes, you know, with all the sciences behind her.

Mm-hmm.

So it's, it seems like there's broad things that you can do.

Yep.

Being a food scientist. So you're, you're a bit of a diverse person, I believe. I was asking you before we went live in the 1 minute, by the way, we didn't do our 15 minutes, so we're doing it now. But I was like, okay, you have this viable tea, but you're working for another company too. So maybe tell us a little bit about your journey, kind of where you're at, you know, where does he want to go and what you're doing in order to get there? But kind of tell us kind of what are you doing now?

Yeah, so, um, I've been working as a food scientist for 20 years, as I mentioned, and I've worked for maybe a dozen companies along the way. And I've also worked as a consultant where I've worked on another, I think, 10 to 15 brands. So I've probably worked on over 30, 30 plus, maybe 40 brands. Um, over the years. When I had my last corporate gig, I was at Mondelēz International in 2019. I worked there for 4 years. I was in the innovation group, which is a lot of fun. Got to work on some new Oreo commercializations. There's one of them right there.

Uh, what flavor is that?

Salted caramel brownie.

Oh yeah, man. Does that still— does that still exist?

That was, um, A limited time offering, LTO, as they call it. It was the first Oreo in 100 years to have a topical application. So we sprinkled salt on top. Sounds simple, but it was actually a very complicated process. A lot of verification, validation, commissioning, all that fun stuff.

I'm surprised you haven't eaten that yet. You're just— you're gonna keep it, huh?

That's an extra one. Yeah, I don't know if there's anyone— any left in that one. Yeah, that's just for my, uh, my showcase. So when I, I left in, uh, 2020 to start my own venture, um, is Vible Energy Team.

I think you're sending me— I got something from FedEx. You're sending me some Vible, I think. I believe it's on the way. I wish I could have had it so I could have enjoyed my Vible because you're our next sponsor, by the way. You didn't know that, but hey.

I didn't know that. Yeah, I sent some to you so you can enjoy some. Yep.

Thank you.

So basically, I started this in 2020, and I started consulting at the same time. So I started up my consulting shop, Apple and Orchard Labs, where I help people bring their dream products from apple to orchard.

Oh, I love it, man. Well, you and I have a lot to talk about. We'll probably stay on the line a little bit because we, we were commercial guys, right? So you're the person that brings it up orchards, but If you need someone like us, when rubber meets the road, you need distribution, you need customers. That's what Alicia and I do. And we love partners like you, by the way. That's awesome.

Cool.

So you tell them everything, every step of the way. So you've gone through the journey, right? You know what it takes to get that item moving.

Yeah, I've gone through the journey many, many, many times. So I help people on whatever stage of the process that they're in. In terms of if it's concept ideation phase, making sure that there's a good product market fit.

Yeah.

Or prototyping, working on production, scale-up, testing. And my goal is really to have, at the end of the day, a playbook where here's Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, which one do you want to go with? And then they're ready to go. Or if they're actually ready to manufacture, have pallets of their dream product in the warehouse ready for them, waiting to go and hit the market. That's ideally, you know, the full orchard, as you call it. So I've been—

You've been going with Viable since 2020?

Yeah.

Oh, wow. So how, how, how are things going? So Walk us through your journey. You didn't just arrive on the shelf and start selling thousands of cases, I'm assuming. It's been, it's been quite the journey. I'd be really interested to hear a little bit about it if you don't mind sharing.

No, yeah, it's definitely been a really dynamic and challenging journey and been learning a lot along the way.

Yeah. So did you, when you, when you made your, your teas, I'm assuming you Bible tees. Where did you start? Like, did you start in a state, uh, uh, a city? Like, where, where did it— where, where did it all begin?

New Jersey. Uh, we're mostly focused in the New Jersey area still.

Okay. And, uh, and how do you— what's your mode of distribution? Do you self-distribute? Do you go direct, or do you have distributors to sell your product?

So when I first started, I was doing all the self-distribution. I think I had a Camry at the time and, uh, just out the back of my car. So I was going up and down the street, dropping off samples, meeting with store owners, and just trying to get on shelf, giving out free samples, free cases, whatever I had to do, and then delivering it out of my car. And I was doing that maybe for about A couple years, maybe 2, 3 years.

Wow.

Experimented with a couple different distributors. Most of them didn't work out. Getting a good distribution partner is probably one of the hardest things to do. Uh, you get told the world, we're gonna help you, we're gonna hold your hand, we're gonna, you know, really push this stuff for you, but One of the things I've learned the most about running a business and entrepreneurship is it's all up to you. You have to be totally accountable. And at the end of the day, you have to have the sales lined up, or you have to have someone internally to sell it for you. And the distributor will, will sell it. But some of the early distributors I was working with, it ended up, you know, not being a priority for them. Or I end up having products that get lost in a warehouse. Literally, one warehouse that I was working with, I was saving orders for them to deliver. And this was me when I was going to the city, which this is before congestion pricing. But I'm in I'm in Hoboken, New Jersey. I was driving to the city, meeting with all these guys, paying tolls. Getting tickets and then dropping off samples. And those guys are aggressive. So I'm like dropping off, you know, you got to do a couple cases for free, you know.

Yeah.

Then do demos to move the product. More tolls, more tickets. It's a lot of work, right? And you got to really convince them that your product is going to be the next thing, right?

Yeah.

I had a whole series of orders lined up. that I was waiting for. I was like, all right, now I'm ready to hand this off, right? Yeah, I had a couple facings, a couple bottles left over. I was like, okay, these guys are going to take over because they wouldn't start doing distribution until I had, say, 10 orders at least, you know?

Yeah, you had to, you had to have some demand proven, right? Proven demand, proof of concept. So you, now you're going to hand your baby, all the work of paying the tolls and the tickets and, and giving the free goods out to get the distribution, like, okay, distributor, I've done the work, now take me. And that's what you're saying, right? I mean, my God. Yep.

And I sent them a spreadsheet. Here's the stores, here's exactly which flavors they need, here's when they can take it, here's the contact address, phone number. And then they just ghosted me. So I had to like—

The distributor ghosted you? You got— they took you, but they didn't do any— they didn't do the follow-up?

Yeah. And they had, uh, the brunt of my product. I basically— I gave them We basically had, you know, uh, but I had still some, but I didn't want to do the orders because then, uh, because they had access to hundreds of stores. So I didn't want—

Right, you couldn't scale it, right? You're, you're one person paying tolls and tickets. You're getting— there's only so many places you can go, right?

So they basically, um, I kept telling the guys, don't worry, it's coming, it's coming. And then Um, I called the warehouse and they— someone picked up eventually and they said, oh yeah, that distribution company is not— they're not here no more.

They went out of business and didn't even tell you they're going out of business?

So I found out after talking to enough people at the warehouse, oh, they moved locations. And someone told me the new address. Yeah, called the new address. No one picked up. I drove there myself and I was like, guys, what the heck is going on here? Where's my stuff? How come they're doing deliveries?

Was this pallets and stuff that you gave them, by the way?

Pallets. So I went there, I went there with a truck because I was on a mission. I'm taking my stuff back. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, so, uh, most of it was, uh, damaged, like destroyed or broken. It was— I had glass bottles at the time. It was a mess. Um, so I had to go through, salvage it, cleaned everything, and then, uh, re-palletized it, put it on my truck, and I, I hightailed it out of there.

My God.

Yeah, that was an early on lesson.

So, so you're— so you did all this work, you paid, you got the tickets, you paid the tolls. You built the demand, you got a distributor, life is going to get easy. That distributor goes out of business. So then what happened next?

Well, I don't know. They just moved warehouses and they just didn't tell me, and they just didn't take any— couldn't do any orders, and they were just very disorganized.

So yeah, so you picked your stuff up. Where'd you go?

Well, I went back to square one. I started doing the— I went to all the stores and said, guys, here's your— here's your— I cleaned up all the product because it was like broken and there's like stuff spilled on it.

Yeah.

So I had to go through it and, um, re-sanitize all the outside of the bottles and then get new boxes, put them in new boxes, put new labels on the boxes, tape the boxes, re-palletize them. It was a lot of work, but whatever. And then I went back to the stores and I just started doing the deliveries. Some of them said, we couldn't hold your space anymore, sorry kid. And, uh, it was gone, probably maybe half or most of them. And then just started going back up and down the street trying to, trying to get some more accounts. So that was an early on lesson.

So this is going into year 3, I'm assuming that you had to kind of reinvent yourself after spending 2 years building it and then your year 3. So what happened from there? So you, you built demand again. Are you with a distributor now or are you still selling?

With a distributor now. Yeah. Right now we have about 3 distributors, 4 distributors, Including online distributors.

Okay.

So what I ended up doing was trying to do the New York stores myself, but New York is such a tough animal.

Yeah.

That I ended up not selling to the New York stores anymore. I did, I did myself self-distributing to about 15, maybe almost 20 stores at one point, but it was just a lot of back and forth in terms of tolls, tickets, demos. It's, it's a lot of work, you know?

Yeah.

And those guys get lots of free fills. I remember— okay, I'll tell you this one more story. I was going to— the, the time that I decided not to sell to New York City anymore for now was I was going to another store. It's like, all right, I got the hang of this. I can do this myself for now. Let me build this up a little bit more and find another distributor to take this over. and I go to one of these stores and I offer them a free fill, right? And what I was doing was like a mixed case. So you get 4, 3 flavors, 4 of each, and then I'll give them 2 of those cases. So they'd have like 8 facings total of each flavor, which fill a row. And I only ended up having to give 2 cases. I thought it was a pretty good compromise.

Yeah.

Instead of giving, you know, one full case of 4 flavors, Yeah, I cut my losses in half.

So are these like independent grocers you were going to?

Independent grocers. So I was working for most accounts. They go to this one store, I think it was Hudson, one of the Hudson Markets, and, uh, the grocery manager at the time was like, look, look, kid, I don't have, I don't have room for free fills. And I really wanted that account. A beautiful store, uh, popular, good location, very clean. And I was like, well, just hold on to this, and then once something opens up, you can fill it up. He's like, no, I don't have room. And I was like, just take the cases, what's the problem? He's like, no, kid, come here. And he brought me to this, uh, the side room, right? And there was a door that went down to like the next level.

Yeah.

And he opened it up, and from floor to ceiling, as far as I could see, there were just cases. It was just random looking. It wasn't organized. It was just like, not disorganized completely, but it was just like different products like lined up.

People just gave them and said the same thing, hey, just take it when the shelf opens up. Take me.

Yeah. And he looks me in the eye. He's like, no, kid, I don't got room for free fills. And he just points. Yeah. And it was just like, boom. And I was like, wow.

So how'd you overcome that objection?

Got it. I said, you know what? I get it. Forget it. I'll come back some other time. And yeah, he's like, best of luck, kid, you know.

Yeah.

And that was the moment I said, you know what, New York City is too competitive for me right now. I gotta, I gotta take a step back. So I, I kind of dialed back from the stores that I was doing because I knew that was going to be a common theme. And, you know, a lot of people come in Bigger companies or, you know, I heard like, I mean, I do a lot of liquor and functional stuff with our reps. Yeah.

And I was on with a client. Dog Petal Whiskey is one of my clients and they're going store by store. And Josh is an attorney and he's starting this journey. And we have our rep, Sam Abel, and they were talking like, well, how does New York work? He goes, man, you just got to show up and you got to badger them. You just got to keep on showing up and keep on asking. There's hundreds of people showing up in the stores. Like in Manhattan and SoHo and Brooklyn and Harlem there. And it's like, you just got to keep on asking and they're getting hit like boom, boom, boom, and they're non-committal. And at some point they just give in and take it.

You got to hit them more than other people. You got to have people on the feet on the street going up and down every day and you got to be following up on the products. I'd go to get a free fill and get it on the shelf and they'd be giving me like a good spot and I put up the Tags and the stickers, like those tags.

Yeah.

And then I go there next week and the product's lower and to the left.

So you had to go back in and put it back up, put the tags back on, or what?

Nah, I mean, I put a tag back on because it fell off, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't move it at that point. And then I go there a week later, tag's gone again. I don't know who took it off. Maybe another sales rep from another company, another tea company, said screw this guy. You know, and then you go a week later and then it's down to the left to the point where it's like in the bottom left corner. No one's ever going to see it unless—

Are these reps moving this around or something? As they're coming in, they're moving the product around?

Another company comes in, they give them a free fill, maybe they give them a bigger free fill, and they say, oh, I'll give you this best spot, and then everything else gets moved down to the, to the side, you know. So 4 weeks later, my stuff's on the floor. Basically, so unless you're tying your shoe, you trip, or, you know, you go down to, uh, you know, drop something, you're not going to see the products. So that, you know, that was one of the other reasons that I realized, you know what, you got to have a deal with one of the big distributors or brokers that are really going in there that have some influence that'll keep your stuff at maybe not eye level But somewhere reasonable where it's not like on the floor. So, you know.

So someone is going in there every week talking to them. They have a relationship. Yeah, the whole bit. That's what our boots are doing. We have 2 boots in New York, New York. Right. And but it's a grind even for those guys. I mean, I was talking to Sam and, you know, young guy and, and but I mean, I'm like, how does it work? He's like, man, you just got to keep on going in and keep on asking, keep on showing up, keep on bringing them value, that tasting, or show them something of value. Then They'll work with you. It seems like a very tough market though, uh, that if you're out of sight, you're out of mind, because there's 100 people online just showing up doing their free goods and their service.

Yep. And you got to make sure it's moving, right? So we've been going through a lot of iterations of product. I actually have my, my, uh, bottle design journey right here.

Yeah.

So we started with these glass bottles, they were all black. Then we introduced some green ribbon, then the bottom was green. And that's the honey one. Then we went white and honey color, and mostly white, then all honey color. We did a mini bottle, and then this is our current bottle that I'm drinking right here. Um, but yeah, your product's got to be moving too. If— and they're looking for like pretty high velocities out the gate. So you basically have one week test, and if it's not moving in that first week, they're going to start moving your product around. It's pretty Prime real estate, you know.

So you have one week to prove demand?

Yes, we better— you better demo that week.

So you get distribution, you better demo or you're out.

In those stores, in some of the New York stores, you know, I mean, there's like 25 million people that go through Manhattan every day. There's a huge market there, so they're, they're pretty, um, tight on who they'll put in different places. So You gotta make sure your product tastes great.

Yes.

Which is the number one most important thing after they pick it up off the shelf. And you gotta make sure that the, the bottle is pretty clear on what you're selling and the proposition and the price point. And so we've learned a lot about what people are looking for, and we've improved the product a lot too. And I was, you know, fairly confident when I started that it tasted pretty good. pretty good for an energy type beverage. But after demoing with hundreds and hundreds of people, I realized maybe it's not as good as I thought it was, you know, because most of my experience was in snack food. So I learned a lot about the product from demoing with other people, and the product is probably 1,000 times better than it was when I started.

Oh wow, so just learning through trial and error and stuff. So look, you paid the tolls, you paid the tickets, You got distribution, you lost distribution, you started with self-distribution, went back to self-distribution. Now you're with 3 wholesalers, and this journey started in 2020. So you're 6 years into this deal, I'm assuming. So where, where are you at currently? Like, what's going on?

Just on, um, New Jersey is, uh, where I'm out of, is our main hub. And we have our first retail partner we got was in January 2023.

Okay.

And that's with ShopRite.

Okay, great. Excellent. Yeah. Did you get that partner? Did the distributor get it for you?

No, you got it.

How did you get the— so from this journey, how'd you get ShopRite to give you an opportunity?

I was at the right place at the right time with the right product, the right attitude. the right suit. I was in the real— I was in a good place, and they were looking for products like mine, and I got a chance to present, and then I got a chance to pitch, and I got the— I got people tasting it that really liked it, and I got a chance to share the product with some people in corporate, and They were looking for my type of product, a healthier energy drink alternative, and they gave me a shot with one store to start. And then I demoed the heck out of it, man. I went there that week, right?

So that's important. You— if you get distribution, you better go create the demand with the tasting to get it moving. Is that what you're telling us?

Yeah, I mean, the first store I was going to was a— it's a town that I've already demoed with hundreds of people. Yeah, already. So the area was familiar with the product, so I had a head start there. But I went in, I booked 3 demos, uh, that weekend— Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

And you were doing them yourself?

Yeah, 5, 6 hours a pop.

Oh wow, so you get 15 hours of demos.

I still do All the product.

So you were working the floor when people were coming up. You were just like, hey man, buy both teas, taste my stuff.

Yeah, the whole bit.

You were working it.

Yep. And I sold through basically all the product, got the reorder, and did the same thing again Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I booked back to back to back.

And so, you know, this is a masterclass we're talking about, so keep on going.

By the way, I don't know about that, but I sold through it again. Yeah. And then did more demos and sold through it again and just kept doing demos, selling through, making sure the product looked good.

Is this still at the one store we're talking about? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

So how many weeks are you in at this point? You like a month in at this point? And how many demos?

4 weeks, uh, we sold like— we sold through maybe 50 cases. We sold—

Okay.

Cases in the first 4 weeks.

That's really good demand, by the way. That's really good.

Yeah. And we were supporting the product, and I was there every day checking the product, making sure it was stacked right, making sure the bottles were good. And we had glass bottles still at the time, and I was so worried that someone was gonna bump into them and knock them over. And there's like kids walking around with basketballs and scooters and stuff. So I kept checking on the product, making sure it was stacked very strongly. Where we had these cases and I cut all the cases myself. After, you know, what you do is, you know, you cut the bottom. So I wanted them to still see the name of the flavor.

Yeah.

The glass bottles, the name of the flavor is a little higher. And then the cardboard that I took off, I use as a layer in between the layers. And it was a display stand on the bottom.

Yeah.

And then 2 cases on each layer.

Yeah.

Cardboard. 2 layers, cardboard. And I made sure that thing was like really strong.

Yeah.

And make sure it looked good. And we ribboned the rows so you could see all the flavors, try to make it look as pretty as possible. Put some tags up, put some blue up, the brand colors. And I checked on that thing every day, pretty much making sure that—

This was your golden egg. So many people, like, yeah, they try to— like, like, we'll have a client that shows up and says, well, you know, KPIs, how many doors are you going to open up for me this year for me to invest with you? And I always ask, how many doors are you in currently? And then I ask, what are your reorders? What are your volumes? What are you doing to create demand where you're already at? And like, this is truly like I know it's corny as it sounds, it's a master class in how to build a brand at the end of the day. I mean, you're 3 years in. Again, you self-distributed, got a distributor, lost distributor, came back to self-distributing, started to build demand. 3 years in, you get ShopRite, your golden egg, and you treated it like your baby, the cradle, right? You were like, like, this is like, this is like the seed that you needed in order to expand, I'm assuming.

Yeah. And yeah, and I treated it like that. It was I said, this is my opportunity and I'm, I'm going all in on this. You know, you don't get to pick all your opportunities in life that you get, but you get to pick which ones you go after. And this is the opportunity that I got and I went after it, man.

And so, so, so you, you got through the first 4 weeks, you got the 50 cases. What happened after that?

So then it just rinse and repeat, just, uh, kept going through, uh, making sure the product looked good on the shelf, merchandising. Meeting with all of the staff as much as possible, demoing with the staff as much as—

So you were training them on your product, making them believers, like the— they're basically your advocates for the brand when you're not there.

Yeah, I was like, here's the product, I'm, I'm Dan, I'm the founder, I'm a food scientist, here's why I made the product, without talking their ear off, you know, giving them extra samples, meeting with the assistant store managers, the Store manager, associates, friends with as many people as possible. I say what's up to the janitor, give him a fist bump, give him a sample all the time still in every store. I've worked in restaurants myself. I've been a dishwasher. I've been a delivery boy, and I try to treat everyone that I interact with that's a worker also as with oh man, that is like that speaks to my partner Alicia Varga and myself.

You know, it doesn't matter about your title or your income. Treat people with respect, and that just comes back twofold. So I really appreciate that. So, all right, so you got into ShopRite. How long did it take you from to get to 1 store to 2 stores, 2 stores to 4 stores? What happened?

So it was a couple months. Um, it was that March where they said, you know what, um, it's moving, uh, we'll give you some more stores. And then I got 6 more stores.

So you went from 1 to 6, 1 to 7, so a total of 7 stores.

Yep. And then it was, it was the same thing. We got, uh, we set up some, some shippers, some case stacks, and I was checking up on all the product. And I've already improved the process.

Are you self-distributing at this time still?

Yeah.

Wow.

So, um, basically we were doing Uh, case stacks, and I was, I was figuring out better ways to stack the cases to make them look prettier. I tried this like blue ribbon thing that I thought looked good, but it didn't look so good. Then I tried this blue tape, which I thought looked good but didn't look good. Then I found these blue, um, see like those red shelf price strips?

Yep, yep.

So I found blue ones, and then that was my next iteration. So constantly testing and optimizing, trying to make it look better and better and better. Yeah. And so I had like these blue, uh, shelf strips around each layer because I didn't have the way, uh, established brand would do it is you wouldn't have the— you might not have the products come in brown cases, boxes. You'd have them come in the trays, right?

Yeah.

So that you can just stack the trays already with the products. And those trays, if you can afford it, You want them to have branding on it, ideally colored, like bright colors, so you don't have to do anything.

Yeah.

But I didn't have that. I had boxes, so I had to cut— I'm still cutting the boxes, and then I'm turning them into nice-looking trays by taping these, um, these shelf tags on them. It was a lot of work to set these displays up, but I set up every one. Sometimes it took me an hour, uh, or more to set these up. I was Insanely meticulous. Like, the people in the store saw me cutting, slicing, taping, stacking, said, wow, this guy really cares about his product.

So those, those 7 stores, were you in there like every week, every day? Were you doing tastings every week? Like, what was going on?

Yeah, I was doing tastings every weekend, and I'm in the stores every other day.

So you were doing 7 tastings a week, weekend?

Oh, uh, not 7 a week, but I was doing, I was doing about at least, at least 4, 4 or 5 a week. Wow.

So you were— so those, those accounts, you were working to create the demand. Like, yeah, I'm the founder, this is my tea. You're talking to the staff in those 7 stores and you're just working it.

Yeah. And I found out an interesting tidbit, um, for anyone that Sometimes when you're talking to customers, telling them that you're founder is not always the, not always the best move off the, off the bat, because I didn't realize that my product still needed a lot of improvement at the time in terms of the flavor profile.

And you were in the dark glass or what, the dark label of the glass at this point?

No, it was, it was this, it was this one at the time.

Okay, gotcha.

Okay. Okay. Um, but when you tell people you're the founder, and I did a lot of farmers markets when I started the first— well, the first 2 years were COVID, so I wasn't doing anything.

Yeah, but once you launched the brand during COVID right before COVID Yeah, that—

it was, it was a very humbling, rough couple first years. But in the back half of '21 and '22, when things started opening back up, I was doing farmers markets people were just happy to be at a farmer's market, you know? And I'm like, I'm like, I'm the founder. They're not going to say your product stinks. They're like, this is great. We're doing farmer's markets again. You're the founder. Great. This is good. I love everything. This is great. You know?

Because people aren't going to tell you the truth.

Patting myself on the back. Yeah. And then even when I was doing some of the ShopRite demos, people like, I'm like, I'm the founder. And they're like, oh, it's really good. I like it. And then I was— I started testing just instinctively, and I had done as a product developer lots of taste tests in the past, like hundreds, right? Um, whether they're at corporate offices or whatever. So I started playing the demo guy, as I like to call him, right? So I don't say I'm the founder, I don't have a sign up about me, the founder. Just, hey man, just here for the demo, you know?

Yeah.

What do you What do you think? And they said, it's a little bitter, or it's a little bit of an aftertaste. Yeah, I was like, what? Everyone's been telling me it's good. What are you talking about? And then I started asking more people. I said, I got some work to do. So just a little bit—

Your scientist brain kicks in. It's like, oh man, we got to do some reformulating here to figure out the taste profile.

Yeah, I mean, for a product that's low in sugar, all natural, and has a lot of health benefits, and that's tea-based. It was still, I'm gonna say, trying to be objectively pretty good, but it still had room for improvement, right?

Yeah.

I think that when any product launches, you should always think, how do I get better? How do I get more people to give you the thumbs up, right? I call it the 80/20 rule. Like, you want 80% of the people to, let's say, the sweetness, to think that the sweetness is good. 10% are gonna say it's too sweet. 10% cannot say it's not sweet enough. So that's about as good as you could possibly get on most attributes. And so that's kind of where the gold standard is. Or if from a purchase intent standpoint, you want to be like 90% or above. How do you validate a purchase intent? If someone actually takes the product and they buy it and then put it in their cart, right?

Yeah.

As opposed to focus group or consumer location test and like more traditional consumer testing. So those were kind of the gold standards. But basically, I was doing, you know, a lot of the groundwork, doing the demos, learning about the product, taking notes. And then we started doing good in those stores. And then I was able to flip the demand to get a distributor. So they basically said, we want to keep growing your, your business in ShopRite. Um, and I said—

How many stores were at the time when you flipped it to distributor to get to distributor pick?

Yeah, the 7 stores.

Oh wow. So you showed the demand, and what was the demand? So how many cases across the 7 stores were you selling on a monthly basis?

We were doing about 2.5 cases per week per store, I think.

Wow. So that 2 to 14 So 14, I'm going to 20, so like 100 cases. I'm just going to round up, but like 100 cases a month.

I don't know exactly.

Yeah, I'm just, I'm rough. I know I'm a little higher, but, but that's really good demand across 7 stores. I mean, I've sat in front of Walmart, you know, in Bentonville and they've shared their demand numbers with me. And they also look at like revenue generation, what it's generating, you know, dollars per store per week. Yeah, it's a metric that they look at. I don't know if you face that with your, your current, um, uh, uh, grocers and independents and stuff that you're working with, but that's what usually they look at, um, in terms of overall category performance.

Yeah. So, I mean, a lot of it was driven from me doing a lot of work, right?

So, I mean, every founder or every person that starts a brand, what Dan just said, everybody Pay attention. He built it one store at a time and he went and worked the market. I just posted about this this morning. Everybody thinks they get distribution and they disappear. I call that ghost distribution because the distributor is going to do nothing. I mean, even after you got distributed distribution, I'm assuming you didn't stop working. You kept on going.

Working more. Yeah. And it's funny because when I started getting— when I got into those 7 stores, I still remember the second store I got into. This guy had been the store manager in the grocery industry for years. I think he worked for Shepherd for 25 years. He worked his way up, right? And he kept seeing me like every other day. He's like, you're back? And I'm like, yeah, I'm just checking on the display. He goes, I've never seen anyone in my entire career that took— that takes care of their product as well as you do. That's amazing.

Do you think that was a differentiator versus you versus the other 100 guys that were showing up with their product? you know, once, but you should have been showing up.

Yeah, not a lot of people are showing up like that much. They— a lot of new products, they drop it, they dump it. But you have to think about it, a lot of brands like ShopRites, they don't care, or whatever retailer they get into, they don't care. They're just trying to get into as many doors as possible. They get VC money, right? They get investors, they get— I don't know. $500,000, $2 million. They get a big investment and now they're— the clock is ticking and the VC venture capital company wants to turn around their investment and they want to, they want to sell within 3 to 5 years, right?

So, so they don't care about the product. It's not their baby. This is about selling, scaling and selling in 3 to 5 years. It's funny, we have brands like, yeah, my goal is to sell in 3 to 5 years. I'm like, the odds of that happening are zero to none.

Try, try 10 to 15. And if you still want to be in business, if you act like you'll, you'll sell in 3 to 5 years, you'll be out of business in 3 to 5 years. Not because you sold it.

God, well, you just said 10 to 15. You know who Tito's is? Tito's Beverage? Tito's took 20 years to build his brand and he went bankrupt twice.

Yeah, it takes a long, long, long, long time as far as I can see. I've seen a lot of brands that started after me that already got out before me, and it wasn't because they got bought out.

Wow.

And that's because they went into too many stores too quickly, and they're trying to be in 100 stores here, 100 stores there, 1,000 stores there, and they didn't give themselves enough time to learn about their product from the customers, learn about the proposition, improve the product, and also build an audience, build a local following, you know, and doing a lot of that work. So a lot of people drop off products and they'll deliver it to an Acme or ShopRite or, you know, a Safeway, whatever chain they're in. And then, you know, they don't go there again because they're already on to the next one. Their VC is calling them, we need more stores, we need more stores, without focusing enough on incubating like the ones that they have. But I've learned so much from just interacting with customers, and sometimes it's just in the aisle. I'll go to a store— Sam, you might not believe this, but—

No.

Basically, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say about 50% of the time, if I'm going to check on the store and I see someone in the tea aisle or energy drink, wherever the product happens to be, I'll sell them on the product. So half the time I do a store check, I sell at least one bottle just in the aisle.

Wow. Are you still doing that today?

Yeah. So 20— so fast forward, now we're in about Almost 40-something ShopRites.

That's awesome. By the way, 6 years to get to 40 ShopRites, but you have the demand in those 40 ShopRites.

We're still building them. So this last, um, 2024, I did 175 demos.

Wow.

I told myself—

Yourself?

Yeah. I told myself when I got into ShopRite, I'm going to dedicate every weekend to doing demos. And I did that 2023, 2024. 2025 was my record. I did 201 demos myself.

That's amazing. I'm like, I'm like, like this. So, so this, like, I don't know, man, the universe is talking to me. But all right.

So. And last year I did 171.

You're slacking off, man. Get it back up to 200.

I know. So I've been doing about 4 to 5 demos a week, uh, every week ever since.

All right, so you tested it and you're built— you're in the building phase, I guess, of this. You're still building, is that what you say? So I talk 4 things: test it, build it, scale it, and sell it or keep it, right? So are you— would you say you're still in the building phase?

Yeah, we're in the building phase. We've learned a lot. I'm still learning. I don't want to say I stopped learning because you should never stop learning. But I've learned so much and we've optimized our products where they're basically all at 80, that 80/20 rule, 80%, 90%, 80% purchase intent. And I have some of the products that when they taste it, I'm shooting like 90, 95 people that try it are buying it.

Oh, wow.

So we got the products in a really, really good place right now. And I think we're We're in building phase, but we're— I think we're right before that inflection point, uh, where we're, we're ready to scale and we're waiting for the next set of partners to scale with.

Are you, uh, are you looking for funding?

We're— yeah, we're, um, in the fundraising phase right now.

All right. And how many, how many total accounts are you in currently in Jersey?

About like 100-something.

Okay, 100 accounts. And then, uh, total cases that you sold last year, can you share that number?

Um, yeah, I don't know the number, but I wouldn't be able to share it.

Okay, got it. Um, that's amazing, by the way, the story that you've, you've shared, um, with us this morning, because so many people show up and they think they're going to be the next Olipop. And I say this every week or every other week, Adam will appreciate this, but— and look, I'm rooting for the people that they've scaled it, they sold it, and they made the millions of dollars. But the majority of the people that are going to start their journey need to listen to this, Dan, and what you shared, because that's what truly takes to build a brand. We have clients, you know, we represent tequilas to RTDs to functional brands, and we have boots on the ground, right? And, you know, we'll run into clients and they'll get very frustrated and impatient with us. We're like, look, we're— the first stage is foundation work. And foundation work means no one knows who you are. So we got to build the foundation, and that's the hardest part. And listening to you, I think it took you multiple years to build your foundation. And the way you did that was liquid to lips and showing up and talking to the accounts. You were the boots on the ground for your, your product. And so many people, they think that they're just— they should have growth and demand from day one. And no one knows who you are. And the only way they knew who you were is because you went and talked to them. And you're still going into grocery store aisles and you're talking to the person you sell at least one bottle of tea. That's, that's amazing to me. Um, all right, so let me—

And it's not something you can just start shooting Instagram ads off of, or Facebook, or Amazon ads. That's— people get inundated with that. You got to actually, like, talk to people. People don't want to buy from brands. They want to buy from people. So you got to meet people face to face.

That's amazing. So in our— in our— a couple people showed up in our, um, our chat. Uh, hello, Alicia, Joshua, thanks for joining. Um, uh, uh, Kesar, I don't know if I'm pronouncing your name, but he says good morning. He said the creator sells Rosa Brandy at Riboli Wines here. Uh, good to hear a common story. So, uh, so Stella Rosa. Uh, which is great. Uh, yes, as they have so many— you see, what does he say? It says, uh, yes, as they here have so many other brands, it will sit in the warehouse in uncontrolled state. That can be end of, end of it, end of it all, right? So you get a distribution, if you're not like going and working the market, uh, would be great. And then he said— what else did he say here? I guess he just said it twice, but it just— What rings with me is Is everybody thinks if I get to Southern Glacier Wine and Spirits, or if I get to a big food distributor, whatever, they're going to go do the work. But the reality is you're just a price inside a salesman's computer on some type of Excel spreadsheet, and they're never going to mention you.

Yeah, demand's got to be there because also they don't want to risk their reputation by trying to push your product more than they feel Comfortable with, that they know it's gonna sell.

Yeah, yep. And then Robert Coken just showed up and said, did I hear Olipop? Keep in mind, like Poppy, they utilize a massive social media budget funded by the typical VC Hollywood type dollar, dollar, dollar. A very specific type of success that is more bought than genuine. As they can see, Poppy is racing uh, to the bottom at $2 to $4 and $3 all over the place. So, uh, and Robert's out of Canada.

They were spending like a million dollars a month at one point on advertising.

It's— which is just— which is just so silly. But that's, uh, Robert Kogan. We call him COGS, cost of goods, but he actually brings products into, um, uh, to Canada. All right, so is there— so a couple things I have. I do have an important question I have to ask you. But before we get to that, is there anything that we didn't cover this morning? I know we went deep on this. I really appreciate it. I hope you do too. But your story is amazing. But anything we didn't cover off that you want to cover off with everybody?

Um, no, I'm just— I'm glad to be able to share my journey, my merchandising story about, you know, what, what I've, what I've learned, what I'm doing. You know, I want people to realize, like you mentioned, that you can't just Stay home and pray. There's a time to pray and there's time to hustle. And once you get your products on shelf, it's time to hustle.

Wow, that's amazing. Don't stay home and pray, get out there and hustle. How do people find— how do people find Vible Tea? Is there a way they can go order it online? You have DTC?

Yes, so we have, uh, we sell nationwide on our website, drinkvible.com. You can just Google Vibal, V-I-B-A-L.

Okay, I'm gonna put it up on the screen to see if I got it right here. Yep. Is that right? drinkvibal.com?

Yep, that's it. And we also sell on Amazon, free shipping nationwide.

You do free shipping?

Yeah, of course, you gotta these days.

Amazing. Well, I'm excited to get my, uh, my Vibal tea. Um, and then also you, you consult. So the journey you just shared, right? Um, you, you'll walk people through what you just walked us through. You tell them the hard facts of what it takes to build a brand. Is it part of the— your, your, um, how you work with your clients?

Yeah, and it's really funny because more than half my calls that I take these days, I end up spending the majority of the time talking Talking people off the cliff and saying, "Look, here's what can go wrong that can will go wrong at the worst possible time. Here's what you're gonna have to do." And I tell them my story. I say, "I've sacrificed everything I've had, and I put my whole life on hold. I don't go out on the weekends. My friends are all out having fun. All my peers are partying. I put all that aside. I don't go out anymore. I got to be up early. Got a demo. Got to work." And that's what it has to take for years, you know. And so when I start explaining this to a lot of potential clients, they, they pause and then it gets quiet and they always ask me this question, go, wait, should I really be doing this?

What's your answer?

And I say, I don't know. I don't, I don't know if it's, you know, I a great idea for you to start something up. I want you to know what it takes. And I say, look, you can work 9 to 5, guaranteed pay.

Yeah.

Or you could try to start something up yourself where you're going to be working 24/7 with no guarantee. You're a smart guy. Which sounds like a better thing to do? Then they pause again, and we'll be in touch. And they say, "We'll be in touch." Never hear from them again.

That's amazing.

Sometimes, you know, someone else because I scare them. That's fine. I just want to be realistic to people, and because they just want to know how much is it going to cost to get a new product to market, and it's not a fixed amount, right? It's how complicated is your product? How technically challenging is it going to be? How many production trials is going to be. There's the pros and cons of having an innovative product, right?

Right.

So if you have an innovative form, innovative technology, innovative ingredients, innovative packaging, you're not going to be able to find a place to make it so easily, right? So that's your moat. But now you're gonna have to invest in packaging equipment, could be like hundreds of thousands of dollars, or ingredient or supply chain, or big MOQs on new ingredients. So the least amount of those barriers and moats, the easier it is to get to market, but then the easier it is for someone to replicate what you're doing. So there's this kind of speed to market versus risk versus moat that people have to like really review and evaluate. And if they want me to do like a risk assessment or a technical feasibility, I've done those through the wazoo when I was at, you know, Mondelēz, Nabisco.

Yeah.

We used to just do that for hours and hours. And I'm happy to go through that with people so they can really see what the risks are, how to mitigate the risks, and what your contingency plans are from like a technical—

That's amazing. That's such an amazing service. How did they find that? How did they find you for that?

appleandorchard.com.

Apple— is it like the word and?

Yep. Andy spelled out.

I'll put up on the screen and see if I got this right too. Hold on a second. Let's see here. Is that right?

Yep.

Cool. I mean, you gotta be an amazing service. I would always tell people, I'm like, if you're gonna get into this business, talk to someone like Dan before you ever arrive at me. Because by the time they arrive to Alicia and I, they've made hundreds of thousands of dollars in investment and time. And we're like, And they're like, well, you work on commission. And we're like, no, we don't. We're— we, we, you gotta pay our people. So, and I think all pieces are important, by the way, but it's like the people that are gonna go out and create your demand is us. And you wanna have us take all the risk?

You gotta— you don't do that. You gotta get the product down first. Too many times people try to circumnavigate using a food scientist and it's really scary. There's a lot of brands out there that have not used a food scientist. And I told you when we started this call all the things that food scientists do.

Yeah.

So when you have a food science consultant, you're getting an entire food science department to look at your regulatory, to look at your safety, to look at your shelf life, to look at your processing, to look at your manufacturing, to look at your product quality. So you review all that with a food scientist. A lot of times people have a friend that's a chef, or a friend that works in the kitchen, a friend that's good in the kitchen. And they give them a little bit of a false confidence. Not saying against chefs or cooks, but it's a very different discipline bringing a product from scale to the market versus making a dish or bringing a menu item. There's a lot more that's involved with supply chain, manufacturing, stability, food safety. And so a lot of times people start to reach out to a food scientist after something bad has happened, or when it's too late, when they're losing a ton of money.

Yeah.

or have a shelf life problem. So you really got to do that ahead of time. And the money that you spend working on a food scientist— I'm not trying to sell myself, but you work with an agency or someone else— is going to save you, uh, a dollar on every penny, basically. Because you could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on product and then realize it's the wrong product, and then you're going to be out before you start it versus, you know, if you spend $50,000 ahead of time making sure that you're protecting your investment. If this is something you did a career change for, you want to make sure you have your, your product locked in.

So yeah, make everyone to work with a few times. Talk to Dan Levinson, man, you know, Apple and Orchards, and he's been through the journey that we shared this morning. So we'll go a little over if that's okay because I have to ask a couple questions and we'll wrap up, but We ask everybody that joins us on the podcast is this question: What is the difference between success and failure?

I think a lot of it's mental, right? What are your goals? What does success mean to you? If you want to be the next Ollipop and have a you know billion dollar exit, you're probably going to fail because that's and then. insanely high, you know, field goal to hit. If your goal is to manufacture a new product and get it to the market and that's it, then your chances of succeeding are a lot higher. And that was my goal from the get-go, and I've succeeded to do that. I've developed my own product, I've brought it to the market, created a demand and launched the product on the market. You have to make sure that you set reasonable goals and, you know, what is your ultimate goal? Like, do we want to be one of the top 10 energy teas in the country? That's our new goal. That's a very big goal. You have to know what your goal is to succeed and take bite-sized steps.

Wow, that's amazing. And what keeps you going? This has been a hell of a journey, man. I mean, it's what you described is not easy, by the way. You sacrificed your entire personal life to build your brand.

Yeah. Well, it's funny because, um, my reason for being, reason to be, RTB, has been for helping inspire others to live a healthier and happier life, which is what the product ended up doing for me. So I, I built this brand, I built this product, Vible, because originally I was really out of shape. I was overweight, I was obese technically, and the doctor told me I had prediabetes, and I wanted to start being active again. I love tea. I started making my own tea. This got me moving and started walking, started going to the gym once a week, then twice a week. This last week I worked out about 10 times. I work out about 10 to 15 times a week now. I think 2 weeks ago I worked out 17 times, and that's taking Saturday and Sunday off, so that's within 5 days.

Wow.

Now I'm in the best shape of my life, and I want to inspire other people. So what keeps me going is every time I had a long chat with someone yesterday, they just started working out They started doing pull-ups and push-ups and they're getting healthier. I talked to a bunch of friends that are going to the gym more. My friend from college, she started working out more and I get messages all the time. Hey man, you inspired me. Starting to work out more. I'm getting healthier. I meet people at a demo. They say, oh, is it pre-workout? I don't really work out. I said, well, you start tomorrow. Just do 10 push-ups, you know, and just having people tell me that they started working out, they're starting to lose weight or get back in shape or feel stronger. Stronger, more confident. All of those things is what keeps me going.

That is amazing. Hence the health and wellness background.

Yeah.

Which is great, right? And then, uh, and then what does VIBE stands for? Does it stand for anything? I know we asked about that. What does VIBE stand for?

VIBE stands for Vibes and Balance because it's all about good vibes, balanced energy.

Got it. Good vibes, balanced energy. And then your type of teas, how many teas do you have today?

We have 5 products today.

Okay, and what are they?

Lemon, honey lemon, pomegranate, tropical punch, spicy ginger.

You ever thought about a hibiscus?

Yes, I have thought about that.

Yeah, I drink, I drink hibiscus teas. It's probably me being selfish so I can have the, my Vible teas. I'll be your number one fan moving forward. Well, thank you so much. What rings true to me today as we wrap up, and I'll let you do the closing thoughts, is to build a brand takes a lot of work. It takes boots on the ground. And if you're a founder or whatever you call yourself, you bring a brand to market, you got to be prepared to go work it because no one else— I think you said it— no one else is going to create your success but you. I think you said it in some form or fashion like that, and that really rings true. And then your story about, you know, 2 years, you finally get distribution and they go, basically, they don't work you and you had to pick it up and start all over again. That rang true. And then when you got that golden egg, ShopRite, you worked it. That is so— thank you so much for sharing that story. And if people need your services, Apple and Orchard, they should definitely look you up because that will keep them out of trouble. We talked to so many people, like successful attorneys, and they're like, just started an RTD brand. I mean, no offense to my clients, but I'm like, I always ask them, I'm like, You're a successful attorney. Why the heck would you want to go in the beverage business? Right. You know, and, and they have a dream. They have a drink or a family recipe they want to bring to market. And, and they want to, you know, develop that.

Yeah.

And I would just say create patience, but have passion behind the patience and persevere because it's going to take a lot of effort. But that's what I have to say. Dan, any closing thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, I want to thank you again for having me on and just echo what you said, because I think it's really important for people to hear about what it actually takes. A lot of people have this itch that they want to scratch, and they have this idea or their grandma's recipe. But it's one thing to just see if you could do it. But do you really, really want this to be your life? because it's going to become your life. And I think that it's important to really understand your why. What's your reason to be? What impact do you want your product to have on other people? And because that's going to be the North Star that keeps you going. So make sure that whatever you're doing is really in line with your personal ethos, your reason to be, what you believe, and impact that you want to make on the world, and then everything will be working out.

Man, I love that. I always— that helped me 3 years ago to find my why. And, you know, I'm 61, and it took me 57 years to figure out what that was. Fully transparent. But once I found that, and it's really with my partner, to help people find work and do right by brands, that is our why. And now my internal why is to feed my family, but I'm really clear on Why I get up and work in the morning and I do this podcast is to give people, you know, access to folks like you, right? And, uh, that's doing right by brands, right? So thank you so much. Thanks everybody for joining us on Saturday. Dan, remain on the line please because we got to do a download. And until next week, Adam, sorry we missed you. You missed a good one. And Vible, Vible Teas, thank you so much for, uh, joining us today. And you can find them on drinkvible.com. I'll scan that one more time.

Cheers!

Drink the Bible. Cheers!

Here's to good vibes, balanced energy.