Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Best of ‘22 - How to sell 10,000 units in your first month, with Agua Bonita’s co-founder Kayla Castañeda (Part 1)

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Best of ‘22 - How to sell 10,000 units in your first month, with Agua Bonita’s co-founder Kayla Castañeda (Part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hi, it's just me popping in with a quick message to wish you and your loved ones a beautiful break this festive season. I hope you're able to take some time for yourself to recharge and reset and come back full of energy in 2023.
• 0:15
  Over the next few weeks, our team will all be taking a much-needed break, and you'll be hearing the best episodes from 2022. When I look back over this year, there were just so many amazing episodes. It was near impossible to choose just one handful, but we did, and they're amazing, and I'm sure you're going to love them.
• 0:34
  For now, I'm off to spend some quality time with my mom and my family in Queensland after three whole years of not seeing her. Can you believe it? Three years. Oh my gosh. I'm going to be doing all the little things that are good for my soul over this period and dreaming up my goals for 2023, which you're going to hear about when I come back in January. I'm so looking forward to reconnecting with you in the new year and bringing you more of the good stuff with Female Startup Club.
• 1:04
  This is Kayla Castaneda for Female Startup Club.
• 1:16
  Hello, welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today on the show, we are learning from Kayla, the founder of Agua Bonita. Agua Bonita is a Latina-owned beverage company making the first better-for-you aguas frescas on the market. It's a modern-day take on a traditional Mexican fruit drink that comes in ready-to-drink cans made with real fruit, low sugar, and fun flavors. It's a modern-day take on a traditional Mexican fruit drink that comes in ready-to-drink cans
• 1:44
  And this story is a pretty wild one. I actually came across a post of Kayla's on LinkedIn sharing a pretty crappy story for any small business to have to be going through. So I'm sure you're going to find plenty of takeaways. Maybe you'll even have been in the same experience and so many insights into her building this business.
• 2:07
  As always, if you love this episode and you get something out of it, please do share it on your Instagram stories with us at Female Startup Club. And you can also find me in the DMs directly at Doon Roisin, which is D-O-O-N-E-R-O-I-S-I-N, where I love to chat and hear about what you are working on. Let's get into this episode. This is Kayla for Female Startup Club.
• 2:32
  Kayla, hi, welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited that you're here joining me today. For everyone listening, the context of this amazing episode is I saw a video on Kayla's LinkedIn that I'm not going to say what it was just yet. We'll get to that. But I saw a video. I was outraged and I said, please come on the show and tell us about what's going on in your world today.
• 3:02
  around the brand that you're building right now. But we'll get to that. For context of your business, can you give us the elevator pitch to who you are, what your brand is, and what the ethos behind it is?
• 3:17
  Yeah, so my name is Kayla Castaneda. I'm the co-founder of Agua Bonita. We make real fruit aguas frescas. So aguas frescas are a traditional Mexican drink, usually made with fresh fruit, non-sparkling water, and a sweetener. A lot of ours use no added sugar or just very little sugar in general.
• 3:37
  And we help fight food waste with every blend that we make. And we also give back to migrant farm workers via nonprofits with every purchase of our products.
• 3:50
  I am so excited to try all of the flavors, but particularly the watermelon chili and particularly the spicy mango, because these speak to me. Spicy anything is my vibe. Yeah. I was dead set on putting out some spicy SKUs from the very, very beginning. So I'm so excited that we made them come to life.
• 4:14
  And we've gone through some different iterations of them. I mean, sometimes they came out way too spicy, sometimes not spicy enough. But I think that these latest versions that we have going out are like the ones.
• 4:27
  the happy balance. It's so funny because actually a few months ago I was saying to my husband, I was like, someone just needs to bring out spicy water. Like I just want spicy drinks that are kind of good for you, but have spice instead of sweetness. And I'm so, I mean, I know these have sweet in them as well, but I'm so excited for spicy drinks, you know? Yeah, me too. I love a little bit of spice in everything. So I definitely understand. Me too.
• 4:55
  Let's go back to where this brand and this business starts. What was the light bulb moment for you and your co-founder? Like how was this coming to life? Yeah, so...
• 5:07
  I've worked in food and beverage for the better part of the last 10 years. So I actually used to work for Coca-Cola back in the day and then left Coke to really kind of pursue things that I could be a little bit more intimately with. And so I started like consulting. The last consulting job that I said yes to was the week that the global pandemic started. So it was like terrible timing to take a new job. But...
• 5:35
  As the pandemic kind of rolled through town, everything closed down and I found a lot of time on my hands. But we like to joke that when life gives you lemons, make aguas frescas, because that was really the moment that I felt prepared enough to like, okay, I have enough corporate experience. I have enough startup experience and I want to just do my own thing. And like, let's create something that's...
• 5:59
  missing from the market first and foremost, but then also like a reflection of ourselves and of our culture and something that we love and would drink all the time if it existed in like a ready to drink format. And Agua Fresca is like really fit that bill. And we wanted to do something, you know, that we can make a better free version of without having to sacrifice any taste. And yeah, and Agua Bonita was born mid pandemic.
• 6:25
  Oh my gosh, that is so cool. Life definitely gave the lemons and the aqua frescas to all of us. Did you always know that it was going to be that particular beverage? Or was there still like R&D and formulation and tossing around ideas in the kitchen? Or was it like, no, this is it, no question? No. When we started working on Agua Bonita, we knew for sure it was always going to be aguas frescas.
• 6:52
  There had been other times in my life in the past where I had wanted to start a beverage company. And I thought about doing a nitro coffee, like a canned nitro coffee. And I worked on that solo, but it just helped me learn so much about the manufacturing process. So it was a great experience. It didn't really like tick off or anything.
• 7:15
  Um, but now, you know, Starbucks does like canned nitro coffees. I like to think that I've always been a little bit ahead of the curve, but when it came to Alba Bonita, we always knew that it was going to be Alba Sureskes. Oh my gosh. So cool. Can you talk us through like that really early time before launch? What were you doing? What were the steps involved in actually getting this brand started? What was your day to day like? Yeah.
• 7:38
  Yeah, you know, this is something that I've recounted a lot recently, because I tell folks, we launched conceptually July 2020. But those first six months, like July through December 2020, is really like stealth mode, right? Like you have to kind of
• 7:57
  conceptualize your brand and your identity and like what your values are and like what your unique, you know, proposition is and what makes you different from the whole market, right? Especially beverage. It's a super saturated market. So I think those first six months are really a lot of thinking through that. Like what,
• 8:18
  do we want to do that is different than what's already being done? And like, how can we do this in a sustainable way? And what kind of choices are we going to make that communicate those things to the consumer? And then once you have that, like, where do we find the partners to make it happen? Right? Because most people that can something in a beverage, they don't own the
• 8:43
  a co-packer or co-manufacturer and figure out like what those MOQs look like. And then, you know, figuring out insurance and how to structure your company. And if you're the kind of company that is going to want to take investment later on, or if you're really going to just like bootstrap it and, you know,
• 9:03
  And hopefully, I mean, I had a good foundation about how the distribution process works. But if you're not familiar with it, I would definitely take the initial time to get familiar with it in beverage and in CPG. So the first six months was really like a lot of that was like figuring out who do we want to say that we are? What is our identity? And then how do we find the right partners to like make that identity that we've settled on come to life?
• 9:32
  And when did you actually launch, did you say, was it at the end of 2020?
• 9:37
  We sent the very first packages out literally December 31st, 2020. That's so cool. So we spent, yeah, the first like July through December, um, 2020 really like working. And then like our first full month of, uh, selling things, we've created a pilot, um, which was like maybe about 10,000 units. And we thought like, okay, we're a new brand. It's going to take us forever to like get these out the door. Right. But yeah.
• 10:05
  In the first quarter, well, actually like a little over the first month of 2021, we sold through our entire pilot online. People had just come across our brand, found our packaging, really liked it, decided to buy some, and it just kind of spread a little bit.
• 10:22
  And then we were like, okay, I think we're really onto something. Let's go back and make some more and see like if we can, you know, repeat this success. So we like made 10 times as much and then sold out like even faster. So then we did it one more time and then we sold out before we even went to production and,
• 10:40
  So that's when we knew that like we were really onto something. And yeah, that first like that first quarter of 2021, I would say, was when we were starting to pilot things online. And then from like May through December of 2021, we opened like direct to consumer nationally. Yeah.
• 11:01
  Wait, we need to rewind to you doing 10,000 units in a month. That's crazy. How? I don't understand. Can you like break down specifically the lead up to launch and like what you were doing and like the messaging that you were kind of putting out there and like how you were going about that? That's amazing. Yeah, I think our debut really speaks to just how absent this product was on the market
• 11:30
  popular drink in every Hispanic household, like across the world, right? Like all Latin America. So it's just like crazy just how familiar so many people are with it, but there just wasn't a ready to drink version. So I think that that helped was just people being like, oh, there's an agua fresca. Yeah, I know agua fresca there. I'll try that. So that really helped. And then obviously our packaging, my co-founder, this, our packaging is her handiwork.
• 11:57
  But I think that we have really beautiful packaging that like helps, you know, get things off the shelf. Catches your eye. Yeah, especially when it's like virtual and on Instagram, right? It's like a very Instagram worthy kind of product. And so that really helps. Yeah.
• 12:15
  And then, yeah, and then just using word of mouth, you know, telling some of our friends who would tell some of their friends who would share it and whatnot. And we found like lots of opportunities to where we could give away product just to get it out in front of people. And then people would take photos of our product from there and then, you know, share it on their Instagram. And it was just kind of a wildfire thing. Yeah.
• 12:40
  Yeah, I mean, I think like just when you find something that is truly missing from the market, you can really get that strong early response because it just truly isn't there. 100%. It hits the spot and that word of mouth kind of like inherently built in that people are like, oh my God, I'm so excited to try this, telling their friends and word starts to spread. Yeah.
• 13:01
  When you were saying that you were doing the kind of like finding opportunities to give away product for free, could you explain like some of those kind of opportunities for anyone listening who's specifically in the beverage industry and being like, wow, that's amazing. How can I get my brand out there?
• 13:17
  Yeah. So during the pandemic and still now even, sampling went away. So like, you know, you couldn't just like pour drinks to sample and give out, which like for any food or beverage brand is a huge opportunity for conversion. And we didn't have that anymore. So we had to start thinking about like,
• 13:38
  Where does our target demographic spend their day? So it was like, okay, well, maybe the kind of person that would buy our product also goes to this coffee shop. So maybe we will give that coffee shop, you know, a free case to sample out. Or maybe they can do, you know, a drink for a day with it and just like show our cans off.
• 14:01
  Or maybe the kind of person that shops our brand would also enjoy fitness classes at this kind of studio. So we'll give away free cases to that studio so that way they can hand them as they walk out.
• 14:18
  and, you know, get some consumer feedback that way. So that's how we started to think about it was just like, where could we find our consumer? And then let's show up in their life, you know, as they go about their day. And so are you just literally walking in, knocking on the door and being like, hello, manager, can I stand outside and give away some drinks? Or like, hello, here's a case, do whatever you want with it, but please give them out. Yeah. And I feel like
• 14:47
  there's this whole grassroots effort when it comes to food and beverage that like maybe more modern founders think like that isn't necessary, but it's a tried and true process for a reason. And even like the biggest companies in the world still do this. They still walk around to smaller, you know, moms and pops and give away free product or like tell them like, yeah, we will give it to you.
• 15:17
  When you are so new, it doesn't matter how approachable you are. Free will always be the most approachable to anyone. 100%. So giving them some free product is always a good thing. If you had to say what the split was, say you have 10,000 cans, how many of those would you allocate to gifting versus to buy? Yeah.
• 15:42
  Well, we ended up selling about 100,000 units our first year. And so I would say maybe 5% of that was stuff that we gave out for free. But I will say, too, like –
• 15:58
  If you are familiar with the beverage industry, that once you start to really get going in larger retailers and stuff, there's something called a free fill that you're expected to do. So actually, say the largest, most prominent store comes along, and they're like, great, we'll put you in 500 stores, and you have two flavors, and we want a free fill. That means you are expected to give 1,000 free cases of product
• 16:26
  to go into their stores, even start to be in their stores. So if you guys are thinking about starting a beverage company and you're not already familiar with some of this type of ongoings, you know, on the back end, like that's something that you have to be prepared for. So it's really just like relative to your growth, how much product you have to allocate to give away for free. But it actually is like something specifically in beverage that you really, really have to account for.
• 16:54
  Wow. I didn't know that. I've never heard that term before. Free fill. That's so interesting. So does that mean they give it away for free in the store or they're still selling it, but they expect you to give it to them for free as a test? Exactly. The latter. Yeah. So you give it to them for free and they still sell it in store. So they will still make money off of it and you will not. Well, that sounds a little unfair.
• 17:17
  Yeah. But why? So that's why like the beverage industry is just super capital intensive because there's a lot of, they're called like, yeah, free fills and slotting fees. It's really the trade spend. And that's just kind of the way that the industry works. There's only ever so many slots on a shelf. Yeah.
• 17:40
  And so they really do expect brands to give that first fill for free. So they take on 0% of the risk and you take on all the risk and then they test it out. And then if they like it, then they'll keep on ordering. And yeah, it's really a messed up kind of way to do things, but it is industry standard. So you have to have a lot of cash to burn through.
• 18:09
  which is why giving product out for free at community events is kind of the same way that you have to approach retailers anyway. So you just always have to allocate them. It just feels icky though. It just feels particularly shit for a new business owner who's small and getting started and kind of trying to get their foot in the door somewhere if they have a great product especially. It kind of feels like...
• 18:37
  I don't know, like if you take an advantage of or something, that's so crazy to me. Yeah, I will say for like any women owned businesses and minority owned businesses, getting those certifications as like a woman owned business and a minority owned business is very, very valuable to you when it comes to this particular thing.
• 18:58
  Because there are some large retailers that have programs that will bypass the free fill or reduce the slotting fees or the trade spend for women-owned and or minority-owned businesses. So if you guys are listening and you haven't gotten those certifications yet, you should really check them out because they could take a while to get, but they will help you on that side of things.
• 19:25
  And where does one get those kind of certifications and like what's, what's that process? It is, is it expensive? Or is it kind of just an online application? It's a mix of things. So there's always an online application. We are certified women owned through WeBank. It's W-B-E-N-C. And so you do an online application, lots and lots and lots of questions. It's a pretty lengthy application. Then you'll have sort of an interview,
• 19:53
  And then they will just kind of confirm the details that you put there and then issue your certification. I can't remember what the fee is. It's a, I want to say a few hundred dollars, maybe a thousand, but somewhere in that ballpark. What it'll save you down the road by having the certification is definitely worth it. But it can take months to get that certification because there's always just like, they're always busy processing new applications.
• 20:23
  Um, and yeah, and I'm sure that there are other bodies that you can go through, but if you just Google kind of like women owned certifications, you'll see the really like top players and be able to, you know, start their online process. Gosh, you're blowing my mind. All these things I didn't know. This is crazy. Wow. Thank you so much.
• 20:45
  I want to shift to talking a little bit about the capital piece because we've kind of touched on it here and there. And it's something that I really love to talk about. How much did you need to invest to start the business? And how were you thinking about or how were you financing in the beginning? And how were you thinking about bootstrapping versus funding when it came to you specifically? Yeah. So yeah.
• 21:08
  Aaron and I always knew that there would come a time that we needed outside capital just because of how notoriously expensive the beverage industry is. For things like this, free fills, you need to be able to produce all the product, ship it all, all that kind of stuff. When we started, we had one angel investment.
• 21:30
  of $30,000. And then the rest was just mine and Aaron's personal money. And we used all of that to make a pilot. Um,
• 21:42
  Pilots in beverage can be very expensive. The minimum order quantities in this industry are very, very high. And so even getting just a small amount done can be easily like $30,000. So you really have to kind of have some seed cash that you're willing to part with.
• 22:01
  And, um, yeah, so that's how we started was like, we took 30 K and then we bootstrapped the rest and we knew that we were going to bootstrap for as long as we could, but we set a date at about like a year and some change out that like, if we are not at a place to be able to raise outside money by this time, then we need to not be working on this full time anymore. Um, because we started working on it full time from the very beginning and we were
• 22:30
  mostly because it was a pandemic. So we didn't really have a choice because no one had a job anymore. So we were like in it to win it from the very beginning. But we did set a date that like, if we cannot get more capital through the door,
• 22:45
  And like we have already put in all of our life savings and stuff into making this work. Then like this needs to be a hobby and not a full time job. And thankfully, we were able to get to that point and we were able to raise. We're actually the first Latino owned company in our industry to ever raise more than a million dollars. So we are super excited about that. That is so cool. Thank you. And you raise like two million now already, right?
• 23:14
  Yeah. Yeah. So it was a big deal for us, but we, we, we gave ourself, you know, a deadline. And how did you find the experience when you were going through the fundraise? Did either of you had any experience fundraising before?
• 23:30
  Erin had a little bit in that she had been around while some of those meetings were happening, but it wasn't her directly fundraising. She was just a supplement to the conversation. I had never fundraised before. The way that we started fundraising initially was I started entering into a bunch of pitch competitions and pitching our company. We actually...
• 24:00
  raised like, uh, we won like over half a million dollars in pitch competition winnings and like grants. Yeah. I actually won every pitch competition I entered into. Um, so that's how we like sustained our business for a while. So I would definitely say, you know, like make sure that you look at all the pitch competitions that are available and like go present your business to all of them with some caution, as I've learned, um,
• 24:29
  I feel like you're so humble over here, like just casually dropping this in. This is so exciting. I'm like wanting to shout and scream for you. Thank you. Yeah. It's, it's been crazy. It's, it's, it's crazy. Yeah. Um, that's so much money to win. Yeah. And so like, that is how we approached like bootstrapping. I can't even remember what the, the core question was, but, uh,
• 24:56
  But yeah, that's really how we approached it and just kind of, you know, doing what you have to do to make it work. That's so interesting. And this kind of segues into the video that I came across you talking about because it all started from a pitch competition. So do you want to kind of introduce us to this wild story that is happening for you and your business right now?
• 25:19
  Yeah. So at June of last year, I was in a pitch competition and it's actually like the biggest pitch competition of the beverage industry. It's hosted by BevNet. It's called Best New Beverage Showdown. So like the winners of this pitch competition have a track record of going on to some really big success.
• 25:44
  And so, yeah, so it's if you're in the beverage industry, it's like one of those things that you want to compete in and that you also want to win. Right. Like it's just a really good publicity moment for your brand. And so last year I competed in in this competition. It was hosted by BevNet. And.
• 26:02
  put on by the VEB team at Coca-Cola, which is the team responsible for partnering with and investing in new brands and new concepts to launch into the market. And so, yeah, so I won this competition and some of the Coke team was a part of the judging panel. So last year we won and then we had just like a killer year
• 26:30
  And the marketing campaign that we ran was around AF. So we ran it around the whole like play on words, like as fuck and aguas frescas, right? So kind of this like cool AF. So we made a lot of like t-shirts that said like real AF.
• 26:48
  Yeah. You know, it's like, I feel like you could do that when you're a startup, right? Like you don't have to play by these big corporate rules. You can kind of say whatever you want to say. But I mean, last year in terms of publicity, we had like one hell of a year. Like we were on the Today Show. I made it to the Forbes list. We won Best New Beverage. Like just, we were on so many like really big public platforms and
• 27:12
  Yeah, and we were really the first, like, ready to drink agua fresca to market. So then fast forward a few months, and it's announced that Coca-Cola is debuting agua frescas under their Minute Maid brand.
• 27:28
  So we're like, okay, cool. Like, you know, it happens. Like there's always going to be more competitors in the category. And like, quite frankly, like you need competitors for it to even be considered a category, right? Like if you're the only person, it's not really a category. So that was cool. And we've met a lot of other, I was asking as startup founders now that are like coming to market with theirs. So like, cool, you know, it happens.
• 27:52
  But then I was on Twitter the week of Cinco de Mayo and I was scrolling and I came across an ad that was targeted to me for Minute Maid Agua Frescas. And the marketing campaign was built around this play on AF. And...
• 28:12
  Very, very, very similar to the marketing campaign that we had run last year, you know, after presenting our brand where the team responsible for these new things at Coke was part of the judging panel. So, yeah.
• 28:29
  could it be a huge coincidence that, you know, after we presented our brand and do our marketing campaign that the next year they are doing the same or very, very similar? Yeah, absolutely. Could totally be a coincidence. I do say that in the spirit of like anything is possible, you know, but like what is most realistic? I don't know. You know, I, I want to,
• 28:57
  I don't want to be too accusatory here, but I just think if you look at a lot of the similarities, they are very, very pronounced similarities. Yeah. Yeah. Like, let's call a spade a spade. Like, it's the same. That's crazy. I hate that for you. But I feel like it's also not the first time that we see this from these big brands like Coca-Cola and Pepsi seem to be –
• 29:25
  In these kind of, I've come across posts on LinkedIn before from other founders, like the Droplet founder about, you know, her brand and what happened there. And it's like, it's so weird specifically because you were in that competition and you were part of it and they were judging you. And then have you asked them about it? Like, do you go to them and be like, Hey, like you saw me pitch that competition. Like, what the heck is this? Yeah.
• 29:52
  Well, I know that. You worked there as well, actually. I just connected that. Oh, my God. Oh.
• 29:58
  Yeah, I, yeah, and so that is something too, like, there's been definitely some men that have tried to, like, mansplain to me, like, well, this is how Coca-Cola puts together their campaigns and stuff like that. I'm like, dude, I know, I used to work for Coke. I probably know better than you how things work there, because I worked there. And so, yeah, so, I mean, that's a whole other topic. Yeah.
• 30:28
  But yeah, and I think for us, the thing is we're not upset that they have Aguas Frescas. Like I said, you have to have a category and you have to have competition to have a category. So not upset about that. I just think about the impact that we could have made had we partnered together with them or had really they partnered with us because we have certain things built into our community
• 30:53
  you know, our company, like our 1% back program, where we support migrant farm workers with every purchase, like think about using the Coca-Cola resources to like spread our distribution, like the kind of impact that that could have made on the community. And then like, you know, we tried to rescue produce to make our drinks. So like, think about just that sheer volume of produce that we could have, you know, worked hand in hand with them as a large company,
• 31:20
  to like get off the streets and stuff like that. So it's just unfortunate that instead of finding a partnership opportunity, you know, it was more of just like, okay, well, we're just gonna do it our way. Yeah, I don't know. There's, it's hard. There's not, there's only so much I can say about it. And I will say like, picking a fight with
• 31:47
  you know, the biggest company in the world is not on my 2022 to-do list, you know, and it still really is not. Yeah. But it's just really unfortunate just how, what it looks like. Totally. I've actually spoken to the founders of Midday Squares about what happened to them when Hershey tried to buy them slash then sue them for a color mix up. And like the approach
• 32:17
  when these huge behemoth companies come at a small business that obviously doesn't have the same pockets as they do. And it's like, yeah, you can't fight them necessarily by, I don't know how it works, but like suing them back or whatever, or trying to
• 32:35
  battle it but I guess you can have your voice and you're allowed to get out there and tell your community what's happening to you so I'm interested to know what has it been like since when it comes to your community and the people around you learning about this because I know for me I felt really mad I was like what the hell yeah I think my approach was kind of just like let me just show people
• 33:02
  And then let them make the decision for themselves what they think happened. You know, I can only like give the facts of the matter and show what happened. And then like you guys tell me like, am I tripping or like what, you know? And then I think the response is like really having the community rally around us and like
• 33:24
  We just had an influx of support from purchases to offers of how to help with certain things and just words of encouragement and stuff like that. And so it wasn't all a bad experience. So that was really nice. And I think it just validated the strength of our community. And it also helped us just reach more community members. Now you and I are talking and...
• 33:53
  You know, we can talk about the sort of like injustices and some of these like dark spaces of the CPG world. And I think that that is really like what's most important is just like getting a new platform and a new way to share our voice and share our story. Because you're right, it happens to a lot of people all the time. And I'm just lucky that I have the ability to say something and have a community that listens and also like spreads our message.
• 34:24
  Mm, 100%. Was there anything like that you learned from the experience that was a bit unexpected or like how you'll handle, you know, business moving forward? Um, no. I would say like, I was told by some people like, maybe you don't want to say something
• 34:47
  And I totally get why, you know, I understand why, especially, you know, earlier we were talking about like the slotting fees and stuff like that. And there's only so many spaces on a shelf, like larger companies can go in and just buy your shelf space.
• 35:02
  and kind of like kick you out of the market in terms of doing that. So I know that that was, you know, a big concern for some people, for me not to say anything. But I guess my stance on it was that like, we're a startup, and we already have the whole like deck stacked against us. So the options are like,
• 35:24
  have an uphill fight and not say anything or like have an uphill fight and at least have like the community behind us by sharing our story. So I would still share no matter what. And yeah, and I think like now it's just given us
• 35:41
  just a little bit more motivation to like keep doing what we're doing. I think that if you are getting copied, if you're getting copied, then you're getting copied for a reason, right? Like you must be doing something right. And so we're going to just like, you know, keep on keeping on. And it's just kind of a bump in the road. And we got to just, you know, keep doing what we were already planning to do.
• 36:04
  100%. Now you just have all these people rallying behind you and happy to shout from the rooftops about what you're doing and buy your brand instead of someone else's brand. Yeah, for sure. What is on the cards for the future? What's next this year that you want to shout about or tell us about?
• 36:26
  So we have some really exciting new flavors coming. And I think that I'm most excited for that. I think if you guys follow us on Instagram at drinkablebonita, you'll see some really cool flavors, some very highly requested flavors coming out later this year that we are so excited to have, um,
• 36:45
  you know, get out on their way to y'all. And so that's the thing that I am most excited about. And then just seeing this in more places. It's so cool when you have started something in your home that you –
• 37:00
  end up seeing like on a shelf at a retailer like that is still so crazy to me is like I sit at my home office and work on this thing all the time and then eventually you know you get to go to this store and like it is sitting there on the store shelf available for purchase so we'll have some new retailers to announce as the year goes on that we're super excited to just uh be more available to people
• 37:29
  That is so cool. Yeah, I can imagine the thrill of seeing yourself like on the shelves or in the hands of someone just casually on the street just must be overwhelmingly exciting. And it mustn't get old. I can totally feel that. Never, never, ever gets old. Like the first like $5 that we made and like $5,000, like it just does not –
• 37:52
  make a difference every single time that someone like elects to buy our products and then like shows us is so exciting every single time. Very, very exciting. So cool. Is there anything that you wish someone had told you before you started the business that you can pass on that wisdom to anyone listening?
• 38:12
  Yeah, everything takes way longer than you expect it to. So even when you allot for extra time, add a little bit of extra time onto that timeline because everything will take longer than you think that it needs to. And in our business, time really does equal money. So you'll need more money to make sure that those things work out in your favor, right?
• 38:37
  So, yeah, I would just say, like, just plan properly because this little project is going to be way more time intensive than you think. That's so interesting. And what is your key piece of advice for entrepreneurs in the beverage space?
• 38:58
  I would say to just like lean into your community, even though we're all beverages and beverage is really like a competitive space. Honestly, you will find so many other founders and resources, people that really want to help you. I will like shamelessly plug Noah over at Ruby Hibiscus Water.
• 39:19
  He has been such a great founder. I love what he's doing. Yeah. And I love everything that he's doing. And he's such a nice person and so helpful. Yeah. Andrea Hernandez over at snack shots. Like, you know, these people are all about building community. And I think that like when you're building a brand,
• 39:42
  Like that's really all you're trying to do with your brand. But like, don't forget to build it as yourself, as a founder too. Yeah. So just like lean into the community. There are people that want to help. I love that. That's so cool. Thank you so much for sharing that.
• 40:03
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 40:27
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 40:50
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.
• 41:05
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 41:30
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 41:52
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.