Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / From kitchen lab to 8 figures in rev; America’s fastest growing sparkling water founder Maddie Voge shares the Aura Bora journey (part 1)

Transcript

From kitchen lab to 8 figures in rev; America’s fastest growing sparkling water founder Maddie Voge shares the Aura Bora journey (part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Maddie Vogue for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Hey everyone, and welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. On the show today, we're getting super inspired by Maddie Vogue, co-founder behind the sparkling water brand, Aura Bora. Aura Bora is the fastest growing sparkling water brand in the country. They are zero calorie waters made from real herbs, fruits, flowers, things like basil, cactus, lavender, all the good things.
• 0:39
  In 2021, they aired on Shark Tank and expanded into over 2,000 retailers, including Sprouts, Whole Foods, Thrive Market, Walmart, and hundreds of natural grocery stores. This is such a great story if you're in the food and beverage industry.
• 0:56
  We talk about those early days improving out the concept slowly before committing to a huge order, what it was like to go on Shark Tank and the aftermath of the experience, and some of the mishaps she didn't see coming, like when thousands of cans started freezing slash exploding. Crazy stuff.
• 1:15
  While I've got you here, if you haven't done so already, Your Hype Girl, The Book, comes out on February 28th. It's a Monday. We're having a launch week special that week. So make sure you mark it in your diary. I'm going to keep talking about it until it comes out. I'm so excited. That's enough of that. Let's get into this episode. This is Maddie for Female Startup Club. Maddie, hi. Welcome to the show. Hi.
• 1:43
  Hi, Dune. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to have you on the show today. I was just telling you how much I admire your brand from afar. Love the branding. Love the vibes. Love the purple jumpsuit that I've seen you wearing. Thank you. Thank you. I should have pulled it out for today. I mean, we kind of would have been a bit matching. Like we would have, not that I'm wearing purple, but you know, bright poppy colors. Love it. Tell me about Ouroboros and the ethos behind the brand.
• 2:13
  Okay, so Ouroboros is an herbal sparkling water. It's made from herbs, fruits, and flowers. So think plant extracts like lavender, basil, peppermint. So you take your conventional sparkling water and put a little twist on it with plant-based, more natural ingredients. So that's Ouroboros. The ethos though, I would say we've created this natural, whimsical world. If you've seen our can art before, I've got one here.
• 2:44
  it's these little creatures. This one has a chameleon. We have a sloth, many others in this whimsical land. He's riding a coconut back here. So we'd like to think that the taste, which is pretty vibrant, even though it doesn't have any sugar, transports you to another whimsical land. And that ethos is actually wrapped up in partnerships with things like 1% for the
• 3:12
  That is, I would say, foundationally who we are. I mean, I just love it on so many levels. I feel like naturally flavored sparkling water. How have I not already got that in my life? That's just weird and beyond me. I love sparkling water with lemon in it. I'm sure I would love basil sparkling water. A hundred percent. We thought that actually, I remember early on.
• 3:36
  Paul, my husband and co-founder, we tasted a lavender ice cream. And that's commonplace now, but this was years ago and it was sort of novel. We thought, why don't we do this with sparkling water? There's only like lemon, lime, the occasional pompla mousse.
• 3:53
  Oh my gosh. So my next question was going to be, where does this story start? Does it literally start with the lavender ice cream? Is that the catalyst for this whole thing? That's definitely part of it. Paul and I, we now live in San Francisco, but this was now four years ago. We're living in Denver and we were working in offices, novel, I know we haven't done that in a while, where we had a fridge stocked with
• 4:18
  LaCroix, other conventional sparkling waters. And we were drinking a lot of them. Paul, especially, he used to come home with a backpack just to show me like a graveyard of the cans he drank that day. And it'd be like 12 LaCroix. Oh, my gosh. And we just started talking about how uninspired we were. And it wasn't that it wasn't good. It was good. We like sparkling water. We both grew up in homes that didn't allow soda drinking very much.
• 4:43
  But we just felt that it was a bit uninspired and it kind of left a funny aftertaste. And so we wanted to mess around. And that was when we thought about, OK, lavender ice cream or even there's a big craft beer movement in Denver. And we were just thinking like people are going craft and really enjoying it. And that's when we started experimenting in our kitchen business.
• 5:09
  just testing out with our home carbonator, a bunch of different funky ingredients. The good old kitchen lab. Yes, I feel like it's in almost every food and beverage founder's story is that they were just putting weird stuff in weird stuff and seeing how it tasted. What were some of the ones that didn't make the cut? What were the worst sparkling water combos that you did?
• 5:35
  Okay, so funny enough, early on, you know, we didn't have access. We didn't even know where to get flavorings or extracts. And so we started with things like crushed mint or herbs, which were great, but
• 5:47
  But we had some misses. We actually experimented a bit with essential oils and made like a frankincense sparkling water. And that one was a little funky and costly. We made, we did try spicy, different spicy sparkling waters. So like cayenne pepper and things like that. And I think I'm treading lightly because I still think we could make it work.
• 6:13
  But at the time, it was not working. It was not a vibe then, but it should be a vibe. Like jalapeno spicy sparkling would be like a real vibe.
• 6:24
  Would be really cool. Funny, for people who are already haters on sparkling water and they're like, it tastes so spicy, this would be their worst nightmare. But I think some people would like it. Oh, my God. I just can't live life without sparkling. And I'm so the girl that would want spicy. Love that. I agree.
• 6:44
  Oh my gosh. Okay. So you're in your kitchen, you're doing the home development thing. At what point are you like, we're onto something, we should actually turn this into a brand? And what's that process like? Yeah, so...
• 7:00
  I would say it was a big thanks to our friends because at the time, Paul and I both were working jobs. Paul was in tech. I was actually working for a little small batch gin company at the time. And our friends were coming over and we were whipping up a batch of whatever we had just tried with our soda stream and pouring cups and sampling for folks.
• 7:23
  And it was not serious. We were not like, we want to make this real. Can you tell us, give us your feedback? It was more like, hey, you guys should try this. It's like really spicy, sparkling water. And after the first few rounds, our friends were like, this is unacceptable. Absolutely unacceptable.
• 7:43
  But actually, as time went on, we were getting good. And people eventually knew, hey, Paul is especially super entrepreneurial. Everyone always thought he'll probably want to start something. And they were like, this is it. Do this. You're young. It's really good. We like it better than all the other popular sparkling waters right now. You should just make this a thing.
• 8:08
  Oh my gosh, that is so cool. Your friends were your hype girls and cheerleaders, girls and guys, I should say. Yes, they were. Cheerleading you on and inspiring you to do it. I love that so much. And that's so important to have that kind of like network, whether it is through friends and family or whether it is through people you meet online and, you know, through different private communities. And I say that because we have a private network. So I always love to shout about it wherever I can. Shameless plug. It's great. It's for CPG founders. You should come in there. Yeah.
• 8:37
  Yes, but it makes all the difference. I'm in. So, okay. Your friends inspire you to like actually take it seriously. How much does it cost to get started? How do you finance the brand? And like, what do you spend the money on? Yeah. So early on, um, we weren't ready to think about raising money or anything like that. At least to start out, we wanted to,
• 9:02
  do a little bit more experimenting, especially before we went to family and friends, which sounds like the easy thing, but it is. I mean, that's a big ask. Yeah. And it's also very scary. You have to be super committed to your idea to be able to take money. Yes. And especially if you know this is what you want to do, you know, you want to be an entrepreneur. What if this isn't the idea? What if there's something else? And then you sort of, I don't want to say burn to that bridge. Obviously, our family at least is very gracious, but it's like, that was my shot.
• 9:30
  I mean, you're literally, I can't even really speak about it right now because I haven't like overly announced this on the show yet, but I was developing a non-alcoholic wine all of last year and we spent about 20K in development and branding and things like that. And it got to the point where we needed to place our first order, which was circa 50K. And we were like, not sure if this is it. So spoiler for everyone else who's been following along me building in public.
• 9:56
  tough times. We were like, we can't take other people's money right now. Like it's, it's, we're not a hundred percent confident in what we're doing. And like, we really felt that. Yeah. A hundred percent. I, I absolutely connect. So early on what we didn't realize we were incredibly lucky is that Denver, especially the Boulder area in Colorado is a hub for natural foods. And so we, uh,
• 10:20
  Ended up connecting with a food scientist, which is a job that if I had known existed, I would have gotten straight into. And he helped us at a really low cost develop the first flavors with using extracts because we were using, you know, crushed herbs. And then we basically used just some of our own money, a couple thousand dollars to start a very small production run with like.
• 10:49
  we basically were sealing the cans ourselves in a machine. So it wasn't like this huge operation, but there was, we did a production run outside of Boulder and it was about a thousand cans. And that was when we were basically like, is this, this is it, is this gonna work? Will these sell? And they did. So that's when we knew, okay, I think we can go to our friends and family now. So a few months later, this is in 2019, we went to some friends and family on both sides of our families.
• 11:18
  and raise $200,000. Right, okay, I have so many questions. First question is, you get those thousand cans made as a test, how long does it take you to sell them and how do you sell them? Is it literally just within your network, a couple of friends and family, or is it like the markets thing, or what's the vibe? Okay, so Paul took a bunch of those cans to a,
• 11:42
  conference that was going on in the Boulder area. And there were a bunch of buyers from different retailers. And I mean, truly, we had no idea what we were doing, but he was pouring samples. And we had, I want to say, like, probably a little printed sign that had Ouroboros on it for our name. And people loved it. It felt very scrappy. I remember, like, loading up our Subaru with a bunch of cans and sending him on his way
• 12:12
  But people really loved it. And then we caught this wonderful break, I want to say, in that about three blocks away from our house in Denver, there was a brand new natural grocer opening called Lever's Locavore. And they wanted it in their store. And they bought, they placed the first order ever. And actually, they're still one of our best retailers to this day.
• 12:39
  Oh my gosh, that's so cool. I love that. Back to the $200,000. You raised $200,000 through friends and family. What does that allow you to do in terms of investing in a bigger order of stock and inventory, branding I'm imagining? What's that kind of cover? Yeah, so that helped us cover the packaging.
• 13:08
  To start out, we started with five flavors and worked with a cool agency in Boulder to help design. And then we were able to order a bunch of those can material, lid materials, packaging, etc. To do our first production run at a little bit more of a scale. So costs went down. I don't want to say a lot because that wasn't enough money for the cost of goods to go down in a big way. But it did help us produce the first run of cans.
• 13:39
  So, yeah, I would say it basically covered materials and the first big run of all five flavors. That's so interesting you say that. At what level does it actually start to impact the cost of materials? I mean, it's basically at about...
• 13:58
  a million cans that things start to get really, the cost of goods goes way down and we're still, Oh my gosh. And you ordered like 30,000 in this batch, right? This first batch. Yes. Wow. So 30,000 to a million is a lot. It is incremental. There's, there's, there's still changes as you go along, but it takes a while. I mean, especially if you, you'll notice there's obviously a cost difference between a can of Ouroboros and a can of LaCroix still on the shelf. And that's obviously because their cost
• 14:28
  Way, way, way down. You can buy it for under a dollar. Got it. Okay. Got it. Got it. Got it. And so you get this 30,000 units. How do you launch that in a bigger way and start to really market the message and get this brand out there? Yeah. So for a while, it was just, like I said, loading up the Subaru and cruising around town to a bunch of different natural grocers, especially we weren't, we weren't at the time.
• 14:58
  getting into any big chains right off the bat. But it was a lot of just like pounding pavement, as they say, and networking with buyers. And on my end, so Paul was doing a lot of the selling. I was doing a lot more of the brand building. And so getting a social media up and going, we were on Instagram and just trying to build like a look and feel. And then we were developing our
• 15:24
  I've been talking about retail a bunch, but we also early on decided, hey, we think that e-commerce is going to be a big thing, especially in food and beverage. And then the pandemic happened and we were thankfully excited.
• 15:37
  already underway in getting this e-commerce site streamlined and looking good. So that's, that was a big part of ramping up was Paul is out hitting the road, talking to buyers, going into natural grocers. And I was like getting our website designed, figuring out Shopify and starting to think about what our social media look and feel would be.
• 15:59
  And it's such a crazy time for CPG brands in the food and bev space specifically because pre-pandemic, you know, the blueprint was like sampling programs, demos, just getting out there and like meeting people face to face or markets or whatever it was.
• 16:17
  cut to 2020, all of that totally goes to shit. And you have to focus on D2C only, which is just so crazy. So besides social media, what were you focused on to kind of like switch that sampling program specifically to online? Or were there any of those like kind of websites that you were trying to get onto to still build those sampling programs? I've heard of this one. I don't know what it's called in the US, but they like, I think what they do is maybe you subscribe and they send you drinks
• 16:48
  Yes, those definitely exist, like sampler sites. Those definitely exist where you can subscribe and get samples sent to your house, which is nice, but it definitely does not stack up against what demos can do for you in a grocery store. The reason I say that is I mentioned, yes, I mentioned Leavers Locavore before, and that was the only retailer we were able to do any significant number of demos in before the pandemic hit because they were our first. And yeah.
• 17:15
  We think that's a reason that the velocity on shelf there is still as high as it is. It's been years now is because of those early demos. So it's interesting that you say that because they make such a big difference. But to replace those in a time when, you know, we haven't been able to do them a lot, it's been a lot of.
• 17:33
  coupons on shelf and sales so that when people see our, our drink in the fridge or on shelf, they think, I've never tried that before, but Oh, it's two for one. Or, um, so that's nice. And thankfully when it comes to beverage, um,
• 17:48
  I don't know if you feel this way in the grocery store, but that's an area where people are actually willing to experiment. They're like, you know, I have my brands. I have the type of pesto I like to buy. I have the type of potato chips I like. But with drinks, people are down to, oh, I'm grabbing lunch. Oh, this looks interesting. So thankfully, we have that going for us. That's so true.
• 18:09
  I personally have that consumer behavior. I'm like always open to try like a new beverage and be excited by something. I always want a new beverage. I'm like, what else can I have? What is going on right now in the beverage space? Yes, I agree. So that we had going for us. And I think, honestly, e-commerce always.
• 18:32
  As a whole, even though you don't get the free sample, it does help get the word out. So we all the time still to this day, we ship out 12 packs of our five flavors and our limited edition flavors from our website. All the time still we get comments from folks, even though we're in grocery stores in every state, saying like, I can't wait for you to be nearby. Like I'll order online until then. So yeah.
• 18:57
  It's helping. It's helping in that folks kind of transition from being orderers from our online site to it's in my local grocer. Now I can get it here. Yes. Yes. And now you guys are stocked in like thousands of retailers around. Actually, I'm skipping ahead. I've skipped a part. Okay. So this happens and then circa 20, mid 2020, I'm going to say you start the process for Shark Tank. Let's talk about the Shark Tank thing.
• 19:28
  Yes. Okay. So in around mid 2020, Paul got an email through our website from someone claiming to be a casting producer at Shark Tank. And we were like, allegedly, we're like, this is fake. There is no way this is real. And, um,
• 19:51
  set up a call and we connected with this casting producer at Shark Tank. And he essentially was like, I came across your brand. And we're like, how? We were at that point, you know, in some grocers, but not enough. And he was like, I think it's really interesting. And we'd love for you to apply to Shark Tank. And we didn't know it at the time, but Shark Tank brings on a guest or multiple guests every season that play in a certain arena. And so the guests they had were,
• 20:18
  was the founder of Kind Bar. And so they were looking for a bunch of folks in the food and beverage space to pitch. So we just got lucky. And that process, I know you've interviewed other folks who've been on Shark Tank, is a full-time job. It is so much paperwork and pitching and prepping. But yeah, so that was through many months of 2020 we were preparing. And it wasn't until about a week and a half before we were filming that they said,
• 20:48
  You're filming. You're in. It's on. Yes. Oh, my gosh. And so, like, for Shark Tank, what's the kind of investment, you know, that you have to take that risk on of potentially it not going to air or, you know, those kind of circumstances that you hear happen sometimes with someone being like, oh, no, it didn't go on?
• 21:10
  Gosh, so the amount of paperwork I've probably signed. So I'm going to tread lightly because I don't want to give away any trade secrets. But essentially, they are the whole time.
• 21:24
  vetting companies, looking at your paperwork and looking at your numbers and making sure you're going to be a viable investment for the sharks. And then at the same time, you're putting together a pitch. The one you see where folks come out and say, Hey sharks, that's script. That's the only scripted part of the show is you get this like one minute pitch. So you want them to like that
• 21:46
  And then you're starting to put together your set design and dream up what that could look like. And that whole time they're sort of saying this could happen. You could be in. You might air. And you don't actually know until I want to say, I'm trying to remember the exact time frame, less than a month before you air. So even if you film, you don't know for sure.
• 22:07
  Oh my gosh, that is just so crazy. And I'm only asking you this because probably it was on the show anyway, but feel free not to answer. What was your kind of like revenue numbers before going on the show? Like where were you at in terms of what stage of the business? Oh, that's a really good question. Let me think. So if I'm remembering correctly, we were raising
• 22:32
  I think $150,000 from one of the sharks. And we hadn't raised a significant round of funding at that point yet. We were just getting to a point where we needed more, we need more cash. And I'm not locked on our revenue numbers. So I'll have to circle back on that. But we were definitely ready to ramp up, especially because of the time that we were pitching, we were waiting to hear back from folks like,
• 22:57
  whole foods, sprouts that were interested had sampled and were like, oh shoot, we need to make more cans. Yes, right. Like it's all in the pipeline. You need this kind of moment to happen for you. So what happens? I obviously have, you know, read the highlights online. How does it go? What offers are made and what do you accept?
• 23:21
  Okay. So we, first of all, let me say it is as intense as it feels when you're watching. My heart is beating so fast. You walk in, got the panel of judges in front of you. We had just learned maybe a day before that Daniel Lubitsky would be there from kind bar. So we're excited because, you know, he's in our, he's a player in our space. And we give our pitch. I would say the most intimidating part of it is if you,
• 23:50
  We've now seen every episode of the whole show because we're getting prepared. There are times when food and beverage people come on the show and their pitch tanks because all the sharks try it and they just hate it. And it ends up being the opposite of a commercial. You don't even want it to air because you're like, okay, now, you know, five million people are going to watch five people that they love hate my product. So we were really scared.
• 24:20
  Does that happen? Do they air the ones if they all hate them? Yes, they have. And we at least talked to one entrepreneur who was like, yeah, it was – I actually didn't get many orders from Shark Tank because of it, which is, you know, a huge benefit of being on that show is that, you know, you get thousands of orders. Mass awareness. Yeah. Yeah.
• 24:41
  So it does happen. But thank goodness, I remember just all of the tension leaving my body when I think it was Robert who was like, oh, that's good. And we were like, okay. I can take a breath. Yes, exactly. So that is how it started. We were in there for what felt like five minutes, but it was actually closer to an hour. So...
• 25:09
  we pitch, we answer a ton of questions. They're asking things about, you know, how'd you name the brand? We love your packaging. Actually. Yes. One of my points of pride was, um, I think it was Robert again saying like this might be the best packaging we've seen in all 12 seasons, which was really cool. What a compliment. Holy moly. Yes. Huge compliment. Um, and then we have this funny moment. So, um,
• 25:36
  Mr. Wonderful, Kevin, he puts in an offer. He's very known for wanting royalty deals where he gets a little piece of every single sale. He wanted five cents on every can. And Paul and I knew going in, no go. We're not going to do that. We had that deal on the table. One of our favorite sharks, Mark Cuban, was out really early. He was like,
• 25:57
  beverage is risky. I'm not interested. And then we had Robert come in closer to the end. He was like, Hey, I know this is risky, but I'm actually interested. And I really like it. He's known for liking natural products. So originally we're asking for $150,000 for 5% of the company. And we ended up taking a deal with Robert who offered us 200,000 for 15%. And we tried to negotiate him down a little bit, but we knew no matter what 15 was our ceiling going in. So we
• 26:27
  at the end of it, made the deal. I love that for you. Is that something they tell you before you go on to like get firm on what your like areas of negotiation can be and what your absolute no's are? Yes, they do tell you as you're getting prepared, like, hey, it's not a good look to walk out of that room and have to sort of, I don't know if you've ever seen episodes where folks leave the room to regroup and discuss and then come back.
• 26:58
  They were like, know what you want, because in the time that you leave, those tracks can change their minds. So we knew going in 15 percent is our max. We really want to make a deal because we would love to have a partner. And just generally, we knew like, hey, this would be huge if it aired and it was successful. So we were we were down for it.
• 27:18
  Oh my gosh. I love that so much. So you get the offer with Robert. He's obviously like, I guess a dream strategic partner for you guys on multiple levels. What's the impact? What happens after it? Well, I guess it's a while until it airs. What happens after that?
• 27:37
  Yeah. So there is a long period of waiting. We waited about six months where you're just like, what's going to happen? As it got closer, we got notified that we were airing in January of last year. And so one thing that you do is you just start prepping boxes, especially having an e-commerce site. We knew, hey, we're going to get a lot of orders. So let's just start getting prepped. So we prepped thousands of boxes to ship out.
• 28:02
  And is that like through capital that you're using your own working capital or at this point, have you already done the deal with Robert behind the scenes and you've had the cash come into the business? We haven't done the deal yet. So it hasn't closed. But at this point, we were still using that early funding from family and friends. Yeah.
• 28:19
  And yeah, so we're like stocking boxes, getting those prepared. And we, I have this great video actually of us on the night that it was airing. We're watching it live and looking at our Shopify site numbers. And at one point we had 25,000 people on our site.
• 28:36
  So that was the immediate aftermath was we got, I want to say like 7,000 more Instagram followers. We had thousands of orders and a lot of those folks are still fans of the brand today. So it has, it has a long tail. And then you enter into a lot of back and forth. We've, we've had back and forth for a long time with Robert's team before. Yeah. Moving forward.
• 29:02
  Oh my gosh, that is just so exciting. I can't even imagine, you know, I've had an e-commerce site before and the thrill for me getting those little dings on the Shopify sound like notification is unbelievable. I can't even imagine what it's like to just have that rolling for thousands of orders. It must have been absolutely insane. It was crazy. It was totally crazy.
• 29:27
  Oh, gosh. And I imagine the other like ripple on effect from this is then the national or nationwide retailers that start like hopping into your DMs or hopping into your inbox and being like, hey, we're over here and we're interested. Yes. Yes. All of a sudden we had inbound messages.
• 29:49
  from folks and that's so uncommon. Occasionally you get a retailer that's like, I saw you on the shelf here, I really want you. But all of a sudden, yeah, we had all these natural grocers and a few even like bigger retailers reaching out and saying like, we wanna try your stuff.
• 30:03
  Oh my gosh. I love that. How would you summarize, you know, the journey from then until now? I know that you've done a fundraise in that time and I think I read you raised $2 million. What are the kind of key moments for you to share? They can be good or bad from then to now, from when it aired? Yeah. Great question. So big key moment is at the time we aired last year,
• 30:29
  It was just me and Paul. We had a lot of vendors and folks that we partnered with and who helped us, but no one was full-time with us. That's crazy. And since then, we've built...
• 30:42
  Yeah, it was crazy, truly. And if we had to do it again, I would say we would hire earlier because we were so busy. But we built a team. We have 10 folks on our team now. We have started this fun project.
• 30:59
  e-commerce campaign where we release limited edition flavors. So we've already had three of those. I'll try cranberry for Christmas. Yeah, yeah. I'm adding that to my mental notes right now. So that's been a really fun campaign where we've gotten to launch more flavors beyond our first five.
• 31:21
  And then we've grown into 2,500 plus retailers now. So we're in a few regions of Whole Foods. We're in Sprouts. We're on Thrive Market. And so those have been some big key retailers that have helped to make us feel more legit and to also so that our e-commerce folks can find us nearby, which is really cool. So those were some key moments. And then, gosh, I'm...
• 31:49
  I'm thinking of some big disasters that have happened in that time too. Because obviously in the day-to-day, it's really busy. And when you zoom out, there's so many good things. But I'm remembering last winter...
• 32:07
  there were a lot of big freezes around the country where the temperatures got really, really low. And it actually coincided with a lot of issues with mailing services because they're, they were understaffed and it was getting close to Christmas time. So there was just like, so such a high volume of packages. It was in the middle of the pandemic. And we started getting one email and then five emails and then 20 emails.
• 32:36
  that people's cans had exploded. And it was- Oh my God, I forgot that cans explode. Oh no. Cans really explode. And you know, for a while we'd been very- I thought we were thinking about the fizz like going away. That's what I had in my head. No. Cans explode. Shit. I wish I had a reference photo I could show you because folks would send us emails and they'd include photographs and it would be like slush. A disaster. There was just a box of slush.
• 33:05
  So that was a very funny crisis we experienced. I'm laughing, but that is not funny. But it was so stressful at the time. How much like stock was caught up in that can massacre? Thousands and thousands of cans, for sure. So we were issuing a lot of refunds and helping folks, you know, get coupons, et cetera. But that was, I will say we were very, very privileged up until that point because cans are fairly durable. So we're not working with glass. We don't have,
• 33:35
  It's shelf stable, so things aren't going bad. But this was our disaster. Oh, mama. Those are, yeah, that's pretty crazy. It's just pretty wild. I guess you just don't think about that. How will you avoid that in the future? Yeah, so a big part of it has been making sure that our cans are just packaged well, that they have some space in between them so that if they do like expand and contract with the temperature, they're not just going to like...
• 34:05
  create this little pressure. System inside of the box and explode. So that, that has been a big part of it was just experimenting with the right kind of like installation and packaging around them. And then actually, I think a lot of it was circumstantial in that typically they don't leave packages in their trucks overnight when they're the mailing trucks, um, but because they were short staffed and because it was during Christmas
• 34:27
  season holiday season, they weren't pulling things out of their trucks at night. So we are hoping that it was just a million different factors at once playing in and that we won't experience the crisis of the same sort again. Yeah. It was just like bad luck coming together. Exactly. What is the best and worst advice you've ever received? Sometimes I say that I'm like, did I say that right? Best and worst. Yeah. You said it right. You definitely got it. Okay. Let me see.
• 34:57
  So the best advice I can think of right off the top of my head is a friend of ours who's been in the industry for longer, essentially saying, everyone is faking it. And that is, you know, there's a limit to that belief. Obviously, there are folks with a ton of experience who have done this longer, who know more, they know what they're doing in a
• 35:26
  first starting out when you're like making drinks in your kitchen or making your homemade granola in a little kitchen down the road to feel like, oh, everyone's legitimate and I'm not. Everyone else is doing this the right way and I'm not. And even to this day when Paul and I are breaking down a million boxes in our house because we just had all these samples get shipped to the wrong place and we're jamming them into our tiny recycling bin
• 35:55
  It can feel like we're still not legit. We're still, we don't have all the systems in place to make us real and a real company and a real business. So I think that was helpful to hear someone say who's been in the industry much longer. It's like, yeah, you're real. This is very much a legitimate business. And this is just how it is.
• 36:18
  And if you feel like other people are doing it better, yeah, maybe they are, but they also have days like that. So that has been definitely the best advice. I'm trying to think. Okay, worst advice. That's a good one.
• 36:31
  Yeah, it's been reassuring, I think, especially in times when we're like, all our cans are exploding. Like, no, this doesn't happen to anyone else. And then you learn, oh, actually, no, there was like a massive recall on, you know, this giant beverage that you just didn't hear about. 100%. Everyone's going through those ups and downs. Yes, exactly. And then worst advice. Ooh. Well, I would say someone...
• 36:58
  recommended to us really early on that we only launch with one flavor to start out, just to dip our toes in. And
• 37:06
  You know, obviously they were trying to be helpful. So I don't want to say, oh, worst advice ever, but it actually would have been really detrimental to our brand early on to just have one flavor and not this like broader variety. So folks can get an understanding of what our brand is all about. Understand that we are like the sparkling water with unique and interesting flavors. And also on a more technical note,
• 37:34
  selling into retailers and getting that shelf space. If you're just one skew, that's not gonna take up much shelf space. It's gonna be really hard to launch new flavors and convince them to take them on. So we feel lucky. We didn't know better, but we just launched with five and we're glad we did. I also just think like it's so much harder to, if you don't have a range of flavors, you're really banking on that person
• 38:00
  being a mass kind of audience to that one flavor profile. Whereas like someone might be really excited about the brand, but they might not be into that one. They might be into the one next to it. You know, everyone's got such different taste buds and like what they would automatically go for. A hundred percent. Yeah. That's a great point. You just capture the wider audience there. Love those. Thank you so much. All great.
• 38:26
  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.
• 38:51
  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.
• 39:13
  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.
• 39:30
  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.
• 39:54
  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.
• 40:17
  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.