Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Fave Hits: How she sold 100,000 units in her first year of business, with AVEC's Denetrias Charlemagne (part 1)

Transcript

Fave Hits: How she sold 100,000 units in her first year of business, with AVEC's Denetrias Charlemagne (part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hey there, I'm recording this quick message to let you know that for the next few episodes, we'll be playing some of our favorite hits from the past year while we knuckle down on some very new exciting things we have in the works. You'll hear episodes like Mimi Icon on building and selling Luxie hair and the CEO of Girlboss Lulu Liang on her transition from building a brand to starting her own.
• 0:25
  If you missed these the first time around, they are so good and packed with so many learnings. And if you love them, remember to share with us on social media because we love it when you do that. Enjoy! This is Denetrius Charlemagne for Female Startup Club.
• 0:50
  Hello and welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today we are learning from Dee Charlemagne, who is the co-founder of Avec Drinks. Made with real fruit juice, low or no sugar and natural botanicals, Avec's drinks are the better tasting and better for you mixes that you deserve.
• 1:13
  But before we get into it, there are so many pieces of gold in this episode. We're chatting through a lot of the money stuff. We're chatting through selling through 100,000 units in the first year in business and landing the New York Times on launch day. Grab a pen and paper because you are absolutely going to need it. This episode is so good.
• 1:37
  And by the way, there's an epic download available for free in my TikTok bio at Doon Roisin, which is D-O-O-N-E-R-O-I-S-I-N. It's the year-long marketing calendar that we use to map out our efforts, as well as a comprehensive social media calendar for all the different channels.
• 1:57
  And if you're anything like me and you're not great with documents, this is going to make your life 10 times easier as a brand owner. So go check it out. It's at Dunrosheen on TikTok, D-O-O-N-E-R-O-I-S-I-N. Let's get into it. This is Dee for Female Startup Club. Dee, hi, hello. Welcome to the Female Startup Club podcast. Hi, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
• 2:24
  I'm so excited to be here and hear all the things about your amazing adventure over the last 18 months. It seems crazy from an outside point of view. It seems crazy from an insider's point of view. Amazing. I always love to get everyone to introduce themselves, tell us a little bit about who you are and what your business actually is for those who might not know yet.
• 2:48
  Cool. Well, I'm Dee, Denetrius is the long name, but Dee Charlemagne, co-founder of EVEC Drinks. We make better for you alcohol mixers. So think instead of tonic water or cranberry juice or like really boring club soda, what we're solving is that compromise that you kind of see at the bar between
• 3:04
  health and taste, right? So if you want something interesting and flavorful, you really have to trade up to this really sugary cocktail. Or if you want something healthy, you're being offered a mocktail that's like a bitters and soda or a cocktail that's just like a, can I have a club soda with a splash of this and a dash of that? And you're trying to hack your way to this healthy drink. At EVEC, we kind of merge those two things. So all of our mixers are made with real juice, botanical spices, no like monk fruit, stevia, like skinny girl kind of stuff.
• 3:32
  but are all under 20 calories and under five grams of sugar. So super simple. You just pour it in with your favorite, you know, spirit, or you have it on its own as an adult treat. And it's kind of, we're on this mission to really help people drink better and to do it, you know, better together with, you know, more thought, more helpful ingredients and kind of recognized, you know, premium spirits had taken off and non-alc spirits have even taken off and the mixer category had kind of been left behind and is a little bit boring. So trying to shake things up.
• 4:01
  Yeah, I love it. And I so see it. And now that I read about your brain, I'm like, yeah, what happened there? Like that just got left out of the picture for a second, for a hot second. I love your, well, I haven't tried it, but the jalapeno blood orange. I was like, this speaks to my soul. This is what I want to drink on a daily basis. It's based off of a spicy margarita, which is like the worst. Oh, my God.
• 4:22
  my favorite drink the worst in terms of sugar though like I feel like all workout classes are like if you have a margarita you're like discounting all of your gym going this and you're like no oh my god are you sure to me it was like it's just straight alcohol no margaritas are like the worst yeah
• 4:40
  Oh man, I hate that for me. Okay, let's get started on your beginnings on why you decided to go into this industry, how you founded the brand, where your entrepreneurial story pretty much gets started.
• 4:54
  Yeah, I guess I have to go way back when, but there's like lots of reasons to unpack why I'm an entrepreneur today and why it took so long, I think, too. But starting with Vivek, met Alex, my co-founder at business school. He's a Brit, but also Australian, Canadian, kind of what he calls it, like a
• 5:11
  A mud of that world, a blend of that world. And we met at Columbia Business School on the first day. And he came over with this idea for this Better For You Mixer, having seen, you know, he was a food and beverage consultant, kind of saw the world of food and beverage change, you know, every category. If you think about Oatly, Sweetgreen, like Halo Top, Ice Cream Can Be Healthy, like everything was moving to health and wellness except for the mixer space where people were like, oh.
• 5:34
  okay, I guess I'll get a club soda or a cranberry juice. Like mixers really hadn't really changed from like a health profile perspective, but also a flavor perspective. Like, you know, you see like Casamigos and Tito's, I don't know what the big brands are in Oz, but in the States at least and all this love around spirits. And then you get to the mixers and people, it's like, like you said, kind of the forgotten land really thought it was like a very simple idea. I was like, yes, America needs something like this.
• 5:59
  I spent a decade, nearly a decade in advertising before becoming an entrepreneur. So I had worked for a lot of big brands. Starbucks is the one that I talk about most when I talk about a vet because it was kind of like the rest of the world knew about this thing called espresso. And like America was like, oh, we'll still settle for drip coffee. And I feel like that's how mixers are.
• 6:20
  today. We got to consult for a lot of big brands and work with awesome brands like Starbucks, but was just really feeling like I was tired of advising brands on what they should do and making PowerPoint slides and having that kind of be my output, just like this PowerPoint advisory position versus really getting into it and building a brand. So it was such a simple idea. I wanted kind of like a hard product or a product that really bought people together. I kind of went into school with a coaching idea, actually, like a life coaching idea, which we can get into
• 6:47
  Yeah.
• 7:04
  for a little while and just got to see all these different kind of cultures blend and mix. And really when I was like, always trying to get brands to just think about, you know, the world. And I kind of think the way like people our age think about the world, like very globally, very challenging, very curious, and was just tired of advising people on that. So
• 7:21
  Just a really simple idea. And I think entrepreneurship on like a capital E entrepreneurship level, I guess, for me is really about, you know, kind of generational wealth, if I'm honest. I know you said people don't talk about money, but for me as a black woman, it's very much like, you know, entrepreneurship is one of those paths that help you jump.
• 7:40
  a big gap. So I wrote my business school essay around like, do I want to be a female funder or a female founder? And like what, you know, kind of making that decision in business school was like a key one of like, okay, I don't want to be on the investing side. I actually really like operating, bringing people together. Like maybe I can do investing, um,
• 7:57
  After I have some more experience and things like that, I love talking to investors who are former founders themselves or were founders or are founders themselves just because they get it, right? They get the journey, the operational experience. So I kind of wanted to start, you know, being an operator, being a founder. And the idea kind of resonated with me.
• 8:16
  on a, on a level that made sense, but also like, I also love planning parties and bringing different kinds of people together. So I was like, this seems like I could do it. Like it's something that, a brand perfect recipe. Uh, so we can get into how we got here, but that's kind of the, the not so short answer about entrepreneurship with lowercase E and entrepreneurship with a capital E as I would say.
• 8:36
  I mean, I love it. And I think the generational wealth thing is so important to talk about. And from a different lens, I grew up really poor. We didn't have any money. And for me, I was like, I don't want to be like this. I want to change my circumstances. And I really want to build a business to have the opportunity to potentially make life-changing money. And I think we should talk about this more openly because…
• 8:58
  You know, women, it's, I mean, maybe it's a cliche, not a cliche, sorry, but maybe it's like a stereotype that women are more like kind of, oh, we shouldn't talk about the money thing. Or maybe it truly is that way. But I'm like, no, we shouldn't be like ashamed to say that we want to make life changing money and we can shout about that. It's like so important.
• 9:17
  Yeah, I mean, I think it's just clear, right? Like, it's like, it's not that everyone's an entrepreneur just for nobility. Like, people want some level of success, right? Like, it's like whether that is the amount of people you touch, the amount of power you have, the amount of money you have. Like, there's some amount in everything, right? Like, even if it's a nonprofit, you're trying to, there's some kind of measurable KPI that you're trying to get at numbers-wise. And I think the generational wealth question is still up for debate, right? Like, is this the way forward? Or is it like a really big risk? Then you should do something more.
• 9:45
  traditional, but you know, everything I've read at least talks about just like, how could you, like with so much stacked against you generational wise, like it's the biggest way to leap. 100%. Going back to your first day of business school, when you met Alex, what's the kind of journey from there? What leads you to being like, okay, yeah, let's actually join forces and start this business that you kind of have a bit of a loose idea around?
• 10:14
  Yeah, so Alex will say that he spent time courting me into, like, tricking me into doing this business. But at Columbia, there's actually very few people who are, not very few, but it's a small group of people who are interested in entrepreneurship, like, for real, for real, after business school. Like, not just going into banking or consulting or tech. Like, really, like, okay, I'm here to try and figure out how to start a business. So kind of created this, like, small entrepreneurial group where people would pitch ideas to each other back and forth, back and forth.
• 10:42
  And when I heard the idea for VEC, which had a different name then, I was like, oh, that's an interesting one. But like, I don't know, Alex Bardet. Can we make this product? You know, like I've never made a product. That's also terrifying, right? To be like, my product has been PowerPoint. That's like I've never made a product. Like come down the line. Like can we make a product that tastes good? And so I think we kind of focus on schoolwork for the first, you know, kind of getting adjusted to business school. But yeah.
• 11:05
  Then in the summer, I really started making recipes at home. And Alex has a great palate. So it was like, I just got to taste a bunch of interesting things. And then won some money from the business school to get it like a proper formulator. And once we had kind of a formula that I was like, okay, this is commercial. It tastes good. And like we were doing this before like Spike Seltzer was like a huge thing, right? Or like in parallel with Spike Seltzer being a huge thing. We were trying to get bartenders on board and people were like,
• 11:32
  drinking is a vice. No one cares about health when it comes to drinking. That's why no one has done this before. Like, it's a really silly idea. You guys are cute. Like you think people care about health and alcohol. And then White Claw Summer, as we call it here, kind of took off at the same time. And we've never really heard that since. But it was a time where it was like, even our formulator was like, you guys want less, you know, less sugar, less calories. Like, you have to give something up. Like you have to do something from concentrate or you have to do some sort of natural flavor. You have to do some sort of fake sugar. And we're like, nope,
• 12:02
  This is what we want. And so once we got to a product that I felt proud of tasting and proud of sampling, kind of knew that we could build a brand around it from there. And so I guess it was like August of that year. We had met in January, August of that year, where it was like really a consideration. What year are we talking about? 2019. 2019.
• 12:21
  2019. Yeah. So we met January 2019 and then August 2019, won that pitch competition and then got formulas kind of ready by January 2020. And we're planning on launching. Oh, wow, it's quick. Planning on launching. Well, we did a lot of at-home testing, so it wasn't like we were just going in and being like, oh, we've not tried anything. No, but I still mean that it's kind of quick. For me, R&D has been this whole year, and I'm not sure if we'll finalize a product this year. I'm kind of like, gosh, when will it happen?
• 12:50
  Well, I think you also have to be like, is this a good enough version, right? Like I think someone's, one of our investors told us that like Beyond Meat or Impossible Burger, one of those are on like version 60 of their product and they just iterate as they go, right? So it's never...
• 13:04
  You learn a lot taking things to market, right? And you're like, all right, am I proud of this product? Are there things that I could improve? Yes, but let's test it, get real feedback. I remember the 40,000 cans we had the day after graduating virtually. We went into making these 40,000 cans and I was like, what are you doing, D? It felt like so many. Was that your minimum order, 40,000? Yeah.
• 13:29
  Yeah. Holy moly. I'm like scared about 6,000. Well, it was, it was, you know, 8,000 SKUs, 8,000 times five SKUs. We had five, like five SKUs, which is also crazy. Before I get onto the funding part of how were you funding this in the beginning, when you say you were kind of, you had these non-negotiables, like you wanted fresh fruit, you wanted no concentrate, you wanted no sugar, you wanted these kinds of things.
• 13:54
  Did you, I don't know how this works as such for those ingredients, but did you still need stabilizers and things to get like a longer shelf life? Or were you having to, because of your ingredients, cut your shelf lifetime?
• 14:07
  Yeah. So we have a year of shelf life. We pasteurize everything. So I think, you know, some people would say add it so that it's two years or three, you know, like, I just think it's weird for something to sit in a jar for more than a year. I'm like, what's in there? If it can last, if it's fresh and it can last for two years, like that seems super weird to me. So, but I would think like that's where the formulator kind of came in and like the food science part of it comes in where you can't just make things at home and like bottle them and
• 14:35
  pray. You have to get things certified, lab tested, all that kind of stuff. So it was a lot of iteration to figure that out. And we also have a lot of juice in our product, right? So like our grapefruit has like 19% juice, like real juice, not like, you know, from concentrate blob or powder or anything. So
• 14:52
  figuring out, you know, managing that supply chain too is something that we just like are learning kind of as we go. And like, it may be that we need to reduce some juice to get more carbonation and like, like I said, not being afraid to kind of iterate based on product feedback.
• 15:07
  Yeah. Gosh, I feel like you are 20 steps ahead of where I am. Oh, no. It goes fast. It goes fast. Carbonation. What is our level of carbonation? How do we make it more? Like, how do we make it last for longer in the glass? You know, all these kinds of things that I'm sure you've been through.
• 15:24
  But let's talk about that funding piece of the puzzle. You said your first order was 40,000 cans. Sounds like a lot because you had five SKUs. What was your approach to funding in the beginning and how much money did you need to put in before you kind of started thinking about potentially going to raise? Or actually a better question is what was your just general funding path for this brand?
• 15:44
  Yeah, so like I said, the first bit of funding, I guess, was from Columbia. So there was like a summer pitch competition and we got 10K and that kind of got us to like our first formula and a little bit of branding, like being super scrappy about things. Because my background is in advertising and media, we were able to like tap into a network of freelancers rather than, you know.
• 16:05
  Sometimes people are like, Brandon will cost you 200K off the bat. I'm like, that is wild. So we were able to kind of just be scrapped. And because we had Alex's palate and at-home recipes, it was more like making sure food safety and also getting a next level, like our formulators made it next level formulation.
• 16:21
  So that was like the first 10K. We'd initially planned to raise more of like a traditional, I guess, like pre-seed round, like a bigger one. And then COVID happened. So we were about to go. I was flying to Brazil. I think Alex was going to Israel for break and everything got canceled. And we were like, are we still starting a company in two months? Like, what's going on?
• 16:41
  Like, what's going to happen, right? Like, and I think we had different, the good part about having a co-founder is like you go through emotions at different times. So like, I was like a week before, like, I don't know if like this COVID thing is real. Alex, two weeks later was like, wait, he was like, no, it's fine. Then it's like, it's fine. It's like, we're good. Then he's like, oh my God, this COVID thing's real. And like, we've kind of had different timings with the whole thing, but yeah.
• 17:02
  We basically decided to do like a small friends and family raise instead. So we raised like 275K from friends and family, mainly friends, and some from the business school. And that kind of took us through our first year, to be honest. We like didn't pay ourselves for a little while, which is rough because like for me that means freelancing, another job, right? And then –
• 17:27
  raised kind of like our next round, you know, this past year, which was, you know, the 1.2 we just announced. And that was through, thanks. That was through really angels and then gather, you know, gather the angels, black ambition, which is like Pharrell's foray into investing in black and Latinx entrepreneurs and then a bunch of angels. But I would say we thought we could more go for more like traditional VCs and
• 17:51
  But I think we're just like, you know, we're kind of in that phase where we launched something, we had enough traction, but we were not yet at the like, you know, seed levels in the pre-seed. That's so cool. For you, like when you were doing your friends and family round, and this is coming at a time that's super relevant for where I am in the journey. What were your thoughts, you and Alex, around like how much equity you should get and how much you should try and raise? And like, did you follow a certain equation or like formula to come up with?
• 18:21
  like a valuation or were you just like, hey, let's just like see how much we can raise and this is the portion, this is the chunk. I'm not sure if you're happy to share, but this is kind of like the piece of equity that we're happy to give away. Yeah, I think, I mean, we raised on a safe. So the valuation was like, you know, it wasn't like we were setting it. But I think we just looked at comparables, to be honest. Like I think business school helps in like,
• 18:43
  letting you know that like all of these valuations are kind of made up. So it's more like what the market thinks at the time. Like you could do a bunch of science and math, but it's really like what does the market think it's fair? And how do you, you know, like it's a very intimate round, asking money from your friends and family. So like you also want to make sure you're not like overvaluating yourself and then diluting the people who are investing in you. And you have literally like most of our early investors had never tasted the product. They were just like, okay, like,
• 19:10
  And also you want them to win too. Like they're the only people really that you're like, well, not the only, but you're like, these are the main people I want to win out of this. Yeah. So I think it was just like a small enough to get us through, you know, we didn't know it was COVID. So we were like, we don't know how long it's going to last. Like, but it got us through kind of like our first, like, let's say nine months, 12 months. And so that's why we're just like the bare minimum to get there and just were like super scrappy about how we spent it. Like there wasn't a lot of excess money.
• 19:39
  Did you put any kind of like minimums on how much people needed to invest? Like, you know, 10K minimum, 20K minimum or anything like that? Mm-hmm.
• 19:50
  accessible kind of thing, but not, yeah, minimum. Wow. Cool. That's so interesting. I love speaking to people who are, you know, you're obviously further ahead in the journey, but you're still like at a point where you really clearly remember everything, you know, you're a year later, you can really still recall all of the details. It's so interesting. Um, thanks for sharing that.
• 20:11
  Let's talk about the launch. You launched with 40,000 units on your website or potentially with distributors. You had like press in the New York Times from day one. I feel like your press is just mind blowing everywhere. You've got so many cool things. Let's break down like how you actually, I think I actually read you did 100,000 units in your first year or something crazy like that. Let's break down your kind of launch plan and your marketing strategy. Yeah.
• 20:39
  Yeah, I wish I could say, I feel like everyone comes on these shows so organized about exactly how it went down. But it was like, all right, we can't, like, our plan was really to be more like Red Bull, right? Like, more in the streets at different festivals, partnering with cooler events. Like, not like Coachella, but like the level below, like, Moment PS1 and like the groups that are organizing parties, like, you know, big DJs. And COVID happened. It was like, okay, well, now we need a really cool website. So...
• 21:07
  We spent most of our, I mean, even small, but like launch dollars on a really cool website, making sure the experience felt interesting and different. And then really working on kind of like the branding and the product. Like that's where most of our focus went. I knew from having worked in media, so I worked in media for many years, but worked for Vice primarily and then was trying to start a female founded media company called Damn Joan and like kind of saw the world of media blow up.
• 21:34
  with Facebook blowing up. And so I was very, as a marketer, very like not anti Facebook, but wary of just like launching on Facebook and being like, now we're a DTC brand just launched on Facebook. So we didn't actually spend any money on like paid advertising until like six to seven months in, like all of it was like, how can we get a bunch of earned media? And,
• 21:53
  I was lucky to have a close girlfriend who was in restaurant PR, food and beverage PR. COVID happened and she had a little bit of excess time. And I was like, why don't you let us be your first client? And she's just been crushing it ever since. So all the press accolade goes to her 100%. But I think it was important. The strategy we did have is that we knew we'd have to kind of tell a story around Vivek. It wouldn't be like...
• 22:17
  Okay, yeah, we're a new tequila and people get it. It's like, we're a new mixer. You can mix it with alcohol. Here's how you mix it. It's low sugar. It's low calorie. It's founded by this diverse team. We have values. It's launching on the internet. There are so many different stories to tell.
• 22:32
  So we knew that like PR, we didn't know how powerful PR could be to like drive your whole business basically the first year. But we knew that we needed to tell a story, right, like around not just how to use it, but like why we were launching, why to care about this category and create some buzz and excitement around it. So even in pandemic, we launched with like the six feet apart bar, which I don't know if you saw, but we built this six feet apart community.
• 22:55
  table um and did like a little launch event in new york and like when it was safe we would do smaller kind of like activation things because like you get into the drinks business because you want to hang out with people right you don't really get into the drinks business again to like sit behind your computer so it's like as much as we could we're trying to get in front with real people and do real things yeah
• 23:18
  Oh my gosh, that is so cool. I love that. That's creative thinking right there. Skills in advertising. It was fun. That sounds so fun. And what about like now? Obviously, you said you didn't start spending on paid media until six or seven months in. But when you look at your marketing mix and the kinds of initiatives you're doing, where are you finding that you're kind of able to acquire customers at scale for a reasonable cost?
• 23:43
  Yeah. I mean, that's a golden question we'll have to proceed. But I would say, honestly, like partnerships have been really successful. So like we pair well, both in the non-alcoholic space and the alcoholic space with those, you know, like the spirits of both of those worlds. But then also partnering with like, we did something with a makeup company, right? Like if you care about clean ingredients that you put on your skin, you likely care about clean ingredients in your drink. We've partnered with like moms who are like,
• 24:10
  I'm pregnant and for the first time I have to like relook at what I'm drinking today, right? So I think it's for us, the first day was really figuring out like getting tighter on who our core audience was, what occasion we were in. And now I think we're like really double doubting on partnerships. I would say online as the world opens up is slowing down a bit in terms of like,
• 24:31
  how easy it is to scale that channel. Like people are going out into bars and restaurants and supermarkets more. So we always knew that our business would move more wholesale. Like that was the original plan. So spending more time again with real people in real life, doing like mixing with real things. So yeah. So I think it's like, you know, more boots on the ground, sales, sampling, cans and hands, you know, liquid to lips. So all the fun sayings people say in beverage. Oh, I haven't heard that. That's so cool.
• 24:59
  So yeah, just getting more trial. And last year, I would say there's a lot of press, a lot of PR and partnerships that like made our business scalable.
• 25:07
  And I loved the partnership you did. I don't know if you would call this a partnership or not, but I was reading the Seedlips recipe guides that include your beverages. And I was like, yeah, that's so clever and so cool to be associated with them, to be partnering with them on those recipes. And it makes so much sense when you see it, but it might not be the first thing you think of doing, but finding those brands that you can just partner on that kind of thing with in the food and beverage industry. Yeah.
• 25:33
  Yeah, exactly. And I think a lot of, I mean, I've talked to not just, you know, beverage founder, like, I just think like there are people behind every brand who want to work together, right? Like you're interviewing like entrepreneurs, like I'm sure there's a way to work together. Like everyone's trying to help everyone out because everyone knows how small everyone's budget is. So it's like, if we can do something together, like maybe we can get a little bit of scale. The thing about last summer that was like,
• 25:56
  a good advantage for us was that also the big brands didn't know what to do either. Right. So there was no like summer playbook for all these really big beverage brands. They too were like, Oh, virtual happy hours. Like, I guess that's the way to go, you know, like trying to figure it out. So it was just an interesting time to kind of see the playing field just like level a bit more.
• 26:16
  Yeah, I bet. Gosh. Having been in the industry now for a couple of years, are there any sort of pitfalls or things that you're like, wow, didn't know this, needed to like watch out for this kind of thing? I think just the amount of money it takes to build a beverage company. People say it, but it's like astronomical, the amount of like inventory costs and just things to consider. I think, you know, now we're like, you need like $2 million, like 1.2 is not going to do it. Like you need like $2 million to get any kind of scale.
• 26:44
  I would say like a lot of the cowboy cowgirl nature of it, right? Like a lot of it, it's still like you show up with your product and you're like, are you going to buy this? Like there's still a little bit of this, like, it's not yet fully digital. I don't know how to describe it. There's just a vibe that's like, you go to distributor, you're kind of like networking, hustling, like it's like very cowboy cowgirl feeling sometimes. It's very like hand to hand combat. Yeah.
• 27:06
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's a better way of putting it hand-to-hand combat. Like in comparison to like, you know, other professional fields, like it feels way more tactical and tactile in that way. And then I would just say like learning from other beverage founders. Like I feel like I, you know, at the beginning I was very like, a lot of beverage founders are like very like,
• 27:25
  closed like no one wants to share formula because like there's not a lot of like ip protection but i feel like now maybe it's just because i know people better like it feels like everyone's down to help or down to share like tips if you just ask right versus even if they're like in your competitive set like everyone's just like we're all in this crazy industry like we get it like we had cans that were like exploding with in the winter last year like the big blizzards and
• 27:51
  Like, like in the middle, like there were like blizzards in Texas last year, right? Which no one knew what to do with. But like we learned from another beverage founder, like, okay, you got to send out your stuff if it's going across country on Monday. So it's not sitting in the truck over the weekend. It's like someone has figured it out. So I think there's just been more, um.
• 28:08
  community building online probably more so in like CPG and food and beverage than there were in the past because more people were behind, like not just running around stores because we couldn't. So I just think it's interesting. A lot of those like communities I feel like have formed over COVID. Yeah. Wow. Gosh, that's a, that's a crazy one. Cans exploding in good old Texas. Jesus. Yeah. All kinds of things. I was like, I remember being like, what's a 3PL? Like someone, I remember our first calls, people were like 3PL. I was like,
• 28:38
  All right, let me Google that. Like our first order, that New York Times article, everything was fulfilled like out of my apartment, like out of the warehouse in Brooklyn. Like we did not have a 3PL set up. We did not. We just launched. And we're like, we won't get that. Like it won't be that crazy. And then my neighbors are like, what is going on in here? They're like, is she doing drugs? Yeah, like what's going on? What is she doing? What is she selling? Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
• 29:01
  What was the impact of that New York Times article? Are you able to share like numbers around, like what is something like that drive? I think it really depends. We've had a lot of press sets and I would say some are like nothing, right? And some like really drive, like obviously New York Times is like a huge boost, right? You get in the 10 plus, 10,000 plus range, I would say. From that, it's hard to like attribute exactly. I read this article, I came to your website, but like,
• 29:28
  Some posts are like that, and then others are more of like an awareness play. You hear people be like, oh, you're legit. I saw you in here, and now you're legit to me when I see you in store. So I think it's really hard to just be like, a lot of people are like, what's the conversion from this exact affiliate link? And some of it is just, again, that storytelling nature of it is a new-ish category, right? So there needs to just be a little bit more storytelling around it. But yeah, food and wine, who knows how much sales that droop,
• 29:57
  drove, like probably a lot, but also like just having that credibility when you walk into a restaurant, you're like food and wine, wrote about it. This is like, you know, or like a distributor, like we didn't have, we were self-distributing. So Alex, my co-founder was driving around in this like 1995 Chevy van that if anyone lives in Williamsburg in Brooklyn, would have seen and been like, what is this thing? But like, it was like a 1995 Chevy van that we bought for like a thousand bucks off of Craigslist, Facebook marketplace. And
• 30:24
  And that's how things are being distributed. And like, he's 6'5". He can drive that van. I was like, I can't drive this thing anymore. Like, it's a monster. But like, he was fulfilling orders, right? He was fulfilling orders on the ground. I was packing boxes in my apartment. It was like not...
• 30:38
  you know, fully like, oh, we know what a 3PL is and we have distribution set up. It was just like, again, the hand-to-hand combat is a nicer term I'll use now. It's so that like meme or that kind of thing of like what people think entrepreneurship is like and like the glamour of being an entrepreneur versus what it's actually like. My gosh. Yeah, that's so cool. Wow. Holy moly.
• 31:01
  My next question is a two-part question. What is the best and worst advice you've ever received about entrepreneurship, about building this company in general? I would say the worst advice probably sometimes is like, just trust your gut, right? Like people are always like, trust your gut. And I'm like, sometimes you don't know. Like sometimes you need to check your gut, right? Sometimes you need to ask around and like just be a bit more humble about like what you don't know. Like most times your gut's right, but I would say like,
• 31:30
  Sometimes you just like fly by the seat. Like you're the entrepreneur, you're the visionary, right? Like a lot of that narrative, I think can get dangerous because you're not being open to kind of like new ideas and new ideals and new ways of going about it, especially when you don't know the industry that well. Starting out, so I would say like
• 31:47
  Yes, go with your gut. You can feel it, but also make sure that gut is really just experience. Your experience will tell you that. Best advice I probably got was just understand your... And now this is when people are like, what advice do you have for other entrepreneurs? I'm like, understand your personal relationship with money before you start a business or while you're doing a business. Just because...
• 32:08
  I do think like, you know, some people grow up and money is like a really icky thing for rich people. Some people grow up and it's like money is a really powerful thing and like debt is totally fine. And like they understand, like you have to kind of understand where you come at money from like a personal perspective, I think, before you start considering it for business. Because I do think a lot of.
• 32:27
  I'll speak for myself, but like, you know, taking on any debt, taking on any risk, even asking my friends and family for money. I was like, oh, my God, if I lose their money, like people are going to hate me. Like, you know, I just think understanding your relationship with money. And another female founder recommended this book, which sounds really cheesy, but it's like you're a badass with money. It's the same like you're a badass book. But I just found it really helpful advice to like be open and honest about like wherever, you know, whether it's a positive or negative or like don't judge yourself, whatever.
• 32:56
  kind of relationship you have, but I think you have to understand it to properly like manage a business's books and like not be afraid. Like there are times when I open like our model and I'm like, Oh, even though I went to business school, I'm like, Oh, it's like opening your bank account after a big weekend out. You're like, I don't really want to know what's going on in there.
• 33:12
  and you're like why is that and unpacking a lot of why that is yeah and just understanding that you're kind of like in a different game than a lot of like I'm sure a lot of people listening are like really successful have accomplished a lot before becoming entrepreneurs and like you're now kind of in a different game than a lot of your peers right like
• 33:30
  I'm 32. A lot of my friends are like, you know, entering kind of like VP level or like getting bigger jobs in the corporate ladder. And it's like easy sometimes to be like, oh, man, I should have just stayed there and done that. Like I would have been crushing it in this way. You know, they're crushing it. And it's just hard. You just have to be like, I'm in a different game.
• 33:47
  You're like, I would be making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year. I would have a salary. Yeah, and like people are able to afford things that you weren't in your 20s. And you're like, I'm back to where I was at 23 financially. So yeah, I just think thinking about it a bit differently and understanding how you think about it before you go in. That is great advice. Thank you so much for sharing.
• 34:12
  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.
• 34:36
  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.
• 34:59
  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.
• 35:15
  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.
• 35:40
  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.
• 36:02
  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.