Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / ZICO Founder Rampolla on New Book: 'High-Hanging Fruit' (Audio)

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ZICO Founder Rampolla on New Book: 'High-Hanging Fruit' (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: That's a Bloomberg business flash. You're listening to taking Stock
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  Speaker 1: with Kathleen Hay and Pim Box on Bloomberg Radio. Would
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  Speaker 1: you like to build a great business? Well, one of
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  Speaker 1: the things you might want to think about before you
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  Speaker 1: go on that trail is to read a new book
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  Speaker 1: written by Mark Rampola. He is the co founder and
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  Speaker 1: the managing partner of power Plant Ventures, but he may
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  Speaker 1: be more widely known as the founder and the former
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  Speaker 1: chief executive of Zico Coconut Water that was eventually sold
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  Speaker 1: to Coca Cola. Here to tell us more in studio
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  Speaker 1: is Mark Rampola. Mark, thanks very much for coming in
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  Speaker 1: and congratulations on the new book. Thanks. It's great to
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  Speaker 1: be here, all right. The title of the book is
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  Speaker 1: called High Hanging Fruit. Build something great by going where
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  Speaker 1: no one else will. You looked up at a certain
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  Speaker 1: point in your career, and not only did you see
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  Speaker 1: that you needed to fill a void in it, but
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  Speaker 1: you also saw something tangible and real which gave you
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  Speaker 1: an idea. Tell us the story. Sure phim So I
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  Speaker 1: was originally a Peace Corps volunteer in Central America. Soon
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  Speaker 1: after college, and some years later I was back again
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  Speaker 1: in Latin America running a multinational operations for international paper
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  Speaker 1: with my wife, married, with a couple of kids, and
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  Speaker 1: was just kind of bored and not too thrilled with
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  Speaker 1: where my career was going and what it looked like
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  Speaker 1: to be a corporate executive at a big corporation. So
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  Speaker 1: I was looked around for ideas, what could I start,
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  Speaker 1: what's unique? What could I contribute to the world, And somehow,
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  Speaker 1: another week came across coconut water. Well, when you say
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  Speaker 1: somehow you came across coconut water, you are actually consuming
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  Speaker 1: coconut water. Your family was consuming it where you lived
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  Speaker 1: in Latin America. That's right, that's right. Most of the
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  Speaker 1: locals all across Latin America, in fact parts of Asia
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  Speaker 1: and in Africa that are tropical, all drink coconut water.
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  Speaker 1: So we drank it like everyone else had it. At
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  Speaker 1: the beach. It was known as a safe source of
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  Speaker 1: clean water, high and a your lights. In fact, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the time that really hit hard for me was when
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  Speaker 1: my wife was pregnant with our second baby. She was
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  Speaker 1: having morning sickness. It's really the only thing she could
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  Speaker 1: hold down. Now, as far as the business plan, imagine
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  Speaker 1: that people would say to you, coconut water. Who would
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  Speaker 1: want to drink coconut water? There's no there's no market
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  Speaker 1: for coconut water in the United States. Did you get that? Along?
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  Speaker 1: My god? Everyone, I think, without a doubt, most people
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  Speaker 1: thought I was I was at least a little crazy,
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  Speaker 1: if not completely crazy. First of all, to try to
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  Speaker 1: launch any new beverage business in this in this day
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  Speaker 1: and age, even even fifteen years ago. It's incredibly capital
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  Speaker 1: intensive and very tough. But the idea that we're going
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  Speaker 1: to convince American consumers to drink coconut water, that nobody
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  Speaker 1: had a clue about building a whole new category. It's
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  Speaker 1: it's it's it's a tough task. And yeah, a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people thought I was crazy. All right, So we're
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  Speaker 1: gonna hold the crazy for just a moment because there
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  Speaker 1: might be another crazy part of this, which is doing
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  Speaker 1: good or contributing not just to the bottom line, but
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  Speaker 1: to something large or tell us about that. Yeah, well, look,
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  Speaker 1: this started out for me personally, um as well as
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  Speaker 1: my wife, both of us believing, hey, if we're going
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  Speaker 1: to dedicate the five, ten, fifteen years that it may
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  Speaker 1: and very often does take to get a new business
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  Speaker 1: off the ground. It better fulfill us more than just
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  Speaker 1: on the bottom line, right, It better be more than
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  Speaker 1: just about money, because we're going to dedicate time, talent, treasure,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of effort, a lot of stress, and a
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  Speaker 1: lot of risk to go after something. What does it
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  Speaker 1: really mean to us? So fortunately we got on the
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  Speaker 1: same page and in fact, you know, really start to
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  Speaker 1: set the bar higher. How are we going to build
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  Speaker 1: a business that not only makes money but makes a
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  Speaker 1: positive impact in the world. In this case, it was
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  Speaker 1: bringing a healthy beverage to market, it was making a
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  Speaker 1: positive impact in the communities that sourced it, and it
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  Speaker 1: was making a positive impact on all the people that
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  Speaker 1: were associated with our business. Part of the information that
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  Speaker 1: I got from High Hanging Fruit is that your program
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  Speaker 1: or your desire to create a business needs to be
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  Speaker 1: consistent with who you are and what you want for
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  Speaker 1: your personal life. Yeah. I think that's true, Phim and
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  Speaker 1: I do get into that in quite some detail in
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  Speaker 1: the book, and it worked for me. But what's also
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  Speaker 1: true is I've seen this happen again and again and
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  Speaker 1: again with entrepreneurs, and I think in today's obscenely competitive marketplace.
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  Speaker 1: That is actually a way to differentiate because when you
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  Speaker 1: think about investors and employees and partners and consumers, everybody
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  Speaker 1: wants to be part of something more than just a business.
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  Speaker 1: They want to be part of a mission to the
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  Speaker 1: to the extent that they know the founder or founders
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  Speaker 1: are really committed to this at their heart of hearts,
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  Speaker 1: I think it is more likely that a business is
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  Speaker 1: going to be successful, and if not, almost a requirement
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  Speaker 1: for success today. Tell us about what you're doing at
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  Speaker 1: power Plant Ventures, because I think that definitely connects with
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  Speaker 1: what you're just described. It does. It does. So we
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  Speaker 1: believe my partners and I and are investors believe that
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  Speaker 1: we have a two trillion dollar global food system that's
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  Speaker 1: fundamentally broken. It's not delivering health and wellness and nutrition
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  Speaker 1: and certainly not doing it in a sustainable way. So
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  Speaker 1: we think there's gonna be In fact, already are thousands
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  Speaker 1: of entrepreneurs that are trying to remake that system, and
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  Speaker 1: what we want to do is find fund them and
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  Speaker 1: help them scale and win. The reality is that big
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  Speaker 1: food and beverage companies are losing ten billion a year
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  Speaker 1: off their top line because consumers are looking for something
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  Speaker 1: healthy or something more sustainable, something that's good for them
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  Speaker 1: and good for the planet. And we believe that there's
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  Speaker 1: a huge opportunity that businesses entrepreneurs are gonna capitalize on. Now,
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  Speaker 1: if someone out there listening to you can check at
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  Speaker 1: least half of these boxes, they should somehow get in
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  Speaker 1: touch with you. Yeah, we're welcome, welcome to talk to them.
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  Speaker 1: Market power Plant VC dot com is the way to
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  Speaker 1: is the way to reach me. Um. Yeah, we're looking
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  Speaker 1: for those breakthrough entrepreneurs, those that both believe and are
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  Speaker 1: committed and have a passion for what they're doing, but
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  Speaker 1: are also smart, effective business people, and that combination is
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  Speaker 1: the sort of visionaries that are going to break through.
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  Speaker 1: You're still drinking coconut water day, every day, all right,
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  Speaker 1: Thanks very much for coming in and spending time. Mark
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  Speaker 1: Rampola is the co founder and managing partner of power
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  Speaker 1: Plant Ventures, and we're celebrating the release of his new
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  Speaker 1: book entitled High Hanging Fruit. Build something Great by going
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  Speaker 1: where no one else will. Thank you very much, Thank you.
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