Latest / Brewsers / Brewsers #368- Andrew Healy with Bizzy Cold Brew

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Brewsers #368- Andrew Healy with Bizzy Cold Brew · Brewsers

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Bruisers, a podcast about beer, coffee, booze and bruisers.
0:23
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Rody John and today we talked to
0:25
Speaker 1: Andrew Heally with Busy Cold Brew. We talked about how
0:29
Speaker 1: Busy got started, what they're working on now, and so
0:32
Speaker 1: much more. This is such a great conversation. Andrew is
0:35
Speaker 1: one of the co founders of Busy Coldbrew and they
0:37
Speaker 1: are absolutely amazing. As you can hear in the interview.
0:40
Speaker 1: You can get him at Target, you can get him
0:41
Speaker 1: in most grocery stores. Obviously, you can get him online,
0:44
Speaker 1: so definitely check them out. But you don't hear from me,
0:47
Speaker 1: you want to hear from him. So without further ado,
0:49
Speaker 1: here is Andrew Heally with Busy Cold Brew. I would
1:03
Speaker 1: like to welcome the show Andrew with Busy Gold, Busy
1:06
Speaker 1: Cold Brew. How are you doing to this, sir.
1:08
Speaker 2: I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for having me.
1:11
Speaker 1: Thanks for being here. No, this is a huge honor.
1:13
Speaker 1: So for those listening, kind of paints for word picture.
1:17
Speaker 1: Where are you at and what's going on around you?
1:19
Speaker 2: You know, So I met our brewery here in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
1:24
Speaker 2: It's a beautiful Friday. I rode my e bike in today,
1:28
Speaker 2: and I'm sitting in our busy brew lab, which is
1:31
Speaker 2: where we kind of host customers and have our little
1:34
Speaker 2: internal cafe and cupping space. So it's a fun area.
1:38
Speaker 1: There we go, Well, let's go all the way back
1:40
Speaker 1: in time. What is your earliest memory of coffee?
1:43
Speaker 2: You know, my earliest memory of coffee is my dad
1:47
Speaker 2: was a postman, and so I remember him making folgers
1:51
Speaker 2: every morning religiously and having it on the way out
1:56
Speaker 2: the door, and I thought it was the coolest thing.
1:58
Speaker 2: And I started drinking coffee in high school because of it,
2:02
Speaker 2: because I was just like, all right, if that's what
2:03
Speaker 2: he does, that's going to be the cool thing to do.
2:06
Speaker 1: Did you start Did you start with black or did
2:08
Speaker 1: you have to cream it up and sugar and all that.
2:11
Speaker 2: Oh? I had to doctor it up heavily when I
2:13
Speaker 2: started drinking it, and then over time weaned off to
2:17
Speaker 2: black coffee, but definitely started with I thought it was
2:20
Speaker 2: supposed to taste like a dessert. I get that.
2:23
Speaker 1: And there's a there's a lot of companies that base
2:25
Speaker 1: that whole thought process around their business as well. Yes, yes,
2:31
Speaker 1: well it's funny because like back then, there was it
2:34
Speaker 1: was just you know, regular coffee. There wasn't these quote
2:37
Speaker 1: unquote gourmet coffee or like these. There wasn't the emphasis
2:41
Speaker 1: on what the beans were supposed to taste like in
2:44
Speaker 1: the you know, the region where it was from either.
2:48
Speaker 2: No, No, it really was just you know, black coffee
2:52
Speaker 2: and you added whatever you wanted to to it. And Yeah,
2:56
Speaker 2: even in such a short amount of time, it seems
2:58
Speaker 2: like it's evolved so much to specialty and high end
3:02
Speaker 2: a medium and in gas station coffee still out there.
3:05
Speaker 2: So it's it's complicated because there's so many ways to
3:08
Speaker 2: drink coffee.
3:09
Speaker 1: Oh, that's so true. Well, how did busy Colebrew begin?
3:12
Speaker 2: Then? So the origin story is me and my business
3:17
Speaker 2: partner are middle school buddies, so we've known each other forever.
3:21
Speaker 2: That's fun. Yeah, and after college we were roommates and
3:26
Speaker 2: we kind of had our quarter life crisis where we
3:29
Speaker 2: knew we wanted to be entrepreneurs. We're hunting for a
3:32
Speaker 2: business idea. Our first two business ideas didn't work out,
3:36
Speaker 2: but you learn a lot more from failing, and they
3:39
Speaker 2: kind of led us to discover colbrew coffee because we
3:44
Speaker 2: were really looking for a business idea and we had
3:46
Speaker 2: gotten into those tough mutter racism when those were really popular.
3:50
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and we ended up signing up for the
3:54
Speaker 2: twenty four hour World's Toughest Mutter And neither of us
3:58
Speaker 2: had run a marathon or done any endurance events before,
4:03
Speaker 2: So that's kind of our mo is. We just pick
4:06
Speaker 2: a big, hairy, audacious goal and do whatever it takes
4:10
Speaker 2: to achieve it. So we signed up for that race.
4:14
Speaker 2: We were training, and we were honestly just looking for
4:17
Speaker 2: some healthier alternatives to get energy. We were both doing
4:21
Speaker 2: like energy drinks, prelifting supplements, stuff like that, and wanted
4:26
Speaker 2: just something that was healthier and more natural. And loved coffee,
4:30
Speaker 2: but hot coffee always gave me really bad acid reflux.
4:34
Speaker 2: So I heard about cobrew just on the internet at
4:38
Speaker 2: that time, it was twenty eleven, twenty twelve, and just
4:42
Speaker 2: started making it at home just out of a personal need.
4:46
Speaker 2: I had done, like you know, at home brewing in
4:49
Speaker 2: college and always been into you know that sort of stuff, flavors,
4:54
Speaker 2: bruin stuff, trying things out. So cobrew is a perfect
4:57
Speaker 2: fit for me to make it at home. I had
5:00
Speaker 2: heard of it, I thought it tasted delicious and had
5:02
Speaker 2: a bunch of more caffeine than hot coffee, so it
5:05
Speaker 2: was like perfect and that kind of led us to
5:08
Speaker 2: have the idea of, wait, why don't we make this
5:12
Speaker 2: our next business. At that time, it was really early.
5:15
Speaker 2: It checked all the boxes for us, and you know,
5:18
Speaker 2: we thought it was going to be easy and we
5:19
Speaker 2: could do it different and better, and it powered us
5:22
Speaker 2: to do that twenty four hour race three years in
5:24
Speaker 2: a row before we finally had to focus on the
5:28
Speaker 2: business and didn't have the time to do that anymore.
5:31
Speaker 2: But I think that's a testament to just what we
5:34
Speaker 2: were like on grinding, working, not accepting failures and option
5:40
Speaker 2: and that's when we kind of went in on Colbrew
5:43
Speaker 2: was twenty thirteen part time and then in twenty fifteen
5:48
Speaker 2: is when we went full time. So we just had
5:50
Speaker 2: our ten year anniversary actually last fall.
5:53
Speaker 1: Congratulations on that. Yeah, a lot of businesses don't make
5:55
Speaker 1: it that long.
5:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, it went by a lot faster than you'd think,
5:59
Speaker 2: but it was a huge milestone for us.
6:02
Speaker 1: Well, so what did you guys go to college for?
6:05
Speaker 2: So I went to school for mechanical engineering and my
6:09
Speaker 2: business partner went to school for finance and entrepreneurship. So
6:13
Speaker 2: we've always been kind of the ying and yang where
6:16
Speaker 2: we don't overlap it on what we do day to day,
6:19
Speaker 2: but we both always liked talking about business ideas, working
6:23
Speaker 2: out together, talking about business ideas, having beers when we
6:25
Speaker 2: get home when we're roommates, and keep working on business ideas.
6:29
Speaker 2: So my mechanical engineering background I think actually helped us
6:34
Speaker 2: get into cole Brew. I worked in fluid systems design,
6:38
Speaker 2: so doing like beverage system software systems, water filtration systems,
6:43
Speaker 2: and had a passion for beer. So it felt like
6:46
Speaker 2: a perfect mish mash for me to try and figure
6:49
Speaker 2: out how to make cole brew that tasted good. And
6:52
Speaker 2: we've been manufacturing ourselves since the beginning, so figuring out
6:56
Speaker 2: as we've scaled the manufacturing what to do next because
6:59
Speaker 2: there's no quite the playbook for Colebrew like there is
7:02
Speaker 2: for say beer or wine out there. Yeah.
7:05
Speaker 1: Well, if you don't mind me asking, what were your
7:07
Speaker 1: two first businesses that didn't quite work out?
7:10
Speaker 2: Yeah? So the first one was a snowboarding accessory called
7:14
Speaker 2: the Lifting and it was actually a product that worked
7:18
Speaker 2: really well, almost too well, because it was essentially a
7:21
Speaker 2: widget that you would attach to your snowboard and it
7:24
Speaker 2: allowed you to ride the snowboard with being comfortable hanging
7:29
Speaker 2: the board between both your legs without hanging your boot
7:32
Speaker 2: underneath it. So it's just a little widget you could
7:35
Speaker 2: connect in and out of easily to get on and
7:38
Speaker 2: off the chair lift. And it worked good. We got
7:42
Speaker 2: a patent on it, and at that time we were
7:46
Speaker 2: more focused on licensing the patent, and we probably were
7:50
Speaker 2: too rigid in our business model looking back on it,
7:52
Speaker 2: because people love the product, people love the brand name,
7:55
Speaker 2: but we were like, we got to license it to
7:57
Speaker 2: Burton or it's not going to work. And we got
8:00
Speaker 2: the meeting with Burton, they told us, hey, love you guys,
8:04
Speaker 2: great idea, not a good fit for us, but we
8:06
Speaker 2: think you should pursue it, and we just took that
8:08
Speaker 2: as a loss and moved on. And then the second
8:13
Speaker 2: business idea was kind of related to the Tough Mutter
8:16
Speaker 2: races and we ended up doing kind of like a
8:18
Speaker 2: boot camp for Tough Mutter races and that was super fun.
8:23
Speaker 2: Got to meet a lot of great people, but me
8:25
Speaker 2: and my business partner were the product and we had
8:28
Speaker 2: no way to scale it, and again at the time,
8:31
Speaker 2: we probably didn't have the right mindset about it. But
8:36
Speaker 2: looking back. Those tough mutter races kind of didn't last
8:38
Speaker 2: as long either, so it was probably good that we
8:41
Speaker 2: didn't pursue that one too much. And then that led
8:44
Speaker 2: us to having Cobra Coffee, so totally unrelated to food
8:48
Speaker 2: and beverage. On the first two business ideas.
8:50
Speaker 1: Right, where do you think you learned the most from
8:53
Speaker 1: those first two. I'm not going to call them failures,
8:55
Speaker 1: but just businesses.
8:57
Speaker 2: They didn't work, you know, the first one, the lifty,
9:01
Speaker 2: it was really a great exercise, and we came up
9:04
Speaker 2: with the brand name, we came up with the logo,
9:08
Speaker 2: we came up with you know, we figured out how
9:10
Speaker 2: to go into a store and get that first sale,
9:13
Speaker 2: get it on the shelf at a snowboard you know,
9:16
Speaker 2: you know shop somewhere. Snowboarding is not big here in Minnesota,
9:20
Speaker 2: so it was an excuse for us to go out
9:22
Speaker 2: to Colorado and places and kind of snowboard too. But
9:26
Speaker 2: it really gave us just the confidence of, hey, we
9:29
Speaker 2: can make it. We have an idea, we can make something,
9:32
Speaker 2: make it good enough and actually get it on the
9:34
Speaker 2: shelf somewhere. And you learn a lot through that process
9:38
Speaker 2: on what it takes to get a product on shelf
9:40
Speaker 2: in retail, whether it's the complications of the logistics and
9:44
Speaker 2: the distribution, the pricing and positioning and marketing, there's just
9:49
Speaker 2: so many valuable things you learn in that process. And
9:53
Speaker 2: also doing the patent as a mechanical engineer was kind
9:57
Speaker 2: of like super exciting for me. I was just like,
10:00
Speaker 2: this is so cool you hear about them. There may
10:03
Speaker 2: be not as robust as we thought they once were,
10:07
Speaker 2: but at the time it was like, oh, this is
10:09
Speaker 2: super cool. And then the second business idea very similar.
10:14
Speaker 2: It was, you know, understanding how to connect with people,
10:18
Speaker 2: what do people like when they come to a workout
10:22
Speaker 2: class or a boot camp, and it all goes to
10:25
Speaker 2: getting that product market fit and how important that really is.
10:30
Speaker 2: And we had it right away in that second business.
10:31
Speaker 2: It was really easy. It felt super easy, and so
10:36
Speaker 2: that was when we realized so the importance of product
10:39
Speaker 2: market fit. But the two things we learned that we
10:42
Speaker 2: applied to the too busy the lifting. The snowboarding accessory.
10:47
Speaker 2: It had a lifetime warranty and it lasted forever. So
10:50
Speaker 2: once we made a sale, unless someone got a new snowboard,
10:52
Speaker 2: they only needed one and it wasn't that expensive. So
10:57
Speaker 2: we were like, all right, we need something that's got
10:58
Speaker 2: recurring revenue, that consumable in some sense or has some
11:02
Speaker 2: form of recurring revenue. And in the boot Camp it
11:07
Speaker 2: was recurring revenue, but we were struggling to scale it.
11:10
Speaker 2: So that was the other thing is we want to
11:11
Speaker 2: make sure it's something that's easy to scale with recurring revenue,
11:15
Speaker 2: and that was the big thing we were looking for.
11:18
Speaker 2: That coffee was just perfect. People drink it every day.
11:21
Speaker 2: It's a huge category and it's very sticky. People when
11:25
Speaker 2: they get hooked on a coffee habit, they just they
11:28
Speaker 2: do it every day and it's their ritual.
11:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was definitely that ritualistic thing when it does
11:34
Speaker 1: come to coffee, because there's so many people that even
11:36
Speaker 1: if they're in a hurry, they'll find a way to
11:38
Speaker 1: make that coffee or get coffee in general on the
11:41
Speaker 1: way to whatever they're doing.
11:44
Speaker 2: No, it's so true. It's I mean, people will go
11:46
Speaker 2: out of their way. There's been McDonald's commercials about how
11:49
Speaker 2: grumpy people get if they don't get their coffee and
11:51
Speaker 2: don't talk to me till I have my coffee. It's
11:54
Speaker 2: it's it's socially acceptable. Yeah, as odd as it is.
11:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, people skip breakfast, but they're not skipping that coffee exactly. Well,
12:02
Speaker 1: did you, I mean you said you were a fan
12:04
Speaker 1: of beer. Did you do any homebrewing before you started
12:06
Speaker 1: actually cold brewing at home too?
12:09
Speaker 2: You know, me and my college room, it's kind of
12:12
Speaker 2: got a home brew or five gallon bucket kit, and
12:15
Speaker 2: we tried a few times, and I don't think we
12:18
Speaker 2: could had the discipline or the know how to do
12:21
Speaker 2: it to make anything that tasted very good. But it
12:25
Speaker 2: was fun and it was kind of something for us
12:27
Speaker 2: to do together that we liked doing, so I never
12:31
Speaker 2: got really into it. Well, that was one joke that
12:34
Speaker 2: me and my business partner Alex, we both love craft beer.
12:38
Speaker 2: We drink coldbrew during the day we go home. We
12:40
Speaker 2: love to have a beer. But if we had started
12:43
Speaker 2: a brewery, we probably would have drink called the profits.
12:45
Speaker 2: So it's probably good we went into Colberg Coffee.
12:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a lot more waiting and cleaning in
12:51
Speaker 1: the brewing process than people think about.
12:54
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, exactly, you spend eighty percent of your time
12:57
Speaker 2: cleaning and food and beverage.
13:00
Speaker 1: Well, so once you kind of got your cold brew
13:04
Speaker 1: recipe down, how many I guess recipes. Did it take
13:06
Speaker 1: for you guys to really figure out, Okay, now we've
13:09
Speaker 1: got something here. It's not just all right, these taste fine,
13:11
Speaker 1: like I'll drink them, but like this is a mass
13:13
Speaker 1: appeal kind.
13:14
Speaker 2: Of situation, you know, right away out of the gates.
13:18
Speaker 2: We did take a very methodical approach to that. When
13:22
Speaker 2: we were just making it at home doing it part time,
13:26
Speaker 2: we would go and get every type of hole being
13:28
Speaker 2: we could get our hands on from the grocery store,
13:32
Speaker 2: the local co ops, and we would just couple ourselves
13:35
Speaker 2: against what was on the shelf at touch of time,
13:38
Speaker 2: which was not very many brands, and we just kind
13:42
Speaker 2: of a combination of what we thought tasted good, what
13:45
Speaker 2: was out there, and what was performing well. But we
13:48
Speaker 2: really had a lot of fun early on trying light roast,
13:51
Speaker 2: medium roast, dark roast, different origins, different brew times, different
13:54
Speaker 2: grind sizes, different brew temperatures. We played with every variable
13:59
Speaker 2: to kind of see changed the flavor, what changed the product,
14:03
Speaker 2: and it was really over I can't remember, but it
14:07
Speaker 2: was dozens of iterations of just the beans, and once
14:09
Speaker 2: we got the beans right, then we did the same
14:11
Speaker 2: thing with the brew time and it took us almost
14:14
Speaker 2: a year of just playing around at home before we
14:17
Speaker 2: really really like loved something and thought we were ready
14:20
Speaker 2: to like put it out in the market. We knew
14:23
Speaker 2: we wanted to have it pretty polished based on our
14:26
Speaker 2: first experiences with retail. You really only get one shot usually,
14:31
Speaker 2: so we wanted to take our time, get the product perfect,
14:34
Speaker 2: get the branding perfect. And we even went through two
14:37
Speaker 2: or three different brand names right away in the beginning,
14:41
Speaker 2: and we would go do like kind of farmers' markets,
14:44
Speaker 2: food truck faires, just try get feedback. You know. We
14:48
Speaker 2: were always the ones pouring the sample, is always the
14:50
Speaker 2: ones asking questions, going to the stores, trying to get
14:53
Speaker 2: as much feedback as we could. And that's really what
14:57
Speaker 2: what we did early on that paid really good dividends
15:01
Speaker 2: because when we did go to market, people resonated with
15:04
Speaker 2: it right away and we did get a lot of
15:05
Speaker 2: traction early. Yeah.
15:07
Speaker 1: I mean, when it comes to starting a new brand,
15:09
Speaker 1: obviously you have to figure out what that bottle is
15:11
Speaker 1: going to look like, what the labels look like. You
15:13
Speaker 1: said the name, you guys went through a couple of them.
15:15
Speaker 1: How did all of that kind of come together for
15:16
Speaker 1: you guys?
15:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, we At the time, my business partner was working
15:22
Speaker 2: at General Mills, so he got a lot of really
15:25
Speaker 2: good insights on how to do those consumer studies, how
15:29
Speaker 2: to do the brand development, the product positioning. So it
15:35
Speaker 2: was a combination of what he had learned there and
15:38
Speaker 2: what we kind of personally thought the product should be.
15:42
Speaker 2: And then we kind of have always had the mindset
15:45
Speaker 2: of like, iterate quickly, let the data make the decisions,
15:49
Speaker 2: don't get in love or married to anything. The consumer
15:51
Speaker 2: is always right. So once we went into the market,
15:54
Speaker 2: we've always just been trying to get as much feedback
15:57
Speaker 2: and iterate based on that feedback as best we can.
16:01
Speaker 2: Love that.
16:02
Speaker 1: So you started out with just the cold brews. How
16:04
Speaker 1: many different col brids did you guys have to begin with?
16:06
Speaker 2: You know, we started out with just one flavor, one
16:09
Speaker 2: product format. Looking back, that's actually very challenging in retail
16:15
Speaker 2: because you don't get what they call a brand billboard
16:17
Speaker 2: in the grocery store or whatever you know store you're
16:20
Speaker 2: selling in. So we only had one SKW and it
16:25
Speaker 2: was challenging, and pretty early on we were not in retail,
16:30
Speaker 2: it wasn't going as well. We got a lot of
16:31
Speaker 2: really good traction on Amazon. At that time, Amazon was
16:34
Speaker 2: a lot less competitive, and if you have one SKW
16:37
Speaker 2: on Amazon, you can still have a really good billboard.
16:40
Speaker 2: But in retail we learned, oh this the bottle on
16:44
Speaker 2: one SKW is just getting lost in the shelf. And
16:47
Speaker 2: so that's where we started to iterate early on in
16:50
Speaker 2: our packaging formats, even the strength of the product and
16:55
Speaker 2: also adding some light, medium, dark, and now we have
16:59
Speaker 2: more roast profiles. So we started with just one O
17:03
Speaker 2: our kind of silver bullet, but we quickly had to
17:05
Speaker 2: add on to that and tweak it. Right.
17:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand the billboarding aspect, but also at the
17:09
Speaker 1: same time, like building that fan base around your product
17:14
Speaker 1: is one thing, and then once they realize, oh, they're
17:17
Speaker 1: adding more, then they can start really kind of you know,
17:20
Speaker 1: getting more attached to it and looking more forward to it.
17:22
Speaker 1: Like anytime a new Oreo flavor comes out, people lose
17:25
Speaker 1: their minds. They're like, oh, where's the ad? Where can
17:27
Speaker 1: I get it? So like adding that to it, but
17:29
Speaker 1: again they have like decades of a fan loyalty tube.
17:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, what we learned to is, you know, we always
17:37
Speaker 2: think of our SKUs as like, who's going to capture
17:41
Speaker 2: this customer. We don't want two SKUs on the shelf
17:43
Speaker 2: that are the exact same and a customer has to
17:46
Speaker 2: choose between. We want to capture as many customers and
17:49
Speaker 2: not have an overlap. So as we added SKUs, we
17:53
Speaker 2: always tried to say, all right, can we capture a
17:55
Speaker 2: new customer that we don't have that's drinking coffee, not
17:58
Speaker 2: just have another option and two. So that's where different
18:02
Speaker 2: roast profiles, different origins, different blends captures that wider customer
18:06
Speaker 2: base and it gives people variety. Some people, you know,
18:09
Speaker 2: they might like to change it up. A lot of
18:12
Speaker 2: people with coffee don't. Surprisingly like they get something they
18:14
Speaker 2: like and they're just loyal to it. Yeah, but yeah,
18:17
Speaker 2: we always tried to capture new customer bases, whether it
18:21
Speaker 2: was a different strength, a different size, or just a
18:24
Speaker 2: different profile.
18:26
Speaker 1: Right, and your labels really jumps off the shelf too,
18:28
Speaker 1: because everybody else kind of has different label profiles, different colors,
18:33
Speaker 1: whatever it is. Y'alls are just like that basic white,
18:35
Speaker 1: but then all of your font and everything is on
18:37
Speaker 1: the front of it with the clock. So I think
18:38
Speaker 1: that's a really good way. But standing out where everybody
18:41
Speaker 1: else is kind of just doing the same thing everybody else's.
18:44
Speaker 2: No, thank you. We worked really hard. We did a
18:47
Speaker 2: rebrand back in twenty twenty two. We had been using
18:50
Speaker 2: the same original branding since twenty fifteen that we came
18:54
Speaker 2: up with with the designer on Fiver, and so in
18:57
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two we kind of did a rebranding and
19:01
Speaker 2: process and did that custom bottle shape. And that's one
19:05
Speaker 2: thing we learned a lot from the liquor industry on
19:08
Speaker 2: that bottle profile can really be a part of your
19:11
Speaker 2: brand and the shape of the bottle, not just what's
19:14
Speaker 2: on the label, and so we really tried to put
19:16
Speaker 2: all those pieces together with that and we've been really
19:19
Speaker 2: happy with it how it looks on the shelf for sure.
19:22
Speaker 1: So have you guys always been using one hundred percent
19:25
Speaker 1: recycled bottles or was that something you guys started doing later?
19:29
Speaker 2: No, that was something we started doing with that rebrand
19:32
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two, So no, it wasn't always the
19:36
Speaker 2: case honestly. Early on, you know, your margin profiles are
19:40
Speaker 2: so important that you got to pick and choose what
19:43
Speaker 2: you can do and what you can't do at your scale,
19:47
Speaker 2: and that was you know, we're an organic brand, sustainability
19:51
Speaker 2: is really important to us. You know, at the plant
19:53
Speaker 2: here we literally compost and recycle everything from the palettes,
19:57
Speaker 2: the slip sheets, the pallette wrap, and the most biggest
20:01
Speaker 2: thing is the coffee where every pound of coffee we brew,
20:06
Speaker 2: which is about fifteen thousand pounds a day, gets composted
20:10
Speaker 2: and picked up every day and it's about two and
20:13
Speaker 2: a half times heavier when it gets picked up. So
20:15
Speaker 2: that's forty thousand pounds of spent grounds per day that
20:18
Speaker 2: we send to the compost. And it costs a little
20:21
Speaker 2: more to do that, but it's the right thing to do,
20:24
Speaker 2: right yep. Now we didn't we couldn't afford to do
20:26
Speaker 2: that day one. You know, you got to just make
20:29
Speaker 2: sure you can survive early on. So you got to
20:32
Speaker 2: pick what's important to the consumer. And you know, having
20:35
Speaker 2: a good tasting product and a good brand is really
20:38
Speaker 2: most important to the consumer. A lot of those sustainability things,
20:42
Speaker 2: while it's important to us and a part of our
20:44
Speaker 2: core values, those were just kind of nice to have
20:47
Speaker 2: for the consumer. Right.
20:49
Speaker 1: Well, so when did you start kind of extend extending
20:52
Speaker 1: out into actually having selling whole grain or whole beans,
20:57
Speaker 1: and you know, the ground coffee itself as opposed to
20:59
Speaker 1: just the colb.
21:01
Speaker 2: You know, that's a that was a big inflection point
21:05
Speaker 2: for our business. So that was in twenty seventeen, so
21:08
Speaker 2: we had been starting the first two years it was
21:11
Speaker 2: going okay. We had gotten into an accelerator firm in
21:16
Speaker 2: New York City called food X that gave us a
21:18
Speaker 2: little bit of seed capital to quit our jobs. We
21:21
Speaker 2: had kind of put every penny we had into it
21:23
Speaker 2: part time those first two years, and we got some
21:26
Speaker 2: investment capital went full time. We're starting to roll out
21:30
Speaker 2: in retail, but retail can take a very long time
21:34
Speaker 2: a lot of especially in grocery stores. You know, they
21:37
Speaker 2: sometimes only set the shelves or touch the shelves once
21:40
Speaker 2: a year, so you get one chance a year, and
21:43
Speaker 2: if you miss it, you get away to year. So
21:46
Speaker 2: we were like, what can we do? That's in our control.
21:49
Speaker 2: And that's where we were like, all right, how do
21:50
Speaker 2: we sell this on Amazon? Well, we started selling our
21:53
Speaker 2: liquid products on Amazon and that was going okay, but
21:56
Speaker 2: shipping liquids is expensive. It just the margins weren't rate
22:00
Speaker 2: and we're like, wait, what if there's people like us
22:03
Speaker 2: when we started, where they just want a good bean,
22:05
Speaker 2: but they like making it themselves, the brute yourselfers, and
22:09
Speaker 2: so we literally kind of had one of our breakthrough
22:12
Speaker 2: ideas just kind of me and Alex we'd like to
22:16
Speaker 2: go on workouts together and stuff, and you know, we
22:19
Speaker 2: had that aha moment where wait, why don't we just
22:22
Speaker 2: take the same grounds we're brewing with sticking in a
22:25
Speaker 2: bag and sell it on Amazon and see what happens?
22:27
Speaker 2: And it almost started working instantly. There was so much
22:31
Speaker 2: demand for Cobrew coffee grounds and no one was selling
22:34
Speaker 2: them at the time, and so we basically took the
22:37
Speaker 2: whole market share instantly and have kind of been on
22:39
Speaker 2: top since. So it was a lot easier on Amazon
22:43
Speaker 2: back then, I will say, a lot less competition, so
22:48
Speaker 2: that was certainly in our favor. But it was just
22:50
Speaker 2: one of those ideas where it was, how do we
22:52
Speaker 2: sell online so we don't have to wait for those
22:55
Speaker 2: retailed set dates. And then also we love it because
22:58
Speaker 2: we can get a lot of consumer feedback quicker. So
23:01
Speaker 2: when you're selling direct to consumer, you can just get
23:04
Speaker 2: a lot of consumer feedback right away. We're in retail,
23:07
Speaker 2: it's sometimes it's really challenging to get that consumer feedback right.
23:11
Speaker 1: I mean, like you said, so, I've been in the
23:15
Speaker 1: alcohol world for over sixteen years now, and yeah, it's
23:19
Speaker 1: once well i'd say twice a year for the alcohol world,
23:22
Speaker 1: where it's like they'll do like a kind of plug
23:24
Speaker 1: and pull where they pull some stuff out and pull
23:26
Speaker 1: new stuff in. But then obviously, like you said, once
23:28
Speaker 1: a year, there's a whole full reset where everything changes,
23:31
Speaker 1: and so I imagine it's the same way with every
23:34
Speaker 1: other department as well. And so yet, like you said,
23:37
Speaker 1: in the retail world, it could be much harder to
23:39
Speaker 1: actually get that feedback because first off, you have to
23:42
Speaker 1: wait to get in there, and then you almost have
23:44
Speaker 1: to wait either quarterly or a full year to fully
23:47
Speaker 1: get the feedback of how your stuff's actually selling. So
23:50
Speaker 1: I imagine that could be very tough. And I Amazon probably,
23:53
Speaker 1: like you said, back then, was far easier to be like, oh,
23:55
Speaker 1: we're selling this much and we know exactly how much
23:58
Speaker 1: we're selling.
23:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, it was, and it gave us some
24:03
Speaker 2: validation to go to the retailers with Sometimes there's that
24:06
Speaker 2: chicken or the egg scenario with the retailers where no
24:09
Speaker 2: one wants to be the first. They want to know
24:11
Speaker 2: your products working somewhere else, and so it was a
24:15
Speaker 2: good case study to show, like, hey, people like the brand,
24:17
Speaker 2: people like Cobra coffee, you need this on your show
24:21
Speaker 2: if you're missing the opportunity. So it helped in a
24:24
Speaker 2: lot of ways.
24:26
Speaker 1: No, that makes sense. So when did you start actually
24:29
Speaker 1: making your putting out the recipes. Was it on the
24:31
Speaker 1: website first, or was social media first or did you
24:33
Speaker 1: kind of guys do at the same time.
24:36
Speaker 2: You know, we really focused on the website and SEO
24:39
Speaker 2: early on, kind of in that twenty seventeen we were
24:45
Speaker 2: launching on Amazon. We were really leaning in at that
24:48
Speaker 2: time Dollar Shape Club had just launched and been successful,
24:52
Speaker 2: So we were very much in that Dollar Shape Club
24:54
Speaker 2: for coffee mindset, which you know, it made sense on paper,
25:00
Speaker 2: but like that positioning does not work for us at all.
25:03
Speaker 2: But we were heavily focused on SEO at the time
25:06
Speaker 2: and trying to build that flywheel of anything related to
25:11
Speaker 2: coffee and Cobrew coffee. So recipe content, how to make
25:15
Speaker 2: it at home. There's a lot of different vessels for
25:19
Speaker 2: brewing Cobrew coffee at home. You know, we don't want
25:23
Speaker 2: to sell the vessel. We want to be the coffee
25:25
Speaker 2: in the vessel. So let's make a video on how
25:27
Speaker 2: to brew in every one of these vessels, the best
25:30
Speaker 2: way and the best tips and tricks. So we've always
25:33
Speaker 2: kind of had that SEO head on. When we did it,
25:37
Speaker 2: it never really took off in as big of a
25:39
Speaker 2: way as we wanted. You know, I think most groceries
25:43
Speaker 2: are still bought in the grocery store. It's just a
25:45
Speaker 2: habit that's tough to break. So we had good success.
25:50
Speaker 2: It helped us, but we knew the big opportunity was
25:54
Speaker 2: going to be in retail, and so we really started
25:56
Speaker 2: to focus on our retail and growing our distribution after
26:00
Speaker 2: a few years of being on Amazon. No, that makes sense.
26:04
Speaker 1: Well, so you've just started your new line extension, your
26:07
Speaker 1: double shot espressos come out. How has the reception been
26:11
Speaker 1: to this one hundred milligram shot you know, so far.
26:15
Speaker 2: It's going great. We're kind of strategically rolling it out
26:19
Speaker 2: in retail just to make sure it's got good product
26:22
Speaker 2: market fit, really understand why people are using it, what
26:26
Speaker 2: were they using before. But so far it's going really
26:30
Speaker 2: really well. It seems to be the right amount of
26:32
Speaker 2: caffeine where it's not too much. It's not too little.
26:35
Speaker 2: It's comparable a quick bump, but it's not overboard, so
26:39
Speaker 2: you can have it in the afternoon. And for us,
26:42
Speaker 2: it's the combination of convenience quality at a good price,
26:47
Speaker 2: and so it seems to be resonating with people. We're
26:50
Speaker 2: kind of rolling it out in the natural channel right now,
26:53
Speaker 2: which would be like Sprouts, Whole Foods, places like that
26:57
Speaker 2: where they like to try new things a little more
26:59
Speaker 2: and weren't order Gaanic brand, So we always perform really
27:02
Speaker 2: well there. But we just recently rolled it out on
27:05
Speaker 2: Amazon as well, and it's it's going really well there
27:08
Speaker 2: with multi packs. So we're really excited about it. Because
27:12
Speaker 2: our core product line is a forty eight ounce bottle
27:15
Speaker 2: of ready to drink col brew and that can really
27:18
Speaker 2: only live in your fridge. It's not it's great for
27:22
Speaker 2: your first cup of the day you're in morning ritual.
27:26
Speaker 2: But the shots are great because they can go to
27:28
Speaker 2: convenience stores, they can go with you in your lunch box.
27:31
Speaker 2: You can take them on the go for two days
27:32
Speaker 2: without refrigerating them. So the opportunity there is a lot
27:36
Speaker 2: bigger for us.
27:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, how has been how has it been getting into
27:40
Speaker 1: the convenience stores because like you said, you're not really
27:42
Speaker 1: going to have like I don't really see any Cobrews
27:45
Speaker 1: incubing it stores that aren't like in a smaller container
27:49
Speaker 1: at all. So how has it been getting into the
27:51
Speaker 1: sea stores?
27:52
Speaker 2: You know, we haven't tested in c store yet. We're
27:56
Speaker 2: just talking with a few we want to One thing
27:59
Speaker 2: that we found as important is you get that one
28:02
Speaker 2: shot with retail, and so we try and find a
28:05
Speaker 2: good partner that will allow us to be successful early
28:10
Speaker 2: on and going into retail, we just took any account
28:13
Speaker 2: we could get. We didn't have as much strategy on
28:16
Speaker 2: the merchandising, the price points, the on shelf, where are
28:18
Speaker 2: they going to put it? Now we're way more picky
28:21
Speaker 2: because we know if you put busy three skews in
28:26
Speaker 2: the Cobra set next to our top competitors at this
28:29
Speaker 2: price point, I guarantee you it's going to sell them
28:31
Speaker 2: be successful. If you put it in the bottom right corner,
28:34
Speaker 2: if you only have one SKU, if you don't price
28:36
Speaker 2: it right and we can't run our promotion plans, it's
28:39
Speaker 2: not going to work. And we'd rather not go on
28:41
Speaker 2: that account and get a black eye. So with the
28:45
Speaker 2: shots we're trying to find the cestore partner that kind
28:48
Speaker 2: of can be not flexible, but understands it's a new
28:51
Speaker 2: product and wants to be the first to test it
28:53
Speaker 2: with us. So there's a little bit of a challenge
28:56
Speaker 2: finding the right partner to do that with. But if
28:59
Speaker 2: you can and you can do it right, that's really
29:01
Speaker 2: important versus just throwing it everywhere, not having as much
29:05
Speaker 2: strategy on how you're going to get it off the shelf,
29:07
Speaker 2: and that's when as soon as people hear it's not selling,
29:10
Speaker 2: it's really tough to break that, right.
29:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, just kind of throwing stuff against the wall and
29:15
Speaker 1: seeing what sticks doesn't work all the time exactly.
29:18
Speaker 2: We like to try it very quickly, but when it
29:21
Speaker 2: comes to retail, you do need to be very precise.
29:26
Speaker 2: Online and on Amazon, it's much more flexible. You can
29:29
Speaker 2: change everything in hours if you really want to price points,
29:33
Speaker 2: what's your profile image is retail, it just it takes
29:37
Speaker 2: months to change your price point on shelf. Right.
29:40
Speaker 1: Well, So, since you guys have been such fans of
29:42
Speaker 1: craft beer, and I know there's so many great breweries
29:45
Speaker 1: up in the Minnesota area, has there been a collaboration
29:48
Speaker 1: in the works or something I've been trying to work on.
29:51
Speaker 2: You know, we've done many collaborations. That's something we love doing.
29:56
Speaker 2: A lot of our team now are folks that used
29:59
Speaker 2: to work breweries in the area, so we have a
30:01
Speaker 2: lot of good connections. One of our favorite breweries is
30:04
Speaker 2: Summit here locally. They've been a powerhouse in the area forever.
30:08
Speaker 2: Probably the first craft beer I really had in college
30:13
Speaker 2: that opened my eyes up to that world. And we've
30:16
Speaker 2: done a couple of collaborations with them, both like kind
30:20
Speaker 2: of classic coffee stouts. But what I think is exciting
30:24
Speaker 2: that we've done is we've actually done some co branded
30:27
Speaker 2: stuff that goes into the liquor store, and we did
30:30
Speaker 2: like a Busy Blonde aale with them where it was
30:31
Speaker 2: a coffee Blonddale, which you don't see as many of those.
30:34
Speaker 2: And then we did a coffee amberil last year and
30:37
Speaker 2: we're working on one right now and it's it's really fun.
30:40
Speaker 2: We love doing it, they love doing it. Our team
30:43
Speaker 2: gets really excited about it too, so and we've done
30:46
Speaker 2: some smaller tap room exclusive ones with some of the
30:49
Speaker 2: other breweries in town. So it is something we love
30:52
Speaker 2: doing and enjoy a lot.
30:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm always cured coffee and beer go hand in hand,
30:57
Speaker 1: and I think they, like you said, with the stouts
30:59
Speaker 1: or even blonde, they're all perfect together for me.
31:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would. I would agree it's everyone drinks,
31:07
Speaker 2: especially cobra coffee and craft beer. They overlap in those
31:10
Speaker 2: consumers is huge. Yeah.
31:13
Speaker 1: Also, I love the breweries that are open all day
31:15
Speaker 1: because they have coffee in the mornings and then they
31:18
Speaker 1: even say sometimes people just switch to beer around lunchtime
31:21
Speaker 1: and then you know, once they're done working, because they'll
31:24
Speaker 1: work at the brewery coffee place, they'll just you know,
31:26
Speaker 1: start drinking after they're done working.
31:29
Speaker 2: No, I totally agree, it's kind of I love a
31:31
Speaker 2: good third place like that where you can come, get
31:34
Speaker 2: your stuff done, hang out. I'm a big fan of that.
31:38
Speaker 1: Well, so you just talked about how you guys celebrate
31:40
Speaker 1: your tenth anniversary, which is again huge for a lot
31:44
Speaker 1: any business. Really, what would you tell yourself going back
31:47
Speaker 1: ten even thirteen years when you guys really kind of
31:49
Speaker 1: had the idea and started all this.
31:52
Speaker 2: You know, I think the biggest thing is iterating quickly
31:57
Speaker 2: and not getting too stuck in what you is going
32:00
Speaker 2: to work. Early on, we thought we were iterating quickly.
32:05
Speaker 2: But we're like, man, why did we wait so long
32:07
Speaker 2: to do this? Or did we do that? The biggest
32:09
Speaker 2: thing being we originally launched with a concentrate because at
32:13
Speaker 2: the time, people were selling colbrew concentrates in the grocery
32:17
Speaker 2: store and we were like, oh, let's look at all
32:19
Speaker 2: well they're doing. Let's go do that. But concentrates, now
32:24
Speaker 2: we know, are very confusing to the consumer. The bottle
32:27
Speaker 2: looks small on the shelf, the price is expensive. The
32:30
Speaker 2: consumer doesn't read the label, so they don't know it
32:33
Speaker 2: makes sixteen cups. That's just how the world works. So
32:38
Speaker 2: we were trying to sell a concentrate for really the
32:40
Speaker 2: first four to five years and it was going okay.
32:45
Speaker 2: And we finally went to a way to drink format
32:48
Speaker 2: because we saw a few brands that launched ready to
32:50
Speaker 2: drink bottles and they were selling really well. The price
32:53
Speaker 2: points were a little lower. Luckily, we self manufactured, so
32:57
Speaker 2: it was really easy for us to just add some
32:59
Speaker 2: water to the proud and when we launched our ready
33:02
Speaker 2: to drink wine, that almost instantly exploded. That's awesome. I
33:07
Speaker 2: love that. Well.
33:09
Speaker 1: I have a segment show I call it The Five
33:10
Speaker 1: Counts five random questions.
33:13
Speaker 2: I like it.
33:14
Speaker 1: Number one, what are you nerding out on right now?
33:18
Speaker 2: You know what am I nerding out on right now? Honestly,
33:23
Speaker 2: we're working on the next level of scaling equipment at Busy,
33:28
Speaker 2: So I'm nerding out on some new equipment that's going
33:32
Speaker 2: to help us scale and process our product a little differently.
33:36
Speaker 2: So it's fun for me because it literally is everything
33:40
Speaker 2: from the beer, wine, cider, and juice industry. So I
33:44
Speaker 2: get to go tour plants, talk with people, see how
33:47
Speaker 2: their equipment works, see what it does, and see how
33:51
Speaker 2: we can apply that to Cobra Coffee. So it's honestly
33:54
Speaker 2: been really fun for me to get in the weeds
33:57
Speaker 2: again because we haven't done something like that almost since
33:59
Speaker 2: we start.
34:01
Speaker 1: That's huge.
34:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that.
34:03
Speaker 1: Number two. If you were a pro wrestler, MMA fighter,
34:06
Speaker 1: what would you name me?
34:07
Speaker 2: Ooh, you know, a pro wrestler would probably be what
34:12
Speaker 2: I would be. Honestly, HeLa Monster is probably what I've
34:19
Speaker 2: been called the most that I would resonate with. My
34:21
Speaker 2: last name is Heally, and I think the HeLa Monster
34:24
Speaker 2: is for sure what I would be.
34:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, no one's done that, so I think that's great.
34:29
Speaker 1: At number three, what would your last meal be?
34:33
Speaker 2: Ooh, that's another really good question because I love to
34:36
Speaker 2: eat and cook, you know, I think it would probably
34:45
Speaker 2: have to be some surf and turf. I'm just a
34:48
Speaker 2: sucker for a good steak and some shrimp or lobster
34:52
Speaker 2: with it and just really feeling really savory. I think
34:57
Speaker 2: that's what it would be.
34:58
Speaker 1: Hmm, that does sound good. And number four, who are
35:02
Speaker 1: what inspires you?
35:04
Speaker 2: You know? I think right now, who's been inspired me?
35:08
Speaker 2: And what inspires me is? I think I'm looking at
35:14
Speaker 2: a lot of the guy like David Goggins is one
35:18
Speaker 2: guy recently who I've some lebron He's been out there
35:22
Speaker 2: a while. But it's kind of resonating with me again
35:25
Speaker 2: because it reminds me of how we started busy, where
35:28
Speaker 2: he just doesn't quit. He's just really persistent at what
35:33
Speaker 2: he wants to achieve, and I think that just really
35:37
Speaker 2: resonates with me. You can control your attitude, you can
35:39
Speaker 2: control your effort, and don't let things that you can't
35:43
Speaker 2: control affect you. And you know, when you look back,
35:46
Speaker 2: you don't want to feel like you didn't work as
35:48
Speaker 2: hard as you possibly could have to achieve something.
35:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, people don't who David Gagins is, do your due
35:54
Speaker 1: diligence and go into figure out who this guy is
35:56
Speaker 1: and listen. I think listen to Can't Hurt Me, the
36:00
Speaker 1: book that he did, because it is the audiobook has
36:03
Speaker 1: almost like a podcast interview with it. Well, they'll do
36:06
Speaker 1: like a chapter and then David will talk about, you know,
36:09
Speaker 1: whatever's going on, and he'll tell even more stories. So
36:13
Speaker 1: he is incredibly inspirational and also make you feel like
36:16
Speaker 1: you have not done anything in your life.
36:18
Speaker 2: I know, if you want to, yeah, feel like you're lazy.
36:21
Speaker 2: He's a I agree. I love audiobooks and that audiobook
36:25
Speaker 2: I thought was a really entertaining listen.
36:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, and number five, what would you tell your seventeen
36:30
Speaker 1: year old self?
36:33
Speaker 2: What would I tell my seventeen year old self? You know,
36:37
Speaker 2: surround yourself with people that you aspire to be. I
36:42
Speaker 2: do that now, and I see how much of an
36:44
Speaker 2: impact that has on my life. But I don't think
36:46
Speaker 2: I prioritize that enough early on, even starting busy and
36:50
Speaker 2: through high school and college. And I just see the
36:53
Speaker 2: power of that now. And just surround yourself that people
36:57
Speaker 2: with people who you think are more successful than you,
36:59
Speaker 2: not just financially, but family, friends, they're happy. You see
37:04
Speaker 2: the joy they have in life. It just makes such
37:07
Speaker 2: an impact.
37:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent right, Like I think they
37:11
Speaker 1: say you are some of the five most closest people
37:14
Speaker 1: to you or something like that.
37:15
Speaker 2: So no, I'm a big believer in that, I for sure.
37:20
Speaker 1: Now, if people want to find out more about y'all,
37:22
Speaker 1: follow you online obviously by busy, help support you in
37:25
Speaker 1: any way.
37:25
Speaker 2: How can they do so, you know, find us busycolbrew
37:29
Speaker 2: dot com. As all of our products. We've got our
37:32
Speaker 2: store locator on there. We're in fifteen thousand stores in
37:36
Speaker 2: all fifty states, so we're probably in your local grocery store,
37:39
Speaker 2: your Target, your Kroger, your Sprouts, wherever you'd like to shop.
37:44
Speaker 2: Look for Busy. We're in the Cobrew coffee aisle by
37:47
Speaker 2: the dairy section, or find us on Amazon Busy Cold Brew.
37:52
Speaker 2: Those are the best places to look for us.
37:54
Speaker 1: There we go, and you thank you so much for
37:56
Speaker 1: your time. I've loved this, and yeah, I can't wait
37:58
Speaker 1: to see where Busy goes, not only the rest of
38:00
Speaker 1: this year, but you know, years in the future. So again,
38:03
Speaker 1: thank you, and everybody go out and buys some busy awesome.
38:07
Speaker 2: Thank you. This was a lot of fun. I appreciate it.
38:09
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you so much. To say Andrew for being
38:23
Speaker 1: on the show again. Get yourself some busy cold brew.
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Speaker 1: Like I said at the top, it's at Target. They
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Speaker 1: have the double shot of Espressos out now and they
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Speaker 1: are delicious. They were so nice and sent me some
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Speaker 1: and They've been sitting in my fridge and I've been
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Speaker 1: drinking them daily, so I love them. So why get
38:37
Speaker 1: yourself some busy cold brew because they are amazing. So
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Speaker 1: while you're doing that, make sure go follow us on
38:42
Speaker 1: social media. It is bruisers Pod that has b R
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Speaker 1: e W S t R S p O D on
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Speaker 1: the Instagram, the threads and the Twitter. If you want
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Speaker 1: to send us an email, it is brusspot at gmail
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Speaker 1: dot com. If you're gonna follow me directly, it is
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Speaker 1: Rody John. That is r O d I E j
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Speaker 1: o N. Roddy John is the name on the Twitter
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Speaker 1: and untapped. Case you want to find out what I'm drinking,
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Speaker 1: maybe can have a beer together. If you will follow
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Speaker 1: me on the threads or the Instagram, it is a
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Speaker 1: fisher Ardy John SI to next time, make sure to
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Speaker 1: enjoy life, Drink local and cheers