Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / How to get into 500 retail stores before launch, Emily in Paris & the crazy bus trip with Caleño’s Founder Ellie Webb (part 1)

Transcript

How to get into 500 retail stores before launch, Emily in Paris & the crazy bus trip with Caleño’s Founder Ellie Webb (part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Ellie Webb for Female Startup Club.
• 0:12
  Hi, welcome back to the show. It's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today, we're learning from Ellie Webb, who is the founder of a non-alcoholic company called Calenio. She's the only solo female founder in the no-and-load drinks category in the UK, having launched her tropical non-alcoholic spirits brand three and a half years ago.
• 0:35
  And this was really interesting for me. If you guys have been following along, you'll know that all of last year I spent in R&D for a non-alc wine company. So I really already knew who Ellie was and I was really excited to dig into her story. And it is so inspiring.
• 0:53
  Ellie's launch plan totally flipped on its head when she got an unexpected call from Sainsbury's, which is the biggest supermarket chain in the UK, and ultimately launched nationwide into 500 stores. We talked through how she had to pivot to raise capital, her most exciting marketing moments to date, and her crazy moment on Emily in Paris. Now,
• 1:18
  Just quickly, listen in. If you are a hype girl for Female Startup Club and you're listening in all the time, you're a fan, we are gearing up for our next big launch and I want you to be part of it. I want you to be the first to know about it when we make the announcement. You need to go to femalestartupclub.com forward slash waitlist to
• 1:42
  To put your name down, join other women who are part of FSC and keep in the loop with us. I'm so excited to share this with you guys. I've been working on it forever and it's nearly time. Okay, let's get into this episode. This is Ellie for Female Startup Club. Ellie, hi, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
• 2:07
  I am excited to be here too. And I'm excited to chat to you because you might not know this, but we have a few similarities, a few synergies in our, I guess, stories. First of all, my husband is half Colombian. And so my mother-in-law is from Colombia. And we have a lot of that kind of like link in our stories.
• 2:28
  general day-to-day, well, not day-to-day, but, you know, life. And then secondly, last year, my husband and I spent a year in R&D developing a non-alcoholic wine company. So I'm so familiar with your brand. I had, you know, been totally immersed in the industry for about a year. In the end, we decided not to pursue it. It didn't make sense financially. And it was just so bloody hard. So I'm really excited to dig into your story and how you've kind of made it work. And
• 2:58
  learn all about Caleno. Do you want to start by giving us a little introduction to who you are and what the brand is?
• 3:08
  Yeah, sure. Thank you for that, by the way. And like amazing to be talking to you. My name's Ellie and I started a brand called Caleno. I launched it almost four years ago now, so just shy of four years. And I used to work in the drinks industry and then discovered this world of non-alcoholic drinks or not. It didn't really exist at the time and felt like there was definitely a space for it. So I've been running this business for years.
• 3:36
  about four years. I've done every job pretty much. I've worn different hats in the business, but I've always been known as the founder. I started it on my own and now have a team around me, which is amazing. So cool. It's interesting that, you know, four years ago, like you said, it was kind of not really a well-known category. You were really on the cusp of this, what's now a booming trend or not even a trend, but a booming category of,
• 4:04
  So I can only imagine that back then it must have taken a lot more education in the market and a lot more persistence to kind of get this thing out there and to gain such, you know, enormous, the enormous traction that you have. Where do you like to start your story? What's the light bulb that kind of went off for you that got you thinking about building Caleno? Yeah.
• 4:29
  Yeah, so a lot of people, funny enough, ask me this. And for me, it was actually, when back around five years ago, I used to work in, I still worked in the drinks industry, but very much on the alcohol side. I was working for a drinks distributor at the time who sold...
• 4:48
  predominantly alcohol to pubs, bars and restaurants all over the UK. And I worked in their, in their marketing team. And I think working in a, in a booze and company, you just, you just end up drinking a lot basically, because all the social events revolve around drinking. I mean, it's fascinating because you do, I learned so much about, about that world and, you know, the nuances of spirits. I did training on wine and spirits and I found it fascinating. You get to meet
• 5:17
  some of the people that create these products. But back in 2017, at the start of 2017, I think, you know, I had quite a boozy Christmas. I was getting...
• 5:29
  sort of towards my 30s, late 20s at the time and thinking, I just can't, I can't deal with it anymore. I can't deal with the hangovers. I can't deal with like the next day anxiety. And I really just felt like coming into the new year, I wanted to take a bit of a break, which is difficult, right? When you work for an alcohol company, but I decided to do a little challenge called Dry January. And I was quite adamant that I didn't want this to change a
• 5:55
  my habits, like not go out socializing with my friends just because I wasn't drinking. So I still went out, met my friends and I can remember one night in, in Bristol city in the UK where I lived being out with my friends. It was fun night. It was a music night. We went to see a live band.
• 6:12
  They were at the bar ordering, they weren't taking part in dry January, it's just me. So much for solidarity. And they were at the bar ordering gin and tonics, cocktails. And I was stuck there with a pint of Diet Coke. And then I think I ordered another one. And then after that, I was like, I really don't want to drink this all night. Yeah, you're like, I can't drink this anymore.
• 6:36
  I didn't know what to order. And it was like that moment when you go to the bar and you panic. And you're like, well, I don't want any of that sugary stuff or the stuff that kids order, like J2Os and squashes. So I was kind of stuck. And throughout the month, I kept having very similar experiences, just coming up against it whenever I went to order a drink. I would normally end up drinking something I didn't want to, just because I felt like I was being punished just because I didn't want to drink alcohol.
• 7:04
  these were my options. So I kind of got thinking about that and how the drinks industry is so innovative, one of the most exciting industries, in my opinion, to be in, yet they got it really wrong when it came to non-alcoholic drinks and people that didn't want to drink. And as far as I could see, me and my kind of late twenties actually wanting to cut back, maybe start to live a little bit of a healthier lifestyle.
• 7:31
  And the more and more people I spoke to, they agreed with me. And so this kind of sparked the idea, which then eventually led to Caleno. But this idea of why aren't there better options available? Why are we still drinking Coke, squash, J2O, Elderflower, Cordials? Why is this still happening now?
• 7:55
  And what I really wanted were these grown up, flavoursome, well-made drinks, whether it's cocktails or a spirit with a mixer, which was which is what I tended to drink. What I really wanted was that taste and flavour profile just without the alcohol.
• 8:10
  And that's kind of what sparked the idea and got me thinking about it and researching and looking into space a bit more because I just couldn't, I couldn't understand why there wasn't more available. Had you always seen yourself as someone who wanted to start a business? Were you wanting to be an entrepreneur or had you kind of just come across this realization, light bulb moment and decided like, hey, maybe I could be the person to start this thing?
• 8:40
  I think like everyone, you know, when people, you know, you always say, oh, wouldn't it be nice to start a business? And then, you know, it never ends up being anything or you think, oh, I've not come up with the right idea yet. I definitely was in a space where I was looking for what's next. I wanted to progress in my career. To date, I'd followed like quite a linear path. I'd always progressed. I think I'd had about four different positions in the company I was in, in like a relatively short space of time. So I was always looking to progress.
• 9:10
  And I was kind of looking for the next thing. And it didn't feel like the next thing was in that company. I really wanted to grow a brand and go out there and say, I've done this. But I kind of looked at brand manager roles and, you know, brands that already existed. And I kept getting knockbacks. I kept getting told, oh, you don't have experience because the work I did was very B2B as opposed to B2C.
• 9:34
  So I kept getting told when I would go for interviews with, you know, beer companies or within the drinks industry, because I love the space. I got told, you know, I always got beaten by someone who had more experience in that area. And so I think I just ended up getting quite frustrated and kind of saying to myself, if no one will give me a job, then I'm going to just go out and create my own role for myself, which is what I ended up doing. So...
• 10:00
  Yeah, I think I fell into it because of really from necessity and frustration in my situation of wanting to do something and grow something. And having said I'd done it, but not being given the opportunity. So kind of took that narrative and took control of it, if you know what I mean. And launching a business felt like the best solution for me.
• 10:24
  Absolutely. Best experience you can get for sure. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I wish I'd done it earlier. Me too. In those early days of kind of having the idea and coming up with the concept, you know, for me, when I look back at my journey, going through the non-alcoholic wine, which is such a complicated process, the R&D was just, it was just madness for me.
• 10:49
  For you in those early days, what was the R&D part of this story and what was the process for you coming up with a formula and kind of developing your first product? Yeah, good question. So it started with me going to the internet. As I said, like I did have a bit of training in spirits. I'd done what's called the WSET, which is your spirits and art.
• 11:15
  and wine training. So I understood the process of how they were made. And I kind of thought, okay, well, I just need to apply that to what I'm trying to do, but just not be left with a flavoured alcohol at the end of it, which ended up proving harder than I thought. I mean, I went online, I bought different botanicals that I knew about, but I thought would be great as ingredients. And I tried to distill the flavour from them, from just in my kitchen at home, like heating them,
• 11:45
  putting small amounts of alcohol to try and extract the flavour. And I think I spent about a month or two doing this and going back and forth. And then I just hit a wall and I was like, I just don't have the...
• 12:02
  the expertise needed to move this forward I felt stuck and so I ended up finding someone on LinkedIn of all places she was a beverage development specialist who actually lived close to me and so I contacted her and told her what I was looking to do and she was like look this hasn't been done before she didn't
• 12:21
  She didn't say, yeah, absolutely, I can do this. She was like, we can figure this out together, how we do this. You know, me knowing, having a good idea of what I wanted the blend to taste like and the different distillates and ingredients to include, but not really knowing how to get there. And also...
• 12:37
  I didn't just want this to be a kitchen product. I knew I wanted, I knew this could be big. I could see the potential to really change the drinks industry and how we thought about not drinking. So I always wanted this to be big.
• 12:52
  Knowing that from the beginning meant I needed to get someone with expertise in this area, creating a safe non-alcoholic drink that would be safe for people to consume, but also get the flavours coming through so that people don't just drink it and go, this is squash or this isn't taste of anything or the flavours just get lost. It was really important to me that it was going to be a great tasting product. So that process basically took...
• 13:19
  a year and a half more or less um i was still in my job at this point so anytime i i could i would meet up with with this person and we basically um speak to different companies order different distillates and start blending
• 13:34
  and you can go really specific on provenance of ingredients and where they come from and the type, like, you know, one flavor of pineapple can be super different to, to another same with coconut. You can kind of get toasted coconut flavors. And, and so it was a lot of experimentation and a lot of going back and forth. Um,
• 13:53
  And a lot of talking to bartenders and literally going into restaurants and bars with my bottles and getting feedback and then going back and iterating. And were you thinking of this as kind of like going down the retail distribution pathway from the get go? Or were you thinking about this business as a DTC or, you know, kind of starting small locally at farmers markets and things like that and kind of selling directly through your own website?
• 14:18
  I think with the business, I've always thought big. I've always, from the very beginning, I wanted this to be a global business because I'm probably not over-egging it when I say there just really wasn't much available and I could see the potential.
• 14:35
  I didn't jump straight to retail. I thought potentially we were a bit early for that. I thought about bars and restaurants. So actually seeding the idea with those guys and getting, using them to get feedback and really seed the product with consumers and then also do the sea. So that's actually where I launched Festival was online with my own website. First version, a friend created for me. A second version was like, I think I paid like
• 15:02
  £5,000 for a guy to kind of build it all for me. And then, you know, you go from better versions, but it was definitely DTC first and get consumers buying the product and then build it out from there. But it didn't quite go. The plan that ended up happening wasn't quite the plan that I'd first. What's the plan that ended up happening versus the plan you thought?
• 15:30
  So the plan that ended up happening was I'd met someone...
• 15:36
  About six months prior to launching, I'd gone along to a festival, a drinks festival. It's called the Mindful Drinking Festival, run by guys called Club Sody, who you may have heard of in your kind of non-alcoholic wine experimentation days. But they were basically big champions for people in the non-alcoholic industry and, you know, really pushing consumers to try these products. So I went along with 20 bottles I'd made at home just to get feedback from people.
• 16:03
  And there I met someone from Sainsbury's, you know, retailer in the UK. And he said to me he really liked the product. He was obviously there, I guess, scouting for different drinks and looking at this category as kind of an emerging space. He said he really liked the product and would be in touch on Monday. And I was so sceptical. I was like.
• 16:23
  retailers don't just walk up to you and say they'll be in touch. Yeah, that's amazing. Really bizarre. But he did. He got in contact. And at that point, like I said, I had 20 bottles. I was still kind of blending it in my kitchen. And this is pre-launch, right? This is totally pre-launch. This is pre-launch. Pre-launch. And then as the months progressed, I was getting closer and closer to doing my first run of 1,000 bottles.
• 16:47
  And he gets in contact. This is close to Christmas now. He said, look, the buyer is looking at this category and she wants to start stocking non-alcoholic options in the store. Why don't you send in a few bottles? So I did. And I hear back and basically, to cut a long story short, they want to put Calenia in 500 of their stores nationwide. Whoa. Whoa. That's what I mean by unexpected. That is crazy. I wasn't expecting that.
• 17:17
  That's the dream. Oh, my gosh. It was mad. That's a whole other logistical supply chain craziness. Yeah, I hadn't even signed yet. Oh, my gosh. Okay, I want to get into that.
• 17:29
  I have a few more questions before we even get to what that means and how that changes the course of your, you know, the next phase of your launch, I guess. How were you thinking about the money piece of the puzzle? Obviously, it can be expensive when it comes to R&D consultants working with people in that space, then producing the MOQs.
• 17:49
  the bottles, the bottling and kind of the website and getting everything ready to launch. So I'd love to talk about the money piece of the puzzle, how much capital you needed to get started and how you were thinking about the money piece and how you were going to kind of build a business. Yeah. So I think the original thought, I mean,
• 18:12
  I had the idea in 2017, worked on it for about a year and a half. And during that time, I was still working. So I needed to find a way to...
• 18:22
  I knew that was holding me back. I was getting up early in the morning at five, working my business, going to work, coming back, working on this idea. But I knew I needed more time in order to kind of make it work. So I needed to be able to go full time. I had a mortgage, you know, I had financial commitments. So I couldn't do that without a bit of cash. And I had my own money that was putting into the business. I think in total, I put it like in total around £10,000 is what got me...
• 18:48
  to a liquid, to kind of a prototype product. I was pretty fortunate on the branding side, somewhere that I'd interned, like a great agency in London where I'd interned a few years before, offered to do the work, the branding work pro bono, which was a massive...
• 19:05
  like a massive stroke of luck for me because that would have been a big chunk of my budget so I was really scrappy in the beginning but with about 10 grand I managed to do what I needed to get the like the whole business to a place where I could put it in front of investors and then you know when I was speaking to Sainz B's I quickly realized I'm gonna need I'm gonna need cash to fund a lot of cash a large production
• 19:30
  the marketing spend that inevitably comes with launching with a large retailer and also some people. I was a solo founder, so I didn't have anyone working with me at the time. So it started with a small amount of money, less than 10,000. And then my first round of investment was a quarter of a million to basically, the wrong way being like 12 months to kind of ideally last me for help me
• 19:59
  bring in a few staff on the operations and marketing side and sales to fund that first round of production and any marketing spend and also help me market the product and get it out there because food and drink is so competitive. You do need to market the product to get it out there and do sampling and events. I spent my first few months just running around with a bar or driving around with a bar in my car and then just kind of trying to get the product out there. Wow.
• 20:28
  So that's kind of what the first bit of money looked like.
• 20:32
  When you went through that raise, you know, we've heard horror stories of people, you know, having 200 meetings before they get their first yes. And it's very difficult. It can be very difficult in the beginning, but hearing your story and knowing that you had that, you know, PO from Sainsbury's of 500 stores, did that make the experience a little easier to go out and raise by having that kind of traction that you could show as, as proof, or was it still the hard slog?
• 21:04
  It's still a hard slog and it's still a lot of preparation. You still have to build out the plan. You still have to show that you thought 12 months ahead, that you have a vision for where the company is going and you thought about it. I think the hardest part is for me was I'd never done any of that stuff before. So I was learning and then having to do it. And so it was stuff that didn't come naturally to me. So it probably just took longer. I had to ask a lot more questions. But definitely I think having...
• 21:32
  having commitment from a national retailer saying that, you know, they want to stock your product really helps when it comes to investment. So, and it's really clear how, you know, being really clear on how the money is going to be spent. But I think I would say that going in as a solo female entrepreneur on my own with zero experience in business, definitely our time stood against me. I think there were, there were a few questions raised around my age and, you know, you know, would I be able to do this? And I think,
• 22:01
  I didn't really, this was my first experience. To that point, I'd not really thought about, you know, going into a business solo on my own, not really thought about the fact that I was female. And it's only really when you start to experience investment boards and, you know, people in the space and going out to pitch that you start to realise this is quite unusual. Or it was at the time, and we're talking, you know, four or five years ago now. Fortunately, it is changing.
• 22:31
  Maybe not quick enough, but at the time it was quite unusual to see a young girl on her own pitching for quite a large amount of money with no experience. Gosh. So there was a lot of belief there. Gosh, isn't it so bizarre? So bizarre. Obviously that it seems like it's slowly starting to shift, even though the statistics are so, you know, low still about the amount of funding that goes to female founders. But hopefully it is...
• 22:59
  trending in the right direction. And as we know, there are so many more female founded businesses coming out, but still it's such, it's so cringe hearing those questions that you get asked around gender and can you do this? And it doesn't seem like it would happen if you were a guy to be asked those kinds of questions. Yeah, I think generally it just feels like, yeah, generally it just feels like women have to prove themselves more. I definitely felt like I had to prove myself more.
• 23:27
  That was the underlying feeling, like how to pay myself. Yeah. When you were going through that process, you mentioned, you know, obviously you didn't really know what you were doing. You were just figuring it out by learning as you go. Were there any kind of resources or courses or grants or things that you were turning to that other founders might be able to look to as go-to resources?
• 23:51
  Yeah, absolutely. I looked for local grants. I looked for local resources or just national ones as well. And I got some of them too. I think we were really lucky, particularly in the UK, that there are people available and companies available to kind of encourage entrepreneurship and help you. I went along to workshops to understand more about business and financials, which I wasn't particularly strong in. It wasn't like my...
• 24:20
  my strong suit but suddenly I was in a position where I had to understand a profit and loss a balance sheet and didn't know how to so I just took advantage of as much as I could and spoke to people that were further along the journey than me I think that can really help and later down the line I think being part of communities
• 24:41
  you know, with communities, you've got people that are super early on in the stage and people that are later on. So now where I am, I'm, you know, four years into running my business, I can offer help to people that are just at the start. So I definitely leant on that a little bit more. And I think, you know, just ask people, the worst they can say is no, I don't have time, or I don't want to. But generally, I find people...
• 25:04
  want to help if they can but just keep an eye out for for any free resources because you just don't know what a difference it could potentially make and whenever I got grant money like I was like great I can put that towards this bit of marketing or use that to do some more R&D on product so it can make a real difference.
• 25:27
  Yeah, absolutely. Gosh, very cool. I want to dig more into now kind of the launch period, especially that first year in business where you've obviously launched into 500 stores. You are going all ham in marketing. I'd love to understand what you were doing around the launch, what was working and kind of what your focus was to, you know, get your first customers through DTC and kind of, I mean, this is a so many part question, but also to.
• 25:56
  make sure that your marketing was working for Sainsbury's as well. Yeah. I think in the beginning, because, you know, resource was super tight. So when I launched for about three, four months, I was on my own.
• 26:11
  So everything I was doing, I had to manage myself effectively. So I think for my marketing, it meant just being quite laser focused in what I was doing and not trying to do it all. So it meant not having lots of different social media accounts. It meant not trying to do loads and loads of festival and events, A because I couldn't afford it, and B, I was just one person.
• 26:37
  So I tried to be quite laser focused on what I was doing. So three things I did. One was collaborations. So it was speaking to other brands that had bigger followings than me and had like, you know,
• 26:53
  solid customer base that were in the kind of same health wellness space where I thought Kalenia as a non-alcoholic spirit would appeal to people um but also felt in keeping with the brand so I teamed up with um healthy crisp brand called Emily's Vegetable Crisps um oh there was a
• 27:18
  that had a tropical soda that I linked up with and served. I went down to Pineapple Studios because I really wanted the brand to be about dancing and fun and the experience as opposed to just the drinking. And there was this...
• 27:35
  problem I found that when you talked about not drinking people just assumed that you were going to be really dull and boring and not be able to have a fun night out so I kind of purposely chose brands that were like Plenia quite vibrant quite colourful quite out there and collaborated with them um in what way what kind of collaboration
• 27:55
  So we would run social competitions. So basically to boost a colonials following and then offer prizes at the end of it. So that was one way. Giveaways, you know, that kind of thing. So that, that worked really well because at the time I didn't have, I didn't really have anyone following me. No one knew about the brand.
• 28:18
  I needed to get the word out there because I was going into 500 stores. So that was kind of the first way to do it. The other way was I reached out to a load of influencers.
• 28:28
  So probably people at the time, this was back in 2019, with maybe anywhere between, you know, a few thousand to 20, 30, 50,000 followers. And again, the only card I had to play was that it was Dry January. And I knew that a lot of people would be taking part in Dry January. This is when I launched. So...
• 28:48
  I messaged a load of people and said, look, I'm launching this new brand and basically offered to send them out some bottles. And if they liked about it, then please feel free to post. So again, that was like leveraging their followings and people that they would post to that might be interested in the space and might be taking part in dry January. So again, that was another way of
• 29:13
  Of getting the word out. And the third one was just sampling, was getting people to try the products. Our bottles are £18 a bottle. So it's not like buying a chocolate bar for a couple of pounds or a bag of crisps. You're parting with a bit more cash. So a lot of the time people want to try something before they buy it.
• 29:34
  at that price point. So I was going into Sainsbury's stores and doing samplings at the front of store. I got like a lot of really skeptical people being like, what's the point? But, you know, why would I not want to drink alcohol? And then I talked to them and actually it was funny seeing the turnaround in people that were really skeptical.
• 29:51
  would then end up leaving with a bottle. Actually really interested. That was quite fun. Yeah. And just going, just driving around to different markets and places in London, just trying to get the word out. So January was a big month for me because I knew that that was when a lot of people would be taking part in the challenge or, you know, just trying to...
• 30:12
  to take a step back from alcohol, maybe after having quite a boozy Christmas, like I had had a couple of years before. So those were the three kind of main things I focused on. And then once funding came through, I also started spending more money on social media advertising, which at the time, you know, worked really well in kind of getting, just getting exposure out to thousands and sometimes millions. Yeah, gosh, how times have changed when it comes to Facebook and Instagram ads. Yeah.
• 30:41
  God damn it. Tell me about it. As you've kind of progressed, you know, in the last couple of years from that first year to now, what are the kinds of exciting marketing initiatives that you're doing to stand out and what are the growth drivers that you pull now to continue to grow? I think we launched in 2019 and as we know, 2020 was COVID. Yeah.
• 31:10
  quite early, quite early on in the year we got hit by the pandemic.
• 31:14
  I know. And so we sort of had our first year, summer was a really important time for us. We have, as a non-athlete brand, we have different peaks in the year. Like January is a big time for us. So it makes sense to spend a lot of money then. We dabbled in a couple of events in summer, the first year we launched. But to be honest, where the brand has really come alive with its marketing has been this year, when we've been able to go out and meet people in real life.
• 31:44
  At the start of this year, we're kind of, well, kind of out of lockdown, sort of. Anyway, there's a moment where I'm talking to the team. We've got a huge campaign planned. We've got a massive bright yellow bus that's going to drive around the country, dropping off bottles of Coleno, and we're going to do these big sampling activities in Canada.
• 32:08
  three key cities, so London, Bristol and Manchester up in the north. And so we've got a plan. And then we're kind of hearing right after Christmas that things are going to be shut down. We're kind of heading back into COVID. I'm like, oh my God, no, this is terrible. And so we have to make a bit of a call. Do we pull it? Do we lose money? Or do we try and pivot? And I think the fact that we were still really small, we could be quite agile. So we changed those plans slightly so that we could do the sampling outdoors.
• 32:37
  where it you know was still early on in January and people were still out shopping doing their you know their January sale shopping so we got to farm pool with a hell of a lot of people we got the bus out there and and actually because I think a lot of brands were were afraid of spending money at that time we didn't really see many other brands doing anything so I think for that reason we got a lot of impact and a lot of cut through because we were quite bold in going
• 33:07
  and go for it. And then it's just built from there. We then did our biggest ever summer campaign this year called Say Yes to a Summer of No Regrets. And that's really the sentiment there is going, go out, live your best life. Don't worry about hangovers. Just like...
• 33:25
  Enjoy it. And drinking for 10 years, it's not about sobriety and just completely switching off the alcohol. It's there to help people that want to moderate and maybe like me want to drink less alcohol, but want to have a great option when they choose to do that. So we went out as a big campaign campaign.
• 33:44
  It was, again, a bit of a risk because we decided to spend big on out-of-home media. I think we reached like 60 million people, impressions-wise, across the UK. We went to 50 different locations. We...
• 34:00
  We bought an old Defender that we repainted. We now call her Shakira and she's like our cocked out sampling truck that's driven all around the country. Oh my God, that sounds so fun. Yeah. And then we sampled, we sampled like 70,000 people already this year. So this year was like a really big, bold year for us in marketing. And I think just having...
• 34:23
  A couple of years where we couldn't really do much and our hands were a bit tied. Kalenia is a really in-person brand. When people show up and we give them a drink, there's music there. There's quite often dances. There's a bit of an atmosphere. And we couldn't do that very well virtually. It was a real struggle.
• 34:39
  to bring that to life. And I was sick of telling people you can have fun when you don't drink, but we needed to show people. And so this was our way of showing people and changing perceptions. So I think for me, that's been the kind of proudest moments for me and the team in terms of our marketing. Wow. That sounds so much fun and so exciting to kind of, what I also love about this is like,
• 35:03
  You know, you always think that you're going to launch a brand and everything's going to happen straight away, but things do take time. It does take years of building the foundations and setting the tone of the brand to then have your kind of pivotal key year that kind of really kicks things off and kicks it, kicks it into the next level. As you look to the future, what are the kinds of things that you're getting excited about now?
• 35:28
  Oh, excitement. I mean, I'm excited most of the time because I love the industry that I'm working in and I've got a great team. I think I'm really excited currently about the bar and restaurant industry opening back up because, again, I talk about experience. But really, people go out to restaurants, bars and pubs to restaurants.
• 35:53
  really get an experience they can't get at home and that's meeting with friends, family, great food, great drinks and a really great atmosphere and that's not a channel that we've been able to play in for a long time now, in fact just before the pandemic hit we were just starting to make inroads so that's a channel I'm really excited about that to help us bring the brand to
• 36:23
  less than a handful of markets we're now kind of rapidly increasing to 30 40 markets towards the end of this year so that's huge for us and some really some really big markets as well so I'm really interested to learn about how the non-alcoholic industry is going to mature in other markets and what learnings we can take from the UK and what will be different because the
• 36:45
  There's going to be different nuances. So that's also really exciting because like I said, from the beginning, I wanted this to be a global brand. So it feels like that dream is being realized. But to what you said before, it does take time. I remember the first year going and working so hard.
• 37:01
  I'm doing all this stuff and it, you know, nothing's really changing. But now I, you know, I meet people for the first time that I've heard of your brand or I've tried it or I've bought it from one of the retailers that we work with. So just like gradually that awareness grows and all of the effort that you're putting in does pay off. But it takes, you know, unless you're super lucky and your brand just takes off, which is really rare, by the way, really rare.
• 37:28
  It does take kind of quite a lot of hard graft and work, but I'm excited to see the progress that's happening. Gosh, me too. I'm so excited for you. Holy moly. What advice can you give to founders who are just getting started and entering into the beverage industry, whether it's in ALK or non-ALK? Yeah. I think generally...
• 37:55
  What I would say to anyone starting out is just grasp every opportunity that comes your way. And don't be afraid of failure because I think people who are afraid of failure eventually ends up holding you back and meaning that you don't do things. It's okay to fail and learn from it and then try again. So I think advice to people, maybe starting out in the drinks industry or food and drink,
• 38:23
  Be tenacious, don't take no for an answer and be curious, ask questions, meet people, grow your network. For me, building a network in the space has been hugely valuable. I think I often say the team, people work with people they enjoy working with. So it can go a long way just being a nice person and helping. And, you know, eventually that will come back around. It's kind of good karma, right? And I think specifically to female entrepreneurs, I think in the beginning,
• 38:51
  I was maybe afraid to be confident and bold in my opinions or my assumptions. And I think having my own business has shown me that actually I can do this and I'm very capable. And I think quite often, particularly women, they lack that because it can sometimes take time to build up that confidence. Yeah.
• 39:17
  hopefully what this podcast will show you and all the other amazing women that have been on here is that we're capable of so much so having that that confidence even if you have to feign it sometimes just go in and just be bold and if you're pitching for investment or you're pitching for a new customer just just have that have that belief in you that's going to be okay love that thank you so much for sharing
• 39:44
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 40:08
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 40:31
  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.
• 40:46
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 41:11
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 41:34
  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.