Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / I'm about to drop $42k, an update on the non alc

Transcript

I'm about to drop $42k, an update on the non alc · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  Hello, and welcome back to the Female Startup Club podcast. In these episodes that I do solo, we're here to talk about my journey in building the Non-Alk Wine Company, which hasn't been named yet. Well, that's not true. It has been named, but it hasn't been announced yet. And so after a few weeks of no updates, I've finally got some pretty cool stuff to share with you. Okay.
• 0:24
  But before we get into it, if you haven't done so already or you didn't know, did you know that we have a newsletter? Every Monday, we're shooting out some pretty cool insights and absolute gold from the show. It also has job opportunities at female-founded and owned companies.
• 0:44
  It's also got some industry news and we spotlight indie small businesses that you should absolutely get to know. So if you want to sign up, head to femalestartupclub.com to pop your email in and it's totally free. You'll receive it every Monday. Let's get stuck into this episode. This is me for Female Startup Club.
• 1:06
  Hello, everyone. I have literally just arrived back from a few days in Europe where we went to visit our production facility and the lab to do some further development on the non-alc wine project.
• 1:21
  Holy moly, it was so exciting. I wanted to jump straight on here to give you the update and tell you about the experience that I had. And actually, before I say everything was super exciting, besides the part where one of the goddamn samples broke in my fricking bag and ink ran all through my clothes and ruined one of my go-to.
• 1:45
  favorite dresses of the minute. So besides that annoying moment, because I then had no clothes to wear, it was pretty damn cool. Like very, very cool, but also pretty damn terrifying, I must admit. And
• 2:03
  you know, it's starting to feel quite real. I've never actually been into a facility like this for anything. So it's all pretty new to me. We did a tour and learnt about the machinery that actually dealkalises the product.
• 2:19
  We spent time understanding the formulation that takes place afterwards to add back in things like aromas and structure and taste, and just in general, learnt a lot about the process and how all this stuff works, which was pretty mind-blowing. If you are new here, though, and you haven't actually had a chance to listen to some of our solo episodes, let me give you the short gist.
• 2:46
  Basically in January, I started developing a non-alcoholic wine company and I was going along that process. And then I met a master sommelier who was, well, he started consulting for me to help me build out the recipe, what I wanted, what the product would look like. But quickly we decided that he was a bloody rock star and we brought him on as a business partner.
• 3:13
  From there, we partnered with an incredible wine producer in France, who also happens to be a woman, which is pretty cool. And she supplies us this incredible wine as the base. Then we take that wine and we de-alkalize it and reformulate it with the goal of being the most premium, better-for-you and tasty non-alkal wine option on the market. Which, in my opinion, isn't hard because there are literally none that are top-notch, in my opinion.
• 3:44
  We're launching the brand with a sparkling white or French fizz to be specific. And then from there, we're building out our range of rosé, rosé fizz or rosé sparkling and the holy grail of this entire thing, a super yummy red.
• 4:03
  So I think every entrepreneur has these certain points they hit where they get a bit of a scary feeling and it's kind of, like I said before, it starts to feel very, very real. It's time to actually sit down, work out the numbers and see how you're going to move forward when, you know, you have to think about the minimums. What are they? How much does it cost? What's the risk I'm about to put myself into?
• 4:32
  all that good stuff. And so for the first time, I actually started to get those vibes and that overwhelming feeling that I hadn't really felt up until this point.
• 4:43
  We've been going with the flow with things like R&D, paying as we go, branding, paying as we go, just kind of funding this ourselves. And even though, you know, when we look back, it's probably been around 20K that we've spent already. It's been on a monthly basis. So it's not upfront. It hasn't been like this dramatic thing.
• 5:05
  Well, I mean, it's still a lot of money, but, you know, it hasn't been that here's 20K we handed over. But now to place a minimum order, we've figured out that per SKU, it costs around circa $45,000. And so this is where it starts to feel really real. This is where it's starting to feel really scary, but also kind of cool.
• 5:30
  So we had originally planned to bootstrap this as far as we could, but now we're having to ask ourselves, what is the actual pathway forward to finance? And what's the best way forward that will give ourselves the best chance of success in building this into something huge and amazing and attractive to be acquired in the future?
• 5:52
  Gosh, so if you're someone listening to this and you're going through this too, I bet you know what I mean here. I bet you know this feeling that I'm talking about. I bet you've experienced it. It definitely feels scary, but it also in this like really weird way feels kind of empowering because we've gotten to this point where now it's time to really commit to the project and dive into it head on. Yeah.
• 6:19
  So yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with that side of things. And also, by the way, if you're someone that's listening into this and you have experience in the non-alc industry or even in the wine industry, when it comes to building out a financial model slash roadmap and understanding margins, please do hit me up in the DMs or feel free to drop me an email. I would love some guidance and brainpower in this particular stage that I'm in now. Yeah.
• 6:49
  especially as we're starting to build out this financial model. I'm going to do an episode sharing how we do it. But for anyone who's kind of already done it and has some advice or guidance, I would love to chat with you. Numbers aren't my strength personally, but they are more so PAs. And so we're just looking for more insights and more data that we can gather to make our assumptions in building this.
• 7:14
  So yeah, feel free to drop into my DMs if you do want to help or want to chat. What else can I tell you? Well, the other obvious thing is we are getting super close to finalizing the product. Obviously, we spent a few days in the production facility, in the lab. We worked through so, so many iterations while we were there. And by the end of it, my palette was completely overloaded.
• 7:43
  So we weren't able to finalize, but we were able to get so many steps closer, like 10 steps closer. And again, I don't know if anyone feels like this or, and I'm sure, I'm sure people listening do feel like this, but I also have this weird feeling of like, what if the market doesn't like it the same way that we do? Like, yeah.
• 8:04
  When you're about to invest in something that you think is pretty great and, you know, we're three, so all three of us have a very different perspective and we have different palettes, you know, our business partner is a master SOM. He is...
• 8:19
  super knowledgeable in this so he can create something that is complex and is exciting for people in the wine industry. And then PA is a wine enthusiast. He's a wine hobbyist. He's super interested. And he approaches it from his perspective. And then I'm very much approaching it from the mass consumer market. I don't know a lot about wine. I just know what I like and what I don't like and what I would drink again. So...
• 8:44
  We are kind of a broad mix of, I guess, different consumers, but it's still pretty daunting because, you know, we actually can't do a lot of customer feedback. We can't do a lot of focus groups because the way that it works for us is our minimum order is, you know, this whole batch that we have to basically commit to.
• 9:09
  So we're not able to run any smaller batches to send out for feedback. We essentially determine the product, get some feedback with maybe a few of our kind of ideal customers. And then we pull that 42K pin and see where we land in the market. But basically, that's the other feeling that I have right now is kind of like,
• 9:28
  holy shit, what if no one likes this? And I'm sure this is normal. I'm sure if you're listening to this and you own a business, you have gone through this as well. Anyway, we also heard back from the IPO. IPO? IPO? I think that's what it's called. The IPO in the UK that our trademark is good to go unless there's an opposition. So it's been listed. I think they list it for around two months and then...
• 9:57
  If no one opposes, we are all good. We're all set. So stay tuned on that one. I am literally on the edge of my seat to announce the name. I so closely all the time just go to spit the name out and then I have to be like, oh, no one knows it yet. No one knows it yet. So I'm literally obsessed with it. I can't wait to share it with you and to start saying it all the time. But we're so close. We are so close.
• 10:26
  That's pretty much all my updates on the non-alc French viz. We are aiming to launch next year. It became super clear that we have a long ways ahead of us to building out this roadmap, get the product ready, and then move into a pre-launch phase. And I was obviously totally kidding myself when I said we were going to launch it this year.
• 10:47
  But as always, good things take time. And with the initial capital investment that we need to put into it, we want to make sure that we don't rush this process at all. So, yeah, that's where things are at with that. Besides the non-ALC updates, we have a few other things that are pretty cool.
• 11:05
  From the 1st of November, you are going to start hearing ads for Female Startup Club on other podcasts and some like really cool ones. I actually can't believe it. I don't know if you've heard of Being Boss with Emily Thompson or Entrepreneurs on Fire with John Lee Dumas, but these humans are totally wild and they're going to have these ads about FSC from the 1st of November and they interview people like,
• 11:34
  Gary Vee, Brené Brown, Marie Folio, all these people that are, you know, such a big deal. And you're going to hear Female Startup Club on there. So I'm just like over the moon. Definitely check them out. If you hear our ads, please let me know. Please like send me a note or something because I'm just so excited and so proud of where Female Startup Club is going.
• 12:02
  We also have some pretty useful things coming up in Hype Club, especially if you are a business owner or an entrepreneur in the e-commerce space.
• 12:11
  In November, we have the co-founder of Jennifer Bette Communications, Melissa, coming in to talk about PR when you are a small business owner, teaching us things like how to approach journalists with a compelling pitch, what to do, what not to do, and when you should really hire an agency and kind of like at what point and when your foundation is solid enough that you can take that next leap or that next jump. Yeah.
• 12:37
  So it's going to be a really great one for any small business female founders in the e-com space. And we would, of course, love to see you there. As always, a short and sweet episode. Let me know what you think of these mini episodes. And if you have any questions or ideas on what I should talk about next, please do drop into my DMs on Instagram. I'd love to meet you and I'd love to know what you're up to. See you next Saturday. Bye.
• 13:22
  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.
• 13:46
  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.
• 14:09
  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.