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Speaker 1: We grew up in a world where purposefully Soda by

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Speaker 1: design was within arm’s reach at all times. It was

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Speaker 1: a part of so many special moments that all of

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Speaker 1: us have had as Americans growing up. So it’s a

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Speaker 1: part of a lot of people’s core identities. And so

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Speaker 1: having a brand and product platform that was actually driven

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Speaker 1: by empathy and meeting the consumer where they were and

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Speaker 1: then replicating the Soda experience the most spot on. And

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Speaker 1: then by the way, you can, fall in love with

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Speaker 1: the product without feeling like you’re trading your health in

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Speaker 1: down the road, right? Which also means that if you’re

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Speaker 1: a parent, you can actually give something to your kid.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to today’s episode of Brave Commerce.

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Speaker 3: I’m Rachel Typograph, the founder and CEO of Micmac.

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Speaker 2: I’m Sarah Hofstetter, president of Profitero.

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Speaker 3: And this is a show that talks about what’s relevant

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Speaker 3: in e-commerce for the world’s biggest brands.

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Speaker 4: Sarah, do you have any patents?

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Speaker 2: I love when you find these interesting questions to open

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Speaker 2: the podcast with. I’ve never been asked that, and it’s

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Speaker 2: because I don’t have any. But I have a funny

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Speaker 2: feeling if I ask you that back, I’m going to

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Speaker 2: get a very different answer.

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Speaker 4: Rachel, do you have patents?

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Speaker 3: I have one patent, and it is the patent of

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Speaker 3: the original Micmac product, which was to instantiate add-to-cart sessions

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Speaker 3: in media. We hold the patent for that and we

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Speaker 3: filed for it in 2016.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: That is pretty extraordinary. Have you ever gone after anybody

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Speaker 2: on it?

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Speaker 3: I haven’t.

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Speaker 4: I have a lot of feelings about patents.

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Speaker 3: And personally, I think in the world that we live in,

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Speaker 3: it’s really easy to invent patents. You’re essentially writing an application.

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Speaker 3: And if you write it slightly differently, then maybe you

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Speaker 3: can get a patent for a slightly different way that

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Speaker 3: someone does something. So I think there’s a, there’s a

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Speaker 3: lot of smoke and mirrors to patents, at least in software,

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Speaker 3: it might be different in, in medicine or food, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: Clearly the ones who wrote it for medicine and figured

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Speaker 2: out something very special, hence these weight loss things costing

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Speaker 2: so much damn money, but I digress. But what’s interesting

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Speaker 2: about the patent thing though, is that it’s anybody’s even

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Speaker 2: thinking about patents is, you know, unless they’re, you know,

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Speaker 2: a shyster is because they’re inventing things. And there’s something

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Speaker 2: really special about inventors in general, but those just come

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Speaker 2: up with original ideas. It could be stringing across different things.

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Speaker 2: Think about Steve Jobs saying, well, what if I could

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Speaker 2: take my MP3 on my phone and make them one thing?

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Speaker 2: That is an invention. It doesn’t necessarily mean have to

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Speaker 2: be like, you know, Ben Franklin and lightning, but The

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Speaker 2: fact that you have actually invented something is just so

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Speaker 2: incredibly extraordinary versus being a combination of a fast follower

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Speaker 2: or a pivoter, if you will.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: The process of invention is, for me, it’s just so fun.

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Speaker 3: But it really doesn’t stop there. I think it’s about

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Speaker 3: the willingness to make it a reality no matter what

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Speaker 3: comes your way.

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Speaker 2: So the combination of invention and entrepreneurship. Are you a

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Speaker 2: kind of person that’s an SBI or a GSD? Do

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Speaker 2: you see big ideas or do you get shit done?

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Speaker 2: And if you can be both, then you have a

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Speaker 2: spot in leadership.

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Speaker 4: You could be one or the other.

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Speaker 2: You could be really like, that’ll get you to management.

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Speaker 2: But are you an SBI or are you a GSD?

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Speaker 2: And you, my friends, are an SBI and a GSD.

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Speaker 2: I know it’s so catchy, right?

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I’m also a TIPO.

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Speaker 3: It’s always so great to meet other founders, entrepreneurs.

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Speaker 4: Product developers.

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Speaker 3: And it’s also really cool when you get to meet

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Speaker 3: someone who’s actually created a physical product. And Sarah and

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Speaker 3: I have the great pleasure of talking with someone who

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Speaker 3: is the creator of Olipop. If You know, Alipop, you

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Speaker 3: know that they essentially created the good for you, good

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Speaker 3: for your gut soda market. And here’s a founder that

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Speaker 3: when you listen to him, you will hear his passion,

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Speaker 3: how long he’s been playing in the fermentation space and

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Speaker 3: how he sees the world. Today, we are very excited

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Speaker 3: to have a fellow entrepreneur onto the show, Ben Goodwin,

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Speaker 3: who’s the co-founder and CEO of Olipop, who I truly

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Speaker 3: believe one day will become one of the world’s biggest brands.

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Speaker 4: So, Ben, welcome.

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Speaker 1: Hey, thanks for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.

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Speaker 3: I’ve been drinking Olipop for… at least the last few years,

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Speaker 3: I was trying to pinpoint the exact date. I think

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Speaker 3: I experienced it on a cafe in the Lower East

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Speaker 3: Side called Paws Cafe, where you’re distributed. But your history

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Speaker 3: goes way back. You’ve been playing around in the product

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Speaker 3: development space for, it seems like, 20 years when I

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Speaker 3: look at your LinkedIn.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: That’s a long time. And it feels like you’ve really

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Speaker 3: been nerding out in the fermentation and probiotic space.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Way before it was ever in vogue, because I feel

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Speaker 3: like that’s really come to life in maybe like the

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Speaker 3: last five years.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: What drives your passion in this area?

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Speaker 1: Only 20. Feels like 50. Beverage entrepreneurialism is not for

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Speaker 1: the faint of heart. But no, you’re totally right. I mean,

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Speaker 1: so by background, I grew up lower income, consuming a

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Speaker 1: standard American diet, which included plenty of soda. That didn’t

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Speaker 1: go great. I grew up pretty anxious and overweight, all

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Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that tends to get associated with that.

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Speaker 1: At 14, I actually had this kind of self-facilitated pivot,

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Speaker 1: like life pivot, where I became really focused on nutrition.

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Speaker 4: At 14?

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Speaker 1: 14, yeah. I still remember the day.

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Speaker 2: So this is not even a quarter-life crisis. This is

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Speaker 2: a teenage crisis about your nutrition.

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Speaker 1: Literally, I had an existential crisis. A lot of the

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Speaker 1: stuff that I end up doing, it’s based on a

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Speaker 1: fairly simple premise. It’s like, wow, I’m overweight, I’m anxious,

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Speaker 1: this isn’t going great. I was raised without any kind

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Speaker 1: of spiritual or religious background. So I just had no,

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Speaker 1: I was like, I don’t know what happens when I die.

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Speaker 1: I don’t know why we’re here. And I just like

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Speaker 1: circled around this one concept, which is basically, at least

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Speaker 1: I’d like to have a good life. And there’s no

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Speaker 1: way that this trajectory resolves to be a good life.

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Speaker 1: And so literally overnight, I shifted a bunch of things.

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Speaker 1: I lost like 50 pounds in less than a year.

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Speaker 1: I shifted a bunch of my friends. Eventually, I started

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Speaker 1: going to therapy, yada, yada. You know, the thing that

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Speaker 1: was really impactful for me about it is it took

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Speaker 1: a lot of discipline, and I grew a lot from that. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: like body composition and energy shifted as part of that.

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Speaker 1: But the thing that was the most impactful over the

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Speaker 1: years as I focused on nutrition was really my kind

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Speaker 1: of cognitive and emotional functioning increased. And especially coming out

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Speaker 1: of a more challenging environment, I became really thrilled by, wow,

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Speaker 1: this is a real kind of self-actualization and self-empowerment tool

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Speaker 1: that you as an individual can have a lot of

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Speaker 1: control of. There’s a lot of things in your life

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Speaker 1: you can’t. So I had that personal experience that was

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Speaker 1: pretty paradigm shifting for me. And at 20, dropped out

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Speaker 1: of college for a range of reasons. Again, growing up

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Speaker 1: low income, had a mentor that was pretty impactful on me.

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Speaker 1: and went into the health and wellness space and like

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Speaker 1: a moth to the flame went towards beverage. But, you know,

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Speaker 1: my drive has always been around, again, this is one

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Speaker 1: of those like overly simplistic things, but just like building

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Speaker 1: a life around meaning and that meaning being how do

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Speaker 1: we create the most good that I can at scale

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Speaker 1: while I’m alive. I had this personal experience with health

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Speaker 1: and wellness, how transformative it could be. And I still

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Speaker 1: get where we’re kind of at as a country and

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Speaker 1: the kind of general, Poor health outcomes, 40% type 2

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Speaker 1: diabetes and pre-diabetes rate. CDC predicts that by 2050, 1.3

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Speaker 1: billion people will have type 2 diabetes. Totally self-inflicted epidemic

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Speaker 1: of unimaginable proportions. CDC numbers, again, 60, 70% of Americans

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Speaker 1: have chronic digestive distress. At 20, I dropped out of

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Speaker 1: college and helped a friend start a kombucha company. It

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Speaker 1: wasn’t even like a particularly knew what kombucha was at

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Speaker 1: the time. I was like, this sounds really interesting, but

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Speaker 1: it was working on kombucha that I learned what the

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Speaker 1: microbiome is. And then when I learned about the microbiome,

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Speaker 1: so one thing about my, the way I work is

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Speaker 1: when I get into stuff, I get really into stuff.

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Speaker 1: And so I go down these rabbit holes and I

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Speaker 1: learned about the brain gut axis. So we produce most

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Speaker 1: of our neurotransmitters and hormones via fermentation in our microbiome.

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Speaker 1: And it can have a really profound impact on cognitive

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Speaker 1: function and emotional stability. And then I I did the

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Speaker 1: math on, oh, wow, that might’ve been a big part

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Speaker 1: of what shifted for me. So really a lot of

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Speaker 1: my adult life has become about if the microbiome is

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Speaker 1: this incredibly leveraged way to create systemic positive change at

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Speaker 1: the physical and kind of being level of a person,

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Speaker 1: is there a way I can actually take some empirically

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Speaker 1: validated nutritional strategies and put it in like a Trojan

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Speaker 1: horse format You know, in terms of like the areas

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Speaker 1: of focus, so for sure, I was into microbiome, I guess,

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Speaker 1: before it was more popularized. Fermentation before it was more popularized.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Olipop objectively is the first fiber prebiotic functional

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Speaker 1: soda to market. A lot of that is because I

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Speaker 1: find a lot of inspiration. I spend a lot of

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Speaker 1: time looking at emergent clinical literature. I don’t think a

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Speaker 1: lot of entrepreneurs in the health and wellness space start

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Speaker 1: from that place and you’re kind of looking at the

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Speaker 1: literature and you’re saying okay this is really really interesting

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Speaker 1: data but like how do i comb through this and

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Speaker 1: take all these raw points and transform them into a

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Speaker 1: product that’s where that work has to happen that was

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Speaker 1: exactly it i mean cause you know, I spent a

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Speaker 1: long time in fermentation and probiotics when the kind of

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Speaker 1: prevailing norm was that that would be the best way

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Speaker 1: to affect the microbiome. Then the commercial consumer grade probiotics

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Speaker 1: were really falling short of that promise. They were, they

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Speaker 1: were transient, they weren’t surviving the bottle or pill. And well,

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Speaker 1: I’m just really fortunate that there’s this other emergent field

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Speaker 1: arriving at the same time, which is, oh, actually, it’s

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Speaker 1: like their diets. When you look at indigenous groups, when

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Speaker 1: you look at kind of hunter-gatherer tribes, of course, they’re

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Speaker 1: not taking probiotic supplements. They’re just they’re eating all these

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Speaker 1: different nutrients that are missing from the industrialized diet. Oh, fascinating.

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Speaker 1: What’s that? And so that ended up creating our nutritional platform,

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Speaker 1: which is fiber, prebiotics, nutritional diversity.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: Those are the three big things that are present in

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Speaker 1: these these indigenous diets that are missing from the industrialized diet.

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Speaker 4: And.

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Speaker 1: That’s why we have OlliSmart in the product as well.

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Speaker 1: It’s not some of the competitive set has just like

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Speaker 1: a small amount of one type of fiber. We have

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Speaker 1: a larger fiber load spread out across a range of

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Speaker 1: different ingredients because we’re trying to actually match that kind

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Speaker 1: of nutrition profile.

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Speaker 3: Amazing to see the origin and clearly the rabbit hole

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Speaker 3: that you’ve gone down to identify the opportunity. But then

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Speaker 3: you took that opportunity and you shoved it into a

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Speaker 3: soda can.

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Speaker 1: Yes.

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Speaker 4: And so… Whether that was a stroke.

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Speaker 3: Of genius or luck, and I have.

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Speaker 4: A feeling it’s both.

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Speaker 1: Or hubris. Just hubris.

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 3: You kind of created this whole good-for-you soda category. So

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Speaker 3: when you create a new market, there’s probably three to

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Speaker 3: five things that you look back where you’re like, whoa,

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Speaker 3: those were the core building blocks of really creating this category.

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Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 4: Upon reflection, how do you think about that?

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Speaker 1: It’s a really great point. I mean, there were a

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Speaker 1: range of, let’s call them harm reduction or better for

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Speaker 1: you soda offerings. Xebia is a great example. It’s okay,

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Speaker 1: it’s not loaded with the sugar, but it’s not necessarily

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Speaker 1: providing a discrete benefit other than the harm reduction aspect.

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Speaker 1: So Olipop really was the first actual functional soda on

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Speaker 1: the market. We kind of centered around digestive health as

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Speaker 1: the opening bid for because there’s the kind of cleanest

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Speaker 1: claim around that. But right now we’re actually moving into

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Speaker 1: human clinical trials, looking at blood sugar stability and metabolic health,

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Speaker 1: because obviously that’s the great scourge of a lot of

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Speaker 1: the sugar sweetened beverages. And so like, I think that

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Speaker 1: the novelty and the have your cake and eat it

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Speaker 1: too aspect of the product has been really, really important.

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Speaker 1: We got really curious about what is really driving our

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Speaker 1: core consumers because, you know, we’ve had triple digit growth

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Speaker 1: every year since inception. In 2020, we grew like 960%.

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Speaker 1: And even we were floored because we’re like, of course,

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Speaker 1: you’re an entrepreneur. You hope and expect that your product’s

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Speaker 1: going to get some traction, but it’s hard to anticipate that.

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Speaker 1: So we actually did a big chunk of qual, quant,

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Speaker 1: consumer and expert research to try to figure out what

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Speaker 1: is going on with this deep consumer affinity. Why has

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Speaker 1: it been so fast out the gate? And our customers do…

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Speaker 1: really like that there’s function. They like that it has

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Speaker 1: a certain level of scientific credibility behind it, which is

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Speaker 1: not necessarily common in the industry. But one of the

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Speaker 1: biggest drivers that really built the core of the brand

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Speaker 1: actually came from, I’d argue maybe like more like the

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Speaker 1: formulation side, because I also do 100% of our formulation.

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Speaker 1: And it’s the flavor profile and the general experience between

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Speaker 1: the pack architecture, the flavor profile, matches the traditional soda

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Speaker 1: experience that they’re trying to replace the best and the

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Speaker 1: general brand ethos. We’re not coming from a place of

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Speaker 1: like elitism. We’re not trying to shame anybody for consuming soda.

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Speaker 1: So it is delicious. Like empirically, it is mechanically designed

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Speaker 1: to be extremely delicious. You know, we grew up in

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Speaker 1: a world where purposefully soda by design was within arm’s

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Speaker 1: reach at all times. It was a part of so

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Speaker 1: many special moments that all of us have had as

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Speaker 1: Americans or most of us growing up. So it’s a

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Speaker 1: part of a lot of people’s core identities. And so

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Speaker 1: having a brand and product platform that was actually driven

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Speaker 1: by empathy and meeting the consumer where they were and

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Speaker 1: then replicating the Soda experience the most spot on. And

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Speaker 1: then by the way, you can fall in love with

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Speaker 1: the product without feeling like you’re trading your health in

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Speaker 1: down the road, right? Which also means that if you’re

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Speaker 1: a parent, you can actually give something to your kid

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Speaker 1: You can tell your kid all day, like, don’t drink

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Speaker 1: a lot of soda, but they’re going to go to

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Speaker 1: school or they’re going to hang out with their friends

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Speaker 1: and they’re going to do it anyway. So having a

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Speaker 1: really great alternative that people actually genuinely enjoy consuming is

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Speaker 1: so important to actually getting that consumer adoption and affinity.

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Speaker 4: Let’s talk a little.

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Speaker 2: Bit about the whole idea of being, you know, within

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Speaker 2: arm’s reach, right? Like one of the things that has

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Speaker 2: made soda as ubiquitous as it is, is some highly

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Speaker 2: entrenched close to 200-year-old companies that have been figuring how

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Speaker 2: to do that for years. And so the behavior is

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Speaker 2: already there for sure. Distribution is a whole other story

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Speaker 2: specifically for Olipop. And price point is another critical component

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Speaker 2: to it. And you guys are obviously at a very

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Speaker 2: different price point than some of the not as good

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Speaker 2: for you solutions, if you will. So how do you

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Speaker 2: think about the balance of both distribution and affordability as

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Speaker 2: you think about scaling beyond the core of of those

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Speaker 2: who are really caring deeply about the things that you

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Speaker 2: are clearly so passionate about. And Rachel and I obviously echo.

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Speaker 2: As a Jewish Ashkenazi, gut health is a very important

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Speaker 2: thing for me. I am in your target market, my friend.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, such a great question. And I love it. It’s

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Speaker 1: really interesting because soda is actually the second most priced

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Speaker 1: inelastic beverage. It’s second only to coffee. Which is counterintuitive

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Speaker 1: because of the low price that’s typically associated with it.

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Speaker 1: But that inelasticity is one of the reasons why a

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Speaker 1: lot of the soda taxes actually haven’t worked. Because they’ve

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Speaker 1: only suppressed purchasing behavior in the lowest 10% socioeconomically. The

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Speaker 1: rest of the population just picked up the tax and

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Speaker 1: carried on. Which, ironically, I did not know that when launching.

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Speaker 1: launching my prior venture, which is also just a different

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Speaker 1: format of a functional soda, but it’s obviously been extremely helpful.

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Speaker 1: So we launched in the natural channel where you have

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Speaker 1: people who are more label readers. We also, generally speaking,

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Speaker 1: launched in slightly more affluent kind of areas. But from

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Speaker 1: the beginning, it was always our goal to hop the

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Speaker 1: fence over into conventional retail areas. the Midwest, the South,

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Speaker 1: et cetera, as quickly as we could, because that’s the

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Speaker 1: whole essence of actually meeting consumers where they are. I

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Speaker 1: think oftentimes kind of your Midwestern consumer is like, okay, great.

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Speaker 1: The coasts get all this weird esoteric innovation. None of

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Speaker 1: it really feels fit for us or targeted towards us.

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Speaker 1: They want innovation also. And so, you know, now the

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Speaker 1: biggest by far area of our revenue is out of

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Speaker 1: conventional retail. It’s the big nationwide chains that you would

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Speaker 1: expect that have really heavy presence in the Midwest and

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Speaker 1: really heavy presence in the South. And that is now

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Speaker 1: for consumer. They are willing to pay the price because

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Speaker 1: they perceive that the value is there in that they

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Speaker 1: can have their soda experience and they don’t have to

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Speaker 1: make that trade-off. Now, in terms of accessibility, one of

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Speaker 1: those things where I don’t know exactly what Coke and

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Speaker 1: Pepsi’s margins are, but obviously the scale at which they’re

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Speaker 1: manufacturing and the price of their ingredients and et cetera,

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Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, help them to really bring price down.

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Speaker 1: When we look at our margin, we’re just trying to

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Speaker 1: build a margin that’s sane for our businesses survival. So

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Speaker 1: it’s not like we’re just artificially jacking up the price

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Speaker 1: and rolling in bags of money just for fun. But

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Speaker 1: you know, there are some steps that we’ve taken to

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Speaker 1: increase accessibility, especially with high needs groups, right? So one

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Speaker 1: of the things that is a byproduct of all the

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Speaker 1: research that we’ve done, and we’ve done a really atypically

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Speaker 1: high amount for the health and wellness category is partnerships

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Speaker 1: with insurance providers. So we currently cover over 25 million

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Speaker 1: Americans as part of their food as medicine or beverage

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Speaker 1: as medicine insurance benefits.

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Speaker 2: Like FSA?

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Speaker 1: No, we partnered with groups that actually are directly involved

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Speaker 1: in the insurance reimbursement systems. So we are also looking

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Speaker 1: at HSA and FSA. And we do see quite a

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Speaker 1: bit of SNAP redemption as well, because the kind of

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Speaker 1: healthy nature of the product allows us to be a

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Speaker 1: part of the SNAP system. But this is actually real

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Speaker 1: insurance programs. And it’s great too. And we’re doing more

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Speaker 1: work in this area. In fact, kind of creating new

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Speaker 1: insurance partnerships as well, just specifically work with higher needs

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Speaker 1: groups while also driving some accessibility around it. So, you know,

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Speaker 1: that’s one of the, in theory, we’re definitely blazing a

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Speaker 1: new path here because this is not something that beverage

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Speaker 1: typically does, health and wellness products typically do, but it

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Speaker 1: is a part of us kind of trying to find

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Speaker 1: a sane and sustainable way to ensure that accessibility for

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Speaker 1: folks who need it while also building a business that

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Speaker 1: makes sense.

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Speaker 3: It’s so much bigger than Olipop, right? It’s how do

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Speaker 3: you make accessible, healthy foods and drinks available to the masses?

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Speaker 3: But speaking of masses, I remember there was a period

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Speaker 3: of time where Olipop was always cited as like a

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Speaker 3: TikTok brand.

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Speaker 4: Case study in CPG.

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Speaker 3: It felt like TikTok discovered Olipop before any other CPG

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Speaker 3: brand did. And so just curious, like when you think

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Speaker 3: about distribution and product discovery, where does social fit into

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Speaker 3: your strategy?

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, look, it’s a really efficient channel, especially

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Speaker 1: platforms that interact with younger audience, right? And obviously TikTok

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Speaker 1: over indexes Gen Z and then, you know, increasingly Gen Alpha,

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Speaker 1: which by the nature of more digitally native cohorts, you know,

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Speaker 1: increases kind of communication speed, especially when TikTok was a

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Speaker 1: less established and emergent platform. Everything about it was really

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Speaker 1: cost effective. I think we came up with a pretty

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Speaker 1: cool strategy, which was actually, trying to find great creators

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Speaker 1: and then really kind of like allowing them to have

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Speaker 1: their own creative vision in terms of how they brought

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Speaker 1: amplification to life around the brand. It was really just

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Speaker 1: a matter of, we spent against multiple platforms and we

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Speaker 1: just found that our spend and our efforts against TikTok,

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Speaker 1: especially first half of last year, that’s kind of when

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Speaker 1: our investment at TikTok was at its kind of highest.

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Speaker 1: It was really like a time and a place thing.

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Speaker 1: That was a time when the kind of Season was

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Speaker 1: open for it, and it’s simply where we got the

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Speaker 1: most leverage. We still invest in TikTok, obviously, and against

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Speaker 1: all the other platforms as well. Also, we did launch

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Speaker 1: a proper, respectable adult ad with Camila Cabello last year. Look,

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Speaker 1: I would say I’m really proud of the nature of

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Speaker 1: that ad and the way it told the brand story.

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Speaker 1: And I would even argue the ratio of spend against

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Speaker 1: it versus the ratio of spend on TikTok probably was

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Speaker 1: markedly lower in terms of efficiency. But that’s the important

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Speaker 1: balance that you try to work out. It’s like, what’s

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Speaker 1: your low funnel, mid funnel, and high funnel in terms

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Speaker 1: of your brand narrative architecture? We do think it’s really,

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Speaker 1: really important that we don’t just build the brand through

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Speaker 1: influencer and social because you don’t want to have a

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Speaker 1: really short shelf life and depth dynamic simultaneously. the spend

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Speaker 1: and effort is so efficient that it definitely needs to

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Speaker 1: be part of your mix. And so that’s kind of

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Speaker 1: how we look at TikTok and social.

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Speaker 3: So when it comes to longevity in terms of brand building,

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Speaker 3: that’s when you think about channels like out of home

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Speaker 3: and CTV.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. A hundred percent, a hundred percent, because like, I

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Speaker 1: think one of the things that came out of the

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Speaker 1: research we did with our consumers was trying to get

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Speaker 1: a sense of just what was at the core of

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Speaker 1: their love for the brand and good, Brand building finds

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Speaker 1: a way to understand that, encapsulate that and reflect that

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Speaker 1: back in a way that’s authentic for the brand. And

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Speaker 1: that’s when you think about legacy, we’re trying to build

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Speaker 1: a brand over the last decades. That’s the kind of

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Speaker 1: work you really have to invest in.

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Speaker 3: Well, then we could pick your brain forever, Sarah and I,

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Speaker 3: but we have to ask you our famous last question,

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Speaker 3: which is what’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done?

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Speaker 1: Brave commerce. I’m sure the two of you have faced

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00:22:52,940 –> 00:22:55,540
Speaker 1: your own iterations of this. You know, when you have

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00:22:55,560 –> 00:23:02,240
Speaker 1: a mission-based identity and business in a category that is

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00:23:02,330 –> 00:23:06,609
Speaker 1: a meat grinder, there’s a lot of bravery associated with that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think it’s something like 0.4% of beverage

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00:23:10,190 –> 00:23:13,710
Speaker 1: businesses make it to $ 10 million, right? So it’s like

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00:23:13,710 –> 00:23:19,310
Speaker 1: 0.1 or 0.0. It’s this astronomically small number of beverage

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00:23:19,350 –> 00:23:21,869
Speaker 1: brands that make it to where we are now and

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00:23:21,910 –> 00:23:28,810
Speaker 1: where we’re going. Being mission centric and making really intense

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Speaker 1: choices about that, both when times are challenging, but also

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00:23:34,600 –> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 1: when you’re achieving success, they both take courage, but in

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00:23:39,320 –> 00:23:43,560
Speaker 1: different ways, right? I’ve had times in my air quotes career, right?

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00:23:43,820 –> 00:23:46,820
Speaker 1: Much earlier prior where I had no money. I was

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00:23:46,920 –> 00:23:49,460
Speaker 1: out of money and people would show up. wanting to

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00:23:49,500 –> 00:23:51,600
Speaker 1: make an investment or wanting to partner up and it

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00:23:51,900 –> 00:23:53,719
Speaker 1: would have taken care of all of my financial problems.

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00:23:54,290 –> 00:24:01,030
Speaker 1: But I knew that that choice would compromise the long-term mission.

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00:24:01,730 –> 00:24:03,790
Speaker 1: I’ve been in multiple instances where I’ve turned those types

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00:24:03,830 –> 00:24:09,570
Speaker 1: of situations down without knowing what the actual solution is, right?

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00:24:09,609 –> 00:24:14,130
Speaker 1: But knowing that if I compromise now, I’m never gonna

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00:24:14,170 –> 00:24:16,050
Speaker 1: be able to get this back on track. Same thing

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00:24:16,109 –> 00:24:19,119
Speaker 1: once you start to achieve success, But from the opposite side,

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00:24:19,460 –> 00:24:23,330
Speaker 1: it’s hard. I see it all the time with people

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00:24:23,350 –> 00:24:26,650
Speaker 1: who get promoted too quickly into leadership positions. It’s actually

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00:24:27,350 –> 00:24:31,830
Speaker 1: hard to almost integrate what’s happening. And then a bunch

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00:24:31,850 –> 00:24:34,230
Speaker 1: of people show up, you go from being an entrepreneur

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00:24:34,270 –> 00:24:38,460
Speaker 1: that everybody ignored to an entrepreneur that everybody lauds. And

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00:24:39,440 –> 00:24:42,780
Speaker 1: you can’t let that turn into some sort of self-protection

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00:24:42,859 –> 00:24:45,919
Speaker 1: ego either, because that starts to corrupt your ability to

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Speaker 1: make mission-driven decisions because you put yourself too in the

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00:24:49,350 –> 00:24:52,469
Speaker 1: mix around your choice making. So I would say like

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Speaker 1: it really does take a lot of bravery to continuously,

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00:24:57,570 –> 00:25:00,090
Speaker 1: no matter kind of where the wind is blowing on

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00:25:00,109 –> 00:25:03,620
Speaker 1: any particular day, to really just day in, day out,

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00:25:03,730 –> 00:25:06,879
Speaker 1: recenter yourself around what the mission is. And if you

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Speaker 1: do it successfully, it’s an incredible point of strength for

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Speaker 1: you as an entrepreneur, but it also becomes an incredibly

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Speaker 1: important rallying cry for your organization. So yeah, it’s taken

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Speaker 1: quite a bit to keep myself like stable. in all

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Speaker 1: the different ups and downs that have happened over the

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Speaker 1: last almost two decades, as you called it.

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Speaker 3: Something tells me you’re going to have at least two

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Speaker 3: decades more of success. Ben, we’re so appreciative of your time.

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Speaker 3: It’s very clear that you’re centered by your mission and

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Speaker 3: your values. And folks, if you haven’t tried Alipop, hit

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Speaker 3: a store, whether it’s a big one or a small one,

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Speaker 3: it’s essentially readily available everywhere right now in the U.S.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate being on.

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Speaker 1: It was a great conversation.

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Speaker 3: If you enjoyed this episode and you want to go

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00:25:51,800 –> 00:25:57,020
Speaker 3: check out other episodes with entrepreneurs in the overall beverage

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00:25:57,060 –> 00:25:59,379
Speaker 3: and food space, we have actually quite a few episodes.

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Speaker 3: You can go check out Denise Woodward from Partake, who

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Speaker 3: created a whole gluten-free snack company from her experience raising

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00:26:09,350 –> 00:26:12,790
Speaker 3: her daughter after being an executive at Coca-Cola. You can

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00:26:12,910 –> 00:26:17,389
Speaker 3: also go listen to an episode with an operator of

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Speaker 3: a disruptive beverage brand, Andrew Katz, the CMO of Athletic Brewing.

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Speaker 3: If you are enjoying what you’re hearing, tell a friend,

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00:26:25,140 –> 00:26:27,800
Speaker 3: share on LinkedIn, write us a review. Thanks for listening.

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Speaker 2: Hi, I’m Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman

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Speaker 2: and the host of Touch of Truth, a new podcast

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00:26:52,230 –> 00:26:55,669
Speaker 2: launching on the Adweek Podcast Network. My dad gave me

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00:26:55,710 –> 00:26:59,389
Speaker 2: this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once. As

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00:26:59,430 –> 00:27:01,730
Speaker 2: a result, I’ve met some of the most fascinating and

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00:27:01,810 –> 00:27:03,350
Speaker 2: inspiring people on the planet.

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Speaker 3: Now on Touch of Truth, we’re coming centre stage and

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00:27:06,800 –> 00:27:09,260
Speaker 3: sharing the mic to experience stories of truth.

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00:27:09,420 –> 00:27:12,100
Speaker 2: Insights and visions for the future that will challenge your

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Speaker 2: way of thinking.

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Speaker 3: Touch of Truth is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Speaker 2: New episodes come out every Tuesday. I do hope to

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Speaker 2: see you there.