EP 116: John Fieldly (CEO, Celsius) How He Saved Celsius From Near Bankruptcy to a $10B Company

Many know Celsius as a top energy drink brand today, but few are aware of the tumultuous journey CEO John Fieldly took to get it here. In the episode, John shared how the company nearly went bankrupt multiple times, lost 50% of its revenue overnight and even got delisted from the NASDAQ. Despite these challenges, John stepped up to rebuild the brand to the nearly $10B company it is today. We discuss how he shifted focus from weight loss to broad-based energy, secured key distribution deals, landed a major partnership with Pepsi, and much more. (00:00) Intro (01:34) The Origins of Celsius (03:30) Going Public: The Early Days (06:07) Challenges and Lawsuits (09:17) Rebuilding and Rebranding (13:18) Strategic Shifts and Market Positioning (30:40) The Role of Influencers and Social Media (32:03) John Fieldly's Leadership Journey (33:34) Reflecting on the Stock Price Journey (34:12) Navigating Public Company Challenges (35:25) Distribution Deals and Market Perception (38:00) Strategic Moves and Competitive Advantage (44:08) Marketing Strategies and Consumer Engagement (52:35) Leadership and Company Culture (01:02:01) International Expansion and Future Goals (01:06:01) Conclusion and Final Thoughts Executive Producer: Rashad Assir Producer: Leah Clapper Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA 🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1 Follow on Socials 📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow 📱 X - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow 🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow About the Show Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member. Tap follow and enable notifications to stay ahead of the game.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Logan Bartlett?

  Welcome to the Logan Bartlett Show. On this episode, what you're going to hear is a conversation I had with John Fieldfleet, the CEO of Celsius. Now, many people probably know Celsius as an energy drink maker due to its near ubiquity, but what people probably don't know is that the company nearly went bankrupt a number of different times, including being delisted from the NASDAQ Stock Exchange. John and I talk about this journey, which also included losing 50% of its revenue overnight. We talk about how John was able to build the company back up, transition it from a niche in weight loss to a broad leader in the energy drink space, as well as a number of the different marketing strategies

• 0:49Logan Bartlett?

  that they've used to rebrand the business into the nearly $10 billion business in the public markets today. You'll hear that conversation with John now.

• 0:58Logan Bartlett?

  Well, John, thanks for doing this.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  Glad to be here.

• 1:00Logan Bartlett?

  I appreciate you coming over, hanging on the couch here.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, nice couch, coffee here, nice place.

• 1:08Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, we're working on a studio as we speak for New York, and in the interim, my home apartments is as good as we got, but thankfully it works.

• 1:17Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:18Logan Bartlett?

  Well, so for people that don't know, I'm sure everyone knows Celsius, but it's been an incredible journey. When I started unpacking the levels or the story over the course of the last 10 years since you've been here, it's unlike any other journey that I've kind of seen. So maybe just a level set for people that don't know. The business was founded?

• 1:39Speaker 02

  Originally founded in 2004.

• 1:42Logan Bartlett?

  2004, and the original premise was what?

• 1:44Speaker 02

  The original premise was founded by Steve Haley and Janice Haley. They were entrepreneurs in South Florida, and I don't know if a lot of people know about South Florida. I didn't realize this until I started working at Celsius, but it is a, it's like an incubation area. Not only was, in Boca Raton, not only did IBM have a research center where the first home laptop was actually...

• 2:09Logan Bartlett?

  Laptops came out of, yeah, I remember. I think that was like the project that actually built Microsoft, because the operating system for Microsoft was put on those laptops, right? So Boca Raton is like the home kind of of Microsoft's origin.

• 2:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's right by our office, the Innovation Center today, and the city has a good office in there, but... And then outside of that, it's, there's a lot of sports nutrition. So it's the mecca of sports nutrition. I mean, Miami was just ranked one of the most fit cities in the U.S. most recently. So it all makes sense. And everyone wants to look good at the beach and, you know, there's a lot of sun and a lot of beaches around. So, but if you look at like gardener lives down there, herbal lives down there, GNC had their innovation down there. Rexall Sundown and one of the main investors is Carl DeSantis, who actually built Rexall Sundown, which is the top vitamin, multivitamin company in the U.S. for some time. But when you go back, the original thesis was to create a negative calorie drink

• 3:06Speaker 02

  that actually will burn calories of 100, 140 calories and help burn body fat. And at the time, there was only kind of weight loss pills that were out there, those type of products. And they really wanted to create something that can promote health and wellness, also be used as a pre-workout and create the first negative calorie soda that didn't really exist. So that was kind of the initial

• 3:30Logan Bartlett?

  The vision and And so when did the business go public?

• 3:34Speaker 02

  They, it was right around 2000, 2009, they up listed into what they call a kind of reverse merger into a prior public company. So if you read any of our SEC filings, we used to be a mining exploration mineral company out of Nevada. And unfortunately, we're not successful back then and acquired a beverage company based called Celsius in Florida. So original name of the company was Vector, a mining exploration mineral company, who now bought a beverage company and, you know, today we're

• 4:06Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, uplisting is, I guess, I mean, I'm sure people that are more financially specific about this stuff, not totally dissimilar to a SPAC concept in some, some ways, which has been more in vogue of late. So, so, so that's how it went public. And what was the, I realize this predate you a little bit, but like at that point in time, the market cap was?

• 4:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, the market cap, it did extremely well. They raised, they did a, an initial IPO, post the reverse merger, they call it. They raised about 17 and a half million dollars.

• 4:42Speaker 02

  Approximately, they were listed on NASDAQ. The stock did extremely well. I believe, I'm not sure the, the peak market cap it did, but you know, it was well into, you know, the 30 to 50 million dollar range at a, at a point. And It was a success. Everyone was excited. You know, that when you think about it, at the time, you had you had low cal, no cal, and Celsius was going after the negative calorie category within the beverage category. It's never been seen before. So that was like the initial.

• 5:12Logan Bartlett?

  And negative calorie, I guess it's it's a having listened and prepped for this, I understand what it means. But for people that don't know what that is, it's actually, can you explain that concept?

• 5:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, so when you look at, you know, there's basically the product increases your metabolic rate. So it will it allows your body to burn extra calories. Your body will constantly works harder within. And the product is actually clinically proven to burn about 100, 140 calories over a four hour period, just by consuming the product. They had over six clinical studies with that. Also, the science is also based on within the research, you'll burn twice the body fat during a workout, drinking a Celsius 15 minutes before versus the placebo that they used was a Diet Coke within the science. Product

• 6:04Speaker 02

  truly functional and really revolutionary within the category.

• 6:08Logan Bartlett?

  So you came in in 2012?

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Yep, I started January of 2012. And I unfortunately, you know, leading up, once the company did the IPO, they got a lot of excitement. They actually, I mean, they were on the Today Show, the amount of news and buzz around this, you know, really negative calorie beverage that was coming to market, it created so much excitement that Coke and Nestle actually partnered and created a negative calorie soda competitor called Invea that they launched. And unfortunately, well, fortunately, I guess, is that they they didn't do the proper research, they didn't have the proper science to justify the structure function claims because in beverage, especially in diet nutrition and sports nutrition, you

• 6:55Speaker 02

  need to back up your claims, right? So if you're going to make structure function claims, you need to be able to substantiate them with science. And they weren't, I guess they lost in a class action lawsuit, they didn't have substant- Substantiation to justify the negative calorie effect of Aviga. And so they wound up shutting, closing their doors. And during that same time, Celsius actually had a class action lawsuit as well. And the company, because of the research, because it was done in South Florida, and it was formulated by individuals in the sports nutrition space.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  They did the product right. They, you know, they, they did the science, they did the research. So the product was actually prevailed in the California class action lawsuit. And we know all the lawsuits that come out of California.

• 7:35Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  So products backed by science and it prevailed in the California court system. So, you know, it truly does what it says. And having a true functional beverage, there's nothing better than Celsius. Great flavors and the functionality is there and it's great for a pre-workout. And that's alluded to, kind of allowed us to move forward to where we are today.

• 7:54Logan Bartlett?

  Yes. So, so maybe go through that, that, that journey. So, so you come in, this class action lawsuit is going on, like.

• 8:00Speaker 02

  It just finished right before, it was like 2011, 10, 11.

• 8:04Logan Bartlett?

  I'm sure that wasn't great for the stock prices.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:08Speaker 02

  It's been a roller coaster.

• 8:09Logan Bartlett?

  And then the Aviga competitive launch, I assume also weighed down the stock as well. So, so there's all these pressures of being a small cap, publicly traded, but small cap company going on. And ultimately you all were faced with a delisting.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Yeah. So they, they had a, like they, the team had a great execution plans. They got listings all across the US, every major retailer from Costco to Kroger to 7-Elevens. Great distribution, the amount of stores. They took the $17 million, did a variety of marketing strategies. And it just, they couldn't get the rotation. You know, it's one piece of the business in retail is getting the distribution. The other piece is getting consumer acceptance and building a loyal consumer base. And it just, the mix just didn't happen. So. The company ran out of cash. They tried to sell the business. There was no buyers due

• 9:04Speaker 02

  to the failed, kind of a failed start. They tried to raise additional capital and unfortunately just wound up having to get, they got delisted and the majority shareholder came in, which was Carl DeSantis, and he kind of bought out the founders and several other people that were initially in the company. And we were, they were, got delisted all the way down to the penny stocks, which if you know the different tiers, you got everything from NASDAQ to OTS, you have the pink sheets and then the penny stocks and there's, within penny stocks, stocks, there's a stop sign version, which is like really, really low.

• 9:46Speaker 02

  And that's where Celsius was. They're non-reporting, non-disclosed and just, kind of just the shell was just out there publicly trading on the pink sheets.

• 9:52Logan Bartlett?

  How big, how many people were at the business at that point?

• 9:56Speaker 02

  When I showed up in January 2012, I was going through interview processes with the major shareholder and as well as Jerry David who brought me on. There was about 12 people, 10 or 12 people that were, that were there. But what was really neat was hearing majority shareholder say, you know, he was honest. It just, you know, there was a lot of challenges. It didn't work. We tried to sell the business. I got a lot of investors here that lost a lot of money and we need to make them whole. I'm looking for a leadership team that can make the shareholders whole. So that was the main kind of thesis he had when he was looking for a management team. How do we drive profitability and how do we make all these investors whole?

• 10:40Speaker 02

  Because he felt really bad what happened.

• 10:42Logan Bartlett?

  And so, so you join at that point and what is the product vision that you're, that they're kind of galvanizing behind and going to tackle?

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you had, you know, Carl DeSantis, I mentioned, he built Rexall Sundown. So just think of his mindset within, you know, multivitamins, truly functionality from the vitamins. I joined with Jerry David. So he was the prior CEO of Celsius. I worked with him in a biotech consumer products company called Origenics out of Tampa. A lot of the research was all based on oral bacteria, which was really great to learn about. And so I joined him as the CFO to help Jerry, you know, turn this business around. And you know, the main thesis was really to take the true functionality of the product, really that negative calorie, the fat burning capability and bring that to more consumers,

• 11:37Speaker 02

  target consumers within the weight loss community. So Jerry's experience, he came from the home shopping network. So he dealt a lot with the supplement industry as well. And so he was had a lot of experience in that space. So that was the main kind of thesis. Let's go after the weight loss crowd. We got this, we did a bunch of before and afters. We were in People's Magazine every year. They do a big, a big issue about individuals that lose over 100 pounds. I personally know like six people that have lost anywhere between 80 to over 100 pounds on Celsius. And it's, but it's not because of the product. It's because they got, it gets you thinking about health and wellness. And that kind of goes to where we are today.

• 12:19Logan Bartlett?

  My type thing.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And it's very rare you see meat products that are have a product that changed people's lives. And goes to my first demo I did. I remember when I started, I know we've done tons of demos and I was at a five, I was at a 5K. I had my, my wife, my daughter. My son was still in a stroller. We got some friends coming in. I got family. I got my parents. We're all wearing our Celsius gear, handing product out, trying to hand product out, which trying to hand out a negative calorie drink was a little difficult. Everyone's kind of what's in it. And there's a lot of questions, but this individual comes popping his, you could see him coming through the crowd. He's like Celsius. And I knew we had something at that point. I wasn't sure up until that point, but when you see

• 13:03Speaker 02

  someone like the passion and he explained the product to all of us and how it's changed his life. It got him in the 5Ks and he's going to run his first marathon this year. I mean, and he kind of attributed it all to Celsius. And it's, it's pretty amazing.

• 13:19Logan Bartlett?

  And so from a distribution point though, so now you have this vision of where with DeSantis as the majority owner, and you have this vision of where it can go, or at least what the positioning is. Where do you, how do you actually start selling the product? Or where, what are the distribution choke points that you're sort of thinking about to actually reach customers?

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Well, when in, you know, especially the beverage industry, it's really difficult. You're shipping basically, you know, liquid around the country. So it's, it's a really difficult challenge. And it's like the chicken and the egg in the, in retail. We did have some distribution when I started. They started to get delisted from a variety of retailers. Within my first, it was like the first three months, we got our, like a pink slip from Costco, got delisted from Costco, which represented over half of our revenue at the time. So that was a really scary time. I wasn't too sure about how long, you know, the investor was going to continue to invest in the company when you lose half your revenue. And then we got delisted out of Walgreens and CVS within the next 30 days. And it was, it's difficult.

• 14:22Speaker 02

  You know, in the distribution, you, there's wholesalers, there's distributors, and then there's the direct. So you can sell direct to retail. You really almost have to start selling direct to retail first before you can get a wholesaler to take you. Otherwise, you're going to pay a lot of, a lot of times you have to pay a lot of like upfront fees and costs. And to try to get a distributor to take your product, if you don't have consumer pull, it's a really expensive proposition. So we stuck with our, what we call direct store, you know, our, our direct to retail focus. And we kind of, we built the brand within the food industry, mainly in the grocers and the HBC set.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  So next to, you know, the Atkins and the protein bars and that type of space.

• 15:09Logan Bartlett?

  And so at that point, to go direct on that, are you calling up individual stores or how are you actually reaching people?

• 15:17Speaker 02

  We have, what we were doing, we had a, we had a few good accounts. So Publix always believed in us in South Florida or in the Southeast. We had HEB out in Texas that really held on to us and focusing in this HBC set, which is health and beauty. They, what we call them, like the hurdle rates or your items sold per day or per week are a lot lower than the beverage industry. So we were able to get somewhat of a footprint in these retailers because they weren't expecting, you know, high volume sales.

• 15:47Logan Bartlett?

  So we're able to stay. Which is an interesting distinction. And so if you're sitting alongside a, I don't know, a traditional energy drink or a soda, then the, the volume that they're expecting or the turnover they're expecting is far higher. But if you're sitting next to some weight loss thing, the, the expectations that the HEBs or the Publix would have is just, is just different.

• 16:07Speaker 02

  Right, it is, it is. You got to look at your set that you're going into. What are the velocity rates? What are the minimum hurdles? If your brand, if your product cannot meet those expectations, retailers are are cutthroat. You got, you know, some got ninety, sixty days. Could be, you know, three months or six months to perform, otherwise you're out. Otherwise, you're going to start writing checks to stay in. And that can be, you know, a really big spiral, especially when back in two thousand twelve and fifteen, you know, things were really, really tight.

• 16:37Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, I can imagine. And so was that a positioning change? Or was that the way that it had always been positioned? It was just fortuitous?

• 16:45Speaker 02

  That's the way it was always positioned. You know, the company spent, I mean, you look at the history, you know, we spent, the company spent a lot of money on the science, a lot of money. You know, fighting in California courts to prevail with the science, you know, and truly believing in the this disruptive, how the disruptive technology that Celsius has that can disrupt the beverage industry. And it's, it's a great story for investors, especially when you can start to show traction, you know? The challenge is, is when you think about your, your consumer, we've learned through the journey that you really have to have different messaging. You know, just as you're going to, you're going to sell to a retailer. You need to have different messaging to your retailer than an investor, than a consumer.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  It's like going back to, you know, you think maybe easy, you know, one on one when you're going to prepare for a sales meeting, like, who's your audience? Who's your customer? What are their need states? And what are their, what are our differentiators? And how we're going to win them over and what value can we add? So I think that was, we were selling one story to every single person or every segment that we're along the, along the value chain. And we changed that.

• 17:55Logan Bartlett?

  When did, when did it shift or the positioning evolve from, from more weight loss centric to more wellness centric?

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Probably around 2016, we started to, you know, really move, slowly move away from the true functionality of the product and leading with the, with the different, as that, as a differentiator and talking more about the great product as an energy drink, as a pre-workout. It'll provide you, better for you, energy. The product has over seven essential vitamins, which are differentiated versus a lot of the competition. You don't get crash or jitters versus a lot of pre-workouts give you crash and jitters and you get like anxiety type of feelings. So there was a lot of differentiation within features and we focused on fitness with those attributes, leading with that. And then, by the way, it also is clinically proven to

• 18:45Speaker 02

  burn calories and body fat and not leading with that on the front end. We got more ingrained into that strategy through 2017 when we did a packaging change. And we've changed the packaging probably from 2012, almost every year. There was like, add this word, you know, that word's not right. And there was the, the marketing team and even our investors were providing us, you know, insights on what the packaging should say that, you know, it needs to say this word and that word and it's not working because of this. And so eventually we kind of moved and I think it was 2016, if you saw one of our cans, I think it had as many words as you could fit on a can during that time. And in 2017, we kind of rebranded it. We cleaned up the packaging

• 19:27Speaker 02

  and we made it more simpler. We embraced who we really wanted to be as an aspirational brand and kind of we did an exercise like, what are, what are aspirational brands that we want to, that Celsius, that we can turn Celsius into? Like, how do we, you know, we always talked about, we change people's lives. Like, what is that meaning? How do we really create an iconic brand that is tied to changing someone's life, living better, living fit, pushing people to accomplish their goals? How do we get the brand to be more emotionally driven versus functionally driven in, in, in the decision-making or the consideration phase? So those were a lot of exercises because if you go back to the past 2017, it was really going on the functionality

• 20:11Speaker 02

  as the consideration, not the emotional connection. And if you think of any iconic brands that are out there? In the world, it's that emotional connection that wins because you can, you're always going to lose potentially, you know, if you say you have X amount of vitamins, someone's going to give, put a different vitamin in, or if it has, you know, X, X percentage of this, then it's, someone's going to say that I have this. So you have to make more of an emotional connection. And we learned that during the journey. And if you look at Nike, right? I was watching CNBC and they had an executive from Nike on and they were talking about how, you know, Nike is an iconic brand and it's all about the brand as the differentiator,

• 20:53Speaker 02

  even though they have multiple lines that are, you know, offer different attributes. It's really the Nike that is this, that, that is this iconic brand and differentiator. So, you know, those are things that, that we think about. You look at Monsters, an amazing brand, you know, Red Bull, look at Apple. We always say we want to be like Apple and Starbucks. You know, we used to, in the office, we always say that green straw means something. You know, people wake up an hour early to wait in line to get that, you know, stand that, stand in line, get that Starbucks and you show up to work, it says something about who you are. We want Celsius to be more than an energy drink. It says something about who you are. We've been working on that.

• 21:31Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, no, you don't agree to have executing on that. It, from, from the, was the low point, I assume after the Costco and the, the pullout from the retailers? And then was it a series, was there any moment along the journey after that, that it was clear you were out of the woods that stands out? Or was it just a bunch of small moments along the way?

• 21:52Speaker 02

  It's a variety of kind of small moments along the way. I, I think you're, you know, you're, the plane's always crashing and you're always trying to pull up. You know, it's, you know, even, you know, even today, I mean, where we are today, you kind of have to take a step back and look at, you know, the accomplishments of the team and where Celsius is. Now we're over a 10 share in the energy drink category, which. You know, it's amazing that one out of every 10 cans is a can of Celsius and consumer, seeing the consumer acceptance and the love for the brand.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  You know, but when you get into the bunker and you're in the huddles, it's, you know, you're trying to run the next play, you need to get that extra yard, you know, you're, the clock's running out, you know, there's just a lot of, you don't get that feeling, I guess. Yeah, you really need to step back. Yeah. Did you, so when did the relisting occur? So in 2000, I think it was mid 2017, we uplisted, we got, we backed, got back to uplisting the NASDAQ, once we start, we met the requirements. So it's actually, I spoke to a lot of different analysts and we might be, seemed to be one of the only companies that have actually graduated from every single class of public company status. Like a minor league baseball player or something?

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, like back to, and we didn't skip one. So we went from OTC petty stock, non-reporting with a stop sign, stay away, to OTC fully disclosed. And that means you start filing, you comply with the OTC markets. It's not SEC filings, but you're releasing financial information quarterly and there's a variety of things you need to do. And then there's an OTC QX, which is like another league up where you start being more compliant. Then you become SEC registered, which is another, you know, step up. And then we uplisted to NASDAQ. So we kind of like went through all the different phases of a public company. And that was a major milestone.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  When you look at it, it was, you know, going back to the initial thesis from Carl that wanted to make investors whole, had $5 million in the line of credit. You know, he was there, he's passed away now, but he was there on that day and that was really special for him. That was really, really an awesome time. Yeah. I get it backlisted, you know, it brought this thing back from really the dead. And it's fascinating, you hear some of the Coke executives talk, I was at a conference and they were talking about all the new beverage companies that come to market every year. There's over like a thousand, you know, new beverages come to market every year.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  About 10% will make it to a million dollars or $10 million in sales of that 10% make it to 100 million. And of that 10%, you know, 1% makes it to a billion. So it's, it's just really, really rare.

• 24:45Logan Bartlett?

  Survivorship rate is really, really low. And I'm sure, I'm sure it's an even smaller number of those that do it on the public market coming all the way down.

• 24:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, under a magnifying glass.

• 24:54Logan Bartlett?

  I think you're a one of one on that. And so, so, so along the way in the repositioning, was there, um, was there any major unlock that really felt like, okay, now the tides are turning and there's wind at our back now. Was it the repositioning into more of an energy drink that, that really enabled the success? Or what was it along the way?

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it was a couple of things there. So the rebranding of the product, I think was, was monumental. And changing the position to more this live fit aspirational mantra where Celsius provides this essential energy for life.

• 25:31Speaker 02

  That allowed us really at the time, within the category, there, everyone was talking about better for you energy. So there was a variety of new brands coming out with better for you ingredients and functionality. And there was some space within retail sets because, remember, keep in mind, when you, when you're talking to retailers, getting that shelf space is super critical because you can't build a brand without retailer shelf space. But you can't be too far off the category or too far off into that white space because you will not have a home at retail.

• 26:00Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  So you really need to adapt and grow with the category and how retailers perceive the category. So with this better for you kind of category starting to evolve, Celsius was able to gain some distribution in the beverage category and start to get off some of the shelves in the HBC sets and, and leverage this better for you, although it was a small, small space. We got more trial, more awareness, more availability. And while we're doing that, we also were building it up on Amazon. So Amazon, we're almost a 20 share on Amazon. We're actually, the latest data had us at number one energy drinks. So we toddle back and forth between, um, historically with Celsius and Monster, kind of go back and forth.

• 26:42Speaker 02

  And that was a really loyal consumer base. And if you really think about building a beverage, which is an energy drink is normally an impulse purchase. We've built this brand, you know, through a platform, they had to spend 20 to 25 dollars to buy a case, take it home, chill it, and drink it as part of a daily lifestyle and a daily routine. So that that's really difficult to do. So we knew we had something special because of the kind of the the consumer base, the loyalty we've had on Amazon. And Vitamin Shoppe has been a major retailer for us over the years. So between those two retailers, we knew we had something. We knew the consumer health and wellness trends were getting stronger. We knew this fitness lifestyle position we were embracing was differentiated in the category. It played

• 27:25Speaker 02

  within traditional energy, and it played with this better for you energy that was the retailers were building out. But it was this white space kind of in between that we could throttle, and we could bring in more consumers and play in both spaces. So that allowed us to continue to scale. The fitness during that time continues to get bigger. A lot of these specialty gyms that we've embraced along the way, I think, allowed us to connect with more consumers in a in an emotional way. If you go back to like Barry's Boot Camp, Dog Pound up here, you go to Equinox, you go to SoulCycle, a lot of these these great gyms, you know, are more than a gym. They're an experience. They're and we've been a part of that journey along the way,

• 28:10Speaker 02

  and that's been really exciting and to get trial and awareness and to start becoming more of a lifestyle.

• 28:16Logan Bartlett?

  And so the energy drink category, the big three, as I think about it, the Red Bull, Monster, and you all, and all kind of appealing to slightly different constituents. I'm sure there's some overlapping Venn diagram that exists. But who who is your core customer? Wellness is obviously a an important factor into it. But is it a do you think of it as a 20s, 30s, 40 something?

• 28:40Speaker 02

  Yep. So historically, if you go back, if you go back to the original, when I started, it was 24 to 34. It was an older demographic, because someone at that point, when you go back to 2012, almost to 2016, it was really focused on someone looking for a weight loss. It was that it was an older consumer. We were still focusing on the gyms, but really marketed as a pre-workout. And then today, with the fitness lifestyle in 2017, we changed that positioning. We're going and and gyms become gym. I mean, just the excitement around gyms, it's becoming culture, right?

• 29:14Logan Bartlett?

  Sure.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  I mean, prior to that, it wasn't part of culture. Now, everyone goes to the gym, gym memberships. Look at the, you know, the athleisure apparel industry. That didn't really exist. Now it's a multi-billion dollar category.

• 29:25Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  So, I mean, so we've embraced that through the journey. And I think that when you look back, those are some, some really key milestones along the way that allow us to be, kind of change that positioning and embrace that and where we are.

• 29:41Logan Bartlett?

  So who is the user or who's the, the ICP?

• 29:43Speaker 02

  So today is the 18 to 24 is our main target. Do really great with, with Gen Z. Actually, we just last week, we graduated. We have a cell CD university program. We have 210 college students in over 90 universities. Come down to South Florida, we educate them on consumer products, everything from budgeting, planning, production, procurement, marketing strategies. And they're really the CEOs of their campus. And then they go back and activate and we work alongside them with a variety of our team members. So it's about 18 to 24 is the target consumer. Someone that's looking, you know, believes in fitness, has a fitness lifestyle mindset

• 30:27Speaker 02

  and looks, looks forward to living life to its fullest. That's what we're about.

• 30:30Logan Bartlett?

  And so, so as you think about reaching or appealing to those constituents or that, that ideal customer profile, we talked about gyms as a distribution point and brands and all that. You guys have also leaned in and done a successful job within like influencers as well and signing kind of athletes as sponsors or endorsers of your business. How have you guys thought about that as a distribution point?

• 30:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's, that's been really critical. You know, owning the phone influencer.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  Leveraging, you know, it was Facebook and Instagram and Tik Tok and Snapchat. We need to be where consumers are. What's great about social media is, you know, people can find anything out on social media. With the, with the fitness lifestyle, there's so many trainers we initially were embracing. We still do personal trainers. We're actually during COVID, we leverage them on our platform. We helped a lot of them become and help them get subscription models on how to use, you know, better use Instagram as you can build, you can build a, a personal training business on these platforms. And then you had Zoom pop up and that was the video programs and video workouts. And we, we really embraced that.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  The key is, is to embrace the technology around you and it's a nominee channel world. Consumers want, want it when they want it and it's an impulse purchase a lot now. And everything's at your fingertips on these phones. So that's something we've always embraced. We're the number one on Instacart as well, selling energy drink. And, you know, Influr is a, is a key strategy.

• 32:04Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah. And so, so your personal rise within the company, so you joined as CFO, but it was only 12 people at the time. And then you took over as CEO when?

• 32:13Speaker 02

  I took over right around 2017. I did a dual role. I was CEO, interim CEO, CFO. Jerry wound up retiring during that time. He was getting up there in age and the company was out looking for the pursuit of a new CEO that could take this company to the next level. So that lasted for, I guess about a year and a half while they were going through, looking for someone with pedigree that could take, lead the company to disrupt the beverage category. And so I, that's, we uplisted to NASDAQ as I listed it, the whole company as the interim CEO CFO. And I don't think there's too many public companies that have done that.

• 32:56Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Which was quite interesting. So that was one of my justifications towards the end of the whole thing. Like I want in on the next interview process as we're going through these candidates. And, you know, I was running the company for over a year and a half, driving good revenue. We uplisted to NASDAQ. We're making great progress with our retailers and customers and things like that. So I said, give me two years or get rid of me. Give me a shot.

• 33:17Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  Finally convinced them.

• 33:19Logan Bartlett?

  How many employees was the business?

• 33:21Speaker 02

  Around that time? We were probably around, about 40.

• 33:25Logan Bartlett?

  Okay. And do you remember what the market cap was when you uplisted?

• 33:29Speaker 02

  I think it was, I think around 30, maybe 36 million.

• 33:33Logan Bartlett?

  Wow.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  Something around there.

• 33:34Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, and you've been.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  I'll have to, I'll have to look back. I don't know. So it was something like 36, 40 million.

• 33:39Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, quite, quite a, quite a.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Much smaller than it is today.

• 33:42Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, yeah, quite, quite a journey from there.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  It's pretty crazy.

• 33:45Logan Bartlett?

  And, and, and so I guess from, from that point in time, taking over as a public company CEO and leading the, leading the charge. I'm curious, like, that experience of riding the stock price up and all, all the different considerations around, around that. Can you speak to, like, what that journey's been like now that the stock price has accelerated to the point that it has?

• 34:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, you know, when I started, the stock was 20 cents. We did a three for one split recently this year. So, you know, it's been, as, as you're running a public company, it's, you can't focus on the stock price, which is very difficult to do, especially when everyone's incentivized with stock. But you gotta, you gotta look beyond that. Otherwise, it's, you become, what we say internally, you're going to make an outer orbit adjustment that you don't want to make because you can be perception. The stock market is so emotional. What you, at the end of the day, you need to run, you gotta run the business. You gotta run the strategy. It is a marathon. It is not a sprint.

• 34:52Speaker 02

  And it's a, that's part of like an emotional piece that as running a public company, you need to overcome because it can, it can make you pretty crazy. We've had team members that go a little crazy and you gotta like calm them down. Like, listen, it is, you know, things get better, you know, it gets, it's all over the place. But at the end of the day, we do the right things for the, for the business. We drive revenue. We're driving profits. We're driving long-term growth for shareholders. And I believe at the end of the day, that's what's going to prevail and that's what plays out.

• 35:20Logan Bartlett?

  And so from 22 to 23, revenue, I think doubled or roughly doubled in that, in that period of time. And, and you signed a distribution deal or Pepsi invested as well at that point?

• 35:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, 23 Pepsi Invested. So, you know, when you look at that distribution journey, so as I mentioned, we started off going direct to retail. We were basically seen as a fitness gym rat brand. And everyone knew about us in the beverage industry, which was really a challenge as well because we had this kind of skeleton in the closet everywhere we went because we were delisted at every retailer. And everyone, a lot of people knew, everyone knew in the beverage industry that this brand was kind of like a dead brand that was trying to be revived. And it's not going to be successful, especially for people that were not in the beverage industry. So I was never in the beverage industry prior to this.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  And, and either was Jerry. And so that was a lot of stigma and people remember first impressions, right? I think that's a major thing in life. First impressions mean everything. So don't mess it up. So we have, we messed it up. So we had to come through as a company and prove everyone. So we were able to get back into the distributors. We couldn't get in any distributors because they saw us as a this fitness gym rat brand, they called it. Don't, that doesn't belong in the beverage category. Belongs in HBC and in the gyms. If you remember, there is a brand still on the shelves today, Bang Energy. They came from the sports nutrition space as well.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  They didn't have that prior stigma of getting delisted and the attempt to be a beverage company. So they were able to have the opportunity during that time of a little bit after this better for you category, there are the buyers, I was talking about those retailers were looking to expand their shelf space. Bang was able to show the demand in the fitness channel and start to really get open the eyes to these retailers about this, this performance energy. So you had better for you energy, but then performance energy is the future of the energy category. And they were able to convince the retailers and the distributors gave them that opportunity to go into a lot of the ABI Independent Distributor Network.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  And they did amazing. They got up to about seven or eight share. They did really good. A lot of you have probably seen their ads and tried some of their flavors. Great innovation, great flavor innovation. They had a really successful business and moved over to Pepsi. So Pepsi wound up taking them on their trucks due to the success. So that opened a big hole within the Anheuser-Busch network for volume, and that allowed Celsius to opportunity to go to DSD, which is direct store delivery. So it's more of like a white glove service that keeps product on shelf. So instead of going in the back door per se, you're going in the front door and someone's keeping product on shelf. And that also allows you to get cold placement. Because when you go into

• 38:19Speaker 02

  a retailer, all those cold placements is really that supplier or that distributor putting that product there and keeping it cold and to be sold. So that that allowed our sales to almost double. We did really well because we had awareness on Amazon. We had awareness in fitness and and the gyms. And then we started to hit retail. We're starting to get that consumer pool because people were seeing it and trying it. We had great flavors and the proposition we have. So we were with ABI for a little over a year. And Bang Energy had some differences with Pepsi. They wound up ending the relationship. So PepsiCo had a void within their energy drink portfolio, and they knocked on our door in 2023, took an interest in us, an eight and a half

• 39:04Speaker 02

  percent investment into Celsius, took put us on their trucks. And we're in pretty much every single major retailer in the country right now. And revenues doubled overnight again, and and continue to to grow. And it's been an awesome partnership with Pepsi.

• 39:21Logan Bartlett?

  That dance card situation is a fascinating one. Bang Energy must be, you must be number one fans of them, given given both of those their moves.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  We are. I mean, without Bang, you know, who knows what could have happened? I mean, they really changed the way they they opened the eyes to buyers about this performance energy. And prior to that, it didn't even exist. Then this whole new category and retailers were all talking, oh, we need we need a performance energy set. So then that opened up the the opportunity for Bang and C4 and Celsius to have be in this new performance energy set as these

• 39:58Speaker 02

  Coming out of the gym network, the gym channels are going more mainstream. And that's the same time that, you know, if you look back, these brands continue to, you know, the gym, the gym brands, the specialty chains and everything really were gaining massive amounts of traction. I look at Planet Fitness was exploding at the time and a variety of these other national chains.

• 40:18Logan Bartlett?

  I'm just kind of doing the math. You mentioned the $5 million note or line of credit. That was the original investment that went into the company.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Since I started.

• 40:28Logan Bartlett?

  Since you started. Okay. So that went in.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  That was the initial, that was the initial.

• 40:32Logan Bartlett?

  The initial, the initial line of credit. So the $5 million or $5 million of what you only used for, and then you took the $550 million from Pepsi, but that's still on the balance sheet.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  That's on the balance sheet.

• 40:43Logan Bartlett?

  And so was that all the money you guys have ever consumed?

• 40:46Speaker 02

  Uh, well, uh, along the way, I mean,

• 40:49Logan Bartlett?

  For the US, for the US business, for the US business.

• 40:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, like in the early, like, I think 2015, we used about $4 million from 2012, 2015. Um, then we got an investment of seven, I think it was around $17 million from Horizon Ventures. Many might know them. Great, great group. They saw us as a disruptive technology in the food space. That was really exciting, especially getting Lee Ka Shing, one of the wealthiest men in Asia to invest in this, this beverage. So that was really a game changer for us. Ended up investing those funds and expansion into China. But if you extrapolate that out, we've been profitable ever since.

• 41:32Logan Bartlett?

  And that, and that 17 was only used in, in Asia, right? And so, so it was really the four to build the, the company that is now doing what, what, what over.

• 41:43Speaker 02

  We did 400 million last quarter, which was phenomenal. And generated $100 million in EBITDA, which was, which was unreal.

• 41:50Logan Bartlett?

  Crazy.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  It's been.

• 41:52Logan Bartlett?

  Now, how many companies you see doing that on a $4 million investment getting to that scale?

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's been, it's been a journey. I, you know. Right before COVID as well, our investors wanted to take, really wanted to take some dollars off the table as well. So we did do a sec, a primary and secondary capital raise where allowed them to reduce their positions. I forget the percentage they reduced, but it was right around $400 million. They were able to, you know, sell their stock to secondary investors. Through that process, company took on about 80 million. And that went on our balance sheet as well to be used as growth capital. COVID hit during that time, which we didn't know just a few weeks later. And what's another big kind of strategic

• 42:39Speaker 02

  move, we were looking at each other, what do we do? We started to hear noise of supply chains running out of, you know, ingredients in cans. And we had that 80 million on the balance sheet and we put it all in prepaid to our suppliers. So we could get product in cans. And if you're going to bet on anyone, you bet on yourself. That was a strategic, really strategic moment within the company. A little bit scary betting on ourselves. We actually got back to 2012, almost not being able to make payroll again because we prepaid for all of our raw materials and ingredients and product. But that allowed us to really be one of few companies that actually had product during that, that crazy time when everyone was running out. So that gave us another competitive advantage as well. We

• 43:22Speaker 02

  were able to give it our distributors Celsius to sell when all these other products were out. We were able to get distribution and that was another milestone, a kind of a strategic move that worked. So, you know, I, I say to employees all the time, and I think Abraham Lincoln does the best, you know, has a great quote, "Things may come to those who wait, but only those things left by those who hustle." And opportunities come and go. You gotta jump on the opportunities. So many people will see the opportunity, but they let it pass. And, you know, it's critical you jump on that. I think that we've done a great job, you know, jumping on the train when it's at the station and, and running with it.

• 43:59Logan Bartlett?

  I appreciate you sharing the detail of the story. It's such a fascinating one to to where you are today and it's really, really impressive to see. I'm curious, as you, as you think about marketing and what that means for Celsius, are there any lessons that you would impart to maybe a founder of a company that is outside of the CPG space altogether and just sort of thinking about, how do I refine my, my brand, be it in B2B software or consumer internet or AI or something?

• 44:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, you know, you got to start with that target consumer audience. We were marketing to, you know, we look at, we made a lot of mistakes, still make mistakes along the way. And a lot of times, the messaging does not resonate with the, with the community you're looking to activate. And if you think about it that way, we, we go to market, we look at the community we look to activate, what is the interest of the community? What, how do they consume media? You know, what are they engaging with? And then can you take your, what differentiators do you have in your product or your offering? That is an interest of them. And then how do you best deliver it? I mean, you've really got to map that down to the community you're looking to activate. And it has to be differentiated for each

• 45:22Speaker 02

  community, really that you're looking to activate, needs to be spoken to, potentially in different forms. And different differentiators are most important to them.

• 45:33Logan Bartlett?

  And it sounds like the iteration has been an important part of the journey, not just the positioning of where you are, but also everything from the, the can redesigns and the logos and all of that. How have you thought about when to keep something as is versus when to continue to tinker, change, iterate?

• 45:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's so many influences on that along the way. You know, if it's not broke, don't fix it, but you're constantly always trying to get better.

• 46:01Logan Bartlett?

  It sounds like you guys are more on the like, continue to move forward.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Optimize, optimize.

• 46:06Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  So that's.

• 46:07Logan Bartlett?

  I think you could have long ago seated if it's don't broke, not broke, don't fix it.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. We're always trying to get better at what we do, trying to understand the consumer, the audience. You know, it's a, it's, it's a dynamic world we live in. Things are changing rapidly. You, you got to change with the consumers. You got to evolve. If you're not reinventing yourself, you're going to be passed up. So I think that's constant. Never be complacent is another thing and always trying to challenge the status quo within just internally with the teams. You know, if it worked, why did it work? And then how do we constantly make it better? And kind of always pushing for that extra yard, that extra, you know, inch along the way is super critical.

• 46:51Logan Bartlett?

  We, we, we touched on a number of different underlying trends that have sort of enabled or empowered your, your success. Are there different things that you're paying attention to as we sort of look out from here that might be niche in, in part, but going to be mainstream in the next two, three, four, five years that, that people should know about?

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I guess in the beverage category, what's really interesting is, you know, the evolution of the way consumers are consuming, you know, beverages from, you know, powders. And now there's, there's capsules and tablets that dissolve in waters, right? And different deliverables. Different segments are evolving in the beverage category. I think it keeps us really fascinating. There's kind of this new soda segment that's evolving with Ollie Pop and, you know, the, when you look at Poppy as well, there's a lot of interesting space and opportunities that, you know, the historical, I guess, nostalgic brands maybe can't compete in. It could be a big opportunity. And then within technology as well, you know,

• 47:57Speaker 02

  we're trying to really understand how do we better use or further use AI to help us be better marketers, be better, you know, executors.

• 48:08Speaker 02

  Part of the business is marketing, the other part is qualifying the ROI and the validating that it's actually working, which is very difficult to prove, especially when your product's sold through almost three levels down to that end consumer. So we're hoping that we can get, you know, how do we leverage that within the consumer space is a big opportunity for us.

• 48:28Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, I can only imagine not having that, the direct relationship or the data, the point of sale data across the board of who your demographics are and all that stuff. It's probably an opaque box to iterate on. It's like the, I know half my marketing is working, old adage, I just don't know what half. So I'm sure you're dealing with that.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  It's a lot of hypothesis, a lot of A B testing and there's a lead time as well. It's really, really difficult, really difficult.

• 48:55Logan Bartlett?

  Are you experimenting or thinking about some of those, those things you mentioned, the capsules or the powders or some of those things?

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, we actually have On The Ghost Powder offering, On The Ghost Sticks. We just launched a new vibe line with that. It does really well at Walmart. We're expanding it into a variety of food retailers across the country. We got some other innovation we're working on for 25. We think that's a, that's just an untapped opportunity as everyone, you know, look at recycling, look at the plastic bottles, you look at, you know, what consumers are valuing. Look at the hydro flask, Stanley cups, you know, where everything's going, the refillable water fountains with the bottles. There's a huge opportunity there. How do we best tap into that?

• 49:39Logan Bartlett?

  It's interesting. How, at a, at a more general level, as you think about the category itself, how much of the, the market opportunity that you guys have been able to capture, you think comes from cannibalization versus share growth of the space, like the market actually taking off?

• 49:59Speaker 02

  Well, we use a, we're getting a lot of data from Numerator, so a lot of consumer data. And when you look at the energy drink category, most recently Celsius has driven, if you took Celsius out of the energy drink category, it's flat to down. So we're driving the incremental growth within the category, which is really great to see. So if you go to 18 and 24, those new consumers coming in the category, they see Celsius as a brand that's aligned with their lifestyles, which is a great story for retailers, especially put more product on the shelf and give us better positioning. We're not your grandfather's energy drink.

• 50:35Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 50:36Speaker 02

  And you know, that's, that's really critical because if you're just a me too product, you're not going to convince a retailer because then it's just a margin play you're going to have to go after. You have to be more than that margin opportunity with the retailer. With Celsius, we have a variety of differentiated differentiators with the product offering. We align with the health and wellness goals that are super strong, tailwinds where consumers are going. And then we're bringing new to category. That's like the perfect, perfect mix to build a brand within retail.

• 51:07Logan Bartlett?

  Are there, is there anything clever that you guys have done or anything particularly that stands out from a building loyalty standpoint as you sort of reflect on all the different campaigns or strategies? Anything that?

• 51:19Speaker 02

  We're big within healthcare first responders. I, you know, you go back to the strategy during COVID. We took our field marketing team and, you know, worried about human interactions. How do we, how do we continue to evolve and grow the business? So we said, you know what? We need to help first responders. What better product to offer? Everyone's working late hours, long hours. How do, how do we get product Celsius into their hands? So we can, you know, we can help everyone be the best and get through this together. So we dropped product off at all the tested COVID sites we could see and hospitals, firefighters, police stations, and we get so many great comments on, on DMs from,

• 52:01Speaker 02

  do extremely well. We have actually Celsius sold now in hospital, variety of over 120 hospitals around the country and growing. The product does extremely well with nurses and doctors. And so that was a building loyalty. Once you have connected within a consumer in an emotional way, I think you create that all time loyalty. Going back to COVID with, you know, helping out trainers, right? Helping them with, you know, the video services, giving them a platform that they can speak upon to help them build their audience and hopefully build their clientele. That goes a long way when a brand reaches out to you. So.

• 52:36Logan Bartlett?

  You were not always, as we mentioned, the CEO of the business and coming up from a CPA to a CFO to the CEO, did you always think you would be a CEO of a business one day? Or was that something that just kind of evolved and came to be for the circumstances?

• 52:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it just kind of evolved and came to be. You know, I've always been an entrepreneur, just going back, you know, even in high school and middle school, you know, I was, you know, selling candy at gyms, gym class and soda and, you know, blow pops and trying to build a lawn service company. I don't know, I've always been trying to, you know, trying to be an entrepreneur. And I worked at Eckerd Drugs through, really high school and college. And I was there for over eight years and kind of worked my way up there. Reason why I got my CPA license was to help Eckerd Drugs. I wanted to get a corporate job and help them manage their inventories better at store level because

• 53:40Speaker 02

  it was a disaster what was going on. And I was part of a rehabilitation team towards the last few years that I was there, turning around underperforming stores. So I learned about like shopper, marketing, product placement, the path to purchase, coaching, educating team, the sales team, you know, how do we upsell? How do we make sure the right products are right next to the right product, then the right upsell products are next to the main product you're looking for. So I've got a lot of retail experience there, which was great.

• 54:10Logan Bartlett?

  What did they teach you about the path to purchase? I'm curious. I know you studied it and figured out a lot.

• 54:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was at, I mean, at Eckerd, it's always about the path to purchase. So, you know, if you're going up for, you know, like for going into the, back then, you had those photo labs everywhere in the corner. You know, when you're going in that photo lab, they get your, your photos, making sure that they're walking by, you're, you're going through some of those. Cameras to purchase, the on the go cameras, the film is right at purchase, making sure when you're cashing out, the the sales rep is asking, do you need more film? So kind of those, you know, those sales tactics on the front counter, you have those impulse purchase items. If someone walks up with an item, if they're, you know, they're sick, they're coming in with sick, did you get this item? Did you get cough drops? Kind of creating that upsell. If they're, you know, different types of batteries in the food area, making sure you have those end caps set

• 54:59Speaker 02

  right for the right path to purchase as you're going down those aisles. It was really critical and increased sales at its store. Once you had the end caps set up properly for each the path to purchase. When you're going down through the pharmacy, making sure that particular items are on that path to purchase through the pharmacy, those impulse purchases, so you can get a bigger ring.

• 55:19Logan Bartlett?

  Was there, was there something that stands out as counterintuitive or that you didn't expect about moving, about the role of the CEO, once you moved into that job and as the company scaled? Was there anything of note that that you didn't expect?

• 55:36Speaker 02

  Well, I think, you know, one thing was, I was kind of forced into that because I was doing the dual roles, the interim CEO and CFO. So, you know, I think, you know, that probably the biggest, biggest challenge was, you know, dealing with the the investors. That was the biggest challenge and also the board of directors. I was dealing with them as the CFO, but, you know, having a, you're trying to please so many people along the way. That was a, that was a, you know, something unique that kind of came to fruition. I was, I already won over the team. I'm all, I'm very team oriented. This is one, one team, one mission, one goal. Everyone in the company knows that. My door is always open, still is today. We ask team

• 56:20Speaker 02

  members for ideas and concepts. Best thing about working at Celsius is everyone makes a difference and that's critical. And so, you know, kind of being forced into the role was like, you just got to go. You got to get the plans, you got to get the strategies. I think one thing is, when you're, when you're talking to your teams and you're laying out the strategies, it can't be your strategy, it has to be their strategy. So you're there as the, as a leader to implement a strategy. You got to get insights, you got to be able to work together. And in order to motivate people, whatever the strategy is, it's got to be their, they, everyone needs to believe it's their strategy.

• 56:54Logan Bartlett?

  I've heard that you crowdsource ideas from employees and maybe consumers as well for potential flavors or different initiatives that you should undertake, I guess. Anything of note that's sort of come from a crowdsourced idea within the organization? Employees volunteering something specific?

• 57:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that comes all the time. I just had an employee email me last week about an idea and a concept on a potential dealer loaders associated with music. And I don't want to give it away on there, but it's, there's ideas and I bring that right up to the leadership team. You have access. I mean, we want everyone to feel this is their company. And we have a cross-functional team that meets for new flavors and concepts and ideas. We bring people in from accounting and finance and, you know, a lot of times it's just the innovation team that comes up with the ideas. Some of our best flavors and concepts have come from other team members. You know, Fantasy Vibe was a great new flavor that we came out with, which was a Mandarin marshmallow.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  Came from a team member that wasn't in the innovation team and came with a variety of different concepts and ideas and pitched it. It's kind of, it's almost, you know, everyone can pitch their ideas and concepts and kind of have fun with it.

• 58:10Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, it's a good way of empowering ownership within the organization of the company and the brand.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 58:19Logan Bartlett?

  So, one of the concepts I've heard you talk about is billboarding and like getting the 30 seconds that you have to entice consumers within a retail space. Can you maybe speak to how you think about, you talked about different shelf space and cross-promotion of products or all that, cross-sale. But what about the billboarding concept?

• 58:41Speaker 02

  And the billboard effect is critical. It's, and what we mean by billboard, it's, you know, when retail, it's, you know, it's a can of Celsius is like two inches wide and you really need to get multiple flavors on shelf and probably you need a minimum of four or five to create a billboard effect. And what that really means is that you've just got presence at retail. So, I mean, just think of yourself when you go into a retailer. It could be, you know, you're thirsty, maybe you want an energy drink. You, when you're walking into a store, you already have something in mind. And you, you really, you might look around for other products, but probably only like five, six seconds. Right. Because you already have some concept in mind. So it's, you have to disrupt the path to purchase.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  You have to convince a consumer at that moment, at that time. And you got 30 seconds max. And if you don't have a billboard, you don't have a placement, you don't have a presence at retail. Your toucans, we call it internally, like we gotta get out of the gutter. Celsius was in the gutter. And what do I mean by the gutter? It's like the bottom shelf of the cooler. You know, no one looks down there. So it's, it's really a tough place to be. We'll take it if that's at the time, that's the best we could get, like we're in. But you know, you really have to be at eye level. Retailer placement, product placement is so critical in retail, just like it is important within marketing as well.

• 1:00:04Logan Bartlett?

  Within, within the technology industry, especially, there's been this reticence to go public among a number of high-profile, private businesses. You all have, have, have operated the full journey of, of being a public company. Do you think Celsius is a better business today for having gone through all of that? Or is that just something people would tell themselves to comfort the fact that it was a very, you know, roller coaster of a journey?

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  I, I think, I think it was good for Celsius. It, it kept us extremely disciplined. The original thesis from, from the original investor when I started was to drive profitable growth, which aligns with being a public company, you need to drive profitable growth. You need to be, you know, we're very disciplined on our spends, our investments. Timing and sequencing is very critical. Wall Street does not like variables. They don't like ups and downs. They like consistency. So I think that's, I think being a public company allowed us, really forced us into being extremely, extremely disciplined, calculated, which has worked really well for the organization.

• 1:01:19Speaker 02

  Because you do get, you know, through the journey, through investors, through individuals, kind of get pulled and sequenced in different directions.

• 1:01:28Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  So I think it was, it kept us well rounded.

• 1:01:31Logan Bartlett?

  Well, it's obviously been an amazing journey that you've been on. And I'm sure at different points along the way, people didn't think you would get anywhere near where you are. But I realize this isn't your ambition of where you want to go. And you still have, you still have plans to keep moving onward from here. And so I guess that ties into two distinct things. What, one is international and two is the overall plan to get to the, to the clear number one and keep pace, outpacing the others in the, in the space. And so I guess, how do you think about the international market?

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  A massive, a massive opportunity. I mean, we want to be the number one leader in the energy category. We think, we feel Celsius deserves more. It want, we want to change people's lives. We want to encourage people to live fit and accomplish their goals. And that's, when you look at the, you know, that kind of the tailwinds that are driving our opportunity, when you look at fitness, you look at better for you, you know, Celsius has over seven essential vitamins, or green tea ginger guarana. We have great flavor tasting. Everyone wants better for you, but they don't want to sacrifice flavor. We win on that. We have one of the most refreshing energy drinks out there. We have our functionality. We all want our beverages and foods to do more. We want more function. Celsius is that functional

• 1:02:51Speaker 02

  energy drink. It does more than just provide energy with thermogenic properties and fat burning allows you to help you exceed and drive your health and wellness goals. And then fitness is hip, cool, sexy, premium, lifestyle position. That's broad mass appeal. And that's not in just in North America. That's all over in the globe. So we're doing well. All in Sweden, we are in Sweden, we're in Finland, we're launching in the UK and Ireland. Later this year, we're going to be in Australia, New Zealand and in France. We're a little bit from late on the Olympics this year, but we'll be off in kicking it off in France later this year. Noah Lyles is one of our great ambassadors, amazing Olympian that won the gold. It's exciting. I think it's the time's right.

• 1:03:34Speaker 02

  Things are, people want more and out of their beverages they consume and we're here to deliver on it.

• 1:03:39Logan Bartlett?

  I'm sure all those markets are unique in their own ways, given, given the nuances of any particular geo or country. But I guess as you look at international as a whole, does the, does it follow similar dynamics generally as the US from a competitive set standpoint, from a opportunity standpoint?

• 1:04:01Speaker 02

  Opportunity is, is, it's going to be differentiated by market. If you look at Asia, you know, South America and Africa and look at all EMEA. You know, each market needs to be somewhat analyzed differently. You need to have, we're taking our holistic approach and our strategy, our, our brand strategy, but then we're going to localize it for each market. Also need to look at is, will the product, what is the opportunity, right? And, and can we be successful based on the pricing architectures? If you go to Indonesia, there's a different pricing architecture than, you know, if you look at the UK or and Ireland and Sweden and so on. So I think phase, you know, what we're doing phase one is really looking at the best markets with opportunistic.

• 1:04:44Speaker 02

  It's got a healthy energy drink market, pricing's good, where everyone can make margin along the way. It's going to be really critical for us. And then it could be opportunities to also adjust the product and formula. Maybe differentiated from what we currently offer to go into some other markets where we're not able potentially to get the price point that is, that would be required to enter a market.

• 1:05:06Logan Bartlett?

  Do you think at, at a high level, do you think the existing positioning in the, the underlying growth in, in, in that market can take you to the, to the number one share and just continuing to do more of the same in different GOs and continuing to get better and optimize what it is you do? Or do you think it'll take a more expansive positioning to get there?

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  I think we got an amazing position. I think that, you know, what you have is you have established brands within the category that are these leaders, you know, Red Bull and Monster dominant. They are energy. You know, this, what Celsius offers and within our positioning and the consumer base is growing. If you look at sugar-free as an example, it just turned 50% of the category in the US. That is, you know, that's evolving in other markets, which are really high sugar. And so those are opportunities. I think everything's going to continue to evolve towards better for you, more healthier options. And we're going to be a leader in that, that space.

• 1:06:01Logan Bartlett?

  Yeah, that's great. Well, John, thanks for doing this. This is fun.

• 1:06:04Speaker 02

  This is great. Thanks for having us.

• 1:06:05Logan Bartlett?

  Amazing, amazing story. Unlike any other that I've seen before. So.

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  Awesome. Glad to be here.

• 1:06:14Logan Bartlett?

  Thank you for joining this episode of the Logan Bartlett Show with CEO of Celsius, John Fieldley. If you enjoyed this discussion, I'd appreciate if you subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening to us on, as well as share with anyone else you think might find it interesting. We look forward to seeing you back here next week with another great guest on the Logan Bartlett Show. Have a great weekend, everyone.