Spotting Billion Dollar Investments Was Hard Until I Learned These 3 Rules | Rohan Oza

Get our Unsexy Business Ideas Database: https://clickhubspot.com/fjsc Episode 820: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talk to Rohan Oza about how his formula for simple products that end in multi-billion dollar exits. — Show Notes: (0:00) The brandfather (2:40) Rule 1: influence the influencer (7:02) Deal: Poppi on Shark Tank (20:32) rule 2: Make a brand pop culture (25:10) knowing winners from losers (26:48) Rohan breaks down his formula (29:31) "shelf space is the original algorithm" (33:39) Closing the biggest deal of your life (38:57) how to win with no network (42:07) Rohan's first million (46:45) spotting the next trend (tastebuds and TAM) (48:09) How do you sell water? (52:33) learning from the giants — Links: • CAVU - https://cavuconsumer.com/ — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton (joinhampton.com): My community for founders. Average member does $25m/year. Many of the guests are members. Get after it...apply: http://joinhampton.com/mfm — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N. A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC • I run all my newsletters on Beehiiv and you should too + we're giving away $10k to our favorite newsletter, check it out: beehiiv.com/mfm-challenge My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano /

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Every deal on Shark Tank. That's a beverage. I know they're looking at me.

• 0:03Shaan Puri?

  Nobody wins the lottery seven times. You got sharks spitting out the product. You've got a terrible brand name and you pick up 25% of that company. Sold for a billion and a half.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Is this just art or is there some science behind it? One of the biggest lines of Robert Woodruff was like, he wanted Coke to be within arm's reach of design. Brand is creating that design. One in 10 Americans influenced the other nine. The goal is to spot that one. Can you teach us more about how it's done? It's actually three things. One is spotting stuff early. One is building the brands. And the other is actually.

• 0:44Shaan Puri?

  You are, you're the brand father. You have been, you have been crushing it in the beverage space. I was reading the like research on you the last couple of days. I knew about Poppy. I knew about Vitamin Water, but I didn't know the extent of it. Can you, can you brag for a second? Give me, shout out some of the brands that you've been involved with.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  I actually have started none of, I only co-founded one, which was Poppy. And I'll tell you that story. But the rest, I just bought them early or I bond with founders. I think it was like Vitamin Water, Smart Water. There were Tiny, Vita Coco. Even things I lost money on were well known, like Pop Chips, uh, Vital Proteins, One Bar, Bulletproof, lost money, but still known, well known. What else? We have Farmer's Dog, Once Upon a Farm. And then probably Poppy is my sort of most famous one.

• 1:33Shaan Puri?

  That's an insane, insane roster.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  It was funny, actually, one of our founders who you know, um, a guy called Golrez, who's the co-founder of Jim Kana Fine Foods. Was at our, we had an LP conference and you know, we're so focused on like the brands and the teams and growing stuff. And like, you sometimes bury yourself in the weeds and you don't sometimes ladder up. And he's like, growth, when you look at the sheet of brands on Carvu, which is the, the fund that I have sort of masthead. It's insane, this ecosystem you've created. And I think you, you need to do a better job of almost leveraging that ecosystem. And it kind of, the light bulb went off because he's a founder, right? He's growing an incredible brand.

• 2:16Speaker 00

  And I, part of it, I focus on individuals and sometimes we've got to bring the whole gang in to realize the strength of what we have.

• 2:25Sam Parr?

  It's sort of amazing because when a lot of people say the word brand, it's sort of related to taste and both of those are can be pretty nebulous. But you sort of are like Paul McCartney or John Lennon where like you've made enough hits where you're like, okay, is this just art or is there some science behind it?

• 2:43Shaan Puri?

  Nobody wins the lottery seven times.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, that's quite high accolades to be in any conversation that uses the Beatles name. But there's always luck, guys. It's not like this. You can't. You got to, the dice has got to roll your way a little bit. But if you have a game plan, which I've sort of honed over time, the odds flow in your favor. And so I've, you know, I've created some mantras and some principles and so on and so forth that I actually create after the fact. Cause you don't go in saying, all right, guys, I've got five mantras. You almost like, you have a few hits. You're like, how did this happen? And then I rewind and go, okay, this is kind of how it happened.

• 3:20Shaan Puri?

  Give us one. What's one of the first ones you've realized like, okay, all right, that this is one that matters. We got to put that concrete.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  Couple of big ones. One is influence the influencer. So you've got a pot of money, right? One of them, a hundred grand, a million, a hundred million, whatever you want to spend on your marketing budget. Who do I get to? Right? I can't get everyone. It's not boss, you know, unless you're, Amazon has the budget to get to everyone. But most people, when they start a company, don't. So from my perspective, it's one in 10 Americans. And I say America because 90, 100% of my career actually is America in terms of success. So this is the greatest country in the world to be an entrepreneur. I say that everywhere I go. I truly believe it. So in America, one in 10 Americans influence the other nine. The goal is to spot that one.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  And that has evolved over time. So when I first started doing this, honestly, and I'm aging myself here, but some of the biggest influences, and I'm talking about back in the day with like Sprite even, and even Vitamin Water, was radio DJs. Now, radio is dead and you guys are the heroes online, right? But before you podcast kings came along, it was radio DJs. And so at one time in Vegas, I picked an award show annually, and I would fly in the top 25 cities and the top two DJs from every city. So you have 50 people coming in and every single artist that came to that award show

• 4:50Speaker 00

  would want to go to this place because you could hit 20 cities in two hours. It was almost like the cities came to you versus you traveling. And back then, you're releasing an album, a new product, or whatever it is, you're right there. And I did it back in the day on a brand called Sprite. It was a corporate brand, but we did something cool. And then I did that with Vitamin Water where I took on all the DJs in the local markets and I hired people on my team that felt that vibe. Because in order to bond with a DJ, if you're a dork, it's not going to work. So I hired people who kind of, which is my next mantra, who lived the brand. They didn't market the brand. They lived Vitamin Water. That was their vibe. And so that's now evolved today to like the Alex Earls of the world or the, you know, if it's in music, it's the 50 Cent is having an amazing resurgence.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  But now it's digital social media influencers that were the early DJs and the keys to spot that one in 10. So that's been a big sort of philosophy in my mind with every company we go into is who is that one in 10?

• 5:47Shaan Puri?

  Hey, I want to tell you about something pretty cool. We have a database of all of the unsexy business ideas that have been discussed on this podcast. So hundreds of episodes, the team at HubSpot went through. They pulled out all the unsexy ideas. So not the super high-tech ones, but the simple, relatable, interesting, profitable ideas that we have brainstormed and they're all available for download for free. Just click the link in the description below. Thank you to our friends at HubSpot for sponsoring this podcast and putting together this free resource for you guys. Back to the show.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  Can you define what a brand even is? I think a brand is something that allows a consumer to have an emotional connection with a product. So this is just a can gratuitous, you know, product of certain.

• 6:33Speaker 00

  I drink it. I like the product. Liquid's great. But I got to create an emotional bond with people so they request a poppy. They reach for a poppy. And I worked for Coke back in the day and one of the biggest lines that Robert Woodruff was like, one of the godfathers of making Coke what it is today, he said, he wanted Coke to be within arm's reach of desire. Brand is creating that design.

• 7:00Shaan Puri?

  Right. And then the distribution is putting it in arm's reach.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Arm's reach. You nailed it. Exactly.

• 7:05Shaan Puri?

  Sam texted me a clip this morning of when Poppy walked into Shark Tank. And at the time, they're not called Poppy. They're called like Mother or Mothers or something like that. They're not a soda that tastes good. That's like prebiotic. They're apple cider vinegar. So it's amazing because it's like, you know, when there's these documentaries and it's like, the dude who followed Kanye around 10 years before he became famous at all. And you're like, I can't believe we're so lucky that this guy happened to just follow this young artist in Chicago who happened to become Kanye West. And so there's this thing where it's like, you see them come into the Shark Tank. I think they have something like $250,000 in revenue, some 200 to 400 K of annual revenue at the time. Different brand, different drink, no revenue.

• 7:48Shaan Puri?

  All the other sharks go out. So you're in a bidding war with no one.

• 7:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, nobody, nobody.

• 7:54Sam Parr?

  They, they go, all right, sharks, taste this healthy drink. And they make people take a shot of apple cider vinegar. And they're like, this is horrible. And they're like, yeah, it is horrible, but it's great for you. Now, what if it could be great for you and also taste good? That's our product, which is, it was a really good actually pitch.

• 8:11Shaan Puri?

  Yeah, the title of the video is Sharks Disgusted by the Poppy.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Like. They were. I think Kevin may have spit it out. I can't remember a bit.

• 8:21Shaan Puri?

  So you got, you got sharks spitting out the product. You've got a terrible brand name. It's Mothers in cursive. And it looks like an old sparkling wine or something like that.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:31Shaan Puri?

  A totally different formulation. And you pick up 25% of that company. I think Poppy sold for a billion and a half or something like that.

• 8:40Speaker 00

  No, no, come on. North of two, buddy.

• 8:42Shaan Puri?

  Oh, north of two. Okay. Unbelievable exit. What happens? And it's amazing that the whole thing was captured. What happens between the time you see it? What are you thinking then? And then what were the things that actually transformed that business? Cause I think that's a perfect like case study.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. Let's call it phase one. So these guys come out, like every deal on Shark Tank. That's a beverage or food, but really beverage. Like, I can do the range, but beverage is kind of my real house. I don't know, DNA gifted with that. So beverage comes out, be like, I know they're looking at me. Like Cuban's a bigger name than me. Kevin's a bigger name than me. You know, Lori's the queen of, you know, digital and QVC. But beverage, they look at me. And then these guys come out, I'm like, here we go again. Cause I'm not three seasons in, I'm like, you know, someone's gonna hit me up with some nonsense beverage, you know? And we had some real dumb ones along the way. But this really good looking couple comes out, you know, husband or wife, like straight out of Central Casting.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Like they look like Sam, you know, like this chiseled good looking, you know, white boy.

• 9:42Sam Parr?

  And I'm, I'm, I'm friends with Steven and we became friends because I DM'd him and I just said, we look alike. What are your friends? I swear to God.

• 9:50Speaker 00

  But he does look a lot of like Steven, aren't kidding. So this bloody two good looking guys come out, a guy and a lady. She's like, I don't know, eight months pregnant. She could deliver any second. So immediately I'm like, they've got hustle. So one, then they pitched the product and I'm like, horrible packaging. I don't like the brand name, you know, I like the word mother, but everyone has a mother. You can't trademark this. It's not really a trademarkable thing. But like, let's try it. So that's, that's, the train's running on that track. Okay. In the separate track in my head, I'm a soda kid. I've been looking for soda. I grew up in Zambia in Africa, right? So in Zambia, when you have three beverages, Coke, Sprite and Fanta, that's it. But I came off sodas, cause sodas, shit ton of sugar.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  They're not good for you, they're no value. But in the back of my head, I've always been looking for soda I can feel good about. But I didn't go into the show thinking that, but in the back of my head, that's the running track. I try this. Actually, it was this one. Ironically, it was the orange one. And so for me, that is still, this is my top two. Orange is my favorite and cream soda is my second. So funny, the two flavors I drank when I was a kid. It's amazing what 40 years, it's throwing back to the nine, 10 year old Romans. Right. Anyway, so I try the orange one and I'm like, oh my God. This is Fanta meets Orangina. If you guys are, and I'm like, this liquid is, in my head, takes me back. This is my modern soda.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  But I don't get excited because I know it's the minute I get excited, these guys get excited. And so I think-

• 11:24Shaan Puri?

  You were the last one to talk, at least in the edit. I don't know if that's actually how it was, but I thought that was incredible patience to let the other sharks play out before you chimed in because obviously you would influence them.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  Exactly right. I did not. I specifically remained mute because the minute I seemed vaguely excited, and by the way, even then, Cuban and Bethany both turned to me and said, "Row, should we split this?"

• 11:49Speaker 00

  And I'm like, kind of in a nice way, no, because if this works, which it did, why would I want to split it? And if it doesn't work, I'm fine to lose it, but in the end, I'm betting on myself, right?

• 12:01Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  I liked them. Like, I like Stephen Allison, but that's a very short, like, like, you know, we go for dinner the next day, I'm like, "Oh God, they're horrible." The first thing I did when we got, when we became partners, I shut it down. I shut down Mother. And it was a tough conversation. And then, basically, Stephen, Allison, me, and a lady on my team called Stevie, we basically co-founded Poppy. There was no Poppy. And in my mind, I wasn't focused on an apple cider vinegar beverage. I was focused on making this modern soda for today's youth. And so I'm like, okay, if I love soda and everyone else loves soda, this is modern soda. And so we kind of created the whole modern soda category, but I wasn't thinking apple cider vinegar.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  And so we shut Mother down. Stevie, myself, Allison, Stephen, and then Stevie took charge of the packaging design, actually. We then all debated which is the best one to go with. We voted on it, and that's where Poppy came into play.

• 12:56Shaan Puri?

  What about the name? We had David Plastic come on, who named Blackberry and Swiffer, and he gave us like a masterclass on naming product. Poppy is an incredible name, right? For a soda pop brand, to find that super easy to say, recognizable, fun, it almost feels bubbly in the name, like-

• 13:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I'm strategically creative, right? Stevie and my team is what I call tactically creative.

• 13:22Shaan Puri?

  That sounds like something I would say when I don't want to do work.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  That's exactly right. Yeah, she works. Yeah, good one. So it's a triangle offense, right? Allison and Stephen had created the product. It's a great product, but their insight was apple cider vinegar, healthy beverage. My insight is I want soda. So what's America for soda's pop, right? So that's what everyone in England, it translates, that's all the poppy's exploding in the UK now. But and Stevie's goal was how does she take what they created, what my strategic game plan was, and create a name that rolls off the top? And we had a bunch of them. At one point, I even liked mom and pop because I'm like, it was a throwback to like mom and pop stores and all that. And people told me it was stupid and they were right.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  But but then when they came out with poppy and Stevie presented, I'm like, okay.

• 14:12Shaan Puri?

  Right.

• 14:13Sam Parr?

  Can we, all right, let's go back because you only invested, I think, 250 or $400,000 into poppy. And so it was really small business. You shut it down at half a million in revenue and you rebranded it and restarted it as poppy. Do you remember what was the revenue growth up until you exited for $2 billion?

• 14:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, so at this point, I give Alison, Stephen full credit because mother was their baby. And to go to a founder and say, good news, bad news, good news, you know, I'm your partner. Bad news, we're shutting down mother. And, you know, we're not co-founding poppy together. That takes a lot of faith on that part. And we launched in March of 2020, right? We're all sad. I said, guys, I don't want plastic because plastic's bad. We can't do glass because it's inconvenient. We're going to go back to cans. OG Telegraph Soda, that's what I drank. You know, I'm sitting here drinking out of a can. We launched March of 2020. What happens in April?

• 15:09Shaan Puri?

  Covid.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  The world shuts down.

• 15:12Shaan Puri?

  Yeah.

• 15:12Speaker 00

  So we we had started to be a more digital company because that's just the nature where life was. But we turboed that because then suddenly all retail was dead and everything became digital and so on and so forth. So in our first year, we did like a couple of million bucks only because the world shut down, which is still incredible for that. But then we went from like a couple of million to over half a billion in the next four years. So from 21 to 25, we exploded.

• 15:44Shaan Puri?

  And did you put more money in in the beginning to? Push marketing or did you guys raise? What did you guys do?

• 15:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, we kept raising. I mean, there's, I mean, beverage is expensive, by the way. Like, I put more money in, my fun car who came in. So my business partner Brett was like, look, I believe in you. I don't get beverages early. If you get it, car was gonna back it. So we, everyone went in, right? And so we kept back here. We raised a chunk of money, but everyone got a great return because of the exit number. It's not only what you get in at, it's what you get out at.

• 16:16Sam Parr?

  How much did you raise in sum?

• 16:18Speaker 00

  I mean, all in?

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Forty, maybe?

• 16:22Sam Parr?

  Wow, that'd be, that's amazing to go from.

• 16:25Speaker 00

  That's not that much.

• 16:25Sam Parr?

  I didn't realize you guys were that new. So twenty, roughly two thousand twenty-one to two thousand twenty-five, twenty-six, zero to two billion dollar exit.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:35Shaan Puri?

  What was the most satisfying win you had? Was it Poppy or was it something earlier? Was there something where maybe even it wasn't as big financially, but just you just were proud of kind of the way you made it work?

• 16:47Speaker 00

  No, Poppy, hands down.

• 16:48Shaan Puri?

  Poppy.

• 16:48Speaker 00

  Because Poppy, everything else, I went there and someone else had a product that I built. Here, Stephen Allison had created Mother and that it was brilliant. Without the liquid that they had created, we wouldn't be anywhere, right? But I got in early enough to basically co-found Poppy with me and Stevie, add it to Allison and Stephen, and it was amazing. And so I think that was satisfying because I, I had the vision from the beginning. I had a great team with Stephen, Allison, Stevie, and then we brought in a CEO. Because at some point, I'm not an operator. Allison and Stephen, super smart, but also realized they weren't operators. And so once we got to like thirty, forty million, we brought a guy called Chris Hall in.

• 17:32Speaker 00

  And that guy's a legend. And I think one of the other lessons you have to learn as an entrepreneur is

• 17:38Speaker 00

  having a, a founder and creator mind doesn't always align with having an operator mind. Sometimes it can.

• 17:47Sam Parr?

  More, more often it probably doesn't.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  More often doesn't. The one guy I think was really good at it was a guy called Kurt from Vital Proteins, if you know him. Kurt founded Vital Proteins. We partnered with him as well. And that guy was, he was actually a rocket scientist, like legit. So he was a founder and a brilliant operator. So that's, you know, it's a unique rarity. But in this case, we brought in Chris Hall and Chris ran Sparkling Ice. So I had to spend a lot of time like. Coaching and begging and then convincing and a combination of all of the above to get him over. But he was a game changer because you need to operate and he helped take it from like 50 to 500.

• 18:24Sam Parr?

  Man, it's still amazing how good you are at this. And I think we should talk about that because there's a handful of skill sets that are you just I call them ATM skills, where you just become like a moneymaker, you know, like if you can create an audience, you're probably a moneymaker. If you could sell, you're probably a moneymaker. If you can do good branding, you're probably a moneymaker. And you've done it many times in a row. Where did you learn how to do this? Because I know you worked for Mars, you worked for Coke. Is that where you learned how to do this? And can you teach us more about how it's done?

• 18:54Speaker 00

  Actually, it's interesting you bring up that point. It's actually three things. One is spotting stuff early, right? One is building the brands. And the other is actually how to sell them. And it's people forget the last part, because there's a there's a big graveyard of brands that have got built, got a scale, but never fully exited. And there's a bigger graveyard of those who just didn't go anywhere. And I think part of it, so take my learnings. My learnings on Mars were less so because I was in manufacturing operations. So my learning there was almost like the importance of supply chain, operations, gross margin, like the boring stuff. But people forget that if you don't have good gross margins, you cannot make money. And if you can't make money, you go bankrupt.

• 19:38Speaker 00

  And by the way, I've still made that mistake. I had an incredible product called Chef's Cup. It was a jerky before Chomps, like my buddy invested in Chomps and he and I would joke because we were like neck and neck and chefs came out first. And I just didn't have great gross margins and I should have focused more on that. Chef's Cup shut down or got sold for nothing. And Chomps became a juggernaut. And so he keeps laughing at me. But I think from from that perspective, I learned from Mars a little bit, you know, and you still make mistakes. With Coke, I really I learned how to do disruptive marketing and branding. Because I was lucky. I was in Sprite back in the heyday when we, you know, signed Missy Elliott and Kobe Bryant. And I did like a bunch of hip hop stuff and it

• 20:20Speaker 00

  was it was really cool. And then I was in Powerade where Coke didn't care about it. So they said, do whatever you want. So I learned creative disruption early, even though I was in a corporate environment. And then they fired me because I was a little too disruptive. And so I went to Vital Water. And that's where I really started to learn how to, and that's my second mantra, is how to make brands part of pop culture. There's a lot of guys who report the news. Very few people make the news. And so for me, with Vital Water, Smile Water, I started by making the news. And that, those brands became part of pop culture. That, that sounds cool, but what, what does that mean? Make the news? I don't know. Well, I, I'm too dumb to understand that. So make the news.

• 21:03Speaker 00

  So the first influencer, mega influencer, ownership deal I did, because remember, everything before 50 was very much a sponsorship deal, right? You sign a celebrity, they get in, that's the deal, right? Equity ownership, I, I believe Michael did it in a different way than like he so, but that has come up later and wasn't really well known then. But with 50, I didn't have the money to pay 50. He was huge at the time, right? And so I met with Vif and his manager, Chris Leidy. And actually, there's two guys I was looking at for Vital Water. Because Vital Water is a great brand, but was a kind of little bit Upper East Side, you know, New York preppy brand. It wasn't like nationwide cool. It, it, it wasn't getting shot the face nine times. It wasn't getting shot in the face cool. And rap about it, yeah. Exactly.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  Although it was only eight times because one bullet went through twice. But anyway. Of course, sorry. Uh, so, uh, I, I wanted hip hop. And the two biggest names in the world at the time were Curtis Jackson and The Hover. It was Jay-Z, right? So those are the two guys who were like the biggest names. And so I called my buddy Seth Ransky and I said, Seth, you're more connected in this world than I am. Who can I get to? Seth could have got to both, but he had a much better relationship with Chris Leidy, 50's manager. So he put me on text with 50's manager. A lot of this also for artists, it's their managers getting it. So Chris got it straight away. He got the product, he got Vif. He said, we've not done a deal. We're about to do a deal with Reebok, but I'll kill that deal. I'll do this with you. That's how I got connected.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  And 50, as we see today, is clearly an entrepreneur. Uh, also don't mess with him because he will come after you with a vengeance. So I think that he got it. And I said, I go, I don't have money, but I can give you skin in the game. And he immediately said, okay, I'm in. And I thought I was going to make him ex. I kind of, he made 10x because I did the math wrong, basically.

• 22:55Shaan Puri?

  He, he got what, like 1%, 2% something like that in the company?

• 22:57Speaker 00

  I can't tell you exactly what he got, but he, because we have a deal, I don't give the exact number and he doesn't kick the shit out of me, but, um, but he made a lot because honestly, I gave him enough equity for him to make good money if we sold the company for 400 to 500 million. That was our goal of Item Water. Like, I remember Mike Capone, he was the co-founder of Item Water, was like, "Bro, put it up as board. If we get to this, this, this, we're going to get to 150 million in revenue, we're going to sell for 450."

• 23:26Shaan Puri?

  Without, you, you can't reveal it because Curtis Jackson will Curtis Jackson you, but well, is it like, would it be crazy to give someone 10% of a company like that?

• 23:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. 10% will be too high, but, but we sold for 4 billion. So you can do the math on, you know, what he would have made.

• 23:44Shaan Puri?

  All right, let's take a quick break and I got a question for you. When a buyer asks AI for a solution like yours, does your business come up? Most companies have no idea. And by the time they found out, they've already lost the deal to another company that did. HubSpot has AEO, which helps you show up in the moments when the right buyers are looking for a company like yours. Before the first click, before they fill in the form, that is the moment HubSpot AEO is built for. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

• 24:11Shaan Puri?

  It seems like that, uh, you know, the kind of the influence, the influence thing obviously works, obviously makes sense, uh, but also obviously goes wrong sometimes, right? Um, you know, for example, this podcast, we got bought by HubSpot. HubSpot was like, yo, we, we want to reach entrepreneurs. We want them to use our software. So they went to us because we influence a lot of entrepreneurs. If we influence a million entrepreneurs, we're valuable to them and many other brands. And so, but there's many people who get that partnership wrong, you know, celebrities are busy, they're, they're divas, they don't really care. Maybe you didn't make it incentive enough and it's hard to claw back. So like, I guess, how confident were you and what made it go right versus go wrong?

• 24:50Speaker 00

  I think what makes it go right, it happened with 50, uh, it happened with Jennifer Aniston on Smart Water. And I think it happened most recently for me with Alex Earl on Poppy. Uh, and the connective tissue that 50, Jennifer, Alex all share is belief in the brand.

• 25:09Speaker 00

  Creative connectivity, like they creatively got the brand and connected with, they believed in it, they creatively connected with it and they went above and beyond. Those are the three things when consumers, because consumers are smart. No, okay, that's the real deal, right? Like Alex loves poppy, I see the cool shit she's doing with it. And she's probably the smartest 24 year old I've ever met. Why she knows her brand, knows her DNA, makes me feel old, like she is on it, you know? Love of the brand, cultural, creative connectivity and then going above and beyond.

• 25:41Sam Parr?

  When you're looking at these deals, what would you say are the traits that the winners have in common and what would you say the traits are of the losers? So for example, we had this guy named Chad who started Groon's on.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, Chad's great.

• 25:56Sam Parr?

  Yeah, so he sold it for $2 billion.

• 25:59Speaker 00

  1.2.

• 26:00Sam Parr?

  1.2 billion dollars in 35 months or something insane. And we were like, and he was like, basically, he was like, I called my shot. I worked at a PE firm and I realized that the TAM needs to be big. My CAC to LTV needs to be one to three. Like he, he's like, I kind of had it down to a little bit of a science. He didn't say it that way, but that's how I interpreted it. What's the science in your head of not for investing, but for building a winning product?

• 26:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's similar. I mean, one, let's start with big categories, right? At Kavoo, our game plan is we're basically trying to, in a nutshell, upgrade the products that every, everyday Americans are using with better quality. Right? So I'm not recreating the wheel. I'm just giving you a better wheel. That makes sense. And so take the biggest TAMS in food, in beverage, in beauty, in pet. At a Kavoo, we're like, okay, well, you like soda? Maybe a Coke or a founder's not good for you, we're going to upgrade you to a poppy. You like pet food, burnt, extruded kibble that has very low nutrient value ain't good?

• 27:10Speaker 00

  We're going to give you farmer's dog, right? The goal is how do you give Americans what they're used to, but elevate it so they can feel better about themselves?

• 27:19Sam Parr?

  What are the big TAMS that are left where you're like, mm, we still haven't found the winning kind of brand or product in a certain category? Like if I go to that grocery shop or I go to the supermarket, where do you see the opportunities right now? Which aisle?

• 27:33Speaker 00

  Everywhere. Let me explain why. Go down every aisle. Next time you go grocery, by the way, my wife gets super pissed with me because she sends me out to get stuff in the grocery store and like two hours later. She's like, where the hell have you been? Like, honey, this is my business. Like, my dumb ass wandering around the grocery store figuring out what's broken. But that's the scenario. Go down and say, okay, would I buy all these products? And my guess is if you go to a traditional grocery store, where most Americans shop today, you would probably say, no, no, no, no, yes. So you have seven noes before you get to a yes. Go down the candy aisle. Okay, I have an investment in a brand called Skinny Dip. Have you heard of it? Have you heard of it? Yeah, I love this. Yeah, this is so addictive.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  Right. But by the way, the almond tab is, is okay. Wait, it's, it's chocolate. Is this almond, almond tab is this big? Creating sweet treats that don't have guilt, right? Is this big. So Skinny had all chocolate covered almonds. The brilliance of the founder was after X number of years, she's like, this shit ain't working. It's doing fine, but my tams aren't big enough, right? To the point you made with Chad. She pivoted. She created peanut butter cups. She created coconut bites and she created wafers. You want to name me the three products that do that? Reese's, Almond Joy and Kit Kat. By the way, all three of these products, sub two grams of sugar.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  So now I can have, and I do, a coconut bite every day with my coffee or after dinner because I need to have a sweet fix. But zero shit's given because it's two grams of sugar. You don't care if it's two grams of sugar. You give your kid, you'll have it. 10 grams, 20 grams, your mind starts clicking a little bit.

• 29:12Sam Parr?

  Is it possible to even be more specific? When you're walking around the aisle, is there a spot where you're like, this product should be right here on this shelf and it's not?

• 29:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, so go, go to the confection shelf and say, what will I eat? And I look down, I'm like, almost nothing because everything is fully loaded with sugar and it's really highly processed. So now take the processed down. There's a lot of good stuff that's less processed, better ingredients. Can we agree on that? There is. However, the sugar content is still high. So now I've evolved from horrible stuff to maybe like an alter ego chocolate or a huge chocolate. They're great, but they still got a high sugar content. So you ask me what I do. I go sit at the entire confection shelf. I put my arms up like this and look around, what would I eat? The only thing that I can eat is skinny and maybe one other product because I feel good about it.

• 30:02Shaan Puri?

  So let me ask you a question. You had this great line where you go, the shelf space is the original algorithm. The same way that content creators are constantly trying to figure out how to get on the YouTube shelf or the Instagram shelf. How do I get discovered there? It's even harder arguably because there's a very like mafia-like business practices that occurs in behind the scenes of these shelf spaces. Like I've walked through one of our events that we do, guys have like brands at Target or Safeway or whatever. We walk through and we do store walks and then they explain, you know, Mr. Beast, he'll explain how the candy aisle works. He'll explain Mars and Hershey's and the tactics they use and how the color, your color blocking, your section, et cetera, et cetera. So you

• 30:43Shaan Puri?

  get this sort of PhD in each aisle. I think his market's a little bit different. So, you know, you sell like, let's say skinny dip, a little higher price point, better for you is like the bigger angle. Whereas, you know, he's, I think, the number, like the one of the fastest growing brands in Walmart, right? And so his price point has to be a big constraint. So he has to play a slightly different game, but he's doing a lot of stuff with like, his better for you isn't in the ingredients, it's in the business practices. So like, we don't use child labor and the cocoa farms and, you know, things like that, which is, you know, he cares, he's trying to get everyone to care. Will it change people's purchasing decisions, I think is the question. But I guess the thought process is like, how do you get the shelf space?

• 31:23Speaker 00

  Well, I think, so I'll reverse engineer. One of the advantages I bring to the mix, right? We talked a lot about influencer and so on and so forth. The second influencer, probably as important, is retail buyers. And I have now established, because I've brought up a run of great products and exits and scale. I have great connections with the top people at Walmart, Target, and Albertsons, and Kroger, et cetera. And just maintaining those relationships are key because when I bring a product that I've invested in or Kavu's invested in.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  They will give us a show space. And I think that's a lot of entrepreneurs come to us because they're like, okay, great. I can do X, Y, and Z, but if I just get one meeting with the top guy at Walmart, that could inflect, you know, inflect my business in a way that's unique. So I have the relationships now.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  However, retailers are smart and they are actually closer to the consumer than big corporations. So they are seeking the products of tomorrow while maintaining what I call the brands of yesterday. Because you can't eliminate the brands of yesterday. Too much money, too much revenue. At the same time, you then also have to bridge to the brands of tomorrow. And Sam, to your point, I mean, take poppy. I mean, a regular soda is probably a buck for a can, right? A poppy is probably a buck sixty, seventy, eighty, depending where you buy it, ninety. What do you pay the extra fifty cents, sixty cents, ninety cents? Probably.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  I'm not, it's not like I'm buying a, you know, a BMW versus I'm buying a Toyota. It's like a twenty thousand, thirty thousand difference there. Here it's a thirty, sixty, ninety cents difference. So a big part of what I do also is when I go to retail is whilst the product might be premium, I still want to try and appeal to a large amount of Americans in their ability to reach those products where they're attainable. And so I think that the retailers are looking for brands that are attainable, even though it's a slightly premium, that are the future brands.

• 33:29Shaan Puri?

  You said something earlier that was, that was kind of important. You go, the third thing I do is how to sell it. And there's a huge value swing at the end. When me and Sam sold our companies, it's kind of amazing. You work six years, seven years, eight years. And then fifty percent of the value is going to be how good you are at this M and A thing.

• 33:45Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 33:46Shaan Puri?

  That you've never done before, but it's the biggest deal of your life. And so I've seen that firsthand, how important that is and how it is a separate skill set for an entrepreneur that you're very low repetitions in. So it's hard to even get good at it.

• 33:57Sam Parr?

  Yeah, it's a really unfair advantage because a reputable buyer has done this many times. And it doesn't matter. It didn't matter to them necessarily if it fails. They'll just get fired, worst case scenario. Uh, but for you, it's like changes your life.

• 34:09Shaan Puri?

  Completely. Yeah. So, so how do you go get Coke to buy a company for $2 billion? What do you, what do you go, what do you do? How do those conversations happen? Uh, how do you negotiate those deals? And why do they buy them for so much?

• 34:20Speaker 00

  So that's again, why, I mean, I've established and I have relationships everywhere, but you know, I have a relationship with a lot of big CPGs, right? Coke, Pepsi, Hershey, Mondelez, you know, um, KDP. So I've done that over time. A lot of these guys have either worked for, worked with over time. Cause I've been doing this now for 25 years in the industry, right? Maybe longer. And so relationships with the top guys, it's critical. And so, you know, uh, with one bar, I walked them in back in the day to Hershey, to the CEO of Hershey at the time, right? I didn't negotiate the vitamin water deal. Uh, the founder of vitamin water, Darius did brilliantly. And I learned from him, by the way. So I'm on the sidelines, watching this guy go to town.

• 35:04Speaker 00

  I brought Coke to the table. So I called Coke, cause I used to work for them. Sandy Douglas, the mentor of mine, he brought the CEO, he was the president and they negotiated with Darius. And I saw what he did and I learned from that.

• 35:17Shaan Puri?

  Out of that negotiation, what was one thing you picked up?

• 35:20Speaker 00

  If you have a great brand, it's okay to be slightly unhinged on your expectation. Like when he said the number starts with a four, I almost fell off my chair. But did he just say four? And I thought four B and Coke came back at 4.1. I'm like, all right, guy. He, you know, I, I, sometimes you get nervous because there's a fine line, guys. This is, Sean, you made such a great point. You spend anywhere from four to 10, 15 years building your baby. And then the finish line is where the, where the money is made. And so sometimes you get scared because if you overreach, which I've also done. And you fail, you might be catching a falling knight. But if you underreach, then you keep kicking yourself with how much you left on the table.

• 36:05Sam Parr?

  Dial in on that. That's interesting because A, knowing if you have a great brand is actually a bit challenging. But overreach and underreaching, that is also very nuanced. Is there like, is there like some more specific details that you can give on how you know? Like, for example, do you look at comps and you say, we're just gonna be the top quartile? What do you do?

• 36:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's very good. Timing is everything, by the way, right? Like, Poppy sold for half of what Vitamin Water did. Except, Poppy grew faster than Vitamin Water, is a bigger scale brand than Vitamin Water ever was. But timing was different, right? At that time, there was a willingness, and the money was more liquidity, was freer and greater, to pay more. Right? So, and risks were different. So, I think the same with tech valuations, right? People were investing in 2021 at bonkers valves, then slowed down, and now AI is also knocked. So, there's a, there's a timing mechanism. So, you should have belief and faith in who you are. But do not always benchmark against the biggest number you've seen.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  And that's a danger entrepreneurs have. They're like, oh, this company sold for seven times revenue. I'm going for seven, and if I don't get it, I'm out. I'm like, bro, hey, take it easy. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And at some point, when you're ready, you're gonna have X number of beholders. And if they say your beauty is 600 billion, that's your beauty. Now, you can take a risk and pass and wait for a bigger number, and that's okay. But the groups that pass and wait for a bigger number are few and far between. And they don't always work out. Some do.

• 37:38Sam Parr?

  I also think that there's, there's definitely like a je ne sais quoi. There's a, there's a showmanship that is involved here. It's very, I've only, I've known you now for 57 minutes. You have it. You have a likability, a charisma, whatever it is you want to call it. Are you in the room negotiating these deals?

• 37:56Speaker 00

  I am. Some, I am. So, with Poppy, we brought, it's also good to, you have to have a banker. And bankers have done this, right? So, get a good banker, you know, get good reps. So, we had Goldman Sachs with, with Poppy. I built a great relationship with them. They actually brought Pepsi to the table initially. And without getting into it, the number on the offer was inadequate. So, I did what I said is a risky move, which is I walked, because I didn't like the construct of the deal. And then someone else came to the table. I also walked because I didn't like the construct of the deal. And before I speak to Steve and Allison, they were probably getting nervous at this point. Because, you know, I was blessed to have had exits before.

• 38:38Speaker 00

  They haven't had any, and even Stevie was losing it at one point. Because they're like, this is life changing money that Rose saying no to. But I just didn't like the construct because it wasn't a full buyout. The earnouts weren't. And so third time's a charm. So when Pepsi came back, I ended up negotiating that directly with them.

• 38:59Shaan Puri?

  Did it change your life too?

• 39:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, you know, you, when you have a massive win like this, you always have to step back and realize how blessed you are. Not take it for granted, see what you could do for others and those around you. And a good thing for me was I let a lot of people into the deal. So it wasn't just me, I had family, friends. One of my closest childhood friends was in the deal. And so when you affect other people beyond yourself, that's huge.

• 39:28Shaan Puri?

  Today's podcast is brought to you by my friends at Mercury. They make the world's best banking product. I think you know this already, I use Mercury for all of my businesses. I think I have like maybe seven or eight businesses. We use Mercury as our business banking across all of them. And now they actually just launched a personal banking account. So I have my personal account there. I moved off of Wells Fargo and Chase. I'm just all in on Mercury. Why? I like products that are easy to use. I like products that get me and the problems that I have. So like very easy to make a joint account with my wife. Very easy to spin up virtual cards. One click and I get savings yield. It just has all the stuff that I need in one place. So if you're looking for the best banking product on the market, it's definitely Mercury. I will fistfight anybody who disagrees with me on that. Go to mercury.com slash personal and learn more. Mercury is a fintech, not an FDIC insured bank.

• 40:13Shaan Puri?

  Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group and Callum N A. Members FDIC.

• 40:19Shaan Puri?

  You said a bunch of things earlier that I wanna ask you like the same question, but with a different caveat. So sometimes I'll be like, hey, how do you sell this company? You're like, well, I call the guy. I know him. How do you get on the shelf? Well, they know me and I know them. And like, that's true and great and an extreme advantage today, but two problems. One, you didn't wake up. You weren't born with that. You earned that somehow. And the second is, it's not, you know, most entrepreneurs don't have that advantage if they don't partner with you. You know, just in general, people have to figure out how do you survive? No one's gonna come save you. Do you have an insane hustle story from the beginning? Because that's what gets me excited. After this, I'm gonna go work and nothing fires me up more than a good hustle story.

• 41:01Speaker 00

  You have to have hustle at every stage, by the way. So I'll give you a poppy story, which is later I've had a bunch of exits, but I'm still hustling. Because guess what? People change out of roles in corporations. So when I say I know people, historically, I've used bankers, I've used brokers, I've used people in the industry, which you have to use in entrepreneur. You've got to build a relationship with everybody so that they get you in the room. And then when you get your shot, you make it work. So I'll give a shout out to my buddy Danny Stepper. I don't know if you know Danny. Danny's a kind of a legend of the beverage industry. I went to the beverage forum, just finished yesterday. It's probably the best beverage conference in, any beverage entrepreneur should be there.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  It's the best beverage conference in America. And I went there two years ago. And Danny said, Row, would you speak? I said, yes, I'll speak. But, there's a but in this thing, I need a Walmart and a Target meeting while I'm at your conference. And he had some of the lead guys from Walmart and Target. They don't know me, like, they know of me, but it's not like, just because I walk in, there's still Walmart. They're like, Row, who use, wear Walmart. And so I went in and I danced. Me, Allison, Chris Hall, the CEO, and I danced. And I danced the modern soda dance. Because we were sucking wind at Walmart, we were

• 42:23Speaker 00

  doing everything else. And I'm like, this is my one shot. And I came in and I painted the vision. I said, guys, this is not prebiotic soda. This is modern soda for tomorrow's generation. And I made a full story. And the light bulb went off at Walmart's head. And the head buyer, Will, amazing guy, went away.

• 42:42Speaker 00

  Believe in the vision, got behind it. His boss Melanie was a rock star at Walmart, accelerated it from 2025 into end of 24, and Poppy did this. That was the moment Poppy went into explosive growth mode, and I'm doing the hustle, I'm doing the dance. And by the way, I've been very successful. But if you come in with an ego and you don't want to dance for retailers, regardless who you are, they don't give two shits.

• 43:07Sam Parr?

  I know that Kavu is incredibly successful now. I know that, I believe it's many billion dollar funds, you've had multi-billion dollar exits. And I know that you started like in the Mars factory, like I think you said, counting M and M's. The show is called, my, sorry, Twix. The show is called My First Million. I don't know like the middle ground. What did you do to make your first million? Because was it investing your own money in brands? Was it because you got equity in Vitamin Water?

• 43:35Speaker 00

  My first million, so I got fired from Coke, to creative disruptive, and I went to this no name company called Vitamin Water. In fact, I sent a bunch of product to my friends that didn't even drink it. That's a pilot brand, by the way. They didn't drink it. And two years later, the same jackass has called me. Bro, Vitamin Water is huge. My kids love it. I'm like, dude, I said that to you two years ago. You never said shit to me. Anyway, so I put my own money in. I borrowed from my dad. So I'm broke as a joke. And I borrowed from my dad, and I get equity. And so I went from, you know, fumes on my bank account, because I was basically spending everything I was making, to the Vitamin Water exit. And that was my first million, or more than that, but it was putting everything that I had.

• 44:20Speaker 00

  And I think that's honestly where you make a big bet, you put everything into it. And if it works out, that's kind of where you get your biggest paydays.

• 44:28Sam Parr?

  Did you raise money for a fund right after that, where you're like, no?

• 44:31Speaker 00

  No, I did my own thing. So I did Vitamin Water Smart Water. I exited. I had my own money. So what's the phrase they say you invest off your balance sheet? Some bullshit finance phrase. So anyway, yes, I invested off my balance sheet, meaning I went in solo, Rohan into Vita Coco, into Buy, into Pop Chips. And Stevie was my right-hand wing woman in this case. And so she was my, she learned marketing from me. We did it together. And now she's the head of marketing for Carvu.

• 44:58Sam Parr?

  That's really interesting. And what I'm asking is really personal. So you can avoid it or you can give as much information as you want. But I find that to be cool. And there's a lot of people listening who are like, I would like to make a little bit of money and spend a little bit of money doing what this guy's doing. That's badass. I don't want to start a fun yet. Are you able to give any type of numbers as to what you had when you started investing in Pop Chip and all these companies?

• 45:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I can give you a range. I was investing anywhere from probably half a million to 2 million.

• 45:23Sam Parr?

  That's a shitload for an angel investment.

• 45:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I wasn't that smart, dude. I was a little bit unhinged. I, you know, long-term, I've worked out great. I don't advocate you go that heavy.

• 45:33Sam Parr?

  Were you really rich?

• 45:34Speaker 00

  No, I was just, I was, I think I bet on myself a little too much. So yeah, I had a lot more money than that, but I think you have to be willing to lose if you're gonna win.

• 45:46Shaan Puri?

  Did you tell yourself like, okay, I'm, I'm willing to lose 10 million bucks, but I'm gonna bet, I'm gonna bet on myself to go make a few concentrated bets? Did you, did you sort of mentally partition like this is loseable money? Or you just, you were just going and you didn't even think about it?

• 46:00Speaker 00

  There's a lot of stress. So basically I was kind of doing the math. I'm like, okay, I'm in for this. I'm in for this. I'm in for this. And then like, you know, X years later, I'm like, well, you know, I mean, you know, I'm in for 10, but I've made, you know, 10 times that. So I think I'm good. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, it's, it was organic, like, you know.

• 46:19Shaan Puri?

  Tape man, tape man math. I like it.

• 46:21Sam Parr?

  What percent, what, for the principal, not the markups, what percent of your liquid net worth was in private deals?

• 46:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, a lot. I also, I really should have done a better job with my Publix. I was very like into my privates because I'd made my money on private. So it's far too high.

• 46:36Sam Parr?

  Was it like, was it like all?

• 46:38Speaker 00

  No, no, it's probably about a third though. I mean, I could. I don't know, like, I don't know, it was a decent amount. I can't remember exactly. I was rolling heavy. I was like in my thirties. And like Pop Chips was a great brand. And I bet all that, but I didn't understand the importance of a pref stack.

• 46:54Sam Parr?

  So you were just like making bets and then like going out and hustling on your behalf. You're like, hey, I'm going to beverage forum and I'm just gonna figure out how to wheel and deal a little bit.

• 47:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was working with these companies. Like I would help the Pop Chips guys with influencers, you know, or with marketing or team, like I bring in the head of sales, the head of marketing or

• 47:11Sam Parr?

  You were free, you were like a free hire a little bit.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  I was, yeah, I was like, I'm like, let me in, I'll help you out. Sometimes I got equity for helping. And so the good news is my hits in, in Vita Coco, the coconut water by vital proteins and Poppy far outstripped whatever.

• 47:30Sam Parr?

  And so the, the, the order of winners was vitamin water you did that with, you did it with Smart Water. And then what was the order, the next five deals?

• 47:39Speaker 00

  Uh, I did Vitamin Smart, I did Vita Coco, the coconut water, which is great. Cupid's an incredible operator.

• 47:47Sam Parr?

  Did that exit?

• 47:48Speaker 00

  Shit, the guy's got worth, the company's worth two and a half billion on the public stock, stock market.

• 47:52Sam Parr?

  Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Okay.

• 47:54Shaan Puri?

  With a thing like coconut water, right? Like my, my business partner Ben, he's been trying to get me to drink frigging banana water. He's like, oh, banana water. And I, it's nasty. Can't believe he likes it. But he's like, banana water. That's the next coconut water. I'm like, I don't think it is. How do you spot the real trends versus the false trends? Are you just trusting your own taste buds? Or is it some research you're doing? Are you watching what high schoolers are doing? Like what, what are you doing to figure out real trend versus fizzle out trend?

• 48:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, taste buds in TAM. Coconut water wasn't a coconut water TAM. It was a hydration TAM. Right? Taste buds, maybe it's bad because I'm of Indian origin. I like coconut water, but look, let's be honest, I got in early. I got out at a $700 million valuation. Right? So I got in at, I don't know, 30. So I made 20 times my money. The thing's now worth north of $2 billion. So I didn't have the vision that Mike has, who's a CEO founder, that this could be north of a $2 billion public company. No chance I had that vision. I was, because to me the TAM was limited by the taste of coconut water in America. So I, sometimes knowing where to hold them, knowing when to fold them. So I got out, I made good money.

• 49:02Speaker 00

  I get, I will never begrudge the money that I could have made, but I got it. I was out on that one, but then, you know, but then I got into Bai and I rode by all the way. The founder Ben is super smart and he, I got him introduced to KDP. And he built a brilliant relationship with the CEO of KDP and then sold that for 1.7 billion.

• 49:24Shaan Puri?

  I think one of the great tests of marketing is can you sell water?

• 49:30Shaan Puri?

  How do you sell water, right? What's the, there's a marketing genius about figuring out how to sell water and not just once. How to sell it many times and many different ways. And so

• 49:40Speaker 00

  I've only done one water, by the way. I've done many beverages, but only one water.

• 49:44Shaan Puri?

  Okay. Well, so vitamin water, not a water.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, vitamin water is flavored, right? Poppy is flavored, Vita Coco, Bai, they're all flavored. Like when you just straight water, I still don't know how the hell I did that, but um, I'll take a crack. The founder Darius created Vita Smart Water with a really good story, which is vapor distilled water. It's how water is made in, in the world, right? Water evaporates from the ocean, goes up, hydrogen, oxygen separate. All the impurities fall out. It comes back to earth, that first drop of rainwater. Before it enters the atmosphere, before it hits the ground, that's pure water. So that was the initial vision behind Smart Water. The packaging was not great. It was invisible. So I redid the package. The current package was me and my team, which sits on shelf today.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  Then we did the influencer strategy and I felt that Evian was the only player in America that was in premium water. But it's a French company that was in plastic, being shipped across the ocean. It didn't make sense and neither did Fiji, being shipped from basically Fiji. Like, why can't we have a premium American water that has? And the thing is your water is a badge. When you walk around with the water more than anything else. It's a little bit of a reflection of you, right? That's why at home, who cares? You buy the case packs at Costco and 24 packs for like $2. But when you're walking around, you want a little bit of a, a different badge. And I think with the team I had.

• 51:08Speaker 00

  Jennifer Aniston became the face, the brand, the new packaging we did. Smart became this like go to accessory, particularly for women. And the brand took off. And I think when Coke bought Vitamin, what if you asked them today? The brand that has worked out for them is Smart Water and Vitamin.

• 51:26Shaan Puri?

  And is there something to this idea of placement? So like, I remember when Beats by Dre came out and it was this headphone brand, just like many other Bose and others, but instead of going for audio files, everywhere you saw it was basically hip hop artists and athletes walking into the stadium. And it became like synonymous with like the pregame lock in associated with the coolest athletes and artists. And like, that was amazing. They created billions of dollars of value by that association, that placement of the pregame or the walk in, at least for me. And I think that I've read stories about Grey Goose and some of the liquor brands where they would put it in the limousines or the after parties of the Oscars.

• 52:06Shaan Puri?

  And just where it was seen was almost just as important as the story of how it was triple filtered and distilled. Cause nobody actually ends up knowing that shit. They just see where it's seen. Did you ever use that tactic or what is that?

• 52:18Speaker 00

  That was huge for me back in the day. So now this strategy is done really through social digital, right? So digital influencers, when, when the all top sororities are running around posting Poppy and having it at the sorority kickoff parties. I have an army of amazing college ambassadors and Poppy is the number one drink on college campuses.

• 52:41Shaan Puri?

  Modern day like Red Bull playbook, basically?

• 52:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it's kind of a better for you feel good vibe. And definitely what's better for women than, you know, like from a, from a connection standpoint. So, but back in the day, I did this with the Oscars, with the Golden Globes. Smart Water was the first water on the table at the Golden Globes before they were pouring out of just the, and so I did a deal with them. So suddenly every table you go to, you're seeing a Smart Water there. And then Vitamin, I used to sponsor mainly because I wanted to go to the parties. So Patrick Whitesell, I've heard of Patrick, he's too big time now, but Patrick. Endeavor, right? The coolest post Oscar parties, Oscar and VMA, Golden Dog parties in LA. So just for me to get to access to those things, I would sponsor them.

• 53:27Speaker 00

  But the good news is all the, like, I remember going to one and it was back in what I call round one of J Lo and Affleck dating. And I'm at the party and like J Lo and Affleck are there. And everyone's Ricky Vitamore back then. This is like 2003, you know, 2004. So I think you're dead right. In the early days, especially with products, they've got to appear in people's lifestyle areas as both physically and digitally.

• 53:55Sam Parr?

  You're a hustler. I didn't, I didn't realize how big of a hustler you are.

• 53:58Speaker 00

  If you lose your hustle, you lose your edge. Like the guy who Sean and I know, Gulrez, who is the CEO of Jim Canna Fine Foods, like, he's like, bro, you are bloody intense. Like when I get in a sessions with him, he's like, I thought you would just chill down. You're a father, you're successful. I'm like, bro, it's go time. Like we're building your empire. Let's, you know, there's no, you've got to have a hustle mode. And I think also founders respect that.

• 54:20Sam Parr?

  So I want to ask you a little bit of a different question. I'm obsessed with brands that lasts a long time. I'm also a massive American history buff. And some of the best brands in America, you know, they've been around for over a century. Coke, Snickers, M and M's, like brands that you've worked with. I think Mars is like a $50 billion a year business that's family owned. Hershey's is run, I think, run by a family trust. I think they do something like 10 or 20 billion a year in revenue. And these brands, you know, everyone talks about getting healthy, but like Reese's probably isn't going to go away for the next 50 years. Coke, it's probably not going to go away for a hundred years. And also you've worked with startups. Is there anything that I or Sean or the listener can learn from these old big companies that have been around for a hundred plus years?

• 55:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, look, they do a very good job of two things. They're managing their installed base. So they have fantastic retail presence and they do, in my opinion, when I, great marketing to maintain relevance for their brands. It's almost shocked how well they do it in a world where technically you shouldn't be eating or drinking any of those products. However, where they are smart, and I give Pepsi credit for this. They do go out and buy the future as well. Like Pepsi bought Poppy, not because it's an apple cider vinegar beverage, because they're seeing the vision. This could be right up there. And they've said it to me, it's between like Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Poppy. That should be their soda lineup and choose what you want.

• 55:48Speaker 00

  If you feel like having a Pepsi, great. And brother, the growth is all coming, Sam, from their zero sugar products. So it's not coming from core Coke or core Pepsi. It's Pepsi zero, yeah, correct. Pepsi zero is crushing it. Coke zero is crushing. And so Poppy fits into that realm. So they see that. You still maintain your legacy, but you have to make sure you pick up the future. Otherwise, you will get left behind. And so I think you're seeing it like Unilever bought your boy Croons, right? Like that they're buying the future. There's a lot of M and A. Hershey just bought Lesser Evo. Like that they are buying the future. And I think they, but they're getting a little savvier and a little wiser in how they do it. Before they would build, get brands that I don't think were built to last.

• 56:32Speaker 00

  And now to your point, Sam, I think they're trying to find brands that are built to last. And for me, if we look at all the exits we've been a part of, whether those brands continue to growing 40%, or just maintain a good scale. Vitamin Smart, Poppy, Vital Proteins, Bi, Farmer's Dog, like all these are still Once Upon a Farm. You know, we IPO'd that brand. We see they're all still there and that they will be here if managed right for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years.

• 57:00Sam Parr?

  Sean had a good question that he was telling me that he had for you, but I'm going to ask it. And he hasn't gotten to it yet.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  He's not the kind of guy I am.

• 57:08Sam Parr?

  He hasn't gotten to it.

• 57:09Speaker 00

  He's a gifted.

• 57:11Sam Parr?

  Yeah, I'm going to steal it from him. And it was basically if a young guy were to go and shadow you, what would they be surprised about how you spend your time? Shadow you for like a day or a week, yeah.

• 57:22Speaker 00

  It's a great question, Sam. So a few things, I think what allows me, I think they will be a little surprised of how I can change lanes so rapidly. So part of my success and part of my failures are around my ADD. So I can go from five different company conversations with different founders to then figuring out the plumbing problem in my house to the new house that I'm trying to buy, but getting screwed on with the price. Like I can change lanes and gears very rapidly and be fully engaged. But by the end of it, I'm exhausted, right? My brain shut off and then I have to watch TV to unlock, to sort of calm it down.

• 58:04Speaker 00

  So one of the things I'll find is how I rapidly able to change, change lanes. The second thing is even though I personally don't operate at a detailed level personally, they'll be surprised how detailed I get with the brands and founders I partner with because I have great recall of information. And so their surprise, sometimes the founders think I've forgotten something from like a month ago when I asked somebody. You can ask Ulrez, he's a classic, where I'm like, three weeks ago, we spoke about this. Where are you on this? He's like, shit, how did you remember that? He thought because I forgot to come back, he could ignore me. And so my ability to recall and retain info, because you have to go deep with founders. Because if you go shallow, you're not helping them out.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  It's got to be meaningful stuff that helps impact their business. And the third thing is I'm blessed to be living a great lifestyle. I'm living the American dream, right? I'm an immigrant that came here and did well, but I also am able to do high level, right? So from where I eat, I mean, I'm, you know, the taco stand or where I go, I go and do the grocery shopping. I'm not sending someone, I'm like, I'm there, I'm picking stuff up. Because I think if you don't live in reality, you then can't operate in reality. You kind of end up in this 1% world, which doesn't help when you're dealing with products that deal with. All Americans.

• 59:28Shaan Puri?

  I was talking to a buddy of ours who's a brilliant marketer, probably sold a billion dollars of products online. And he, I opened up my laptop and he saw that I had ad blocker on and he's like, how could you? He's like, you're a marketer. He's like, you have to study your craft. Sit through every ad. He logged in, another guy logged into his Facebook and he's on Facebook, he's a woman. Like his profile is his, but he told Facebook I'm a woman because he's like, I want to see what they're marketing to me, a 40 year old woman in America. That's, that's the prime target. I need to see who's, what's the messaging? And I was like, there's levels to this game of intensity and detail. What do you stink at? Where's your weakness in business?

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  I think sometimes I may have too much belief. You know, when you love a product and you're like, you kind of have faith that blinds you a little bit to the, to the, whether it's, whether it's the founder you, you think is amazing, or whether you love the product and you're not overly focused on the gross margins. Because, you know, I'm a big, feel the dreams, guys, build it and they will come. But if you don't build it correctly, I feel the dream won't come. And sometimes when I love something a lot, I end up ignoring some of the red flags. So I think passion is a super important element, but passion at all costs can be dangerous.

• 1:00:50Shaan Puri?

  Let's leave it with this, while we're in the business of stealing questions. Patrick O'Shaughnessy has this great question he asked the guest at the end of every one of his, that's like the best episodes. And he asked the guest, he said, what's the kindest thing anyone's ever done for you in your career? And I'm just curious, what, what comes to mind when I say that? Like, what's the kindest thing anyone's ever done for you?

• 1:01:10Speaker 00

  Kindest thing anyone's done for me? A shout out to a guy, I was, it's probably two of them. I've been adopted a couple of times. One time was at Coca-Cola when I was about to leave because they gave me a brand called Boxwood beer. Remember I told you I have a few mantras? One of my mantras influenced the influence of the other has become a part of pop culture. The third one is live the brand. Well, I can't live Boxwood beer. I don't understand it. I grew up in Zambia. I bloody hate root beer. So I was on Sprite, someone demoted, demoted me.

• 1:01:46Speaker 00

  And I ran box and two guys and I was about to leave and my career would have been toast because I was going to some travel.com bullshit site that ended up folding and two guys, a guy called Todd Potman and a guy called Daryl Cobbin, kind of heard that we're leaving, saved me, said, we'll give you something different, don't leave. They put me on Powerade and that changed the trajectory of my career once. And then when I got to Vitamwater, I was doing great. I took over all the marketing, but the founder and I kind of had different visions on how to market. And I don't think he liked my approach, but I was what is bringing the heat to the brand.

• 1:02:29Speaker 00

  And I think he wanted to fire me at one point. And so Mike Ripoli, who was the president of the company, changed reporting structure and put me under him so that, because he and I got on great. He said, Rowan, look, take ego aside. Either you want to report to CEO and get fired, or you report to me and I got you because you're my guy. And so I said, I want money, I don't want ego. So I reported to Mike and I still ran marketing, but had the founder could have fired me, right? I was an employee at will. That would have also changed the trajectory of my career.

• 1:03:00Sam Parr?

  So this is only the second podcast that you've done, is that right?

• 1:03:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, correct.

• 1:03:05Shaan Puri?

  Dude, thanks for coming on. Where should people go find you if they want to follow more, you know, get more of what you're doing?

• 1:03:11Speaker 00

  You know what? It's, it's a really good question and it's a horrible answer. You actually can't go anywhere yet, other than you guys.

• 1:03:18Sam Parr?

  Wait, so you don't have social media?

• 1:03:20Shaan Puri?

  Subscribe to this podcast if you want to see him again. The last one that was like that was Brian Johnson. He came on and he was just, he was just hacking on his own body and his own privacy of his own home. And then he came on this podcast and so, you know, maybe you'll have a Netflix documentary soon. I don't know.

• 1:03:36Speaker 00

  Maybe I can, I can reverse the age by 20 years. My wife would love that.

• 1:03:40Sam Parr?

  We were, we were his first podcast and you know, Sean, I don't know if I ever told you this, he called me last year and he goes, hey, I just wanted to thank you because you were the first podcast that I ever did. And you guys asked me a lot of really hard questions that I never even, I never even thought about. So A, I'm thankful for you for doing that. And B, when I saw the response, I was like, oh, I should do media.

• 1:04:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:04:02Sam Parr?

  And I should go hard. This works.

• 1:04:04Speaker 00

  That is crazy. And look what he's done. You guys are the influence. Remember the one in 10? You are the one in 10, guys.

• 1:04:10Shaan Puri?

  My, uh, my contrarian belief about Brian is that Brian Johnson is the greatest marketer alive right now.

• 1:04:15Speaker 00

  Possibly.

• 1:04:16Shaan Puri?

  I think he understands social media at a level that, uh, I don't know anybody else does. It's

• 1:04:21Speaker 00

  Jake Paul maybe, but yeah.

• 1:04:23Shaan Puri?

  Exactly.

• 1:04:24Speaker 00

  Well, thanks, man.

• 1:04:25Shaan Puri?

  Thanks for coming on.

• 1:04:26Sam Parr?

  You're awesome.

• 1:04:26Shaan Puri?

  Pleasure. Thanks for taking the time.

• 1:04:28Sam Parr?

  All right. That's it. That's the pod.

• 1:04:39Shaan Puri?

  Hey, let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about a podcast that you could check out. It is called The Science of Scaling by Mark Robert. He was the founding CRO of HubSpot and he's a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School. The guy's smart. And he sits down every week with different sales leaders from cool companies like Klavio and Vanta and OpenAI. And he's asking about their strategies, their tactics, and how they're growing their companies as, you know, head of sales or chief revenue officer. If you're looking to scale a company up, if you're a CRO or a head of sales that's looking to level up in your career, I think a podcast like this could be great for you. Listen to The Science of Scaling wherever you get your podcasts.