[00:00:22] Ray Latif: Thanks for listening to BevNET's Taste Radio. I'm Ray Latif, and with me are John Craven, Mike Schneider, and Jon Landis. We're recording from BevNET headquarters in Watertown, Mass. This is a special edition of the podcast featuring some of the most notable quotes from esteemed guests who have joined us throughout the year. The best of 2017, if you will. I gotta say, this has been our best year ever, and it's not just because I joined the podcast this year. I think it has a little bit to do with that, right? Best out of two? We've had dozens of great guests on the podcast this year, including the ones that we're going to hear from today. It's so funny because I think about when we actually did the interview with them and it feels like it was so long ago and it was only a few months ago. It goes to show we've been doing so many of these, but at the same time, the quotes and the lessons learned from all these folks have been so impactful. Looking back and hearing from some of these folks, I feel like there's so much knowledge to be shared and we're going to share some with you. Let's do it. John Craven, you remember we went to New York to Queens and met up with Mike Rapolli? Of course. Mike Rapolli was the star of episode 44. He's the co-founder of Vitamin Water, currently the CEO and co-founder of Body Armor, the challenger brand of sports drinks out there. And Mike, just a really entertaining guy. Let's hear from him right now.
[00:01:34] Honda Accord: We're not here for bronze medals.
[00:01:35] Ray Latif: I mean, you know, it's gold or nothing. You know, I mean, we're here for the gold medal. You know, Mike is a really inspiring guy. I mean, here he is a billionaire. He owns about 150 horses and he's got his own seat, but he's got everything he'd possibly want. But more than anything, he wants to win and he wants to be the number one sports drink brand out there. Well, yeah, I mean, if you're already rich, then you don't want some nickels or dimes. You need gold for it to be worth your time. But I think, you know, the interesting thing with that that applies to anyone is that, you know, he has his eyes like so focused on, you know, the home run and nothing else. So it's not going to let him, you know, sway his course like he's just focused on that. And I think that's something that a lot of entrepreneurs often forget. It's really kind of how you have to think if you're going to start a food or beverage brand. There really aren't any silver or bronze medals. There's just gold medals and there's bankruptcy. Especially if you're going into sports drinks and you want to go up against someone like Gatorade, you have to go big. In episode 81, we spoke to Cara Golden, the founder and CEO of Hintwater, who talked about having conviction when you're solving a problem.
[00:02:44] Taste Radio: If you really believe what you're doing and you really believe that you're solving a problem, don't spend too much time around the naysayers. Focus on actually getting traction.
[00:02:56] Ray Latif: That's a great quote from Kara. I mean, so often you hear folks who are like, don't do this, or don't do that, or you're going the wrong way, or this is my advice. But what she's trying to say, I guess is what I'm hearing from her, is that you've got to be able to prove yourself. And if you can prove yourself, that's one step closer to success. And that's kind of how she's done it, one step at a time. I mean, Hint's been around for a while, and it's nearing $100 million brand at this point. And she's done that really through proof of concept. How many people told her not to do what she's trying to do? If she'd spend her time focusing on that versus getting where she wanted to go with that conviction that she had, she wouldn't be where she is today. And she also talked about in that interview surrounding yourself with folks that can point you in the right direction, that can support your vision. And some of those people were in the food and beverage industry. She talks about reaching outside of it and going into tech and other fields like that. You got to check out episode 81. Also guys named Ken. Back in March at Expo West 2017, John Craven and I sat down with Dave Asprey, who's the founder and CEO of Bulletproof. Dave comes across as part motivational speaker, guru, chief executive. He's got a lot to say. Let's listen.
[00:04:02] SPEAKER_04: Everyone else in the food business generally says, how cheap is it and how good does it taste? And can we label it as healthy? I don't care if I can label it as healthy. I care whether people eat it, are full and satisfied and have functioning brains for hours afterwards. That's what we do.
[00:04:15] Ray Latif: Dave is definitely one of the most intense people I've ever met in this space. Yeah, he's very determined to see his vision through. He really believes in this idea of biohacking in a way to eat and live in a way that is going to elevate you in every single way in mind and body. And I feel like he's definitely got a lot of believers for sure. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting just the following that he has and I think, you know, what he said here just, you know, kind of reiterates that mission. It's always about like brain function and hacking and optimization. You know, he sort of lives it and breathes it. He's all about being several steps ahead of everybody else. There's a lot of science behind what he's trying to do and a lot of education required to understand it. And obviously it's one of those things that, you know, if you, you have to get into that lifestyle to be able to appreciate it. Funny side note too, we talked to him at Expo West and he was, had trouble getting in the door with his, uh, his badge wasn't right or something. He couldn't, uh, hack his way into the, uh, into the door at Expo West. So, uh, we still got the interview done though. Bulletproof only goes so far, I guess, right? I guess so. An extraordinarily inspiring individual with a great product is Todd Carmichael, the co-founder of La Cologne, who, among other things, called bullshit on passion. People say passion. Passion is baloney. Like, I'm not passionate. Passion is an emotion. Emotions are notoriously unreliable. What you do is just throw yourself into it and don't ever come back. And it will give. The irony here is that he's very passionate about not being passionate. He's a passionate guy, Todd. He is. What he's trying to say, though, I think is you can be in love with your product, you can be in love with your brand, but unless you're really throwing yourself into it and getting yourself in a position to be successful, you know, your passion is only going to go so far. Listen, I mean, your business is going to give back what you put in. That's the bottom line. So if you're spending your weekends, you know, doing site visits and, you know, hanging out with distributors and sending emails and, and you're really working and you're working hard, you're going to have the best chance for success. And that's really all you can ask for is the best chance for success because not everybody's going to succeed. So, you know, a lot of things in life are like that. This is very cut and dry, I think. Yeah. I mean, Todd talked a lot about his experience crossing the Antarctic on foot, and it was a harrowing tale for sure. You want to listen to that in this interview. But basically, he was talking about, you know what, I've got to find out who I am and how much I got left. And it's not necessarily about passion crossing Antarctica. It's about, I've got to get this done, and there's no other way than to just cross it.
[00:06:58] SPEAKER_00: There's no other option.
[00:06:59] Ray Latif: There's no other option, yeah. I think he left some vape-sicles in Antarctica too. Jeff Church is a man we've known for quite some time. He's the co-founder and CEO of Suja. Jeff and John Craven sat down a few months ago where he talked about the importance of luck in his business. I wish I could say that we had a blueprint, a master blueprint from the beginning, but it was, you know, there's a lot of luck and there's a lot of, you know, timing. And, you know, I believe, you know, strongly that, you know, luck is the meaning of preparation and opportunity. And, you know, we just happened to be able to execute really well. He's not saying that, you know, he had a lucky rabbit's foot and that's how Tsuji became successful. He just said, you know, they positioned themselves to take advantage of luck when it appeared. And they also went really, really fast to seize that opportunity, which I think is another interesting takeaway from what Tsuji has done, which is, you know, when you have all those things, you know, you have to be ready to step on the gas. And that's exactly what they did. It's probably more fair to say that you can maximize the opportunities from luck if you're prepared and minimize the disaster that can come from bad luck. But at the end of the day, luck exists. It's a thing. It's something you got to deal with. There are a lot of things outside of your control. But set yourself up for a position of success to take advantage of even things that are unforeseeable. Yeah, you definitely want to listen to Episode 70 with Jeff Church. I mean, in addition to talking about luck and building this company, he had a lot of great thoughts on financing your growth and fundraising. You don't want to miss it. Suja is a good company to get advice from on that kind of stuff. They did a really good job with it. Innovation. We like to talk about innovation on the show. In Episode 77, Carol Ortenburg and our own Jon Landis sat down with Pat Brown, the founder and CEO of Impossible Foods, who challenges the way that we think about everything. It buys into, I think, just the fundamental fallacy of how people around the world think about meat, that it has to come from animals. Pat Brown, he has like a Steve Jobs kind of way about him where he's challenging the fabric of the way that we think about things. And his examples with the horse-drawn carriages and transportation being analogous to the way that he thinks about meat were really strong in this episode. I mean, you want to talk about people who changed the world, this is going to be one of them. It's really easy to attack the things that are this groundbreaking and a lot of the guys like Elon Musk, and I put Pat Brown in a similar category just with the way that he has his mindset of the world and the way that we see things. So laugh all you want about plant-based meat and Bitcoin and SpaceX and all that stuff, but these people who are challenging our fundamental beliefs are really the ones who are gonna drive humanity forward. All you have to do is a blind taste test with these burgers and you'll say it's a burger. Yeah, they're delicious. You know what else is delicious? Dry sparkling. Dry sparkling, the line of artisanal sodas created by Dry Soda, which is a company based in Seattle. And in episode 88, we sat down with Sheryl Klaus, who's the founder and CEO. Sheryl, she's a firecracker. She's relentless. And she talked about being relentless in the beverage business.
[00:10:18] SPEAKER_00: I have an expectation and it has to get done. It just has to get done. In beverage, I mean, you've got to get that product on the shelf. It has to be executed correctly. And I do demand a lot from everybody. I mean, you just have to.
[00:10:30] Ray Latif: Classic, straightforward entrepreneur. Exactly. You know, when you listen to this episode, she talks about how distributors kind of talk down to her with a slur that, you know, I won't repeat on this episode. But, you know, she wore it as a badge of honor. She said, look, this is how I'm going to be successful. I've got to get people to do the things that I need them to do if we're actually going to make this work. And there's something to be said about just hard nosed, straight ahead, football kind of minded stuff. She knows she's going to have to work twice as hard and do things, you know, faster, better, stronger. And she does it.
[00:11:07] SPEAKER_00: She does.
[00:11:08] Ray Latif: Yeah. There's a lot of conviction in that voice. And this is someone who clearly has experienced every single job that she's asking somebody to do in her business. So she knows the level that she would execute at and expects higher than that from everyone else. And that's a good thing for every business owner to practice. Speaking of success in business, Episode 80, John Craven and I, we go to Los Angeles, we get to meet GT Dave, and he said this.
[00:11:32] SPEAKER_02: Again, I didn't really see it as a business. I saw it as a personal expression.
[00:11:36] Ray Latif: GT Dave does what GT Dave does because he can't not do it. So many entrepreneurs have a calling and GT Dave has a calling and it comes from inside of him. He's the seed of the brand and everything that he expresses comes from within and he makes that connection that way. You can feel it in the liquid and I feel like you can feel the love in the bottle and outside the bottle. There's something about GT. and the way he's able to connect himself to the brand, that's really unique and really inspiring. And I think that if you can achieve that magic, you've got something on your hands. And as a category creator, it's special to have someone like him who's leading the way and has created relationships with others within the category to further the category versus trying to destroy each other. We've talked a lot about innovation. Soylent, one of the more innovative brands and products that we've seen in recent years. John Craven and Mike Schneider sat down with John Coogan in episode 82. John is the co-founder of Soylent. Talked about the buckets for metrics to make it in business.
[00:12:36] SPEAKER_04: I like to think about them as falling into four key buckets, and that's PR, community, digital advertising, and e-commerce platform.
[00:12:45] Ray Latif: John Coogan's not a traditional hire for a food or beverage company, CTO. I mean, he talks a lot about the evolution of the space, the food and beverage space, as it moves toward direct-to-consumer. and the user experience competency and the data that you need. He drops a lot of great knowledge in this interview. And that, I know it's not the sexiest quote, but I picked this for a reason. Yeah, I think to your point, I mean, it was pretty neat. He talked about how he automated himself out of a job, basically, but, you know, very different approach to building a food or beverage company, been super successful and, you know, really great chat that we had with John. Speaking of actionable insights, we've got to end with Adnan Durrani, who I think there were more insights on the cutting room floor in this episode than there were in many of our other episodes. I mean, Adnan, he's an industry pro and a veteran and founder and CEO of Saffron Road. You got to listen to episode 83.
[00:13:39] Honda Accord: Businesses are amazing things. I mean, unlike churches, you know, unlike government institutions, they give you a podium where you can have a voice and you could actually change policy.
[00:13:51] Ray Latif: I mean, compare your business to a church or a government. Those are pretty influential community pillars, but he has a real point. I mean, it's cliche, but people vote with their dollars and they only vote when they like what they hear. There's something to be said about being on a soapbox. I mean, sometimes you can be up on a soapbox and you're just tooting your own horn, but I think Adnan's up there trying to really make a positive change in the way that we think about social missions and the way we think about improving the lives of others and it's a really inspiring tale and I think one that you know all brands you know would benefit from. some great and notable quotes from 2017, a lot more in the 50 plus episodes that we've done this year. Check them all out, all on Taste Radio. And for those of you that have some interesting insights or questions that you have for us or folks that you want to see on the podcast, just email us, ask at Taste Radio. For John, John and Mike, thanks so much for listening. We'll see you in 2018.
