[00:00:10] Ray Latif: Hello, friends. I'm Ray Latif, and you're listening to the number one podcast, the food and beverage industry Taste Radio. This episode features an interview with Mark Olivieri, the CEO of Owen, a rapidly growing brand of plant-based protein and functional nutrition beverages. Get access to the freshest swag and exclusive content by becoming a Taste Radio VIP. It's easy for you to join that group of very important people. Just head to Taste Radio slash VIP and take one minute to sign up. Developed by professional athletes, Owen is rooted in the concept that vegan and allergen-free ingredients are quote, only what you need from protein and sports nutrition beverages. But what do challenger businesses need to disrupt legacy categories and outperform the brands in those spaces? According to Owen's CEO, Mark Olivieri, great Taste Radio great data. Launched in 2017, Owen markets a core five-skew line of ready-to-drink protein shakes made with 20 grams of plant-based protein, Pro Elite line made with 35 grams of protein and no sugar, meal replacement beverages, and protein powders. Owen debuted as a direct-to-consumer brand and has since adopted an omnichannel sales strategy with an emphasis on brick-and-mortar retail. The shift in focus has paid dividends. Owen is carried by Kroger, Publix, Target, Walmart and Whole Foods, and is outselling protein stalwarts including Muscle Milk, according to Spins data. The company is projecting $85 million in 2023 revenue and is on track to generate $350 million by 2025. In the following interview, Mark, who has risen the ranks from Owens SVP of Marketing to President and eventually its CEO, discussed the important role that data has played in the brand's growth and trajectory, how the company sources and implements a variety of information and insights into its business strategy, what he attributes to success at driving repeat purchase, and how he identifies and evaluates the brand's primary competitors. Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm at Expo West 2023 and sitting with Mark Olivieri, the CEO of Owen. Marc, great to see you.
[00:02:36] Mark Olivieri: Awesome, good to see you as well.
[00:02:37] Ray Latif: Expo West, back in action, back at the Anaheim Convention Center. You haven't been here in a bit, no?
[00:02:44] Mark Olivieri: No, I mean, first time since 2019, we were, you know, dangling if we wanted to go in 2022. Omnicron hit, no one really knew how much I was going to stick around. We just determined, you know what, let's be safe. Let's not go. So it's funny too, because the booth that we have here, we created in 2019. So it's a new booth and we had to refresh it because over the last three years, we made some tweaks with the brand. So long story short, the booth that we're using today, we've only got one use out of it and we had to refresh it.
[00:03:16] Ray Latif: Well, it's not going to be all worn and torn. You know that. But so by refreshing it, you mean like adding new graphics and things like that?
[00:03:22] Mark Olivieri: Graphics, design, messaging. We have a wall of refrigerators. We had to make sure those even turned on, right? Because we haven't used it in a while. It's just little things, but. Add some Freon. Yeah.
[00:03:33] Ray Latif: Do they still use Freon for refrigerators? Not sure. Probably. Okay. Probably. Yeah. As I mentioned, the CEO of Owen, an incredibly fast-growing brand, a brilliant brand in so many ways, and potentially a billion-dollar brand. I was looking at a recent LinkedIn post of yours in which you said, the next billion-dollar nutrition beverage brand has been found. Now, do you base that statement on confidence, sales data, or just straight belief?
[00:04:02] Mark Olivieri: all three. I mean, let's let's look at the facts. If you look at recent transactions, health and wellness, especially functional health and wellness, tends to, you know, have some pretty good outcomes. You look at Oregon, you look at Vega, you look at Vital Proteins, right. And so you got that. Second, you look at the trajectory of the brand. We're on a run rate close to 100 million gross revenue. We're going to continue to scale this. We have clear visibility because we have absolute white space. So we have a clear path to at least 200, 250 easily. And so we have a strong brand. We've been focused on economics since day one. And so when you look at some of the criteria that are required to be a sustainable brand, built to last, which is important as it relates to integrations with potential acquirers, strategics, we have that. So we're proud of what we have. It's a very strong brand, it continues to grow and we have great economics behind it.
[00:05:02] Ray Latif: It continues to grow and you described the growth in recent years as growth in stealth mode. What do you mean by that?
[00:05:10] Mark Olivieri: It's easy to get distracted in beverage, you know, whether it's industry news, the latest and greatest valuation and investment size, this company hit this sales run rate, et cetera. We've always been very quiet about what we've done. And it's part of it is the culture. It's our belief as a organization is that we are not going to get distracted by the news around us. We're going to continue to focus on our mission and the movement that we're creating.
[00:05:38] Ray Latif: Approaching $100 million in sales. You mentioned to me profitable last month, that's February of 2023. Correct. Again, all under the radar. And there's a lot more to come, which is really interesting. But if you talk about, say, profitability versus top line revenue, what's more important to the brand right now?
[00:05:55] Mark Olivieri: Well, the two are correlated as far as I think about it, because the top line is going to drop down into a net revenue contribution margin number, and that should correlate to a profitability number. They're both important, right? Because scale matters for focus, scale matters for belief, and profitability is the key to unlock. You look at what's happening around us today. brands, companies that have recently spacked IPO that don't have profit, you're seeing their stock price get crushed, right? And so what is a business without profit? Isn't that the definition of business is sell something to create a profit, right? And so that's been just a core principle of our DNA since day one. Before we launched on our whiteboard in our office was margin targets. We had visibility to where we wanted to go since day one.
[00:06:46] Ray Latif: And day one started and the focus was primarily direct-to-consumer, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:06:54] Mark Olivieri: We launched 2017 Q4 as a, it was an e-com launch, which preceded our retail rollout, which really began in 2018. But that was not necessarily done purposefully. We didn't want to go e-com first. We just happened to go e-com first, just based on how the retail cycle evolves and when the resets happened.
[00:07:15] Ray Latif: Well, I mentioned direct-to-consumer because about three years ago in January 2020, Owen closed a major funding round just before the pandemic hit, which was probably a good time for you guys. But it seemed like at the time, direct-to-consumer was a buzzy kind of route to market. A lot of investors were embracing brands and businesses that had a strong direct-to-consumer strategy. But in the time since, you have really focused on being an omnichannel brand. Talk about the evolution of that strategy. Correct.
[00:07:52] Mark Olivieri: We are strongly rooted in data-driven approaches. In fact, one of the first investments we made as a company was an investment behind a CRM and a CDP to really understand our data, retention data, LTV data, but also zip code level data to try to understand, you know, where are we going to get the biggest ROI, where's performance, where's attribution, what segments, et cetera. We knew pre-COVID and the rise in DTC during that time, we knew that certain retail zip code activations drove a disproportionate sales lift on those e-commerce zip codes. And so what we've done from an omni-channel standpoint is we've put a disproportionate amount of our dollars on the retail side, because we know that it spills over to e-commerce. Now, you know, we're a sports nutrition brand. Protein is habitual. Protein is planned. People are looking for convenience. They're looking for value. They're looking for bulk pack sizes. And so I understand our category might be a little bit different, but there is an absolute clear correlation. As your retail distribution grows, as your retail performance grows, there are going to be consumers that come over and continue their repeat purchases on e-commerce. Today, where we stand, we're about 60% brick and mortar, 40% e-commerce. What was this sort of breakdown about a year ago, two years ago? At the peak of COVID, it was like 55% e-commerce, 45% brick and mortar.
[00:09:23] Ray Latif: Yeah. You've talked about the crossover from Whole Foods to Target to Walmart and Whole of in that order. Take us through or take the audience through that process of, you know, natural mass and I don't know what you would call, I guess mass for even bigger mass with Walmart.
[00:09:43] Mark Olivieri: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, let's just take a step back at the emerging brand market. Innovation tends to be rooted in better-for-you trends, right? And so the theory is, well, your consumer is gonna over-index in that natural market. And as you get further away from that, your consumer is going to not be as over-indexed, probably be under-indexed, in fact. So you should and you need to have a science behind your cadence of distribution, progression, channel strategy, retail strategy, et cetera. For example, why would you ever consider rolling out to Target and Walmart if you're not even the top brand? and Whole Foods, for example, right? So understand your subcategory, understand your performance in the subcategory, and continue to build the brand in these channels where you're the strongest, because it's only going to lead to awareness and trial that's going to help set the mass market up for success.
[00:10:50] Ray Latif: Going from Whole Foods to Target, I hear a lot of brands making that leap. Going from, say, Whole Foods to Walmart, it feels like a little bit of a bigger leap, but I could be wrong. What are the dynamics of working with a retailer like Walmart? What are the expectations that are significantly different from, say, a Whole Foods or a Target?
[00:11:05] Mark Olivieri: Yeah. Well, let's look throughout the P and L, right? Because as you go to like a Walmart, for example, you have sales thresholds. Each category is unique. You have operational thresholds. You have to be a great supplier, meaning get the product there on time in full consistently. Otherwise you have fines, fees, penalties, right? So. There's capacity you need to consider making sure you have enough product to support it. And not just now, but as you think about your growth plans and that customer, because what you don't want to do is launch now, expect growth. Can't supply it. you're not gonna meet their expectations. So you have to think through the P&L, the key organizational competencies, and can you meet their requirements? So it's a different ballgame because operationally, especially in beverage, especially in environments where there might be limited capacity, and Walmart has a lot of doors, right? A lot of performance, you have to consider that.
[00:12:08] Ray Latif: Are relationships with, say, the retail buyers at Whole Foods, are those relationships dramatically different from those at a Target or a Walmart? Are there some parallels? Are there some analogous strategies of building those relationships among those retailers?
[00:12:26] Mark Olivieri: Look, all retailers want great partners, not just performance, but operationally being able to supply like we just discussed, right? So as you continue to perform, you're building a partnership with your retail. It doesn't really matter if it's Walmart, Target, Whole Foods, et cetera. The key is to be a great partner to the retail. Obviously you need to put up, you need to perform, right? But you are growing their category, right? You are bringing incremental foot traffic into the category. You have to understand who your audience is and what they're trying to do within their set. So that doesn't change wherever you go. The criteria of success might change. The definition of what success looks like might change. The economics might change. But the relationship is sort of agnostic as it comes from retail to retail.
[00:13:16] Ray Latif: Driving trial is certainly the way to build awareness and get people interested in your brand. And sometimes that just starts with promotion, putting products on promotion. You have a pretty interesting promotional strategy that you've been rolling out. Talk about that, please.
[00:13:31] Mark Olivieri: Yeah. So, I mean, we have a, you know, within the sports nutrition category, there tends to be Active nutrition brands call it around 20 grams of protein per serving sports nutrition brands, which tend to be at minimum 30 grams of protein per serving. They're in the same set sitting right next to each other. And so some of the learnings that we've acquired over the last year, two years is promotional efficiency to drive base velocity up, drive trial up. Right. And so. You have different approaches. You can have, you're going to promote the line together. You're going to promote one line one day, or you're going to take the hard stance that they're very separate consumers and therefore they can live on their own without cannibalization as it relates to promotion. But what we've tried to do is we try to prevent trade-off, meaning if we promote our 20 gram flagship line, are we going to keep our sports nutrition Pro Elite line off promotion? And we dabbled with that. That was part of our strategy in 2022. And what we've learned is that There is price value. Consumers care about price value, especially as you go into the mass market. And it's tough for the brand to grow together when you are having a disjointed promotional strategy. So what we're doing in 2023, and we've seen phenomenal success. I know it's early, but we've seen phenomenal success. We're going to be stacking our promotion, so we're promoting the line together. And we've seen our base velocity rise across the board by just simply tweaking this promotional strategy, right? I mean, this touches a bigger point. The things that get you from zero to 50 are very different than the things that get you from 50 to 100 million, right? Zero to 50, you could get there just by showing up, you know, just by getting distribution, just by putting your product out there. You could. It doesn't happen very often, but you could.
[00:15:26] Ray Latif: Correct.
[00:15:26] Mark Olivieri: Correct. It's a tough road. It's challenging. I get it, right? Like hindsight, everything's 2020, right? But going from 50 to 100, the learnings we have is your capabilities as an organization need to change. Those fine details, promotional strategy, on time delivery rates, you know, your economics at the customer level, your consumer insights, right? The list goes on and on and on. But the organizational structure needs to evolve so that you have more definition of roles and responsibilities throughout your organization so that you can have that surgical hyper focus on those key parts of the business to impact velocity, right? Because your growth needs to come from velocity, not just distribution.
[00:16:11] Ray Latif: And that's a perfect segue to my next question, which is, you seem to have great distribution. And when you and I spoke last, you talked about how you're sort of limited in where you can go in terms of, you know, further distribution. So the game and the strategy right now is very much about velocity. What's going to drive the most impact when it comes to velocity for Owen?
[00:16:35] Mark Olivieri: Yeah, it's a good question. And just to just to be clear, there's always distribution that you're going to continue on lock, you're never going to be 100% saturated, right? You look at our DSD markets, you look at the up and down the street market, you look at the club channel, there's always upside there. But where the core of the business is, if you take that 8020 rule, right, the 80% of our future growth is going to and should come from velocity drivers. For example, January 2023, versus January 2022, 80% of our growth came from just pure velocity, right? When we're up 120% versus a year ago. Some of the things that allow us to do that are continuing to focus on our mission. You can never step away from that. Just because we are, you know, going on to our sixth year in business doesn't mean that we don't think about our brand and our mission every day. Why did we launch this? Why did we make the decisions that we've made as it relates to being an allergen friendly brand? How do we continue to put the medical DNA roots of the brand behind everything we do? At the end of the day, Owen, it stands for only what you need, right? That's the acronym. And we've created a brand that is stripped of artificial fillers, flavors, sweeteners, et cetera. But it's also completely allergen friendly free of the top nine food allergens, which a third of the U S households have a food allergy or food sensitivity in some way, shape or form. So marketing those consumers, continuing to let them know they have safe options they could trust and ultimately coming into the brand from a need-based position versus a want-based position. That's high LTV for us.
[00:18:22] Ray Latif: Mark, I get the sense that data is really, really important to the company and to you personally. It feels like when you are making a decision, you try to acquire as much data as possible before you actually make that decision. So let's talk about data for a second and the different types of data that you source. Let's start with store-level field data and store-level execution. How are you sourcing it, number one, and what aspects are most important to you?
[00:18:53] Mark Olivieri: Yeah, absolutely correct. There is a balance, right? Because you don't want to be too slow. You don't want data to slow you down to a point where it's detrimental to your strategy or execution. But you're absolutely correct. Data is key to what we do. Touching on field data, for example, you could buy field-level, store-level data. Spins has packages, IRI, Nielsen, et cetera. Certain retailers have that store-level data available. Our DSD partners have that available, right? That data set, store-level data, is very different than, let's call it, channel-level data or category data. which is banner level data, right? Like, how are you performing at Kroger, right? And so what we found and the way that we are thinking about our evolution of our organization is go back two years ago, that data role was one role, right? It was a data scientist who was responsible for store level data, field execution, category insights, mainly spins, et cetera. We are going to be pulling that apart into distinct roles to drive focus, right? Focus creates results. And so having specific focus on store level data versus category level data is going to give us the insights that we need so that we could be Hawks on our business, number one, identify the opportunities, identify the challenges, but also continue to execute.
[00:20:19] Ray Latif: Focus creates results. Is that the phrase you used? Correct.
[00:20:24] Mark Olivieri: That sounds like a very important phrase for Owen, is it? Yeah. We're talking about some crazy things here, right? Focus creates results. Businesses need to make profit, right?
[00:20:32] Ray Latif: Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the latter because I say that all the time in the podcast. Like, you know, everyone's like, oh, investors are demanding profitability. Well, you know, that was the purpose of creating the business in the first place. Well, I guess for most people, not necessarily for everyone. Someone can read between the lines of what I'm talking about. Maybe not. But anyway, we'll move on. You know, consumer data or data about consumer behavior and spending habits, et cetera. How does that factor into your decision making?
[00:20:59] Mark Olivieri: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've recently subscribed to a new panel data technology, not your typical traditional ones, but ones that are a little bit more total market view, right? Like typical panel data, maybe is coming from a panel of 75k users, right? We found a great solution, which is close to a million users, and it's covering the entire US shopping universe. So panel data has been very key more recently to understand When you're looking at like a locked consumer set, how are those consumers coming back into the Brad Avery much what we've been doing since day one in e-commerce, because e-commerce, you know, we've, we just always had that data, right? It was one of the first investments we made that, as I mentioned, but getting that data or that same data on retail, many people don't necessarily have that opportunity, right? So yes, it's been key to some decision-making that we have made.
[00:21:52] Ray Latif: I think a lot of our listeners right now are like, well, I would love to have more data for our brand. I would love to source more data for our company, but it's expensive. How do you determine the amount of money you're spending on data sources?
[00:22:08] Mark Olivieri: Look, I get it, right? Many companies have real cash constraints and there's real decisions that are being made, choiceful decisions on what you can invest in, cannot invest in. The way that I tend to think about these things is equity value, right? So what kind of revenue is going to be unlocked or generated? based on this investment and what does that mean in terms of equity value, right? When you look at it that way, the ROI becomes much clearer. So the data, yes, it's part of your selling expenses. It's below your contribution margin. It's a real cost. Maybe might not have a direct correlation to revenue, but if you're using it correctly, it really should. It falls in your selling expenses. for a reason. It unlocks selling insights so that you could do a better job to drive your brand performance.
[00:22:57] Ray Latif: Who has access to the data that you're talking about? Is it something where anyone in the company can utilize the data that you source or do you structure it in a way that creates impact for a particular department, whether say it's marketing or sales or otherwise?
[00:23:14] Mark Olivieri: It's a learning curve, so not everybody knows how to go in and pull their own data. Our CRM is a learning curve, spins is a learning curve, right? So field data, the system we use, it's a learning curve, like the technical side of it, like how to pull it. But as you are making use out of that data, right, that's where art meets a science. There's clear binary insights that come out of data, but marketing is going to put their art to it, right? They have a different interpretation because they have a different need or different use or different perspective on it. Sales is going to put their art filter on it, right? And how they're going to make a story out of it. And the list goes on, right? And so yes, there are, the way we've structured it is there is a specific e-commerce insights function. There is a specific consumer category insights function, and there is a specific store-level field data function. And for us, it's because we want absolute focus. Again, the theme, focus creates results.
[00:24:25] Ray Latif: You use the term or the phrase, velocity is a factor of trial and repeat. Trial is probably the toughest and most expensive part of acquiring a consumer, I would think. I would say
[00:24:44] Mark Olivieri: Trial is possibly the most expensive, right? But repeat's hard, right? Because repeat, you either have it, and if you don't, and if you don't, there's only two ways to look. Is it brand perception? My perception of the brand before I tried this beverage was that it was gonna be sweet. Well, I tried it, it's not. My expectation was not met, I'm not gonna repeat. Is that liquid-based or food-based, right? Did my liquid not meet the brand? Did the liquid not come up to the expectations from a taste standpoint, aftertaste standpoint? And that could also be costly as well, right? Depending on the fix. If you need to fix your formula, fix your label, fix your brand, fix your design. So personally, from my opinion, repeat is a harder thing to solve.
[00:25:32] Ray Latif: But you guys have had great success with repeat after trial. I think you told me it's 55%.
[00:25:38] Mark Olivieri: Correct. Yeah. Uh, 55% repeat on our core original 20 gram line. 54% are in the Pro Elite, but we have more data on the 20 gram lines. It's been out for five years. Our Pro Elite was launched two years ago. So what that means is consumers that have been part of the brand for the last five years, I've had more time to repeat and that's naturally going to. lift your retention rate, right? So the fact that our Pro Elite line is already at 54, 55%, that's great news for us because it's had less time. And so we are expecting that number to grow as you give consumers longevity within the brand.
[00:26:14] Ray Latif: Why are people buying your products again? What is it about Owen, you know, across your lines that people feel confidence and interest in buying more than once?
[00:26:25] Mark Olivieri: From my perspective, and we also have some data to support this, but from my perspective, Owen delivers on the taste, right? Taste is everything. Taste is king. If you don't have taste, you don't have anything, you know? And so we deliver on the taste, especially compared to other plant-based functional offerings. Our brand delivers on how it meets those expectations. And so that's a nice sort of package that allows us to maximize our retention rate. There's other tactical things you do along the way to drive loyalty and retention. But for the most part, you can't hack your way to 55% retention rate by having a sophisticated email program. You know, you just can't do it if your taste isn't there. Right. So it all begins with Taste Radio brand.
[00:27:12] Ray Latif: I love that we have these obvious statements that we're making throughout this. If you don't have taste, you don't have anything. I love that because that is the most obvious thing, but somehow it's still something that needs to be taught or people need to be educated about. Why? Taste is king. It always has been.
[00:27:28] Mark Olivieri: Yeah, it's true. And I think these types of shows are a good reminder of that because, you know, especially as an emerging brand, you know, you might have that anxiety where you got to get your innovation out, got to get your innovation out, you got to hit the state. You have all these retail partners and stakeholders that are coming to Expo West, and sometimes it might cause a rushed atmosphere, right? And maybe not putting your best foot forward. It's way more important to slow down, put your best foot forward because it's all about repeat, right? To get to a hundred million and above that, and to be sustainable on the P&L, go back to profit, right? Repeat, because you're going to spend more to acquire on that first transaction, retail and e-com. But the goal is to have those repeat transactions be at full revenue. You don't want to subsidize consumers who are going to buy you at full price by just continually discounting your product. You want to minimize your subsidization of that purchase. So repeat is your key from a P&L standpoint. At least in 2023. Correct.
[00:28:33] Ray Latif: Might've been different a few years ago. When I think about the protein space, I do think about these amazing brands. There's a lot of really, maybe not a lot, but there are some key brands out there that have just done an amazing job in terms of communication and marketing. And then there are some brands out there that appear to be really function focused. Like I won't mention the brand names, but their brands aren't necessarily all that flashy. I'll just put it that way. So, you know, you're kind of competing against all of the above. I mean, you're looking at brands that have built a business based on lifestyle, and then you're up against brands that have built their businesses based on, you know, a sort of hardcore audience that appreciates the ingredients in their products. How are you evaluating those brands across the board?
[00:29:23] Mark Olivieri: Well, let's be clear. We are not selling protein. We're selling only what you need. Protein happens to be one of the benefits of only what you need. I tend to think that we are probably more closely related in terms of competition with a snack brand than let's call it a hydration brand, right? Because the usage occasion of a snack. and the desired outcome, staying full, whatever it might be, nutrition, it's more closely related to the functional benefit of Owen than a hydration play, right? And so when I think about competition, it could go as wide as a snack, a bar, a sandwich, a pizza, whatever you wanna call it, right? But the reality is, just go back to the data, right? You wanna classify and benchmark yourself against someone Who are you trying to steal share from? Where's the share in the category from? And that's where you identify your competition. The growth in the vegan protein subcategory is entirely correlated with Owen because Owen is seven times the nearest, the second, the number two vegan protein brand. And the rest tend to be declining because Owen is stealing their space, doing their share and generating the acquisition and the repeat. So the growth in the vegan subcategory is entirely correlated with us. We have our eyes set above that, right? The legacy brands, the strategic owned brands, the brands that have been around since 2000s and still trying, early 2000s, and trying to stay on top of the market today to remain relevant. And I would argue, some of those brands are no longer relevant, you know, or not aspirational, just selling protein. Protein is in the brand, not aspirational, right? Especially when you think about why protein is important today, not telling anybody anything or brand selling muscle. That's not necessarily what people are consuming protein for today. Maybe in early 2000s, that was cool. That was relevant. That was very timely. But the fact of the matter is protein is timeless and your brand for Owen, I believe the only what you need acronym is also timeless, right? So we could transcend all of that. And that's why our eyes are focused on protein. those legacy behemoths. It's the next spot for us to go as well. And our competition, generally speaking, could be much wider than that.
[00:31:49] Ray Latif: When we chatted for our pre-interview, I wrote something down I thought was really intelligent and something that we can break down here, which is once we figure out why we're successful in outselling competitors, we try to understand it. We try to understand why and replicate it. Understanding why, great. Replicating it, I think there's a question about how sustainable is that approach? How do you evaluate the sustainability of a strategy, particularly when it comes to beating your competitors?
[00:32:27] Mark Olivieri: Yes. It's a, it's a complicated question because when you are evaluating your definition of success or what does success look like at various markets, various channels. You have one layer of thinking that is related to, okay, is this specific to a channel? Is it specific to a customer? Is it specific to the competitive set and the dynamics at that customer or channel? What are the things that are common that could be replicated based on that commonality, right? The playbook for success in the natural channel, for example, is going to be very different than the playbook for success. in the mass channel or the club channel. So that's why for us, we've been very scientific with the cadence of our distribution rollout, because when we are entering new channels or we are going bigger, we want to make sure that we start small to get case studies, tests, et cetera. So we could refine our thinking, pressure test that thinking, and then go a little bit wider with that, right? Because the first time you go into a mass account, you don't have a playbook for success, right? So you could minimize your risk. You can mitigate that risk by starting small. Getting the learnings, the data, acquiring the data, seeing what happened competitively, seeing what happened promotionally, seeing what happened across the marketing, seeing what the results were, and then determining if that is a playbook that could be replicated beyond that and in the channel.
[00:34:00] Ray Latif: Sometimes founders beat themselves up about mistakes and it's difficult for them to get past them. It's difficult for them to realize that regardless of what they did or how their comedy performed or who did what, that they need to move forward. When you have made mistakes, and have to own up to them. What's your process?
[00:34:23] Mark Olivieri: Look, mistakes are going to happen. Obviously, you don't want them to be costly mistakes, but mistakes are going to happen. They will result in some sort of a cost. And it's just important not to come down on them every single time, whether it's me or anybody else, because ultimately, I believe good cultures, great cultures create great brands. And I don't want to create a culture where people aren't willing to take bets, right? I want people to take bets. And it's okay if you make a mistake, especially if that bet has some sort of logic or data behind it. And then surrounding yourself around great people that are willing to give you transparent feedback. I think that's most important, right? Because sometimes you might be able to prevent mistakes before they're made if you have a culture of transparency, people feel comfortable. And so I've had plenty of times where I come up with a strategy or an approach and my chief sales officer Matt O'Connell says, absolutely not. And that balance, that camaraderie, that ability to speak transparently and open honestly has allowed us to be for the better because it's A, either prevented mistakes or B, at least provided a diverse perspective beyond yourself so you could consider other things that maybe you might not have considered because let's be honest, nobody knows everything. We are in the business of managing risk and making sure that the risk that we're willing to tolerate delivers outsized returns.
[00:35:52] Ray Latif: This strategy seems to have worked quite well for you and for the company for a number of years. And it seems like you guys are on a fast track to do some incredible things in this beverage industry. And coming full circle, I'm excited to see Owen become that next billion dollar brand. And I'm really glad that we had this conversation because I can point to it, say in 2025 or 2026 and be like, Mark knew what he was talking about. That's right. That's right. All right. Once again, Mark, thank you so much for taking the time to be with me today. Fantastic conversation. And let's do it again soon. Thanks. Thanks, Ray. All right. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNET.com, Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram. Our handle is bevnettasteradio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at Taste Radio. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
[00:37:21] Pro Elite: you
