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

every deal on shark tag that's a beverage i know they're looking at me but nobody wins the lottery seven times if you got sharks spitting out the product you've got a terrible brand name and you pick up twenty five percent of that company sold for billion and a half is this just art or is there subside behind it but one of the biggest lines of robert wood was like he wanted cope to be with an arms racial desire brand is creating that design one in ten americans influence the other nine the goal is to spot that one can you teach us more about how it's done is actually three things one is spotting stuff early what is building the brands and the others actually i feel like i could rule world i know i could be what i want to from at all in it like a days off on a road let's try back you're the grandfather you have been brett you you have been crushing it in the beverage space i was reading the like research on you in the last couple days i do 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 i actually i've started nana i only c founded one which is poppy and i'll tell you that story but the rest i just bought them early why i bond with founders i think it was like vitamin water smart water that were tight each vita coco even things i lost money on were well known like pop chips vital proteins one bar bulletproof lost money but still known well known whilst we have farmers dog once upon a farm and then probably poppy my sort of most famous one that's an insane insane roster it was that's funny actually one of our founders who you know a guy called go who's the c cofounder of jim connor fine foods yeah was at a we had an lp conference and you know we're still focused on like the brands and the teens and growing stuff and like you sometimes bury yourself in the weeds and you don't sometimes ladder up and he's that grow when you look at the sheet of brands and ka which is the the fun that i have sort of mastered it's insane this ecosystem you've created and i think you do need to do a better job of almost leveraging that ecosystem and it got of the light bulb went off because he's a founder right he's growing an incredible brand and part of it i focus on individuals and sometimes we gotta bring the whole gang in to realize the strength of what we have it's sort of amazing because when a lot of people say that word brand it's sort of related to taste and both of those are can be pretty ne but you sort our our like paul mccartney or john lennon we're like you've made enough hits where you're like okay is this just our or is there some signs behind it no nobody wins the lottery seven times yeah i i hit i mean that's quite high accolades to be in at any conversation that use the the beatles name but there's always luck guys it's not like this you can't you gotta the dice has gotta a roll your way in a little bit but if you have a game plan which i sort of honed over time the odds flow in your favor and so i've you know i've created some mantra and some principles and so on and so forth that i actually created after the fact because you don't go in and say alright guys i've got five mantra you're almost like you have a few hits you you're like how did this happened and then i rewind and go okay this is kind of how what happened give us one what what's one of the first ones you realized like okay alright that this is one that matters we gotta put that concrete couple of big ones one is influence the influencer so you gotta pot of money right one of a hundred grand million a hundred million whatever you ought to spend on your marketing budget who do i get to right i can't get to everyone so so boss north you know unless you're amazon has the budget to get to everyone but most people when they start a company though so from my perspective it's one in ten americans and i say america because ninety hundred percent my career actually is america in terms of success so this is the greatest country in the world being entrepreneur i say that way i go i truly believe it so in america one in ten americans influence the other nine the goal is to spot that one 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 dj now radio is dead and you guys are the heroes online right but before we before you podcast kings came along it was radio dj and so a one time in vegas i picked down a awards show annually and i would fly in the top twenty five cities and the top two dj from every city so you have fifty people coming in and every single artist that came to that award show would wanna go to this place because you could hit twenty cities in two hours it was almost like the cities came to you versus you traveling and back there you were already seeing an album a new product whatever it is you're right that but i did it back in the i at a bran called sprite it's a corporate brand we did something cool and then i did that with vitamin water where i took on all the dj in the local markets and i hired people on my team that felt that vibe because in order to bomb with a dj if you're a dog is not gonna work so i hired people who kind of in my which is my next mantra who lived the brand they didn't market the brand they live vitamin water that was their vibe and so that's now evolved today till like the alex earl of the world or the you know if it's a music it's the fifty centers having a a amazing resurgence but now it's digital social media influences that were the only dj and the keys to spot at one in ten so that's been a big sort of philosophy environment every company we go into is who is that one and entail hey i wanna tell you about something pretty cool we have a database of all of the un sexy business ideas that have been on this podcast so hundreds of episodes the team at hubspot went through they pulled out all the sexy ideas so not the super high tech ones but the simple relatable interesting profitable ideas that we have brainstorm and they're all available for download for free just click the link in the description below thank you to our friends at hub hubspot for sponsored this podcast and putting together this free resource for you guys back to the show 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 a product is certain i drink it i like the product liquids what's great but i got create an emotional bond with people so they request a puppy they reach for a puppy and i work the coat back in the day and one of the biggest lines of robert wood was like one of the godfather of making coke orders is today he said he won coke to be with an arms racial design brand is creating that design right and then the distribution is putting it his arms room speech you nailed exactly 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 yeah they're not a soda that tastes good that's like pre they're apple cider vinegar so it's amazing because it's like you know when there's these documentaries and this the dude who followed kanye around ten 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 two hundred fifty thousand dollars in revenue some some two hundred to four hundred k of of annual revenue at the time yeah different brand different drink no revenue all the other sharks go out so it's you're you're in a bidding war with no one yeah and nobody nobody they they go alright 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 yeah the title of the video is sharks disgusted yeah by by the puppy like they love i think get spit it out i can't remember it so you got you got sharp spitting out the product you've got a terrible brand name is mothers cursive and it looks like a old like sparkling wine or something like that yeah a totally different formulation and you pick up twenty five percent of that company i think poppy sold for billion and a half or something like that no no come on north of too north of two okay unbelievable exit what happens that 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 because i think that's a perfect like case study yeah let's go to phase one so these guys come out like every deal on shaw tag 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 and like i i know they're looking at me like cuban a bigger named than me kevin's a bigger named than me you know lori is the queen of you know digital and k but beverage are look at me and then these guys come out on know here we go again because we 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 up you know husband wife like straight out of central costume like they look like sand you know like this chi a little good looking you know white the boy and i'm i'm i'm friends with steven and we became friends because i dm him and i just said we look alike yeah what of be friends that's the swear to god but he he does look a over like steven hard kidding so this bloody two good looking guys come out guy and a lady she's like i don't know eight months of pregnant day she could deliver any second so immediate i'm like they've got hustle so one then they pitch 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 can't trademark it's not really trade remarkable thing but like let's try it so that's that's the trains 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 and africa right so in zambia winning at three beverages c sprite and fan i'd it but i came off sodas because soda shit ton sugar they're not good for you the november 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 tooth orange is my favorite rodent and cream soda as my second so funny the two flavors i drank when i was a kid it's amazing what forty years years played it's throwing back to the nine ten year old aroma crazy anyway so i try the orange one and i'm like oh my god this is fan meats orange ing if you guys are and i'm like this liquid is in my head takes me back this is my modern soda but i don't get excited because i know it's a minute i get excited these guys good excited and so i think 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 exactly right i did not i specifically remain mute because the minute i seemed vaguely excited and by the way even then cuban and bethany both turned to me and say ro should we split this and i'm like kind of in a nice way no because if this works which you did why would i wanna split it and if it doesn't work i'm fine to lose it but in the end the i'm betting on myself right right i liked that like i liked stephen allison but that's a very short like like i you know we go for dinner at the next day and like go god their horrible the first thing i did when we got when we became bald i shut it down i shut down mother and there was a tough conversation and then basically steven allison and me and a lady and my team called stevie we basically c founded poppy there was no puppy 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 use 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 outside vinegar and so we shut mother down stevie myself alice steven and stevie took charge of the packaging design originally we then all debated which is the best one to go with we voter on it and that's where poppy came into what about the name we had a david plastic come on who who named blackberry and sw and he he gave us like a master class on naming product poppy is a is an incredible name right for a soda pop brand ticket it to find that super easy to say recognizable fun it almost feels bubbly in the name like yeah here's it so i'm strategically creative right stevie and my team is when i go tactic tv creators that sounds like something i would say when i don't wanna do work it's exactly about yeah she works yeah good one so so it's a triangle offense right alison steven had created the product it's a great product but they their insight was apple cider of vinegar healthy healthy beverage my inside is i want soda so what's america so paul right so that's the everyone in england translates that's all the pop exploding in in the uk now but and and stevia goal was how does she take what they created what my strategic get game plan was and create a name that rolls off the top we had a bunch of them at one point i even like mom and pop because i 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 but but then when they came out with poppy and steve you presented i'm like okay right can we go it let's go back because you only invested i think two hundred and fifty or for four hundred thousand dollars into poppy and so it's 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 two billion dollars yeah so at at this point i give allison steven in full credit because mother was that baby and to go to a founder and say good news bad news good news you know i'm your a partner bad news were shutting down mother you know we're not c founding bumpy together that takes a lot of faith on their part and we launched in march of twenty twenty right with yes sad i said guys i don't want plastic because plastic bad the can't gloss because it's inconvenient we're gonna go back to cans og g it's telegraph soda that's that's what i drink it i'm still sitting it drinking it out of a can we launch march twenty twenty what happens in april covid the world shuts down yeah so we we started to be a more digital company because that's just the nature where life was but we turbo that because then suddenly all retail was dead and everything became digital and so on and so forth so in know our first year we did like a couple million bucks only because the wall shut we're just 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 twenty one to twenty five we we exploded and did you put more money in in the beginning to push marketing or do you guys raise what what'd you guys do 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 came in so my business partner of brat was like look i believe in you i don't get beverages early if you get it cub was gonna back it so we we went it right and so we kept backing here it we raised a chunk of money but everyone got a great return because of the exit number because no money what you get it at that's what you get out at how much did you raise in some what i mean all in forty maybe wow would that being that's amazing to go from much 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 yeah what was the most satisfying when you had was it popular or was it something earlier or 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 you know poppy hands down pop because poppy everything else i went there and someone else had a product that i built build here steven allison had creative a 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 c found poppy with me and tv added to alison and steal 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 steven and allison and stevia and then we brought in as ceo because at some point i'm not an operator allison and steven super smart but also realized they won operators and so once we got to like thirty forty million we bought a g called chris hall and that guy's are legend and i think one of the other lessons you have to learn as an entrepreneur is having a a a founder and creator mind doesn't always align with having an operator of mind sometimes a more more more often it probably doesn't more often a doesn't the one guy i think was really good in of it was a guy called kurt from vital proteins that if you not 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 annie b operator so that's you know it's a unique ra but in this case we brought in chris hall and chris rand barclay ice so i just spent 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 fifty to five hundred 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 you just i call them atm skills where you just become like a money maker you know like if you can create an audience you're probably a money maker if you could sell you're probably a money maker if you do good branding you're probably a money maker and you've done it many times at a row where did you learn how to do this because i know you worked for mars you work for coke is that where you learned how to do this and and can you teach us more about how it's done actually interesting you bring at that point it's actually three things one is spotting stuff early right what is building the brands and the others actually how to sell them and it's people forget the last part because it there's 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 a manufacturing operations so my learning there was almost like the importance of supply chain operations gross margin like the boring stuff but people forget if you don't have good gross margins you can make money and if you can't make money you go bankrupt and by the i've still made that mistake i had an incredible product called chefs cup it was a jerky before chomp like my buddy invested in champs and he had 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 chefs got shut down or got sold for nothing and champs became a juggernaut lot and so he keeps laughing at me but i think from from from that perspective i learned from mars a little bit you know and you still make mistakes with coke i ran i learned how to do disruptive marketing and branding because i was lucky i wasn't 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 was it was really cool and that i wasn't power raid 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 i spoke i went to avoid and that's why i really start 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 pop and news very few people make the news and so for me with vital smile what i started by making the news and that those brands became part of pop culture that that's sounds cool but what does that mean make the i don't know well i i'm too dumb to understand that so make the new so the first influencer mega influencer ownership deal i did because remember everything before fifty was very much a sponsorship deal right you signed a celebrity they get in that's the deal right the equity ownership i i believe michael did it in a different way like he but that has come up later it wasn't really well known then but with fifteen i didn't have the money to pay fifty he was huge of the time right and so i met with faith and his manager at chris lady and and actually there's two guys i was looking at for vitamin water because biden was a great brand but was a kind of little bit upper side you know new york prep brand it wasn't like nationwide cool it it it wasn't getting shot the face night wasn't getting shot on the face call and wrap about it yeah exactly although it was only eight times because one bullet went through twice but anyway of course i'm sorry so i i won hip hop and the two biggest names in the world at the time well cut jackson and the over it was jay z right so those are the two guys who were like the biggest names and so i called my buddy seth ro game and i said theft you're more connected in this world than i am who can i get to seth could got to both but he had a much better relationship with chris lei fifties manager so put me on text with fifties manager a lot of this also for artists it's their managers getting you so chris got it straight away he got the product he got fifth he said we've not done a deal we're about to do a deal with re bark but i'll kill that deal i'll do this with you that's how i got connected and fifty as we see today is clearly an entrepreneur also don't mess with them him because he will come after to you with a vengeance so i think that he got it and i said i 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 gonna make him ex i kind of he made ten x because i did the math wrong basically he he got one like one two percent something like that in the company can't tell you exactly what he got but he because we have a deal i don't give the exact number he doesn't kick the shit out of me but but he made a lot because honestly i gave him enough equity for him to make good money if we sold the company for four hundred to five hundred a million that was our goal of item water like i remember micro bully was the c fired of item water was like ro put it up as born if we get to this this this we're gonna get to a hundred and fifty million dollars of revenue we're gonna sell a four fifty without you you can't reveal it because curtis jackson will curtis jackson you business yes well is it like would it be crazy to give someone ten percent of a company like that yep chad percent will be too high gotcha but what we sold the full billion so you can do the math on you know what he would have made alright 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 by the time they found out they've already lost the deal to another company that did hubspot has ae which helps you show up in the moments when drag buyers are looking for a company like yours before the first click before they fill in the form that is the moment hubspot ae is built for check out hubspot dot com the agent customer platform for growing businesses it seems like that you know the kind of the influence thing obviously works obviously makes sense but also obviously goes wrong sometimes right you know for example this podcast we got bought by hubspot hubspot was like y we we wanna reach a entrepreneurs who want them to use our software so they went to us because we influenced a lot of 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 their diva they don't really care maybe you didn't make an 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 i think one makes it go right and happened with fifty it happened with jen aniston a smart water that i think it happened most recently for me with alex on poppy and the connective tissue that fifty jennifer palettes all share is belief in the brand creative connectivity like they creatively got the brand and connected with they believed in it they they're 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 right alex loves poppy i see the cool shit she's doing with it and also she's probably the smallest twenty four year old of matt where knows a brand knows a dna makes me feel old like she is on you know love of the brand cultural creative connectivity and then going above and beyond 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 groom on and yeah so he sold it for two billion dollars like one one point two billion dollars in thirty five months or something can insane and we were like and he was like basically he was like i called my shot i worked at a pe firm him and i realized that the tam needs to be big my c to lt tv needs to be one to three but he he's like i kinda had it down to a little bit of a science he didn't say it that way but that's how i'd interpreted it what's the science in your head of not for investing but for building a winning product yeah it's similar i mean one let's start with big categories right at ka 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 tabs in food and beverage and beauty and pep at a cabo we're like okay well you like soda maybe a coke a found is not good for you you're gonna upgrade you to a puppy you like pet food but extruded k that has very low nutrient value ain't good we're gonna give you farmers dog right the goal is how do you give americans what they used to but elevator so they can feel better about themselves what are the big tam that are left where you're like we still haven't found a 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 everywhere me explain wine go down every aisle next above it my wife gets super pissed with me because she sends me out to get stuff in the grocery store like two hours later it's like where the hell have you been like honey this is my business like my dumbass wondering around the grocery store figuring out what's broker but that's the scenario go out and say when i buy all these products and my guess is if you go to a traditional grocery store where most american shop today you probably say no no no no yes so you have seven o's before you get to it yes go down the candy aisle okay i have a investment in bran called skinny did you out avi you yeah i i love this yeah this is self addictive right but mother the almond tab is is okay wait so it's chocolate is this almond almond tam is big creating sweet treats that don't have guilt right is this big so skinny hair or chocolate cup albums 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 tam are big enough right to the point you made with chad she pivoted she quit peanut butter cups she create a coconut bites and should create a wafers you wanna name me the three products to do that reese's almond joy and kit kat by the way all three of these products sub two grams of sugar so now i can have an and i too a coconut bite every day with my coffee or after dinner because i need a of with sweet fix but zero ships give because it's two grams of sugar you don't can't do grams sugar to give it kid you'll have it ten grams twenty grams your mind starts clicking a little bit 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 the shelf and it's not yeah so go go to the con con shelf and say what will i eat and i looked down and i'm like almost nothing because everything is fully loaded with sugar and it's really highly processed so now take the process 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 evolved through horrible stuff to maybe like an alter ego chocolate or a huge chocolate they're great but they still got a high sugar contour so you asked me what i do i go sit at the entire infection shelf i put my arms look around what would i eat and the only thing that i can eat is skinny and maybe one one of the product because i feel good about it let me ask you a question you had this great line or 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 or yeah safe or whatever we walked through and we do store walks and then they explain you know mister b he'll explain how the candy aisle works see he'll explain mars and hershey's and the tactics they use and what how the color your color blocking your section etcetera etcetera you could the 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 just you the 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 so you know things like that which is a you know he cares it he's trying to get everyone to care will will it change people's purchasing decisions i think it's a question but i guess the the thought process is like how do you get the shelf space well i think would all reverse engineer why did the advantage i bring to the mix right we talked a lot about influencer and so on so forth the second influencer and probably as important is retail buyers and i have now established because i've brought up run of great products and exits and scale i have great connections but the top people at walmart target and albert of k etcetera and just maintaining those relationships are key because when i bring a product that i've invested in cabo has invested in they will give us a shout space and i think that's a lot of entrepreneurs come to us because then i go okay great i can do x y and z but if i just get one meeting with the top guy walmart that could influx you know it reflects my business in a way this unique so i have the relationships now however retailers are smart and they are actually closer to the consumer than big corporation so they are seeking the products of tomorrow while maintaining what i call the brands of yesterday because you can't eliminate the brands 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 me take bobby 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 ninety when do you pay the extra fifty cents sixty cents ninety cents probably i'm not it's not like i'm buying a you know how a bmw versus i'm buying a at toyota is it got 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 wanna 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 the retailers are looking full brands that are attainable even though a slide premium that all the future brands 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 but value swing at the end i've done when me and sam sold our companies it's kind of amazing you worked six years or seven years eight years and then fifty percent of the value is gonna be how good you are at this m and a thing it's the raise 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 isn't how it is a separate skill set for an entrepreneur that you're very low repetitions and so it's hard to even get good at it yeah it's it's it's really unfair advantage because a a a a reputable buyer has done this many times and doesn't matter it didn't matter to them necessarily if it fails they'll just get fired worst case scenario but for you it's like changes your life completely yeah so how do you go get coke to buy a company for two billion dollars what do you what do go what do you do how do those conversations happen how do you negotiate those deals and why do they buy them for so much so that's again why i mean i've established and relationship every everywhere but you know i have relationship with a lot of big cp gs right coke pepsi h mon you know kd so i i've done that over time a lot of these guys i've either worked for worked with over time because i've been doing this now twenty five years in the industry right maybe longer and so relationships with the top guys it's critical and so you know with one bar i walked them in back in the day to hush to the ceo of the time right i didn't negotiate the vitamin water deal the founder of biden water darius did brilliantly and i learned from him by the way so i'm on the sidelines washing this guy go to town i brought coke to the tip so i call coke because i used to work for them sandy douglas the mentor of mine he brought the ceo he was a president and they negotiated with darius and i saw what he did and i learned from that out of that negotiation where what was one thing you picked up if you have a great brand it's okay to be slightly un unchanged 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 don't four b and c came my back at four point one i'm like alright 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 ten fifteen 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 over reach which i've also done and you fail you might be catching a falling knife but if you on the reach then you keep kicking yourself with how much you left on the tape dial in on that that's interesting because a knowing if you a great brand is actually could bit challenging but over and under reaching 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 yes it's very good with time is everything by the way right like poppy sold for half what vitamin water do except vitamin poppy grew fast in the vitamin water is a biggest scale brand than vitamin whatever ever was but timing was different right at bad time there was a willingness and the money was more liquidity was freedom and greater to pay more right so and risks were different so i think the same with tech valuations right people are investing in twenty twenty twenty one a bunker valve that slowed down and now ai also not so there's a there's a timing mechanism so you should have belief in faith in who you are but do not always benchmark against the biggest number you've seen and that's a danger entrepreneurs have they're like look this company solved for seven times revenue i'm going for seven and if i don't get it i'm out i'm like brother take it easy beauty are the either behold and at some point when you're ready you're gonna have x number of behold and if they say your beauty is six hundred billion that's your beauty now you can take a risk and pass and wait for a bigger a number and that's okay but the groups that pass and wait for a bigger a number of few and far between and they don't always work out some do i also think that there's there's definitely like a a jedi say croix there's a there's a show ship that is involved here it's very i've only i've known you now for fifty seven minutes you have it you have a like a charisma whatever it is you wanna call it are you in the room negotiating these deals i in some am so with poppy with bought it's was a good to you have to have a banker and bankers have done this right so get a good banker you know get good rap 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 of the offer was it adequate so i did what i said as 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 steven allison they were probably getting nervous at this point because you know i was blessed to have had to exits before 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 the earn one and so third times a charm so when pepsi came back i ended up negotiating that directly with them did change your life too yeah it's you know you you when you have a massive win like this you always have to step back and realize bless 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 led an lot of people under 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 infect other people beyond yourself that that's huge yeah thanks podcast guest is brought you buy my friends at mercury they make the world's best banking product i think you know this already i used mercury for all 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 in 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 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 definitely mercury i will fist fight anybody who disagrees me on that go to mercury dot com slash personal and learn more mercury is a fintech not an fdic insured bank banking services provided through choice financial group and call them an a members fdic you said a bunch of things earlier that i wanna ask you like the same question but with a different caveat sometimes i'll be like hey how do you sell this company you're like well i call the guy i know how do you get on the shelf well they know me and i know them and like that's true and great and then extreme advantage today but two two problems one you didn't wake up you weren't born with that you earn that somehow and the second is it's not you know most entrepreneurs firms 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 you have to have hustle at every stage by the way so i'll give you a bumpy story which is late 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 use bankers i've used brokers i've used people in the industry which you have to use an entrepreneur you've gotta build a relationship with 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 step if you know danny danny's kind of a legend of the beverage industry i went to the beverage flooring just finished yesterday it's probably the best beverage conference in and any beverage entrepreneur should be there the best beverage culprit in america and i i went there two years ago and daddy said road would you speak i said yes i'll speak but is a button this thing i need a walmart and a target meeting while i'm met your conference and he had some of the lead guys from walmart and target they don't know me like at me they know of me but it's not like just because i walk in they're still walmart they're like rose who where walmart and so i went in and i danced me alison chris hall the the ceo and i danced and i danced the modern soda dance because we were sucking wind walmart who were doing everything else and i'm like this my one shot and i came in and i painted the vision it's said guys this is not pre body soda this is modern soda for tomorrow's generation and i made a full story and the light bulb went off at the walmart hat and the head by a will amazing guy wet away believe in the vision got behind it his boss melanie was a rock start walmart accelerated it from twenty twenty five into end of twenty four and poppy did this that was the moment poppy went into explosive growth mode and i'm doing the hustle i'm doing the don and by the way i've been very successful but if you come in with an ego and you don't wanted to dance for retailers regardless who you are they don't give two shits i know that pa is incredibly successful now i know that i 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 choice called my sorry t this 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 my first million so i got fired from coke two creative disruptive and i went to this known name company cold item water in fact i send a bunch of product of my friends and the demon would drink it that's the powered brand by the way they didn't drink it in two years later the same jackass that's called me bro vitamin is huge my kids love it i'm like dude i sent that dude you two years ago you never said shit to me anyway so i put my own money in i borrowed for my dad so just broke as a joke and i borrowed from my dad and i get equity and so i went from you know fumes of my bank account because i was basically spending everything i was making to the vine water exit and that was my first million or more than that but it was putting everything i had and i think that's honestly when you make a big bet you put everything into it and if it works out that's kind where you get your biggest payday did you raise money for a fund right after that really no i did my own thing so i did buy water a small water i exited i have my own money so what's the phrase they say you invest off your balance sheet some bullshit finance race so i yes i invested up 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 for me we did it together and now she's the head of marketing car 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 to her 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 ass i don't wanna start to fun yet are you able to give any type of numbers as to what you had but when you started investing in pop chip in all these companies yeah i got i can give you a range i was investing anywhere from probably half a million to two million that's a shit load for an angel investment yeah i wasn't that small dude i was a little bit un hinge i long term i worked out great i don't you go that heavy were you really rich no i was just i was a i think i bet 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 did you tell yourself like okay i'm i'm willing to lose ten million bucks i'm gonna a 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 lose money or are you just you were just going and you didn't even think about it there's a lot of stress so basically i was kinda 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 mean for ten but i've made you know ten times that so i think i'm good you know what i'm saying so it's like it's what but it organic like you know what man math i like it what percent what prince for for the principal not to markup ups what percent of your liquid net worth was in private deals yeah a lot i also i wanna should've have done a better job with my pub i was very like into my private because i had made my money on private so it it fought too was it like all no no was brought probably about a third though i mean i okay i don't know like i don't know was a decent amount i can't remember exactly i was rolling heavy i was in my thirties and like pulp chips was a great brand and i bet that but i didn't understand the importance of a pre stack there so you were just like making bets and then like going out in hustle on your behalf you're like hey i'm going to beverage form him and i'm just gonna figure out how to wheel and deal a little bit yeah i was working with these companies like i would help the pulp chips guys with influencers we you know owe with marketing or team like i'd bring in the head of sales the head of marketing or you're free you're like a free hire a little bit 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 the coconut water buy vital proteins and poppy far outs stripped whatever 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 i did vitamin him the small that i vita cocoa the coconut water which is great cupboards an incredible operator the dead exit shit the guy's going with the companies were two and odd billion on the public stocks since market oh wow i didn't know that two wow with the thing like coconut water right like my my business part of ben he's been trying to get me to drink freaking banana water he's like banana water and i do it's nasty can't believe if 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 transverse first the false ranch so are you're 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 to figure out real trend versus fizz out trend yeah taste buds in tam coconut water wasn't a coconut water a town it was a hydration tam right taste buds maybe it's bad because i'm of indian orange i like coconut water but let's be honest i got an early i got out at a seven hundred million dollar valuation right so i got in at and i don't know thirty so i made twenty times my money the thing's now worth north of two billion so i didn't have the vision that mike has was a ceo founder that this could be a north of a two billion dollar 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 he's knowing where to hold him knowing when to fold them so i got out i made good money i get i will never beg garage the money that i could've have made i but i got it so that i was out on that one but then you know but then i got in to buy and i rode by all the way and the founder of ben super smart and he i got him introduced to kd and he built a brilliant relationship with the ceo of kd and then sold that for one point seven billion i think one of the great tests of marketing is can you sell water how do you sell water right what's the the the there's a marketing genius about figuring out how to sell water and not just once how to sell it many times in many different ways and so i've only done one water by the way i've done many beverages but only one water okay well so vitamin water not a water water is flavored right puppies flavored vita coke buy they're all flavored like when you straight water i still don't know how the hell i did that but i'll take a crack the founder darius is created vital a smart water with a really good story which is vapor is distilled water it's how water is made in in the world right water evaporates apparatus in the ocean goes up hydrogen ocean separate all the impurities fall out it comes back to earth the first drop of rain water before it enters the atmosphere before hits the ground that's pure waters so that was the initial vision behind small one the packaging was great it was invisible so i redid the package the current package was me and my team which sits on shell today then we did the influence the strategy and i felt that e 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 needed a 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 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 book cares you buy the case backs at costco and twenty four packs for like two dollars but when you're walking around you want a little bit of a a different badge and i think with the team i had jed aniston became the face the brand and 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 vitamin water if you awesome them today the brand that that has worked out for them is small water and no vitamin and is what is there something to this idea of placement so like i remember what beats by dr came out and it was this headphone brand just like many other bows and others but instead of going for audio files everywhere you saw it was basically hip hop artist and athletes walking into the stadium it became like synonymous with like the pre game lock in associated with the coolest athletes in and and artist and like that was a they've created billions of dollars of value by us by that association of that placement of the pre game or the walk in release for me and i think that i've read stories about gray goose and and some of the liquor brands where they would put it in the limo and the after parties of the oscars and just where it was seen was almost just as important as the story of how it was triple filtered and dis distilled because nobody actually ends up knowing that shit they just see where it's seen did you ever use that tactic or what is that that was huge for me back in the day so now this strategy is done really through social digital right so digital influences when when the all top priorities are running around posting poppy and having it at the so already kickoff parties i have an army of amazing college ambassadors and poppy is the number one drink on college cap modern day like a red bull playbook basically yeah but it's kind of a better for you feel good five 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're 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 so mainly because i wanted to go to the parties so patrick white solar and patrick is too big time now but patrick in terms of both the coolest post oscar parties yeah oscar and vm a golden dog parties in la so just for me to get to access to those things i would sponsor them but the good news is all the like i remember going to one and it was back in but i called round one of jl and a like dating and i'm at the party and like j and a like a air and everyone's ricky item water back that this is like two thousand and three you know two thousand four so i think you're dead right in the early days the the especially products they've got to a period people's lifestyle areas as both physically and digitally you're a hustle i didn't i didn't realize how big of a hustle you are if you lose your hustle you lose your edge like the guy who sean and i go who is the ceo of joke fine foods like he's like you are bloody intense like when i get in sessions with him he's like i thought you just chilled down you're a father you're successful and i'm like bro it's go time like we're building your empire let's see know there's no that you gotta have a hustle mode and i think also founders us respect that so i wanna ask you a 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 at america you know they've been around for over a century coke snickers m and m's yeah like brands that you've worked with i think mars is like a fifty billion dollar year business that's family owned hershey's is run i think run by a family trust i think they do something like ten or twenty billion year revenue and these brands you know everyone's talks about getting healthy but like reese's probably isn't gonna go away for the next fifty years no coke it's probably not gonna 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 yeah the 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 if i'm shocked how well they do it in a world where technically you shouldn't be eating a drink of those products however where they are spot and they get pepsi credit for this they do go out and buy the future as well like pepsi bought poppy not because it's a apple cider vinegar beverage because they're seeing the vision clint this could be right up there and they've decided it to me between like pepsi mountain dew poppy that should be this that their soda lineup up and choose what you want if you feel like having a pepsi great and butter the growth is all coming sam from their zero sugar product so it's not coming from core coke core pepsi pepsi zero yeah correct pepsi zero is crushing here coke serious crusher and so poppy fits it of that realm so they see that you still maintain your legacy but you have to make sure you pick up the future others you will get left behind and so i think you're seeing it like unilever leave a bought your boy cro right like that they're buying the future there's a lot of m and a hershey just bought less evil like that they are buying the future and i think they but they're getting a little savvy and a little wiser and how they doing it before they would bill get brands that i don't think we're built to last 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 growing forty percent would just maintain a good scale vitamin smart poppy vital proteins by farmers dog like all these are still once point of farm you know we ipo that brad we see they're all still that and they they will be here if managed right for the next ten twenty thirty forty years sean had a good question that he was telling me that he had for you but i'm gonna ask it and he has a guy he a guy to it i'm guy i am he has a guy to it he's a he's a gift yeah i'm gonna steal rope 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 great question sam so 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 around my ad 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 and but by the end of it i'm i'm exhausted right my brain shut off and then i have to watch tv to unlock to sort of calm down so one of the things i'll find is how i rapidly able to chain 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 found i partner with because i have great recall of information and so their surprised sometimes the founders i just think i've forgotten something from like a month ago when i asked somebody about it you can ask res he's a classic where i'm three weeks ago we spoke about this where are you on this he's 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 deeper with finances he go shallow you're not helping them out it's gotta be meaningful stuff that helps impact their business and then the third thing is i'm blessed to be living a great lifestyle i'm you know i'm living the american dream right i'm an immigrant that came and and did well but i also am able to do high low right so from where i eat i mean i'm you know the taco stand or where i 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 but because i think if you don't live in reality you you you then caught operate in reality you kind of end up in this one percent world which doesn't help when you're dealing with products to deal with all all americans i was talking to a a buddy of ours who's a a brilliant marketer dan probably sold a billion dollars of products online and he i opened up my laptop and he's saw that i had ad blocker on and he's like how good he's like you're a marketer he's like you have studied your craft yeah through every ad he he logged it and another guy logged into his facebook and he's on facebook he's a woman like his profile is but he hold facebook i'm a woman because he's like wanna see what they're marketing great forty year old woman in america that's yeah 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 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 the whether it's the founder you you think is amazing or whether you love the product and you're not overly focused in the gross margins because you know i'm a big feel of dreams guys build 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 of all cost can be dangerous let's leave it with this while we're in the business stealing questions patrick o's ocean has this great question he asked the guest at the end of every one of his that's like the best episodes and he he asked the guess he said what's the kind of thing anyone's ever done for you in your career and i'm just curious what what what comes to mind when i say that like what's the kind of thing anyone's ever done for you i thing anyone's done for me i just shot shot up to a guy i was 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 box would be you know that like remember i tony i have few mantra one of my mantra influence the influence one said the other has become a part of pop culture the third one is live the brand well i can't live box would beer i don't understand it i grew up in zambia i bloody hate root beer so i was on strike someone demo demoted demo demoted meme 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 dot com bullshit site that ended up folding and two guys you got got todd pop and a guy called daryl cobb kind of heard our leaving saved me said we'll give you something different don't leave they put me on power raid and that changed the trajectory of my career once and then when i got to vitamin water i was doing great i took over all the marketing but you founder and i kinda had different visions on how to market and i don't think he liked my approach but i was what was bringing the heat to the brand and i think he wanted find me at one point and so mike poll he was a president of the company changed reporting structure and put me under him so that because he and i got him on great he said roanoke take go aside either you wanna report the ceo and get fired he report to me and i got you because you're my guy and so i said i want money i don't wanna ego so i reported it to mike and i still ran marketing but had to find or couldn't find me right i i was an employee it will that would have also to changed the trade trajectory of my career so so this is only the second podcast that you've done is that right yeah correct dude thanks for coming on where should people go find you if they wanna follow more you know get get more of what you're doing you know what it's it's a really good question and it's a horrible blossom answer you actually can't go anyway yet yet other than you guys and money you don't have social media subscribe to this podcast if you wanna to see again the last one that was like that was brian johnson he came on and he was just wow he was just hacking on his own body in his own privacy of his own home and then he came on this podcast and so you know maybe you have a netflix maybe better soon not maybe i can i can reverse age by twenty he as my wife would love that okay were we were his first podcast and you know sean i don't know if i ever told you this that he called me last year he was 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 it's 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 right and i should go hard this works it's crazy what he's johnson you guys in the influence about remember the one in ten you are the one in ten guys my my contra belief about brian john is is that brian johnson is the greatest marketer alive right now possible i think he understand social media at a level that i don't know anybody else does it's it's admirable maybe but yeah yeah exactly well thanks thanks for coming on you're awesome pleasure thanks for taking the time alright that's it that's the pod i feel like i could rude world and i know i could be what i want to from at all in it like a day's off on a road less travel never look at hey let's take a quick break i wanna tell you about a podcast that you could check out it is called the science of scaling by mark robe he was the founding ser of hubspot and he's a guest lecturer at harvard business school the guy smart and he sits down every week with different sales leaders from cool companies like cla y and van and open ai 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 at to scale company if you're a cro or a head of sales just 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 podcast