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Jason: We learned a core problem that we didn't realize how bad it was, which was pretty much none of the liquor and convenience stores were tracking their inventory. They just get too much inventory shipped to their store on a weekly basis, like hundreds of cases. Uh, they have five to 10,000 unique skus. They have, typically, one clerk, like, working at the store, trying to bring the inventory in, handle customers. And so what we were seeing was they were just losing all these revenue and sales opportunities because they didn't know what they had in stock.

Announcer: Um, you're listening to CPG launch leaders, the show where we interview new product trailblazers. Get ready for inspiration and secrets from the front lines of CPG innovation. Now, here are our hosts, Darcy Ramler and Alan Peretz.

Darcy: Welcome to CPG launch leaders. I'm Darcy Ramler. Today I'll be talking with Jason Vigo, the innovative mind behind BEVZ a platform that's transforming how convenient stores manage and sell inventory in the digital age. Jason, I'm beyond excited to have you on to talk about the evolving consumer behavior in convenience shopping and home delivery. But before we dive in, we'd like to start each episode with one question. Currently, what new product has caught your attention in the marketplace?

Jason: Yeah, so I'll give two, uh, which is a little cheating, but we work in liquor and convenience, so I'll give one liquor, one non liquor in the CPG space. So the first one non liquor that's been really interesting for me is called bubs. Have, uh, you heard of it? It's a swedish candy, by any chance?

Darcy: I have, actually.

Jason: Okay. It seems like it is going wild on TikTok, and it seems like I'm talking to more and more people that are, like, frantically searching to find bubs at various places. And so I just love the phenomenon that has happened with TikTok and social, and so bubs is a funny one. I've tried it pretty good. Um, I'm pretty impressed. But my second one I'll do is, um, a cool product. It's called drinksmith. Um, uh, we know the owners. Um, it's an RTD. So ready to drink cocktail. What's been really cool about it is they separate the fruit juices and the liquor, uh, in the type of sort of innovative, I guess, can. It's like a plastic holder. You twist it, and then the liquor flows into the fresh juices. Very challenging product to sell because it has to be refrigerated all the time. But a, uh, cool product that I thought was a nice addition to some convenience stores.

Darcy: And a cool concept, too. I mean, I may be a consumer in the BEVZ Alka space, but a cool concept. And I think a lot of the pre made drinks, you either get the art and people are saying, I don't like it cause it's artificial or it's got too much sugar. So being able to bring that natural cocktail twist is really awesome.

Jason: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree.

Darcy: So could you start by telling us about the initial concept behind Bevs and what led to the shift from being a delivery service into inventory management platform?

Jason: Yeah, so, uh, uh, my co founder, his name is Victor. He's owned and operated liquor stores and convenience stores in California for now 40 years. I've known him most of my life. And so, uh, uh, together, we really understand the space really well. And so, kind of pre pandemic, we went to market with a delivery app. So, essentially an app that you can use to order on demand delivery from your local liquor store. Convenience store didn't really exist yet. There were companies like drizly, but it hadn't really sort of hit the market that hard. And so we launch, uh, then in January 2020, then the pandemic hits. Then there's a lot of competition and a lot of success in what we were doing. Right? In around summertime of 2020, we were doing about 1000 delivery orders a month. And we're like, I think we nailed it. Just first try got the company right, but, uh, it never, or it usually does not work out that way. And so what we found was we sort of plateaued and started to really see a lot of competition across the food delivery app. So, ubereats, Doordash, Grubhub, they all enter the space. And so we end up deciding to pivot the company in 2021 for a couple key reasons. Right? So, uh, we go to market. We learn a lot. I'm sure we'll talk more about this later. I think the best way to learn is put something in market. So we go into market, we have stores using it. And so we learned a core problem that we didn't realize how bad it was, which was pretty much none of the liquor and convenience stores were tracking their inventory. They just get too much inventory shipped to their store on a weekly basis, like hundreds of cases. They, uh, have five to 10,000 unique skus. They have typically one clerk, like, working at the store, trying to bring the inventory in, handle customers. And so what we were seeing was they were just losing all these revenue and sales opportunities because they didn't know what they had in stock. And especially online. Right. Because if you can imagine, it's not very easy to sell online if you have no idea what you have in stock. And so we realized that was the core problem. We had the problem wrong. Um, the second was we did talk to these stores right before we went to market, and they told us they, they want one easy way to sell online. So we came out with our own delivery app that was really sort of retailer centric. And so once we went to market, though, we got to know them, and that's not exactly what they wanted. They wanted a better way to make more money online. And so what that became was they wanted to really go omnichannel, which was using whatever was out there to make more money. They did not need another delivery app. Uh, they needed just a better way to sell online. And so sort of took that together and always realized that we were never as good at the consumer side. We were much better at the retailer side at the b two b side. And so we took 2021 relaunch in 2022 as a sort of inventory management and e commerce platform, helping the convenience stores manage their business and sell online, not adding another delivery app for them.

Darcy: You discovered a pain point, right? And sometimes that's the key, is it's not always the consumer pain points. There's so much behind understanding a retailer's pain points and how you can leverage that. But as someone who utilized the drizzly app, I can tell you it was also a consumer's pain point, being that you'd go in and you'd want to, let's say you're using multiple purchases of alcohol. It was, this store has this, but then we can't get it from that store. And, you know, you were always trying to figure out, well, if I'm going to this store, what is their inventory and so forth. So it's definitely, you know, being able to see that, capitalize that. And like you said, it took going to market to kind of reinvent yourself a little bit on that. So I'm sure over the years, you've seen consumer behavior shift in convenience stores, um, saying, you know, since you launched, going through the pandemic, and then now on the other side of it, um, especially with the rise of the delivery apps and e commerce. Can you say more, a little bit about those consumer shifts?

Jason: Yeah. So some of the stuff I'll share is going to feel outdated because I think the convenience and liquor industry is sometimes way further behind. But it's still happening, which was what's crazy, even thinking like a decade ago. Uh, a lot of cash transactions. That has really shifted across the board, a lot more. Credit card debit card. A large majority, right? Like 80 plus percentage now are really looking at sort of credit card debit card transactions. So that's one. The second is e commerce, right? I mean, literally, when we went to market, almost zero of our stores were selling online in any way, shape, or form. That's a delivery app, uh, their own website. Like, e commerce was non existent. So, like general retail, we see about 15% of transactions are digital. For our stores, it was zero not that long ago, or maybe 0.2 or something. We still only see about a few percentage, uh, of the store sales go through e commerce, but it's growing really rapidly. So I still think they're behind. But in that trajectory of e commerce is coming in these spaces, I just think, again, the core issue being it's hard to buy things when you don't know what the store has. So that's kind of part two. I think the third part that I think is the most interesting, especially for, uh, CBG followers, right. Is the quantity of items and the sort of level of detail and customization. So we think, like, ten years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, like, there would be a handful of beers in our convenience stores. Right now, it's not only just one or two types of beers, light and dark, it would be like multiple types of beer. Like ipas. Now, it's not even just ipas, it's like hazy ipas, right? So it's these layers within the products where consumers are getting more particular in the things that they want. And so just like your example, using a drizzly, right, it'd be easier if all you just wanted was any beer. I guarantee you could have found that on drizly or any delivery app. But when you really want more specific items, that's what we're seeing as a, is a really interesting trend. The level of specificity, which makes convenience stores kind of really position well for that, because they have multiple skus, right? Five to 10,000 skus with few of those skus, right. So they're well positioned for the consumer who wants something very specific. Just a really hard business to manage when you have very few skus. So that's kind of my, my three. It's one's as basic as credit card transactions. Um, the second would be e commerce is growing really fast. And the third, I think, is the level of specificity that people want in the items that they're looking for.

Darcy: Yeah. And I definitely think you know, the personalization and customization is something that's happening as a trend across it. And it's interesting, like you said, how is that taking place and in the convenience space? And it really is a portfolio play and a way of. Okay, how more as the category is getting broader but also more depth to the category, you know, evolving that to be forward facing to the consumers through the ecomm channel is a great play. So with features like double dash on DoorDash means consumers like you talked about, you can add convenience store items to their food orders. How do you think this integration affects consumers choices and visibility for new CPG products?

Jason: Yeah, so the data we're seeing is that about 40, uh, percent of double dash orders from a store is coming from a net new customer. Meaning if you order from a restaurant and you see the convenience store pop up and you make that order, like about half the time you're a brand new customer. So I think one really cool part of features like double Dash is convenience. And liquor stores especially, they're getting access to customers who are not initially searching for liquor or beer or wine or snacks or chips or medicine. They were searching for food, and then they get latched on to sort of their local store. So I think one really interesting part is customer discovery. I think the second is it is a race to sort of catch customers, right? Like, you've used these delivery apps before. Most people have. Most of the time. If you order from anywhere, a restaurant, a convenience store, you typically reorder from the same place. And that's even more common in convenience and liquor because you're oftentimes buying a lot of the same items, right? Like, maybe you might choose a different thai restaurant because it's a different flavor profile or different dishes. Like, if you're ordering a type of beer that is at multiple convenience stores, the one time you get a good experience at that, you sort of get there. So, like, this is an opportunity to land a new customer and maybe keep them for life. So I think that's two and third, it's still very early days of the sort of level of customization that we can help stores with on top of double dash and things like that. But still, we're getting these opportunities of looking at the data, uh, bundling products, sort of showcasing what a consumer may want. Right? Like today, an example would be like, if you order italian food, it's not necessarily pairing italian and recommending a wine.

Darcy: So I'm sure you've observed countless new products enter the convenience store market. What are some challenges for CPG or beverage companies looking to break into this tightly knit retail environment.

Jason: Yeah, it's. It's really tough, right. I know a lot of friends who have tried to start CPG brands on the alcohol and the non alcohol side. Um, I think any regulated industry is really hard, so. Especially alcohol, uh, cannabis, um, CBD even. But it's really tough, right. Cause what we tend to see is that it's not easy to get into the big retailers. There is more happening now. We're seeing that, like a Costco or a target or a Walmart will allow for, ah, like one location, right. A friend of mine has a CBG product, and they let him test in Hawaii. Costco's first, which is random. He's not hawaiian, to my knowledge. Um, but they sort of will let you do these test markets. One really scary, right? So if you don't pass the test and sell a lot in like, what, a weekend or a month or something, you may not break in. But, uh, pushing even those aside, why I love our space so much is we tend to see that convenience stores are where people start, because you typically don't just launch a CPG brand and get into Walmart, Target, Costco, etcetera. Right. So what we see is you have to start in convenience. So many brands are being sold to these stores all the time, including all the ones they're already buying. Right. So just large ones, Anheuser Busch, Millercoors, Pepsi, Frito Lay, Coca Cola, like, they're at these stores on a weekly basis. Right. The challenges we're seeing, hyper competitive. The big players are extremely big, have a ton of market power, have a ton of control. Where we see success, usually as one of two ways and one way really sucks. But I'll say it anyways, is, uh, like a name attached to it. So, like the rocks, tequila does, uh, really well because there's a name, there's a branding, there's a confidence in the retailer feeling like people will buy. It doesn't always work, to be. To be clear, right? Like Travis Scott launched a seltzer, didn't pan out in the same way, but that is one. The second that we see the most success is a CPG brand who can prove a following through direct to consumer start to show that kind of growth, hit a targeted set of retailer and give that retailer confidence of, like, if you put this in store, we are going to drive traffic to your store. Here's our proof. But I will say, uh, uh, I prefer software and I'm probably going to hang out in the technology realm. Uh, and I do not envy the CPG brands, but it's tough, it's doable, especially the unique sort of, as we talked about, more personalized custom products, I think will still break through, but not easy.

Darcy: And we've talked to quite a few innovative brands here that. It's interesting that you brought up the d two c side because it is true. A lot of them started d two c native. And then slowly, a, you can learn so much about your consumer on the d two c side. So you can take that and it helps with that retailer and you can decide. I hate to say it, but there's a bit about being exclusive too. When you start is decide what retailers demographics are going to be the best that suits your brand. You've learned so much from a consumer we know, even what you mentioned just from the start of talking about products and seeing them on TikTok and exploring things, it is becoming more common that you go and you really, you know, d to c native brands are thriving out there. It's just making that right step to what is that next? You know, what is that next retailer? And not, not too fast. Right? Like you said, it's not about going out to Walmart and Costco and everybody at the same time. You know, a growth path is. It has to be where the category is at and where, where you, you know, from a brand are ready to excel as well.

Jason: Yeah. And I will say, like, another tricky part with that. Uh, we're venture capital backed. I know several other CPG brands are at least raise some form of money. It's sort of this flywheel effect that gets really scary, which is you take the money you need to hit the big milestones, then you rush to get into a target, a Walmart or whatever. Maybe you're not ready and then you're keeping up with this sort of rapid pace. It's a trickiness, right? Like, it's great if you're the rock, you self fund, basically, and then you go to market as like the most famous for all the normal people around. Yeah, I still believe in the d two c. I love the data side too. Right? You get so much better data. What I'm hoping Bev's will be able to do, what we're on track to do is to start to get better sort of consumer and retailer data to provide back to brands to say, like, maybe don't sell to this convenience store because they don't really sell much. Hard sell, sir. But you should sell it to these today retail, obviously, like Costco will tell you maybe what they're doing, but, uh, in the independent and sort of small chain space, it's, it's kind of a black box that we're hoping to help not just the store, but like the brands sell the right items to the right stores. So hopefully one day.

Darcy: Absolutely, yeah. And you even said even from the start, the launch of bevs, right. You mentioned you started, went to market, and then there's tweaking. That has to be done. Very, very, very few brands or companies start and get it right on the first time. You're usually on your 6th, 7th iteration by the time it really, you get that traction. So making sure you're not putting all those eggs in one basket and, you know, appropriate milestones, I think, are always key. It's hard not to want to take the big check and, and go with the big, let's roll it out to all stores. But sometimes I think that can lead to some big failures too.

Jason: Yeah, 100%.

Darcy: So you've touched on how algorithms suggest, you know, add on purchases like snacks or drinks based on initial selections and delivery apps. Can you say more about your platform, Bevs and or the retailers themselves utilize this data?

Jason: Yeah. So I think in the convenience and the alcohol space, we are like barely getting started. Right. So more what we're doing is like, you ordered food, therefore you may also want drinks. Like, that's sort of where we're at today. I think. One, the retailers don't have great access to data. That's part of what we are providing. Right. Yes. They can log into the different delivery app merchant portals and start to, it just, it's not feasible. They don't know how to do it well. So what we're starting to do is we're tapping into the point of sale system, we're tapping into e commerce and delivery apps. We're even building sort of custom websites for these stores and going everywhere where you sell. We can now bring in the data. And that's our special sauce. Right. As a software company, we can take the data, a ton of it, really compile it together, and start to say, this is what's happening. Therefore you should do x, Y and Z. But even once we have the data and we start to make these recommendations, they have to then connect to the e commerce and delivery apps, connect to the in store decision. So, I mean, short answer is like, we are far away from it as an industry, but thankfully, finally going in the right direction. It starts with getting the data in the first place. Second, uh, comes with sort of the integrations that we facilitate. And then third would be okay. Now that you have both of these, what do you start to recommend? And, uh, what can we do with sort of machine learning and artificial intelligence to sort of make those wrecks? Not even ourselves, not even for the store. We just do it automatically. But, yeah, we're a ways away, but, uh, on track. Hi, Jesse. What brings you to the airport, Mike?

AD: Jesse: I'm off to the headquarters to share an update on the big launch.

Jason: Oh, I've heard it's selling really well. Care to share your secret?

AD: Jesse: Well, just between us, it's all thanks to bold labs. Their exclusive digital test market research allows you to optimize your product marketing and pricing before the big launch.

Jason: That sounds fantastic. How can I learn more?

AD: Jesse: Just visit www.boldlabs.com. it's all right there.

Jason: This is the final call for flight 723 to Chicago. Looks like we'd better go. Thanks for the tip, Jesse.

AD: Jesse: See you soon. Soon, Mike. And remember, bold Labs is ready to help your product soar.

Darcy: Well, and it's an interesting thing. As we talked about, you know, you make a purchase and you've already gone through part of the consumer journey. So to, you know, the consumer has made a decision. I want something delivered. Let's say for food, italian. You used italian dinner. And you're like, I've decided I'm going to pay the delivery fee. I'm all in. We've reduced the barrier there. They've already made that decision. Then it becomes almost a little bit of an impulse out of like, oh, I could use a little Chianti tonight when I'm going, you know, with my dinner. So, and then it's like, but they're ordering wine, maybe they need x, y and z. And I think you're seeing that, you know, we were talking about d two c. You're seeing that customization or, uh, personalization really starting to happen after there. So it makes sense. Our consumer is going to be, we're spoiling the consumer in a way. I say is there will be no more free thinking here in a couple of years. It's just going to, we're going to make the assumption that everything will be picked for us and it's probably what we like. So based on all of this data collection that we're talking about and interaction with both stores and CPG companies, do you have any predictions for the next big trends in consumer behavior or even in product innovation?

Jason: Yeah. So I think on the product side, or I won't dive into it because I think it's exactly sort of what we're trying to do at Bevs is just using data in a more effective way. I think the one thing I'll call out is we call ourselves a vertical software company. So we are building technology for a very specific vertical. Like I'm asked all the time, are you going to go into grocery or restaurant? Nope, probably never. Right? That's the point, is there's enough stuff in that space. Technology is now cheap and easy enough to build, to really focus on a vertical. And you make it so much more specific and better for that customer, for that audience. I think from m the technology side, that's what I think we're going to see over the next five to ten years. Really interesting, deeply vertical software that's so custom for, like, dog groomers, for convenience stores. Right. For, like, plant shops. Right. I do think that's where that's going. I think from a more CPG standpoint, like, what we're seeing with the stores, one we sort of briefly talked about when you asked me about products, I'm seeing, I think international products are really becoming more interesting and more available at these convenience stores. So, actually, one of our longest time partners at Bevs is a soju company called Lotte. And they're this multibillion dollar company. Soju is the most popular alcoholic drink, like, in the world. But it's not that popular in our traditional american liquor and convenience stores. And when we met them, they were in korean barbecues, they were in asian grocery stores. You couldn't find them in convenience stores. And most of these store owners didn't even know what Soji was right. They're like, we know what sake is like. Is it the same? We're like, no, it's not. It's literally like a completely different country. But it's now in pretty much all of our stores. It's one of the more popular items sold at these stores. There's different flavors. It's kind of high alcohol percentage for, uh, the price. And so international, I think, is a big one. I talked about bubs, and now I'm talking about sort of soju. I just think there's a lot of really cool international products that consumers want. I think we'll see them, uh, in retail and available to consumers more often. I think that's one. I think the second trend we're seeing is just health. It's like, we're finding that maybe for a slight premium, historically, for a way bigger premium, you could get healthier snacks and chips and sodas. And things like that. Right? Like sparkling water really blew up. Um, there's healthier, more, even organic seltzers that have popped up. So I do see the trend of like, maybe not perfectly healthy people still will splurge. Candy can only be like, so healthy, probably. But we are seeing healthier, more natural ingredients, less added, uh, uh, sort of ingredients that we don't even know what they are into. Products that we're seeing. The one, I think it's called skinny dipped, it's like a chocolate covered almonds that we're seeing in some of our stores at like Starbucks and stuff like that. It's, it's like just almonds and chocolate. Low sugar, really taste good. I think there's cool innovation coming with a, uh, healthy but still, like, uh, enjoyable snacks.

Darcy: Well, coming out of Expo west, I was just there about a month ago, and you hit on two massive trends. I mean, you really are. I think what's interesting and unique is international flavors are becoming a very, very wide trend. And it's something I think people, you know, Americans aren't always in the past traditional. We kind of box them in of what that flavor palette needed to be. And like you said, it's kind of, if you start to expose this consumer, this american consumer, they're widening their horizons. Very much so. And you're seeing it through flavors. You're seeing it through even fruits and vegetables that aren't grown in the US. But it was definitely a big trend. And all of the flavors was really this international. And coming from the agency side of things, we are getting more and more, I think, based off of that kind of global, um, consumer mindset is we are getting more and more people that are coming from outside of the US, that are looking to penetrate the US market too. So I think it is an area of opportunity across the board.

Jason: I agree.

Darcy: So, with the rise of grocery delivery and app based shopping, what kind of role will small business play in the future of retail and e commerce in your mind?

Jason: Yeah, I think, and maybe I'm a little biased, given our company, but I think they're the key to it. Right, because the, I think the future is, no pun intended, convenience. Right? Like people, you don't want to order groceries a week in advance. You're looking to get them in the near future, right, when you want your snack or chips or drinks. Like Amazon ruined everything for everyone. Everybody wants everything really fast. And so, for one, the speed at which the consumer is sort of demanding things. The second is we know the unit economics for even like the delivery companies, right, which is like the way Doordash or Uber Grubhub works really well, is they need their drivers doing deliveries really fast in small areas. If you're sending them to and from at far, you have a driver, they can't pay the driver enough to maximize the profits while doing deliveries, right. It's got to be more rapid. Uh, and so because of that, I think the small businesses are going to be the key if you're a small business, because you can't have Walmart's on every corner, right. You have to have these small local businesses that if they can learn to manage their inventory effectively, showcase those across the marketplaces and the locations where consumers are, they're going to win a lot of the time. It's one of the, you know, like even looking historically, right, it's like how these small businesses have won in the first place. Some is demand, right? Like consumers wanting to support local and work with small sort of unique businesses. But even in our space, right, where the items are fairly the same, convenience stores have stayed alive for so long, even without technology or support, by just being local to their audience in a more kind of quick way. And so I actually think the small businesses are going to be the key to unlocking this sort of rapid, close engagement. And I think the delivery apps are seeing that at least our relationships with them is. They are, they are pushing us to get more convenience stores on their platforms in more hyper local areas. So we're excited. And just as someone like my previous company, which we didn't talk about, was software. Ah. For dog groomers. And so same thing. Like, I love vertical software. I love helping the mom and pop small businesses embrace technology and sort of support their local community. So I think it's exciting times ahead.

Darcy: And there's such a niche right into each category. I think that's always important too. I came from a parallel and then jumped into the CPG world. And the issues that exist in the apparel world and what fast fashion has brought and how many a variety and how fast you're turning through things is very different than the barriers that you exist in cpgs. So having, like you're saying that niche software that understands really category pain points and consumer pain points by category is incredibly important. So I agree with you. I think that the more we can dive in, the more we can learn about the consumer, the more we can learn about how they're shopping we coming from. I'm in Los Angeles. You're in Los Angeles. Like you said, we're used to Amazon, have it delivered. Oh, do you want it that night? But then my headquarters is in northwest Arkansas, and I remember having a conversation, I think the first time I was out there, and I said, they're like, oh, but it can take two to three days to get something from Amazon. I was like, wait, what? You know? And then you do.

Jason: I hate it here.

Darcy: How is this possible? But I was like, you know, you do realize the importance of small business, the importance of being able to also get those unique finds. I think having those unique portfolios become even more important to the small businesses because it's something different and it's a unique experience, like you said, than just going to a Walmart and seeing the massive CPG brands that exist in there. So that discovery is a cool process to small business as well.

Jason: Yeah. And I think, uh, what's really cool, too, real quick, that I am most excited about, and it's like a core tenet of our business, is we technically consider ourselves like a middleware platform, meaning we integrate with all these people, like Doordash, Grubhub, Uber. Even on the food side, we've integrated with core. Mark. I hope that these big players and these small ones, especially, like small vertical software and bigger sort of powerhouse marketplaces and brands keep partnering together and keep going in that direction, right? Because our original business, we realized, was just another thing stores didn't really need, right. What they needed was a, uh, tool to facilitate all of it. And so everyone could just go at it alone. DoorDash could fight against Uber, could fight against Grubhub forever. But who loses? The consumer loses and the retailer loses. And frankly, I think even the e commerce and delivery apps lose. So I'm hopeful that over time, right, when an example for us would be like, if we play nicely together, where we partner with a brand like Pepsi, we partner closely with the delivery apps like Doordash and Grubhub, and then we partner with the retailer, and then we partner with that point of sale device that's in the store. We've now facilitated a way to, like, undoubtedly create a way better consumer experience where they can know what items are local, get them quick, have the items that they want never run out. I'm sure people have this all the time, especially in the alcohol space. You go online to order something like, they don't have it, right, and then allow these mom to pop businesses to run away more efficient growing business. And so it's fun times. Middleware is tricky because it's like we're integrated with all these different people, it feels like we have to have one technology team just handling, maintaining integrations and then another technology team building new ones. But I do see a future of the big players play nicely with the small ones, which so far we've found, uh, they have, at least for us, uh, there's an exciting future ahead, so.

Darcy: Absolutely. And I think the beauty of smaller players is they can be nimble, they can move faster, which means they're learning faster, because, you know, if they do miss, there's less ramifications if they miss versus a Pepsi missing huge or liabilities within that. I think there's so much. I mean, you're seeing it in CPG right now. I don't think it's always broadcast, but a lot of these larger CPG companies are purchasing smaller brands. Why? Because they're disruptors in the marketplace. Right. And the first place you're seeing them is on the digital side. And for me, I've been preaching this, I think, more and more since really Covid hit. But Covid just pushed us so far down the digital space. But it's really about looking at it as an ecosystem. Like you said, how can we all live within this ecosystem? That is that consumer journey and start connecting the dots together is when you're really going to see, in my mind, those true successes. So, pivoting back to a bit of your own founder's story, having led startups through various stages of growth and change, what's one lesson you've learned as an entrepreneur that you wish you knew when you started? Hindsight is 2020 always, right?

Jason: Yeah. So many things, it almost makes me just realize, like, ah, uh, I wish I knew so many of these things, but one of the big ones, and I mentioned this earlier, but we still absolutely did not do it fast enough, is get something in the market, because, like. So I went to UCLA, I got my MBA there. We did sort of their traditional version. If you had all the time, money, energy, resources, like, how would you start a company? And they had us do a hundred interviews before you even build anything. And that's probably a little overkill. And I do think you should do research, because my company before Bevs, I didn't do enough research. So then, you know, there's finding the balance, right? Which is you put something in market and you've. You learn so much, right? Like the stores, we talked to all these stores, and they told us what they wanted and we built it, and it wasn't what they wanted, and it wasn't that they were lying to us. They just didn't really know what they wanted until they were experiencing it. So I think my first lesson is, like, obviously, I don't believe you should put something terrible into the market, like a makeshift product that doesn't work at all, but to the best of your ability. Lesson one, get something in market, because once your customer, whoever your customer is, whether that be consumer, retailer, distributor, supplier, experiences it, you'll learn so much from it, even for free. Just give it out. Give it for free. Um, I think the second thing is team. I'm a huge, huge, huge believer in the team being the key to everything, right? Especially at the early stage. Like, we got the first company entirely wrong. So ultimately what it came down to was, do we have a group of people that can learn from our customers, be nimble, adapt, rebuild, weather the storm, stay diligent, and then launch a new product without being completely burnt out. So I think my second lesson would be, um, find people you really like working with that work really hard. I think, especially in the early stages, less about the skill sets and more about the hustle and willingness to learn and grow have, uh, been sort of two lessons learned. I think we got the team part for the most part, right. We still have pretty much our entire founding team together. I think some of that was luck and some was purposeful. Um, but the going to market, we should have went faster with a cheaper version of our product, and I think we would have saved a lot of time and money, but we made it.

Darcy: That's why I was going to ask if, do you feel like going faster at times at the right? Obviously, scale helps to mitigate risk a bit down the line, you know?

Jason: Yeah, 100%. So one study, I always tell my team this. So at, uh, UCLA, when it was one of my first classes I took in my MBA, they put all these skills on the screen and they're like, which one of these things do you think is the feature that is most likely to make a CEO successful? And it was stuff like basic stuff like finance, operations, product. It was things like charisma, confidence, storytelling, all these things. The one that no one guesses, or at least not in my class, maybe we had a not as smart graduated class, but the one thing that was actually the number one, but no one voted for, was quick decision making. So it was quick decision making, because if you make them really fast and you don't keep making the same mistakes every time, I do think that we spend so much time, like, again, do your customer research, like, talk to customers, talk to the industry, I'm not saying just go blindly, but once you have enough, we find, like, you're not getting that much more value. Do it, learn. And if you can make quick decisions, learn from it really fast and adapt. I definitely think more of the time speed is better. Again, within reason. Don't maybe like sell one product online and try and get into Costco. But generally speaking, I think quick decision making, failing fast is like a key. And even though I say it out loud, and I wholeheartedly believe it, like, so often, I want to produce something better, have a more thoughtful plan. So I would say a lot to learn on my end to still put it in practice, but I believe it for sure.

Darcy: And I've been in the startup business my whole life. Um, crazy enough jumping from startup to startup at times, but as you said, the team is so important, and, uh, you spoke a little bit. So the passion in my heart of what I love about it, but you have to be able to roll up those sleeves, and resilience is the real deal. When you're starting a brand or you're growing a brand like, none of this, there are very few that go viral overnight and never hit, you know, those pain points or even sometimes the success comes m so fast and so quickly, and then the lull comes after it. Right. Or there's a decrease before you're back and able to get on track. So I just believe so much in the effort of being a doer. There's no ivory tower, and in the founder world of things, you've got to be able, you've got to be in the business and experiencing, whether it's the consumers or the businesses or the retailers, you know, firsthand what, what that your product is really bringing to the table.

Jason: Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, the, one of the most visceral experiences for me was in the early days of bevs, we were sort of deciding about the pivot. And, uh, I went into a store and stayed for a long time because I really wanted to see, like, the sales experience, specifically the delivery, the dropping off of the items and the sales. But this was the one that sort of was like the visceral experience that made me go, like, I have to dedicate my career to this, which was the beer companies doing sales day. Cause, uh, in my mind, they're gonna come sell, right? Not exactly right. They came into the stores, they put on a snow jacket, they walk into the walk in fridge, and they count the items, and I'm sitting there freezing cold, going like, no way. This is how it goes, they now have a tablet to mark, but, like, none of this is track takes like almost an hour. Then they walk out, they go to the clerk or the manager, whoever's there, and say, you're low on this. You have more of this. And by the way, we just launched, like, this new hard sell, sir, you're going, what I thought should be 95% sales is 2% sales. It is 98% counting, and then 2% sales. And so, like, again, just seeing these things with your eyes, experiencing them yourself. If I had more time and money, um, or maybe for a future startup, like, I'd love to be the customer, right? I would. In a perfect world, I open up my own convenience store and I live it. Um, there's a company, um, squire that did this for barbershops. They literally opened a barbershop, figured it out, and then built the technology essentially for themselves. I think it's such a powerful way, but, uh, obviously everyone can't open up an entire retailer before they start their next startup. But, uh, no big believer in that.

Darcy: Hey, you got to have dreams, right? So any advice you would have for other founders out there, I know it's not, we've talked about, you know, it's not always easy, and resilience is key, but any other advice that you may have.

Jason: Yeah. So outside of kind of, uh, what we already talked about, I think a big one I believe in is it doesn't have to be as risky as some of the articles you read about founding a company. Again, I live in the tech space, so you have these Mark Zuckerbergs who drop out of college and, like, start these companies, and they go all in, and it's like, you don't have to do that either. So for me, and I still feel like I'm sort of fairly far along in my career in the startup without having to just go full blown, quit everything. And trust me, I've thought about it many times. But what I decided to do was, uh, I took a stab at my first startup when I was still working full time. And so, yes, you do sacrifice the, you can't put as much time, but you can have a more sense of stability, right? And so I was working full time on nights and weekends. I was chipping away at my first company, right, which was software for dog groomers. Didn't work. I'm really happy I didn't quit my job because that one didn't really work out. Then during my MBA, I started working on my second company, which was Bevs. And so there was a turning point. You usually hit a point where you're like, it's getting overwhelming, or the company is making money, and I can pay myself or I can fundraise or I can't do both. Uh, you usually hit that turning point. So I think my quick advice would be get started. It doesn't have to be the stories you always see of jump into the deep end, not at the very beginning, and you can sort of learn, grow, and start something. Uh, and then you'll know the moment, hopefully, of when you need to do one or the other. Still not easy. Uh, it was hard to cut my salary and go with almost nothing when I started Bez, but I took a way less risky route, I thought, and it worked well for me. And I still got to be a founder and keep some stability, put some savings kind of into my bank and all of that.

Darcy: Well, Jason, I want to say thank you so much for not only sharing your story, but also the story of Bev's and all that you're doing to really redefine that space. It is stories like yours that remind us to keep innovating, stay inspired, and let's continue to redefine the world of, uh, CPG innovation. Thank you so much.

Jason: Thank you.

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