The Startup CPG Podcast

00:01
Daniel Scharf
Hello, everybody. Welcome to the startup CPG podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Sharf. Today on the podcast, we are thrilled to welcome Jordan base. Did I. Wait, I forgot to ask if I said that pronunciation, and then I had it, and then I was like, wait, is it though? Okay, let me start over. All right, bass.

00:27
Jordan Bass
Okay.

00:31
Daniel Scharf
Welcome to the startup CPG podcast. I'm your host, Daniel Sharf, and today we are thrilled to welcome Jordan Bass, CEO and co founder of Hopwater. Jordan's expertise in advanced technology, clean tech, and sustainability has fueled the success of this innovative beverage. Jordan has a really interesting background, starting in venture capital later honing his e commerce skills at the wonderful company and Fiji water. Jordan is a trailblazer and proven innovator. Jordan, thank you so much for hopping on the podcast with us to unfold the story behind Hopwater. So welcome to the show, and let's just jump right in. Do you mind just telling us a little bit about how you got your start in the CPG world?

01:14
Jordan Bass
Yeah, absolutely, Daniel. Thanks for having me. I love the hot puns right away. Pleasure to be here. So, yeah, got my start in the CPG world, working for the wonderful company, which was an incredible training grounds. The company is very well run. I learned so much there. Got to see, kind of like, what good looks like, and then was able to apply that to hop water and my career.

01:40
Daniel Scharf
All right, awesome. So I, in front of me, have a couple of different cans of hop water. I have got the, I think, original blue can here, and then I also have the, I think there's the blood orange I think that I have here. And then I also have the mango, all of which are super delicious. You guys sent me some samples. I have been sipping them obsessively. Can you just tell me. Just talk me through. For someone who's never had it before, what am I tasting as I'm drinking this, for sure?

02:11
Jordan Bass
Well, and I will also crack a can of our peach hop water to make sure I can enjoy with you.

02:17
Daniel Scharf
Cheers. Yeah. Cheers.

02:19
Jordan Bass
So, hop water is a sparkling water infused with hops. So we take hops, we extract the oils and the essence, all the flavor. We infuse that into a sparkling water so it's zero calorie, no carbs. And then we've added a functional stack of ingredient ltheanine, as well as vitamin C. So you get a mood boosting benefit as well as some immunity benefit. And that's the product I can talk more about use cases, how we came up with it, et cetera. But at the base level. It's a hoppy, sparkling water and it's delicious.

02:48
Daniel Scharf
Okay. Yes. And I do want to talk about all of that stuff first, though, if an alien came to earth and you had to explain to them what a hop is, which is my way of saying, please explain it to me, because I don't really know what is a hop for sure.

03:02
Jordan Bass
So hops are a plant. They're the main flavor agent used in beers. So when you talk about an IPA, it's because they have a lot of hops in them. So it is a flavor, little green kind of bud, and they're delicious.

03:19
Daniel Scharf
Okay, cool. And what was the environment in which you decided to use hops in water? Like, what was going on at the time, either in the industry or just with you personally, that led you to decide to try to make hop water?

03:35
Jordan Bass
Yeah, absolutely. So my co founder, Nick and I love drinking beer. Like, we grew up in the time when craft beers were really know, Sierra Nevada and loganitas and all these guys were kind of coming up, and we found that as were getting busier and older, there was just like a bunch of occasions where we loved that occasion of drinking beer, but we didn't want the alcohol or the calories or, you know, Nick and I were buddies here in LA. We were hanging out. We'd watch football on Sundays together, get kind of friends and family together.

04:08
Jordan Bass
And we'd oftentimes have a big meeting the next day or have to get home and crank on a presentation for something, or want to go have Sunday dinner with our family, and didn't want to have three or four beers on that Sunday afternoon, but still loved that occasion of getting together and cracking a cold one. And we found that having La Croix wasn't that satisfying. We found that a bunch of the non up products on the market, when you looked at non app beers at the time, didn't taste that good. They still had a bunch of calories and carbs. So it didn't really align with our health and fitness routine when were kind of, like, not drinking. And we said, look, I think we can come up with something better here. We really developed it for ourselves and then launched it.

04:49
Jordan Bass
And we're fortunate that we saw a lot of other people had the same use case.

04:53
Daniel Scharf
And so I think it is such an interesting product because it really fits in the middle of a bunch of different things. And even as somebody who drinks it and enjoy it, I still don't know exactly how to categorize it to people. So your consumers, what are they shopping for? When they pick this up, are they shopping for sparkling waters, or are they just people who love the taste of beer and they know they can't drink it all the time, so they are shopping for this instead?

05:17
Jordan Bass
Yeah, I think to that point, there's a lot of different use cases for the product, and it has a broad ranging appeal. I think, first and foremost, we're beer forward, and that's how we came up with the product and our primary placement and store, et cetera, which we can talk about. And what we found, again, I talked about kind of the founding story. What we found as the product got into the market was consumers were just using it throughout the day, and it made us super bullish on the opportunity because while we came up with it and one of our first ads was actually like a hand holding a beer, and it said kind of like your new 05:00 p.m. So that was like the initial use case, was that beer replacement? But we found that consumers were enjoying the product throughout the day.

06:04
Jordan Bass
It was a lunchtime treat. It was a morning refreshment. And that gave us a ton of conviction to just say, like, okay, we've got an even broader mainstream product on our hands than we initially anticipated.

06:20
Daniel Scharf
Got it. Okay. I think there's so much to go into here. But first, how is it different than a lacroix? For example, if you think of, they're obviously one of the pioneers who really have exploded the sparkling water category, how is it different from an ingredient perspective? And then also, like, yeah, why is a consumer going to choose hop water instead of a lacroix, for sure?

06:44
Jordan Bass
Well, first of all, I would say to everyone listening to this, go out and try one, and you can judge for yourself why it's different than a lacroix. But if you look at kind of lacroix and some of those other ones, and you look at flavor trends in general, we see, and we think that consumers are getting sick of your same old triple berry whatever, and they're looking for more sophisticated flavors. And really, that's what hop water delivers. Hops are a unique taste. They're a little more herbaceous. They bring some citrus notes to them, some pine notes to them. Pairs really well with flavors, but it gives a consumer an opportunity to have a more sophisticated experience. So that's one, two. We like to say, if you squint with one eye closed, it reminds your favorite IPA.

07:28
Jordan Bass
There's like these really nice notes of what you would get from a hoppy beer, especially if you try our classic flavor. Or we just launched a new flavor that's dry hopped, that really give you this hoppy experience and can really build that sort of craving for a hoppy beer.

07:50
Daniel Scharf
Yeah, for me, it's pretty interesting. Just as somebody, I had not had hop water before the last couple of months, and just as I'm drinking now and thinking about it feels sort of like if I compare it to a lacroix, it has more substance to it. Like there is a deeper, satisfying kind of kick to mean. Just me personally, when I drink a la croix, the flavors that they use, the natural flavors, come in pretty hot, so it just tastes, like, more artificial to me. Just between us and everybody listening, I always had this suspicion that it made me feel a little funny, too. But I think with hop water, I think that's the first thing I notice when I drink the classic flavor. Is it just like, it's refreshing, but there's depth to it.

08:36
Daniel Scharf
There's something there that makes you feel like you're drinking something that's authentic and interesting. Does that hear that from people?

08:45
Jordan Bass
Yeah, absolutely. And we intentionally wanted the flavor profile to be approachable, unless you're like a triple hop head, and hops on their own to an extreme degree can be an intense flavor profile. And we wanted it to be more moderate so that it could be more approachable when you could drink multiple of them in a sitting or throughout the day or in an occasion. And that's what we see from our consumers, is that they're telling us that they drink the product multiple times a week. They drink multiple per serving. It's a nice, sophisticated, differentiated flavor, but it's also approachable and refreshing and thirst quenching, as you talked about.

09:29
Daniel Scharf
And so I'm not a beer expert, but I do have a sense that trends have changed in the beer industry. Like the IPA craze now, I think maybe has yielded a bit to more lighter stuff, like lagers, colshes, I don't know. But do you see those tastes changing, and how does that impact people's preference for, let's say, your different flavors? Like, who's going to choose hop water or who's going to then tend more towards some of the flavors that you guys have?

09:58
Jordan Bass
Yeah, I think if you look at the data in the beer industry, the non alk segment is one of the hottest and fastest growing segments of the entire beer industry. And we're seeing this kind of, like, moderation trend. You asked about who's drinking it. I think over the last few years, one of the things that's really cool that we're seeing is that this consumer is really like everyone. It's not the consumer that said, look, I'm not going to drink anymore. I'm totally abstaining though. That is a consumer, and that's a great customer for us. And we love to provide them a product that helps them there. But the big opportunity and what we see is that folks, like you said, you like beer. Like me, I enjoy drinking beer still.

10:42
Jordan Bass
But there's a lot of occasions where I want a non alcoholternative and I want a great non alcohol alternative. I don't want to have to sacrifice when I'm not drinking. I still want something that is really satisfying. And so that's the consumer that we're seeing. Well, sometimes we'll say it's like your Thursday or your Sunday through Thursday beverage. So you want to take your Sunday off or Tuesday or whatever it is, and you still want to do all the same things. Maybe you're going to meet your friends out. Maybe you're just having that 30 minutes at the end of a long workday to relax and hang out. You don't want to give up on that satisfying feeling, but you want something that's kind of non alkaline. We think that's like a huge opportunity with a lot of years of Runway for the brand.

11:22
Daniel Scharf
I totally agree with you and listeners. The podcast will have seen that. I did an episode recently with actually my cousin who was one of the original microbrew guys. He pioneered one called Schlafly, which was one of the first craft breweries in the midwest, doing it in Anheuser Busch's backyard and he know has more of a global view on it. He works with the World Brewers alliance and sees all of the trends from the different countries and for mean before talking to him, but also afterwards have never been more convinced that the non Alk beer category is just ripe for explosion. That also just general Alk consumption coming down, flowing I think largely into the non alk beer, but then also functional beverage which you sit in both of, I think ready for your IPO. I'm all in. When you guys.

12:15
Jordan Bass
It's such an important social moment, that occasion of sitting down with your budy, you're by yourself and cracking a cold one. I don't think that's going away from a consumer standpoint. You talked about the kind of like international trends when you look at Germany. I haven't looked at these stated in the last couple of months, but I think the percentages still prove out. It's something like twelve to 15% of sales are non alk beer. That is in the mecca of beer drinking. And so it's like that Cajun hasn't gone away. The consumer is just picking up alternatives and it's clear that they're like mixing it in with Alk and non alk. So today the non alk beer category is like 1% of the total category in the US.

12:59
Jordan Bass
And if you look at some of those as leading indicators, maybe we don't get all the way to 15%. But there's multifold growth opportunity here for what is like 100 billion dollar category.

13:13
Daniel Scharf
Totally agree. And everybody that I talk to sees it firsthand with their friends. Like, yeah, a lot of my friends are changing their consumption and looking for non alk options. I really like the non alk beer options just because I think because beer is lower Abv that taking the actual alcohol out of there, you still get something that can be really close. But as you said, you have a couple of different kind of use cases. So yeah, what percentage of people who are buying hop water are buying it to consume at a social event or in place of a beer at the end of the night, versus just kind of doing what I did, which is throw a twelve pack in the fridge and drink it during the day.

13:51
Daniel Scharf
During the week I'm working at home, I'm just sipping on it in the place of sparkling water and really enjoying it.

13:57
Jordan Bass
Yeah, it's a great question. We see that kind of in place of an alcoholic drink, whether it's social or relaxing, as the top usage occasions. So those are definitely leading. But to your point, as a refreshing beverage, we see a lot of consumers enjoying the product that way. And one of the number one things, or one of the most common things that consumers say about the brand is that it's refreshing. So again, you can imagine all of those occasions, whether it's just sipping on it through the afternoon or in place of your 05:00 p.m. As we originally started.

14:36
Daniel Scharf
It's so interesting to me and I feel like as the consumer, you also kind of can figure that out and figure out how it works best with your lifestyle. So how about the marketing aspect of it? So probably most people listening to this have seen a can, but if not, definitely encourage you to look it up on the Hopwater website or Google image search. And what was important to you when you were actually doing the design? Or if you ever did kind of a know, what were you going for? What were the key elements that you really wanted people to pick up on know, what is the feedback that you get on?

15:09
Jordan Bass
I mean, look, we wanted something distinctive. I mean, you look at the beverage category, and it's like a crowded category. There's a lot of different designs that have been done, and there's a lot of different products that look the same. So we wanted something that was unique and actually fun. Story. When we originally started the brand, Nick and I were concepting it, and were working with our designer, and we came up with a couple different designs. We actually did, like, a very inexpensive online survey with two different can designs, and one of them was the current designer, very close to it, and the other one was kind of like a much safer design. Looked like one of the existing kind of brands out there a little bit or had elements. I mean, it was differentiated, but was like a much more established design.

15:50
Jordan Bass
And they actually both scored pretty similarly on the survey. And so it kind of came down to, like, a gut call. And we had shown it to a couple of our friends, and a few of our friends didn't like the current design. They were like, no, go with the other one. And Nick and I kind of walked away, and our gut feel was like, we loved this design, and we're like, you know what? Let's just do it. We're risk takers. We're starting a company. It's what we should do. And went with it. And to a t, the brand feedback has been super positive. It was 100% the right call.

16:28
Daniel Scharf
I love it. I think it's incredibly distinctive. And, I mean, just at least the way that I feel about the brand is it's kind of like, yeah, half sparkling water, half something else. That's kind of interesting. And that is exactly what the design looks like in the bottom half of the. Can you have the wavy blue lines? In the top half, there is a bold piece of color. So, yeah, for me, it really resonates. I'm obviously a huge fan of the product. Remind us again, when did you guys first launch into the market, and where were you launching?

17:01
Jordan Bass
Yeah, so we launched in late 2020, the heart of COVID It was a crazy time to launch a beverage brand, and I know a lot of entrepreneurs listening probably also launched in a similar period and had to navigate those challenging waters. You asked about kind of where and how we launched the standard CPG or beverage playbook is to go to the on premise, build your brand that way, get recognition, and then build in the. And, you know, we're first concepting this pre the pandemic. We were going to roll out that kind of same way. And that was one of our first kind of pivots. Obviously, the pandemic hit and going on premise wasn't an option for us.

17:41
Daniel Scharf
And just to define that for people who don't know. And then this would be kind of more of a playbook for Bev Alk, right?

17:48
Jordan Bass
Yeah. Beverage in general, but definitely Bev alk for sure.

17:51
Daniel Scharf
Okay, so on premise meaning like the places that you go and buy the product and actually drink there.

17:56
Jordan Bass
Like a bars restaurant. Yeah, exactly. Cafes.

18:00
Daniel Scharf
Okay. Versus off premise meaning like you're going to buy it and then go drink it at home like a grocery store.

18:06
Jordan Bass
Yeah. So on premise bars, restaurants, cafes, et cetera. To your point, anywhere you drink it on, off, basically think of it as like retail grocery stores. And so when weren't able to leverage the on premise, we said, okay, well, and the key there is that the reason that on premise is important is because consumers typically need to try a beverage. They need to get familiar and introduced to it before they commit to buying a six pack or a twelve pack and investing those kind of dollars. So we knew that we needed consumers to be able to trial the product and we needed to access them quickly. We could have just gone straight to the off premise and done displays and stuff like that of other ways of driving.

18:51
Jordan Bass
But also, if you remember back to that time, retailers were really not looking at new products. They were really focused on getting bread and milk and eggs on the shelf, which I don't blame them, that's the right thing to do. They needed to get those staples to consumers. And supply chains were very challenging. So almost all the resets were either canceled or delayed. So we chose to launch online and we could get directly to our consumers quickly. Obviously, at that time, online was also an area where there was a lot of consumer traction. And that was really valuable for us because it gave us the initial consumer insights, the initial access to the consumer. We quickly followed that with launching in the off premise.

19:31
Jordan Bass
We started with Arowan here in Los Angeles, where I am, and then built into other natural foods retailers that have a little bit more rolling kind of resets versus the larger retailers. And then we started building from there.

19:47
Daniel Scharf
Okay. And so, Jordan, you have an incredible e commerce background. What did you know that really helped you to find your consumers in the early days? Or what were some of the insights that helped you do it in a cost effective way, find the people that Hopwater was really going to appeal to?

20:01
Jordan Bass
Yeah, that's a great question. And were fortunate that way. Nick, and I both have a background in the online space. So were able to roll out the e commerce playbook pretty quickly and ramp the business really right away in the e commerce, because was, there was not much learning there. We knew the best practices.

20:21
Daniel Scharf
What are they? What's the ecommerce playbook? I don't know.

20:24
Jordan Bass
Yeah, there's certainly a lot of them. And we could maybe do another full podcast on the ecom playbook. But look, there's obviously specific paid media channels that work really well. You really want to also make sure that your messaging and your creative and that your organic is building and you're not just doing paid alone. And I think double clicking in there to the creative and the tagline side of things, that's become an increasingly important area of digital marketing, period. But ecommerce specifically, as the algorithms have gotten, as things have changed, privacy requirements and whatnot, cpms, which is like the measure of the ad costs, have gone up. And so you really need to focus on creative. And were fortunate we did that in the early days. We actually did a lot of testing.

21:20
Jordan Bass
And I would encourage anyone here, too, to test different types of creative, test different types of taglines to optimize your creative, because it's really about your creative winning. And that's what kind of, like, wins on these platforms. Not only that, but the other thing that's really beneficial about doing that, and we used successful in the early days, is it gave us insights into what resonated with consumers about talking about our brand. And that's invaluable for a new brand. Figuring out what are my consumers respond to.

21:53
Daniel Scharf
Got it. Okay. And you mentioned merchandising before. Then once you did get into shelves, or how do you think about it these days? Like, if you can pick where you're going to be merchandised, exactly where and what's going to be next to you, what is it?

22:05
Jordan Bass
Yeah, I mean, we have the benefit of being able to sit in a lot of places in the store. You'll oftentimes find us in the beer aisle, and that is a great place for us. But we can sit throughout the store. We can sit in the functional beverage space. We can sit in the water section, and we're able to leverage all of those placements pretty effectively, depending on the retailer and the pack size and whatnot.

22:29
Daniel Scharf
Okay, got you. I just think this is going to be one of the most interesting spaces in all of CPG to watch is what's going to happen in non alk beer. What are the innovations that are going to come? What are consumer preferences going to look like? Do you have any predictions and things that you're really paying attention to?

22:49
Jordan Bass
Look, I think this category has a long Runway. I think to your point, we're already seeing it in consumer preferences, I think not only in ALC to non ALC, but in the calorie kind of content and the macros. You alluded to it earlier, with consumers shifting from heavy ipas to loggers, I think that trend has been going on. The seltzer trend was part of that. So I think you're going to see that continued betterment trend and that is a long term macro trend that's going to play out. The other thing I think that's really interesting for our category with non out, but also that betterment trend that I talked about is when you look at the younger generations, younger millennials and Gen Z, they over index in both their purchasing and reporting of looking for products with those types of characteristics.

23:45
Jordan Bass
So there's this huge demographic wave that's coming that's going to further accelerate and I think carry these trends over many years and maybe decades.

23:57
Daniel Scharf
Okay, got it. So I guess just tracing back then, so once you started launching into retail, what were some of the big milestones for you? And as that's happening, how much of your energy continues to go into the online channel versus really focusing on succeeding at retail?

24:13
Jordan Bass
Yeah, for sure. Well, there's been a lot of milestones along the way. I mean, thinking about getting originally, like I talked about, we started in the natural channel, then were able to get opportunities with some of the kind of crossover accounts that are natural but a little bit more conventional, and then moved into conventional and into mass retailers. And those were all big milestones along the way for us. And now I think most of my focus is on building our wholesale and retail business. We're majority wholesale, and that's really where the scale comes from. The ecommerce business is still super important for us. It drives a lot of consumer awareness. It drives paid sampling.

24:58
Jordan Bass
They're some of our most loyal consumers and we're able to speak directly to them, test new products with them, get direct feedback from those consumers and have a relationship there. And then we're able to leverage those consumers as we launch new retailers. But that's really our focus. And where our scale is, or where the scale opportunity is in retail.

25:15
Daniel Scharf
And I know we talked about it a little bit in the early days, but yeah, as you're unlocking the new retailers, what are you doing that you think is really successful to get on people's radars at places the country where you haven't been and marketing a bunch, is it mainly the packaging that you're relying on, or are you doing demos? Are you focusing on price promotions? What's kind of your top one, two, three things to do to start getting velocities churning?

25:40
Jordan Bass
Yeah, that's a great question. And there's also a playbook that we've developed over time there. But I think to hit your top one, two, three on things that we're doing that are successful liquid delips, we talked about in the beginning, consumers need to try the product and you kind of said, okay, well, consumers could try it and then integrate it into their life. We see that consumers might try it as an alternative to their favorite beer and then find that they enjoy drinking the product throughout the day. So getting consumers to trial is the most important thing. Displays are incredibly effective that not only increases your velocity, but then also acts as a branding opportunity in the store. And we can directly see in the data, when we have more secondary displays, the velocity goes up. So that's a huge one.

26:26
Jordan Bass
And then third, really leveraging any type of community that you have to get that initial velocity going. We talked about the ecommerce business. We've built this incredible community of loyal Hopwater fans and consumers on our ecommerce business. And every time we launch a new retailer, we tell those consumers, hey, look, it's now available in your favorite local retailer, and they kind of rush to the store and help to drive that initial velocity. So those are three important tactics that we use to get velocity it.

26:56
Daniel Scharf
And, yeah, I mean, any special things you've learned just about retail sales in general? And I'll also just give a quick shout out to somebody on your team. Sam, who I've known just from industry events, he's one of your sales guys. I have learned a lot from just from watching him, especially at distributor sales shows. Just kind of like watched him and how he actually talks to people at the show and gets a deal done right there. And he actually taught me how to submit turnover forms yourself to the distributors so that you actually, like, usually at distributor shows, you have a deal and you're saying, hey, five months from now, you can place an order and you can get a 30% discount or whatever. But he was actually the one that taught me like, take that order right now.

27:34
Daniel Scharf
If you're going to give them the discount, you can give it to them right now and put the order in yourself. Here's the form that you do. And then I had heard from other people who know him, like, watch him. He knows how to actually go through the next steps with retailers and get them locked in. So I personally learned a lot from him, but I'm wondering, is that a cultural thing that you have at your organization or any other kind of sales tips? Because from my perspective, you guys just have been kind of a rocket ship as a brand. So is there other secret sauce there around retail sales?

28:02
Jordan Bass
Yeah. Sam is the man. He is constantly hustling, and he's a great guy. We're lucky to have him on the know. Look, I think there's a lot of know. There's the playbook and executing really well, and I think that's kind of what you're talking about, like figuring out those tips on how you execute super well. And we are constantly talking about that. And I think that is the ethos of our culture at the company, is just making sure that you're super dialed in and you're executing at a high level. I love the quote, that vision without execution is hallucination, and you can have the best vision and product idea, but if you can't execute it doesn't really matter. So we definitely talk about that a lot.

28:47
Jordan Bass
The other thing that I think is really important, and Sam exemplifies it and many others on the team do, is just, like, finding a solution when you run into a wall, find the way to go over it, around it, et cetera. It's startup kind of 101, but you have to live and breathe that every single day. In fact, Sam and I were just on the phone talking about an opportunity and how were going to exactly do that. So it's something that never stops. And frankly, I find it fun. It's a puzzle, but you've got to have that in your culture and constantly be pushing it.

29:24
Daniel Scharf
Okay, got it. Very good. So while you've had all this great success, are there any things that you look back on the early days, like, man, I wish we had fixed that sooner or figured that out earlier or switched strategies or changed art or not gone after a certain kind of customer, anything like that from the early days?

29:45
Jordan Bass
Yeah, there's certainly a lot of stories. Some of them were situational. And I think in the early days, you couldn't even get cans. And so I would have done that a lot differently. We were literally making phone calls. Like, you're making a drug deal and someone's calling you. They're like, I got a truckload of cans. I need cash now. Do you want it? Yes. I'll meet you here. Whatever. It was just like everyone was trying to hustle to not shut down their production line. That's one of them. But in the very early days, I didn't realize how long it took. This is probably beverage and startup 101, but I just didn't realize how long it took to get set up with the distributors.

30:33
Jordan Bass
And we would go in and get a yes from a retailer, and then it was 90 or 120 days or even longer to get set up with the distributor. So anyone that is thinking about launching a brand, I would just encourage you. There are real timelines and you have to get ahead of those. I mean, same thing with the retailer resets. These retailers are working a long way out and they should be. They have tens of thousands of products and they're working sometimes twelve months out. So you've got to adhere your business to their schedule and make sure that you're planning far enough in advance, which is not necessarily what most startups do, but the sooner you learn that lesson, the better off you'll be.

31:17
Daniel Scharf
Yeah, makes sense for me, having run a beverage company for a couple of years, getting the chance to at least do a pilot run to get sales samples as far in advance as possible was very helpful, even if it's expensive and you don't run through all the cans, but at least just have something to send to the company that needs to take the picture of your product to get you into a data system, which then unlocks a retailer being able to actually add you to their system, which then lets the distributor start putting you in their system. It's like Zelda sometimes. Like, oh, you need the red key for the Blue Wizard Castle. You have to do all this stuff so the earlier you can start, the better.

31:55
Daniel Scharf
And then, yeah, just going back to your skill set before starting was so deep in e commerce to then get into retail, did you feel like you knew enough to just kind of jump in or Nick maybe knew some stuff that you felt like would help you come up with the right retail strategy? Or did you lean on mentors or bring in a specific kind of skill set just to feel like you were going in the right direction?

32:20
Jordan Bass
Yeah, good question. Combination of a few things. It felt like being around a great CPG company. I was able to pick up enough about retail that I had the basic building blocks, but beyond that, it was really like partnering with or hiring great people. And we had advisors along the way in the early days that were able to provide us direction. We hired some great people that knew the playbook. And I think stepping back and just thinking about being running a company, or really at any level within a company, running a team, it's really important to understand what you're good at and what you're not good at, and then bring people in around you, whether they're on your team or they're partners to you in the organization that can supplement. Like, no one has every piece of knowledge.

33:11
Jordan Bass
And that's why you build great teams, because together you're stronger. So I think we did a pretty effective job of filling in the gaps with great partners and team members.

33:23
Daniel Scharf
So who's in your brain trust if you're thinking about a new strategy or product? Who are your friends in the industry that you reach out to, probably more informally just to trade notes or bounce ideas off each other? Or who are some brands that you really respect in different spaces that you try to take inspiration from?

33:42
Jordan Bass
Yeah, I mean, we've been fortunate to meet a lot of great people, and I think for brands, like, leaning on your investor community and we've got some really great investors is key. They have aligned interests with you, and hopefully you have great investors like I do, and a lot of times they're industry experts. And so I think that's a good place to start. I definitely suggest that any, and I've done this for sure, like any young entrepreneurs or any entrepreneurs, find a couple mentors or partners that you really respect and trust. Like Ray Dalio talks about who I love, talks about the credibility of advisors, and I think he says, try to find someone in the best case scenario that's done it once before, or in a good scenario, twice is the best, or three times, like the best case.

34:44
Jordan Bass
And so I think when you look at advisors, you can kind of look at that, okay, this person's been there, done that. Chances are they're going to have really good input for you and then listen to them.

34:56
Daniel Scharf
Yeah, pretty interesting. And then I guess, just thinking back to what you were saying about your team and the importance of execution, do you use that as a paradigm or filter when you're hiring people as well? Or are there key things that you look from a culture or attitude perspective when you're bringing people onto the team, regardless of what function it is?

35:16
Jordan Bass
For sure, yeah, I'm a pretty all in kind of guy, and I look for folks that are really passionate. They do and are going to get passionate about the opportunity, whatever it is. And I think when you look at folks on our team, we all have hot water running through our veins. We're all thinking about it all the time and we're really passionate about the company and doing great work. And so that's like a prerequisite for me. And then I think you find that in types of folks that are energetic and are problem solvers. And I think that's another key aspect. And I think lastly, people that take pride in what they do, we talked about a high level of execution. Look for those folks that just want to do great work and they enjoy that. So those are a couple of key things.

36:17
Jordan Bass
Frankly, people that just don't meet those criteria. Criteria are probably not going to be a good fit for the company. They're probably not going to enjoy it. We're not going to enjoy working together. So it's kind of a win when you can filter out and find people that fit those guidelines.

36:35
Daniel Scharf
Yeah, got it. Okay, so as you guys have grown, have you gone back to focusing on that on premise market, or do you plan to dedicate resources to that? And if so, what kinds of channels in on premise are interesting to you?

36:50
Jordan Bass
Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question and we definitely have. In fact, I was just talking about, I took a little holiday over the new year, which we could talk about I also think is super important for anyone in the startup world. It can be a grind. Like got to take the time to refresh and keep yourself sharp. But anyway, I took a little ski holiday. I snowboard and went up to Montana, and we're on the menu at all of those bars and restaurants where went and working super well. And it was really cool to see us on those menus and literally on the slopes. I was, of course, drinking a can of hot water and had multiple people come up and say like, oh, I had a couple of those last night, or I've been meaning to try that brand.

37:39
Jordan Bass
So, yeah, we're working our way back to the on premise space and we find it works in a lot of areas, whether it's a high end dining opportunity or experience. I think there's a lot of consumers looking for that kind of non alk beverage to enjoy with their dinner or it's a bar and coming after a long day of skiing or sporting or whatever it is on the lake, and you just want something refreshing to enjoy with your budies. So it works in a pretty diverse way. We've also done some testing and worked with a couple of companies to see how the product performs against competitors in that bar scenario, and it validated what we thought. But we saw really strong data and they've been able to use that to expand the business within that kind of like bar and restaurant space.

38:30
Daniel Scharf
Yeah, it's pretty interesting. I imagine that some of these on premise locations, whether it's a ski slope or college or university or something, would be really supportive of you and people choosing your product. Like a ski slope doesn't necessarily want people drinking a ton of beer and hitting the slopes again, there's a lot that can go wrong there. Colleges and universities in general, I think, are pretty in favor of people finding healthy alternatives to drinking quite as much as a lot of us did, myself included. When they are in college, do you find any of that eagerness when you're talking to the buyers, the administrations there, where they're like, yeah, we want this product, and we also want to work with you to figure out how we can really get people to try it out.

39:11
Jordan Bass
We really focus on our product and the quality and the consumer trends and what people are enjoying. We focus a little bit more on that selling angle, and we see that works. I think whether it's a consumer that's abstaining or just moderating and drinking a couple of hot waters in between their beers, I think that message is resonating with bar and restaurant owners. The other one that works really well and we're seeing is like the grab and go cooler when you go into a cafe. You talked about that kind of lunchtime opportunity. That is like a huge opportunity that's working really well for us.

39:51
Daniel Scharf
Got it. Great. I think another question I wanted to ask is, what's your vision for the brand overall? What do you see happening in the next couple of years? Or what's your dream for Hopwater?

40:09
Jordan Bass
Yeah, I think we, as I talked about, have a long Runway. I would have built this into a billion dollar brand. And I think we've got years and years, if not decades, of runways. So I think we're pretty focused now on executing the opportunity in front of us. As much as the brand's grown, we're still quite small compared to the universe of retail opportunities out there. So we're pretty focused on executing what's in front of us. But I think there's a long Runway. I mean, you could think of, like, from an innovation standpoint, there's a ton more to do in this adult beverage space. There's a ton to do in functional. So while we're really focused on just executing what's in front of us, I think there's a long Runway, both from a consumer standpoint and a product standpoint.

40:55
Jordan Bass
And then lastly, I'll mention on that we really believe in consumer led innovation. So we're constantly talking to our consumer and getting feedback from our consumer and what do they want from us, where are their drinking habits and how can we provide a great product for them that supports that going forward? I think that's what will give us a long life as a brand.

41:15
Daniel Scharf
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And at what point would a brand like yours start to think about international opportunities? Has that already come across your radar or have you thought about when that could make sense for your brand and how you could approach something like that?

41:31
Jordan Bass
For sure? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely something that we've talked about a lot and we've explored. And I think there are some more intuitive kind of international markets. You talked about some of them that are a little bit more developed and are not. It's a tough question because while some of those markets can be really attractive, it can also be a bit of a distraction. And there's packaging requirements, there's labeling requirements, there's regulatory requirements. And the US is a massive country. Like we talked about our ACV, the number of stores that we're in relative to what we could be in is still relatively small. So every time that conversation comes up, we typically go back to, there's a lot more to do in our backyard. Let's kind of stay focused.

42:15
Jordan Bass
You also start to splinter your resources when you go into other markets or other countries and you can kind of dilute things easily and then you leave the door open for competitors. So it's something we talk about, but I think it's a decision that needs to be very carefully evaluated. It is not just free revenue that's in the other country. There are negative trade offs.

42:38
Daniel Scharf
Yeah. And just your resources that you have to deploy for that. While there's still so much headroom in the US market. I think it's been an interesting past couple of years also in the beer space. Like, I know just a lot of beer distributors were impacted this year, obviously by things like the decline in sales of Bud light and pretty eagerly looking around in the market for additional non ALK products. I would say that they could pick up. So you probably saw a lot of interest coming your way from distributors you might not have expected to hear from, looking to expand their offerings. Things like hop water obviously being a nice complement to their portfolio. Way to drive incremental growth for them.

43:19
Jordan Bass
Yeah, we've got some amazing distribution partners and at your point, we've been pleasantly surprised at some of the reception that we've gotten from pretty hardcore beer distributors that are looking for non ALC products. And frankly, working with our distributors is like one of my favorite things about the business. You get out into the trade and many of these distributors are family owned. They're just like great people. And you can sit down, you can crack a hot water or a beer with them, have a conversation, look across the table, have a handshake and make a commitment, know, build the business together, and it's kind of mutually beneficial. And I love of, again, like one of my favorite things to do about building the business, and we are fortunate to have some really incredible distribution partners.

44:06
Daniel Scharf
Amazing. All right, so, Jordan, as we kind of end up here, is there anything else that you want to share about you or hop water with everybody? I know you had mentioned the extra dry hopped product that's launching as well. Anything else people should know about?

44:20
Jordan Bass
Yeah, thanks for that. So the double hopped product is newly out. You can get it on our website exclusively. Now. That's one of my favorite recent innovations. I talked earlier about consumer led innovation, and that product came about because we talked to and listened to our consumers. And if we didn't do that, I think we would have missed out on that opportunity. We asked our consumers, what else would you like to see from us? And those kind of hophead consumers said, we love your current product, and I'd love something that was like palate wrecking, that was even hoppier and we wouldn't deliver it on that. And that's what the double hop product is. So it's a hop water base, and then we use the same amount of hops as are used in a craft ipa through a cold, dry hopping process.

45:13
Jordan Bass
And when you taste that, you get really the aroma of a beer and hops. And it's definitely the closest to a beer that we've created. And the consumer reception was incredibly positive for it. So that was.

45:28
Daniel Scharf
How close does it get? That's really what I was curious about, is how close is this going to get in profile to Heineken? Zero or something like that.

45:37
Jordan Bass
Yeah. So we're never trying to be exactly a non up beer. We'd make a non up beer if we wanted to do that. We always wanted to approach things a bit differently. And you don't have the malt notes and whatnot that you have in a beer, so it's not going to be exactly like a beer, but you definitely get the big hoppy notes that you would get in a beer and especially maybe a lighter beer. So it's definitely in the same family. But I think one of the things, some of those beer recipes have been perfected over hundreds of years. It's pretty hard to do exactly that with a non OC beer. So our approach was like, look, let's just come at it from a totally different angle and create something that fills that occasion, but isn't trying to be exactly the same thing.

46:26
Daniel Scharf
I love it, and I'll be really interested to circle back with you and understand what the purchase and usage occasions for the double hopped versus some of your other products. Like, okay, people who are drinking it for a little more bite, is that because. Yeah, really? Those are the people who are drinking it more like socially out at a bar in the evenings and they want something that's a little bit closer to an actual beer versus. Oh, no. Actually, there are people who are just drinking that the same way kind of during the week, and they just prefer just, I'd say, a flavor with more body, more of the hop coming through in it. So we'll have to circle back with you and see a little bit more about that data in the future.

47:05
Jordan Bass
For sure. It's part of the fun startup and beverage journey. We're always learning and evolving.

47:09
Daniel Scharf
Awesome. All right, Jordan, thank you so much for joining us on the startup CPG podcast. This has been super interesting for me, mainly just because I wanted to know a lot more about the story behind this brand that I've just seen everywhere. So thanks for sharing all of those learnings about the inception and a lot of the stuff along the way. Is there a good way for people to just kind of keep stay tuned and keep learning more about Hopwater and you? Is it good to follow you on LinkedIn or what's the best way for people to keep getting the good news?

47:38
Jordan Bass
Well, first of all, thank you for having me. Startup CPG is one of the best organizations in the space and it's a pleasure to be know. Obviously you can find our products at local retailers. You can also get it on our website. And then as far as staying connected, yeah, LinkedIn's great. Feel free to dm me the vast majority of my messages, so look forward to connecting.

47:58
Daniel Scharf
All right, great. Thanks everybody. I hope everyone out there got as much from this as I did and we will see you again next week. Bye.