The Startup CPG Podcast

Max Luthy
Well, as you touched on like selling a drink tablet to someone who's gone to get a carbonated beverage is a non starter like that doesn't work. But if you're actually in the hydration set, there's people who think this category is already really competitive. And it's like, dude, this is early. We are really early in hydration powders and tablets. This is like looking at Red Bull and being like, well, that' energy category, you know, oh, now there's monster. Okay, Red Bull Monster. That, that category is saturated. Ideally we come and do demos and get sips to lips and we love to do that, but actually a lot of people will just see a new product on shelf and go, oh my God, I'm so sick of my existing daily hydration solution. Let me give this a try.

00:50
Max Luthy
We have a single serve pack as well, so you can try a tablet for under $2 and then come back and drop, you know, $14.99 if you like it.

00:59
Grace Kennedy
Hello startup CPG listeners. This is Grace and I'm here with another founder feature. Today I'm talking to Max Luthy, the co founder of Plink. Plink makes fizzy electrolyte tablets in delicious fruit flavors that turn your daily hydration chore into a treat. You'll hear me in this episode say that I'm personally a fan and my favorite flavor is their pineapple grapefruit. But they have a slew of delicious natural flavors that make the drink a delight to consume. We talk all about Plink's origin story, how they had to adjust their initial value proposition and their exciting growth happening now as they launch into a slate of CVS stores. I hope you enjoy this episode and as always, let me know what you think. Hello everyone and welcome back to the start of CPG podcast.

01:57
Grace Kennedy
This is Grace and I'm here with Max Luthy, the co founder of Plink. Welcome to the show, Max.

02:04
Max Luthy
Hello. Nice to see you, Grace. Thanks for having me.

02:07
Grace Kennedy
Yes. I'm so excited. I feel like Clink is all over our startup CPG community in our section at different expos and we love Plink and I'm actually drinking my Plink right now. For those who are watching, they can see me with my pineapple flavored plank drink.

02:23
Max Luthy
Pineapple grapefruit.

02:25
Grace Kennedy
Yes. That one's my favorite. I think you have. You sent me two flavors. I don't know if you have more, but anyway, I'd love for you to introduce Plink to our listeners.

02:33
Max Luthy
Cool. Thanks, Grace. Yeah. So I'm Max. I'm One of the co founders of Plink. I'll just do a little live demonstration here. The world's greatest electrolyte drink tablet. I should clarify, it's fruity, it's fizzy, it's approachable, it's a big tent. We bring the joy to hydration which can be very functional and very serious. And there's been this huge shift in behavior away from just sports hydration and then recovery hydration where you're like a super hungover bridesmaid to daily hydration. And so we are positioned for that. It has to taste great, it has to be the right electrolyte levels for daily hydration. And that's really working for us now. And just a quick note, you mentioned you feel like we've been all over this sort of startup CPG scene. I mean we are so grateful for you guys, you know, like everybody listening.

03:16
Max Luthy
I've had almost every problem under the sun solved by somebody in the community and you guys have been such a good platform for us. So very grateful.

03:24
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, and we love to hear that. And that's. I didn't pay him to say that, so. No, it's a genuine endorsement. I'd love to hear a little bit about, a little bit more about like how you guys came up with this idea for and for those who are listening, Max show that it is a tablet that you drop into water and then it fizzes and kind of just magically goes into the make this delicious electrolyte drink. But I'd love to hear a little bit about like how you guys came up with that idea and why you went for say a tablet over what some of these other electrolyte drinks are, which are like the shaken powder or things like that.

03:57
Max Luthy
So great question. Yeah. I've been working in trend forecasting for about a decade. Not, not the kind of fashion. You know that Saturday Night Live skit where they're in black turtlenecks and they're like, this is in, this is out. It's not quite that. More looking at cross category innovation across everything from automotive to food and beverage. And so, you know, very passionate about innovative progressive brands and always wanted to start my own company and always wanted to start my own beverage company. And at the time it was sort of the seltzer boom where Lacroix was everywhere. And I just remember looking into my recycling bin and seeing just this like, just the carcasses, the empty carcasses of Lacroix spilling over and it was like, this is kind of mad like that. I'm so Evolved.

04:38
Max Luthy
I won't drink bottled water out of a plastic bottle shipped from Fiji, but I am cracking through cans of Lacroix like multiple times a day. So I had that pain point. Like, I want to start a beverage company but without the waste. And I'm sure in the middle of the night, inspired by companies like Lush in the beauty industry and Blue Land in home care, I just sat up in bed at like 2am and started Whatsapping a friend. It's a bath bomb you can drink called Plink. Low carbon footprint, you know, packed with wellness benefits, delivered by subscription and went back to sleep. And remarkably, that friend Nick, him and his business partner Toby, instead of saying don't text us at 2am, they were like, you got to start this company and we'll help you do it. But I didn't for a long time.

05:20
Grace Kennedy
Wow. So when did you decide to like take that idea and you were like ready to actually create Plink even though it sounds like you sat on it for a minute?

05:29
Max Luthy
I sat on it for a minute because I was aware, like coming from the trend forecasting world was really good at telling people what consumers wanted and what they should do with their business. And you know, PepsiCo, you should do this and like Spotify, you should do that. And then flying home and thinking I was like a genius. And I certainly wasn't. It turns out bringing something to market is much harder. You know, actually meeting consumers needs is a lot easier than talking about it. So I think I knew I was just going to get my ass handed to me without the right partner. Right. I'd never made something taste good and so that was probably what was holding me back.

06:00
Max Luthy
And then when Covid really hammered my trend business around about that time, that friend I'd originally texted said, look, I found the perfect co founder for you. His name is Luke, he's a wonderful guy and he has the perfect background. So he's a great talker, but he's not, he wasn't a professional talker. He's a doer. Like he's a maker. He'd started, he'd put on sustainable events all over the world. He'd started a kombucha company with his wife. They'd started a contract manufacturing facility, you know, won lots of awards and got into Whole Foods uk. So he's just like the perfect complement to if I was thinking about the product and the category and the vision. I needed someone to help bring it to life. And that's where Luke came in.

06:39
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's awesome. And I Do hear from so many people who have co founders how grateful they are to have found someone who can kind of compliment their skills and versus weaknesses and, like, have someone to balance them out and also to share the workload.

06:53
Max Luthy
Because I don't know how solo founders, if you're listening, I have no idea how you're doing it. I've definitely. I learned on Luke a lot in the first few years. I think I've. Because he had a thicker skin from being in cpg. He knew that stuff went wrong. He knew that everything took longer, everything cost more. Whereas I was used to the sort of perfectionism of my former career. And so having somebody who has just, like, been through some of the hurdles and just you can kind of pick each other up when the other one's high and the other one's low is really helpful.

07:22
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. So I'm curious, when you guys, when you met Luke and you sort of decided to, like, start working together and Luke was on board, it sounds like, what were some of your first steps when you decided to start creating plink? And I know you've mentioned that sort of the electrolyte balance is different for daily hydration versus, like, something that's like a morning hangover. So I'd love to hear a little bit about that, like, development process.

07:50
Max Luthy
Well, we kind of came at the hydration category backwards. We're almost like reluctant supplement founders. We were beverage guys, and we're passionate about beverages. And were trying to tackle the environmental waste of the beverage industry. And so we wanted something carbonated in tablet form. And Luke took on product development and very quickly was like, look, this exists. It's an effervescent tablet. They've existed since the Victorian era. It's not a food type play. Which is probably a good thing for us because we got to lean more into Luke's strengths as a flavorist. And he'd done lots of flavor development in kombucha, and he took that experience from working with liquids and, you know, natural ingredients and experimenting in the kitchen to working with powders. One of the interesting things is because were trying to create carbon dioxide to do that.

08:37
Max Luthy
Essentially you have the citric acid react with sodium bicarbonate, and it creates CO2 when added to water. So then Luke is like, look, this creates electrolytes, positively charged salts. This was somewhat accidental. And it's like, okay, wait, we've managed to make a really great tasting daily electrolyte drink, almost as a. An accident of the chemistry. And then we obviously have, like, lent into that so that was many years ago. And now it's like to the milligram it's very considered what the formulation is. But yeah, we didn't mean to enter the hydration space. I mean beyond being a liquid.

09:11
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's so funny. And now that you are in the hydration space, what has it been like to be in such a hot category, if you will, and how do you sort of approach that?

09:21
Max Luthy
Once we realized were in the hydration space, we had this vision for the category and were like, look, water enhancers, like products you add to your water and make a delicious drink, have also existed for 100 years. We have products like Kool Aid, you know, founded in 1927. And so we very quickly identified like there's the joy in products like Kool Aid and the flavor and the emphasis on being a social drink and all the stuff that you associate with beverages is missing from the electrolyte space. Like the top selling product is named after something you get in the hospital. It's super scientific. Or they companies trademark loads of sort of sciency gobbledygook to make it sound like they've invented something when really they're just selling salt and sugar in a packet.

10:03
Max Luthy
But were like, well look, why don't we focus on flavor and fun? And so it took a while almost for the category to catch up with that vision, which is a mix of our own missteps. But also just genuinely the category is now at a place where as I mentioned, like after sports hydration people started using these recovery products and they sort of just suffered through like overly sweet or overly salty options. Most people if you talk to even their power users, don't love the taste. And so it's really benefited us that we have come at it from a beverage perspective. And so yeah, so it's great to be part of this category. I'm super grateful for the companies that have like shown that there's this is a billion dollar opportunity.

10:43
Max Luthy
And actually they've scaled so far that if you speak to like natural grocers, for example, they're almost delisting some of the major players because it's like once you can buy that product in Staples, it's not exactly like, you know what I mean, once it's in Staples, it's not necessarily right for your premium focused natural grocer. So yeah, I don't know if I went on too long there, but.

11:05
Grace Kennedy
No, no, that's great. And I think it's really interesting and it made me think I Was curious about where do you guys aim for on shelf. And, you know, I know you're in a bunch of retailers now in various states in the country. And so where do you sort of. Yeah. Shoot for plink being on shelf. And how do you strategize around retail?

11:26
Max Luthy
Yeah, I mean, that cost us some time. Like, we, as I said, we're beverage guys with a supplement in sort of denial. And I think there's obviously overlap, and this is not unique to us. I'm sure there's many listeners who have different places in store they could go. And I think it's often a good sign, but it does make your life harder. So this is how crazy were when we. Our first retailer to take us on was Healthy Living in Vermont. We're very grateful for them. That was our proof of concept. But we literally were put next to the Topo Chico and, like, the fancy seltzers, because that was what were telling them were going to replace. And so I remember a couple people just being like, you need to be next to Liquid IV or in HBC in this sort of wellness area.

12:05
Max Luthy
And it took us a really long time to start pitching to wellness buyers. Now, ironically, the wellness buyers and the water enhancer buyers or the beverage buyers are sharing this category like it is. We weren't crazy. There is this overlap that we first identified a few years ago. So anytime, like, you have a healthy beverage and you're like, do we go near the modern sodas or do we go near the kombuchas, et cetera? Like, I relate to that. And as I said, I think it's a sign that you're doing something different, but it does make your life harder.

12:33
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. So was there a point where you guys kind of had to decide to start pitching towards the, like, supplement category?

12:40
Max Luthy
I think, you know, the buyers are pretty fantastic about this. I think they get it sort of depends on the store. It is typically the HBC or the Whole Body or the Wellness Buyer. Right. Right now. But increasingly it's also the sort of more of a center store or even a sports nutrition buyer. So I think you just have to know the story you're talking to know how they categorize the set. But also because we're trying to drive the category forward, we come in with a point of view, you know, that's like, you know, there's one major retailer who was like, a bit dismissive of us and said, you'll never work in our stores because you have a beverage panel, not like a supplement fact panel. Right. On the side of the pack. That's become way more normalized in the category.

13:20
Max Luthy
So I think there's a lot of listening. Listen to the buyers and do your research and try and bring the most value to their store. Ultimately, you want it to work as well as possible for them.

13:31
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. And how do you guys sort of try to bring value to stores once you're in them? Right. Like, how do you make sure that the customer knows what they're buying? Because it is a newer product. And most customers, when they're looking for either a carbonated beverage or a electrolyte beverage, they're used to going for what they know. And so how do you introduce plink to customers once you're in store?

13:54
Max Luthy
Yeah, well, as you touched on, like, selling a drink tablet to someone who's gone to get a carbonated beverage is a non starter. Like, that doesn't work. I can't believe we spent some time doing that. But if you're actually in the hydration set, there's people who think this category is already really competitive. And it's like, dude, this is early. We are really early in hydration powders and tablets. And this is like looking at Red Bull and being like, well, that's the energy category, you know. Oh, now there's monster. Okay, Red Bull Monster. That. That category saturated. It's like, there is a lot of room in this category. And so the reason there's a lot of room is people want alternatives. Like, if you put us on shelf in your store. Yes.

14:34
Max Luthy
Ideally we come and do demos and get sips to lips, and we love to do that. But actually a lot of people will just see a new product on shelf and go, oh, my God, I'm so sick of my existing daily hydration solution. Let me give this a try. We have a single serve pack as well, so you can try a tablet for under $2.

14:50
Grace Kennedy
Oh, cool.

14:51
Max Luthy
And then come back and drop, you know, 14.99 if you like it.

14:55
Grace Kennedy
That's actually a pretty low price, I think. Well, I don't know. You tell me. Because I'm thinking of when I've gone to buy like electrolyte packets and I've always been a little bit like, whoa, these are more expensive than I sort of thought they would be. I don't know why I would. They'd be lower, but yeah. Can you talk about the pricing?

15:11
Max Luthy
Yeah, I mean, it is. You're right to think these are more expensive than I would have thought they'd be. Like the stick Companies printing money. It's unbelievable. It's amazing that they've convinced people to pay as much as they'll pay for salt and sugar in a packet. It's actually incredible. But I suppose if you look at the bottled water category and what people will pay for H2O in those other examples of this. But yeah, I agree. I don't. I think, look, ours is a premium product. You know, we've added magnesium. We work very hard on the flavors. We don't cut any corners, so we can't come way down in price. But we definitely like being at a sort of hesitation free price.

15:49
Max Luthy
And I think because we represent a daily the category maturing from like, I'm so hungover I can't see straight to like, oh, actually I have one of these at 2pm every day. And I feel better. You need to be a bit more affordable because, like, when you've got that crippling hangover, $3 to save you potentially from it is fine. But if you're having it every day, like a dollar fifty serving roughly is more in line with what people are looking to pay.

16:14
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. I would feel that way. I would feel more comfortable with that purchase than some of the other ones. I've bought like big electrolyte things before, like, literally trips with friends and things like that. And I've been like, oh, my God, I can't buy this again. This is so expensive. So 14.99 definitely makes a lot more sense. And I also heard you say you guys include magnesium, which I love because I, I take magnesium when I, like, go to bed. Can you talk a little bit about, like, how you decided what to add to the tablets and like, also how you decided which flavors to go with for the consumers?

16:46
Max Luthy
Yeah. So this sort of sodium potassium pump is like ideal for basically if you're flagging lightly, like in one serving tablet, if you've just done your CrossFit session, you know, one Plink tablet's probably not the salt levels you need, so but you can always drop two or three, as Luke does. I think sometimes four. Yeah. But it is formulated for daily use, so we got that ratio right and the volumes right per serving for just almost like a top up. And with the addition of magnesium, just realized he was personally supplementing with magnesium and felt the benefits. So again, it's a low serving. It's not like this is going to. It's not a magnesium supplement dose. It is just a light touch.

17:26
Max Luthy
And from the reviews we get, we're doing some clinical studies now, but we also get just endless reviews from customers saying they feel better when they plink. So I don't want to like piss off the FDA by promising that. But we hear it all the time from people. They're like, I can't believe it. Like, I plink and I feel immediately just like, better energy, feel ready to go.

17:46
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, I love that. I mean, sometimes I think too, it's like, well, you're drinking water and you know, water is pretty powerful water. And then to have the extra things, that's only an added benefit. I know, like whenever I'm feeling tired, my partner will be like, did you have a glass of water? And I'm like, no, I haven't had a glass of water in ours. So we do that.

18:03
Max Luthy
It does work. Also works. Yeah, no, absolutely. I've never had a problem drinking water, so it was funny for me having a product. I know there's like water haters out there who literally can't handle water and they like our product, but that was never my thing. I totally agree with you. In terms of the flavor development. You know, it's interesting. We have so many flavors in our sort of innovation closet or in the pipeline that we're really excited to release. We want to be a big tent product, like, that's sort of approachable to people of all ages. So we're not going crazy niche with the flavors, but we want them to be natural. We want to use natural ingredients. So I would say, like, we're almost building a similar flavor portfolio to like a spindrift like product. We really admire that company.

18:46
Max Luthy
We love their products and that's kind of the goal, almost that healthy halo of just like natural fruit driven flavor innovation.

18:54
Grace Kennedy
How did you decide to start with pineapple, grapefruit and watermelon?

18:59
Max Luthy
Pineapple grapefruit was. Luke was trying to recreate one of his favorite beverages from the uk, which is like a. I think it might be a Jamaican soft drink called Lilt, but in a more natural way. And then with the watermelon, we actually spoke to the founder of Candy Kittens, Jamie Lang, who's actually running his fifth ultramarathon today for charity, or at least when we recorded this. Yeah, really nice guy. And we spoke to him early on and he was like, if you're launching in America, you need to launch with a watermelon flavour. So that was his. And then my favorite is actually the pomegranate berries. Pomegranate and BlackBerry to be precise.

19:34
Grace Kennedy
Yes, I do love pomegranate. That's so fun. Yeah. It makes sense too to have not just your typical lemon lime, but also have them still be pretty approachable, familiar flavors that everybody knows and loves and isn't like.

19:48
Max Luthy
Exactly. I think the category, some of the existing players, they literally say like tri berry. Like they don't even name the berries. They're just like, these people will accept a tri berry flavor. It will vaguely remember them of, you know, Flintstone vitamins. Sorry, don't diss the competition. I do love Elements flavor portfolio. I think they do a really cool job. I love like, I think it's a habanero or a mango chili and they've done chocolate for hot servings so that there is some great innovation happening in the space.

20:16
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, totally. Yeah. I think I've tried the mango chili from Element and enjoy that one.

20:21
Max Luthy
What's cool about that product? What I like about them is it's the phrase we have in the UK is it's like a Marmite product. So we have this like spread. People either love or hate Marmite. And I think Elements just so salty and so punchy that they have like die hard fans. And, you know, I like that about them. We have a more approachable product, probably less divisive, but that comes with challenges too. And I think one of the things that holds us back sometimes in the US is it helps us, but it also holds us back. And I don't always know how to communicate it. So if any listeners want to ping me. We're much less sweet than traditional hydration products and especially sports drinks and things like that. It's probably because we're European, but it tastes sweet to us.

20:59
Max Luthy
But we often get told people love it in store. If I'm doing demos and I mention not too sweet, you'll hear this sort of sneakers screech in like a natural grocery. I'll be like, not too sweet. But if you don't get that kind of warning ahead of time, you know, especially someone like a teenager tries it's just not going to their palate has been nuked by enough products that it's not sweet enough.

21:20
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, it's so interesting. I'm definitely like, I was the weird kid who didn't like soda when I was a child, which, like, good for my health. But I used to hate all like those sports drinks or like, if I got sick and needed like electrolytes, my mom would be like, you must drink this. And I'd be like, it's so gross. So I love the level of sweetness in plink, but I Can understand that some people might want. They're just used to something sweeter and, like, just aren't prepared maybe for something to be a little bit less sweet, which even I still think it's sweet, but it's just not, like, cloying.

21:52
Max Luthy
We're very happy. And I think our newest. Our next flavor launch, which will be mango passion fruit, is, like, without having really changed the sugar levels or anything in terms of just the flavor profile, it will age down a little bit. It'll resonate more with people who want almost like a snapple, like, sweetness.

22:08
Grace Kennedy
Right. Mango and passion fruit are kind of inherently sweet in that way.

22:12
Max Luthy
Yeah, exactly. There's that warmth. Whereas the reason I like the pomegranate berry is it's so dry and has this little tart tang and.

22:20
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, so you're launching a new flavor, it sounds like, but I'm curious what else is sort of coming down the pipeline for Plink this year? And I know you guys were just at Expo, and so maybe there's some exciting conversations that came out of that or. Yeah. What's sort of coming down these next few months for Plink?

22:38
Max Luthy
It feels like Plink used to feel like bit of an. Like trying to build an airplane before it falls out of the sky. And then in, like, the last, like, two months, it has shifted to, like, I think of the scene, the ludicrous speed scene in this old movie Spaceballs, where basically they go to, like, light speed and everybody, like, slams to the back of the ship is going really quickly right now, which is just a culmination of a lot of hard work over the last few years and proving it out. And I think growing in wholesale took so much longer than I anticipated. But again, just my advice to anyone listening is, like, you go to those shows.

23:11
Max Luthy
We went to Expo east, and then a buyer from Expo east didn't really buy until Expo west, and then that was because we built a footprint in Vermont. And so then we opened up PCC in Seattle. And from there, you kind of gaining more and more people's trust. Took a. It took a. Felt like forever, but it really hasn't been that long. And now we have, as of, like, probably a week before this airs, our first big drugstore launch going live. So 1,100 CVS locations, which is massive.

23:37
Grace Kennedy
Yeah. Congratulations.

23:39
Max Luthy
Thank you. Yeah, we're so grateful to the team. And Lauren and her team, they have this set called the Beacon Set. Healthy Consumables. It's. It's a pretty unique set for cvs, but makes a lot of sense for us. This category makes sense there and they give us a really strong foundation with khi. And through that we're getting just more orders from natural grocers than we can keep up with at the moment, which is great, but it's wild. Like, we used to sit on inventory and now we're like rushing out production runs and desperately trying to capitalize the demand. So it's exciting, it's intense, it's exciting. And also E commerce clicked around about the same time. So it's like, maybe it would have been nice if one thing had taken off at once, but I'm not complaining.

24:21
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, that's so exciting and definitely makes a lot of sense for you guys to be in cvs. I've definitely purchased some electrolytes from CVS before. I'm curious how you are managing this sort of now, like, keeping up with demand as you are gaining more traction.

24:37
Max Luthy
I mean, at the time of recording, if you go onto our website, like, our top seller is sold out, and that's not actually sold out to do with how it's packed in the warehouse. Like, there's been some operational bumps in accelerating. We're really grateful to our ops partner, cv, who's helping with kind of demand planning and inventory forecasting. And yeah, it's tough. It's really hard to be a brand that doesn't buy too much stock or too little. I just. It's really hard to get the sweet spot. And so I think we will grow into that and we're going to continually improve our operations. But that was intense. And it's exciting. But yeah, it's so funny.

25:12
Max Luthy
Just the difference between a few months ago where literally in like November of last year, Luke and I were like, I cannot believe how much time and effort we've put into going to these shows, meeting these retailers, et cetera. Like, why is no revenue coming in? And now it's like, oh, my God, the revenue's coming in, but we are going to run out of stock. So it was. There was very little, like, in between phase.

25:34
Grace Kennedy
That's so funny. Do you have any sense of, like, what made the online takeoff now? Or is it. Does it feel kind of random?

25:42
Max Luthy
We just worked on it. Like, I was like a. We worked on it, but I didn't work on it for a while because we launched with the wrong value proposition. Like, were trying to make the impossible burger of drinks in tablet form. You know, it was like, it's not why people buy beverages, even if they answer On a survey they care about sustainability doesn't really work as a key purchase driver. So because the value prop was wrong and a few things with the site were making the user experience a little clunky, I just hadn't dedicated the bandwidth to that. And as wholesale started to pick up momentum had this fantastic GNC opportunity thanks to startup cpg. It was like, okay, this is clicking everywhere else. I need to dedicate some time to improving the E Comm experience. And it didn't take a ton.

26:25
Max Luthy
I mean genuinely, hilariously, we had a custom checkout cart and switching that to, you know, one of these apps that has like add ons and just makes it a bit more seamless immediately like basically doubled our conversion rate. So don't. Conversion rate is no joke. And I know you can read a gazillion blogs saying that, but genuinely, if you're trying to get your CPA down and you're sending people to your website and you're losing 99 out of a hundred of them, it's not going to work. So there was the website side of it. And then also we shot a few different ads and we tried some influencer like content and all the rest of it, but we wrote and shot this like almost dollar shave club like ad where it's the two of us jumping out of a lake.

27:04
Max Luthy
It's eye catching, it's funny, it's very honest about why we started it. We tell the full story, two Dads looking to hydrate their families without the waste of cans and bottles. And we managed to tell the sustainable story but also really hammer home the benefits of daily hydration in like this pretty compelling way it turns out. And so that ad is performing really well for us. And we get all these comments saying like, I love this ad, going to give it a try. And so yeah, founder driven ads, they can work.

27:32
Grace Kennedy
Totally. And is this an ad that you've just put out like via social media?

27:35
Max Luthy
Yeah, it's like, you know, predominantly running on Instagram, but it's also, yeah, cross meta and increasingly testing it in other channels as well. We were not like we had a beautiful website and beautiful brand and all the rest of it, but we didn't. Neither of us came from the E comm space. Neither of us was like dropshipping something on Amazon from our dorm room. So were a little slow to get to click into gear. But we have such a. The original pitch to our investors and ourselves was like, this product is, you can fit six of these in an envelope. It's like six Tablets is the size of a postcard, so it's very Internet friendly. So it's pretty wild. It's in like the end of year two that we fixed the Internet.

28:15
Grace Kennedy
Well, that's. I mean, as you were saying at the beginning of the clause, everything takes longer than you think it's going to take when you're in CPG and running a business because you've got a million things to do. So there's only so much you can prioritize at any one given time. A question I always like to ask, and you've sort of alluded to some of the challenges, but is there one challenge that has felt the largest or one of the biggest challenges you've had to face as you've run Plank over these last few years? And how did you kind of work to overcome it, or how are you still trying to overcome it?

28:48
Max Luthy
I think the biggest challenge was probably just not getting the value proposition quite right, you know, and I think we'd invested. We have some wonderful partners at a design agency called Made Thought and you know, our friends Nick and Toby and these great advisors and like lots of really smart, passionate people working really hard on. Speaking about the other people, not myself, but the working really hard on this issue that we all rallied around. Like, disrupting the beverage aisle is just a bit too much of a lift like for people to change their behavior. And then so that really held us up. Like, you know, if you think about everything you've invested into product labeling and your channel strategy and your go to market and everything, embracing this third wave of dehydration category was the big turnaround for us. So.

29:33
Max Luthy
And I think we started talking about it. Like, I think a lot of people listening, probably with their own businesses, probably know that their current, their like launch thesis is off and they can kind of see where they should be playing. And it just, it's hard to, as they say, kill your darlings. It's hard to. You're worried. Almost like if we change our messaging, will we annoy our like 400 Instagram followers? And it's like, dude, they don't mind. Keep changing it until it clicks. They don't notice. Yeah, they do not wake up at 4am worrying about your business like you do. I mean, there is actually. Yeah, for sure. They email me regularly, but I'm grateful for them.

30:06
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, we love that. That's so sweet. You've definitely given some nuggets of advice. But I also always like to ask, like, what's one piece of advice you wish you'd known when you were in the early days of starting out or like, throughout these last few years that you've learned that you know, wish someone had told you.

30:23
Max Luthy
I think there is, you know, all of it overlaps with some of that getting the value prop wrong at launch. But I think. So your reason to start the company, like, our reason to start Plink, is not necessarily the reason people will end up drinking it. So that's one thing. And then I think the other thing that's really interesting. I've touched on this a little bit with sitting across categories, like, we thought being innovative and disruptive and all the rest of it, like, there's almost a smugness to it. We could win a pitch contest, and we could kind of like, sound really smart. Like, we've figured out what everybody in the world is doing wrong. It's not necessarily a good way to build a business. Like, actually, if your product is too different and your.

30:59
Max Luthy
Your ritual falls too far out of line of what they're doing, you can make life really hard for yourself. And so I think it's worth, you know, founders. Not necessarily. And I don't think this applies to everyone. But I just. Part of my DNA is like, I want to do everything differently, and I think that's not always a good plan. Like, there's a lot of smart entrepreneurs out there doing things a certain way or labeling packages a certain way or putting their product in a certain category, because it makes sense. So different is good. But if your whole thing is like, we're radically different, you could be in for a slow start.

31:30
Grace Kennedy
Right. It could be a bumpier road, or it wouldn't be. It's not as quite as seamless to get into that category.

31:36
Max Luthy
It would be, I suppose, heartbreaking advice for me to give entrepreneurs trying to do something radically different to just, like, fall in line and be sheep. But. So I'm not necessarily saying that. I'm just saying different for its own sake isn't always a winner.

31:49
Grace Kennedy
Yes. No, I think that's a really good thing to think about and important and maybe not always the advice you're hearing, which is like, stand out, be unique, and you have to be really clear on why you're doing something different. And, like, make sure that it's really important to both the product and the customer.

32:04
Max Luthy
Yeah. I mean, because, again, we are unique in our category. Like, we thought were scared of the word hydration and all the rest of it. Like, but in our category, like, buyers look at us now, and it is innovative. It's We've like toned it down and found a category and all the rest of it, but it's just not just innovative enough.

32:20
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, totally. I love it. Well, my last question that I always like to ask is just how can members of the startup CPG community and our listeners support Plink? Learn more about Plink, buy Plink, et cetera.

32:33
Max Luthy
I suppose, you know, first of all I feel like if anything I should be offering to help the community so the community's already been so helpful for us. But yeah, if you ever see it on shelf, give it a try, pick it up or buy every single pack on shelf. And second of all, if you want to fund the next few inventory runs, you know, reach out. We have a lot of demand. We need to make a whole bunch of tablets and so if anyone wants to just be a tablet investor, that's always otherwise, just reach out. If you ever want advice or you have feedback on our product, we're pretty open, you can reach us Instagram DMs is one approach or LinkedIn or you know, Max and lukerinkplink.com that's an email we share. I check it so well.

33:12
Grace Kennedy
You know you gotta delegate in the co founder relationship but that's awesome. Well, everyone should go buy Pling. Check out Plink. Like I said, I love my favorite is personally the pineapple. But everybody's. There's a bunch of different flavors so you can try which one is right for you. But it's so much fun chatting with you Max and learning all about drink.

33:30
Max Luthy
Plink, thanks so much and I want to give a shout out to all the retailers who've taken a chance on us already and you know, means a lot to us and like has given us the lifeline to keep building until this business makes as much sense as it does.

33:46
Grace Kennedy
Yeah, I love it. Awesome. All right everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, it would help us out so much if you left a 5 star review on ratethispodcast.com startupcpg I am Grace Kennedy, the host of the Founder feature series. So feel free to add me on LinkedIn or reach out to me on Slack. I'm always on the hunt for new and exciting brands to feature and if you're a potential sponsor who would like to appear on the podcast, please email partnershipstartupcpg.com and finally, as a reminder for anyone listening, if you haven't already, we would love for you to join our community on Slack. You can sign up via our website startupcpg.com.