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Karma Water — Transforming water into wellness

CJ Rapp, founder of Karma Water, is on a mission to shake up the beverage industry, transforming water into wellness.

Ready-to-drink health beverages with active ingredients, like probiotics and vitamins, lose their strength over time. That’s why Karma Water is so special — they created a special cap that stores active ingredients. When consumers are ready to drink the beverage, they can release all that goodness into the water, creating a better, better-for-you beverage. 

In our conversation, CJ talks about his long career in the beverage industry and experience with his first brand of energy drinks, Jolt. We talk about the story of Jolt and why CJ decided to make a pivot into the health and wellness space with Karma. 

“I tend to spend more time on what is not working well,” CJ told me. “They say you should build out your strengths. I figure where we get it right, that will take care of itself, and where my time needs to be better spent are the areas that need improvement.”

We also talk about the Karma launch strategy, involving a process of iteratively improving through a slow rollout on a shoestring budget, and how this attracted the strategic partnership of beverage giant Constellation Brands. Tuning in, you’ll hear perspectives on the burgeoning cannabis industry and CJ’s plans to release a new CBD product as soon as regulations allow for it!

Listen to The Irresistible Factor’s Interview with CJ Rapp, Karma Water Founder. 

 

Here’s what you won’t want to miss from our conversation: 

  • What differentiates Karma Water from other drinks in the health and wellness space
  • How early-stage brands can learn through a smart, small-scale product rollout
  • The challenge of satisfying the FDA’s standards, and why Karma Water’s launch was delayed

 

Links mentioned in this episode: 

CJ Rapp on LinkedIn

Karma Water

Constellation Brands

 

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Waterloo — How bold flavors and authenticity grow food and beverage brands

Waterloo sips different. This one-of-a-kind, totally irresistible sparkling water company crafts premium products with unmistakable flavor. This week on my podcast, The Irresistible Factor, I talk with Waterloo’s dedicated and talented CEO, Jason Shiver, to figure out how the brand has broken into a crowded field, overcome challenges and, ultimately, found cult-status success.

If there’s anything that growing food and beverage companies should take away from this conversation, know that bold flavors are key to elevating new brands, and that authenticity starts at home. 

You can listen to the full podcast online, on Spotify or in the Apple Podcasts app.

Here are the highlights:

Bold flavors, big rewards

What are consumers looking for? When it comes to the food and beverage space, bold flavors bring a brand into the premium category. That’s certainly the case for Waterloo. As the company’s CEO, Jason Shiver wouldn’t settle for lackluster quality — instead, he wanted a drink that even he wanted to drink, something that tasted like nothing else on the market. 

What sets Waterloo apart from other companies, is that Waterloo prioritizes Pure Flavor Artistry, and crafted a catalogue of their own flavors. Many companies use existing flavors, but Waterloo is different. When it came to their Strawberry, for example, Jason described going through 100 iterations to find the perfect flavor, a process that took months and months. He told me that the company will not allow for the flavor to “escape” the Flavor Room without it being perfect, and that you should know a flavor as soon as you crack open a can, just by the scent alone. (I can attest to this. My favorite flavor is Grape — it’s totally irresistible.)

Standing out with authenticity — it comes from a strong team

Jason told me that people describe Waterloo as, “Just different.” That comes from the beverage’s bold flavor, and from their big bubbles. 

But standing out and rising above the noise also stems from the company’s culture. With around 40 employees, compared to companies with a similar size who have 100, Waterloo strives for authenticity. A big part of that is Jason. He has connections to a lot of his colleagues through years in the food and beverage business — did I mention that he helped build SkinnyPop Popcorn, and worked his way up at AriZona Beverages? — and knew 70 percent of Waterloo’s team through previous work.

That knowledge and experience brings trust, which builds genuine relationships. In my experience as a marketing guru, company dysfunction is a huge turnoff for investors.  Shared vision is important to building capital. At Waterloo, Jason’s been able to raise capital to scale because he understands the importance of consistency and collaboration among the management team. Employees and managers understand each other, and they’re told to play to their strengths. At the same time, the right hand always knows what the left is doing.

Don’t be afraid of the action, lean into it

Waterloo’s success has been like an action movie, Jason told me. I just love that. Entrepreneurship can certainly feel action-packed, with its risks, rewards and non-stop motion.

At the beginning of Waterloo’s journey, Jason stayed true to his high-standard goals, and his COO delivered: They both knew they had to make a product that was BPA-free, they needed to ensure that Waterloo became a premium brand, and they had to deliver that bold flavor that customers now love. But they also needed to bring the price of the products down, so that the business would be profitable, and so that consumers could access the irresistible Waterloo experience. Within the first six months, Jason raved that Waterloo’s COO was able to achieve all of that. They didn’t compromise.

To give the company the runway they needed to take off, Waterloo’s team signed a major deal with the largest independent bottler in the US. Waterloo told them: We’ll do a million cases within the first year. That was another big goal, and a big risk, too. If Waterloo didn’t reach that goal, they’d have to pay a penalty. The bottler thought they were crazy, like cowboys, Jason told me. But Waterloo succeeded.

The bigger your goals, and the more you stick to your brand values, the higher your rewards. Now that’s the Irresistible Factor.

If you’d like to be featured on The Irresistible Factor or need help figuring out how to make your brand Irresistible, reach out to me, Kristi Bridges, at kbridges@sawtoothgroup.com.

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3 RIGHT WAYS TO LAUNCH A BFY PRODUCT – FROM THE FOUNDER OF RIGHT RICE

If you’re thinking that launching a successful brand is as simple as filling a void, you’re completely right and completely wrong at the same time. Keith has faced his share of challenges and here are just the highlights of my fantastic interview with him. 

On my podcast, The Irresistible Factor, I recently sat down with Keith Belling, the CEO and President of one of my favorite new discoveries, Right Rice. 

We know rice is a food that’s loved by consumers in almost every culture.  We also know rice is one of those foods we have a love/hate relationship with due to the high carbs and empty calories. Keith Belling, entrepreneur and lover of rice, decided to do something about it.

He invented Right Rice, a better-for-you rice alternative, only 2 and half years ago. Today, Right Rice has national distribution in over 7,000 stores, and is the rice alternative at Cava restaurants.

And this isn’t Keith’s first rodeo. Prior to launching Right Rice, Keith was the mastermind behind the beloved brand, Pop Chips! In our interview, Keith explains that both brands were born out of personal necessity and were voids that needed filling. 

Listen to the full podcast episode here. 

  • Be passionate

Pop Chips and Right Rice were true passion projects for Keith. And he believes passion is the most important aspect when starting a brand or producing a new product because it will take twice as long as you think and will be twice as hard as you anticipate. Passion is what will get you through the inevitable adversity.

  • Surround yourself with smart people

Keith’s words of wisdom: “Don’t be afraid of what you don’t know. And surround yourself with people who do.”

It doesn’t mean you have to take all of their advice but be ready to listen and learn because the objectivity of people around you is always helpful when starting your own brand.

  • Don’t be afraid to fail

Every business goes through ups and down but you have to be prepared to face challenges. And you must remember that even some of the best ideas turn out to be incredible and some don’t. You can’t let your fears hold you back. Discover ways to learn lessons from your failures and turn them into something great.

 

If you’d like to be featured on The Irresistible Factor or need help figuring out how to make your brand Irresistible, reach out to me at kbridges@sawtoothgroup.com

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CAULIPOWER – HOW TAKING RISKS CAN MAKE YOUR BRAND IRRESISTIBLE

On my podcast, The Irresistible Factor, I had the pleasure of interviewing ​​Gail Becker, the  awesome and energetic founder of Caulipower. She started Caulipower to fill a void in the market that she herself was experiencing. And based on the incredible success of the brand, it seems as if she wasn’t the only one.  Caulipower has re-imagined the frozen food aisle, won all kinds of awards and accolades for innovation and is the #1  selling gluten-free pizza and cauliflower crust pizza in the food industry.

There is so much good stuff in this conversation, it was hard to summarize, but here are a few of my favorite bits on how Caulipower came to be and how they continue to disrupt the industry through innovation and truly Irresistible products. Listen to the full episode here.

 

How a void in the market can turn you into an entrepreneur

Gail Becker, was a mom trying to feed her two sons who were diagnosed with celiac disease, but found most gluten-free foods had so many bad ingredients. At the same time, she was wanting to escape corporate America for something more fulfilling . So after some soul searching and with no prior experience in the food industry, she made the decision to follow in her father’s entrepreneurial footsteps and start her own brand. Caulipower was born in May of 2016.

 

The highs and lows of being an entrepreneur in the food industry

As an entrepreneur, being uncomfortable is the risk you have to take, but Gail sees it as a good thing.. As she says, “I tell people, if you don’t learn something new, every day, you need to find a new job. Being uncomfortable is exciting, exhilarating and heart wrenching.” . But there are also highs. Caulipower is now in about 30,000 stores and 5,000 restaurants, across the country and they have pasta rolling out in the next few months. They remain relevant by continuously innovating and bringing new products to the market.

 

Why waiting for the right moment is sometimes key 

Caulipower started as a self-funded company, with every dollar Gail could scrape together and a strong belief in her product. It wasn’t until a year into her business that she decided to find an investor who could help them grow and allow them to try new things. In terms of expanding from the one great product Caulipower was built on, Gail waited for the permission from two key stakeholders; the retailer’s and the consumers, who kept asking what they were going to Caulipower-ize next. 

 

How a lack of experience can lead to success 

Having no fear, and being comfortable with admitting what she did and more importantly didn’t know, helped Gail succeed. She asked a lot of questions and broke some rules because she believes you don’t get a lot from being in the middle of the road. ”You have to be clear about what rules you’re going to follow and which you’re going to break. And although there’s a lot of conventional wisdom in any industry, I disrupted a lot of conventional thinking, because if you just mimic what everyone else does, then what are you bringing to the table? If you’re not a disrupter you’re not really an entrepreneur, you’re a fast follower.”

 

And her best advice for any entrepreneur or business owner,

“If you really want to do things differently, you have to do things differently in every sense of the word, and it doesn’t have to be in every part of your business but pick the three or four things and where you are going to break with the rest of the industry, because that is ultimately what is going to set you apart.”

 

If this interview isn’t  enough inspiration to try this awesome brand – Caulipower would like to offer YOU a FREE Pizza! Just DM them on any of their social media accounts and mention “The Irresistible Factor” to send you a coupon for one FREE pizza!

If you’d like to be featured on The Irresistible Factor or need help figuring out how to make your brand Irresistible, reach out to me at kbridges@sawtoothgroup.com