Pursuit of Wellness - The Skills You Need To Be An Entrepreneur, When To Start Your Business, How To Stop Fearing Failure, The Benefits Of Coconut Water & Giving Back w/ Mike Kirban Of Vita Coco

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Ep. #51 Today, I'm excited to be chatting with Mike Kirban, the co-founder and executive chairman of Vita Coco, one of the most revered beverage brands on the planet. Have you ever wondered what it takes to build a global brand? How do you get your product from the ground floor to the shelves of stores all over the world? Well, Mike is here to tell us all about it. He'll share his insights on everything from marketing strategies to the future of the beverage industry. And he'll also open up about his own personal journey as an entrepreneur, including the challenges he faced and the lessons he learned along the way. But more than just a business story, Mike's story is also one of resilience and perseverance. He overcame many challenges to build one of the most successful beverage brands in the world. And he's passionate about using his platform to make a positive impact on the planet. For Mari’s Instagram click here! For Pursuit of Wellness Podcast’s Instagram click here! For Vita Coco’s Website click here! For Vita Coco’s Twitter click here! This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode. Use code POW15 at checkout for 15% off your entire order at www.vionicshoes.com Find your bright spot this season with BETTERHELP. Visit betterhelp.com/pow to get 10% off your first month Cozy Earth provided an exclusive off for our listener's today. Up to 40% off site wide when you use the code "PURSUIT" Visit diviofficial.com/POW or enter POW at checkout for 20% off your first order Produced by Dear Media See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Mari has grown her to fitness and nutrition brand. Co-founder of Bloom Nutrition. Forbes 30 under 30 list. A successful entrepreneur. Someone who has lost 90 pounds. Today's guest is Mari Llewellyn. Mari Llewellyn.

My friend Mari. Welcome to the Pursuit of Wellness. Hi guys, welcome back to the Pursuit of Wellness podcast. Before I hop into this episode, I want to announce our huge Bloom Black Friday sale, which is four days long. It's from November 24th to November 27th for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It's up to 50% off the entire Bloom website, which is www.bloomnew.com. Greens are starting at over 30% off for Black Friday. It's also 31% off Bloom products on Amazon. So make sure you check out this sale, guys. You want to be stocked

up whether you are gifting greens for the holiday season or you want to get ahead of your New Year's resolution. Now is the time to get all your greens because this is the biggest sale I think we've ever, ever done. So check that out. Today, I am excited to be chatting with Mike Kerbin, the co-founder and executive chairman of Vita Coco, the biggest coconut water brand in the world. My company, Bloom Nutrition, recently collabed with Vita Coco at a pop-up on Melrose, and we have even bigger, more exciting things on the way. We organically noticed that everyone was mixing their greens with their coconut water and it's the perfect team up. The greens in coconut water, by the way, guys, really does slap. So if you haven't tried that yet, highly recommend it. So today we are

talking about what it takes to build a global brand or just how to start your entrepreneurial journey in general. Mike is here to tell us all about it. He shares insights on everything from marketing strategies to the future of the beverage industry. He also opens up about his own personal journey as an entrepreneur, including the challenges he faced and the lessons he learned along the way. He told me a hilarious story about him on rollerblades through New York City, basically selling coconut water to bodegas, which I absolutely loved. But this is so much more than a business story. Mike's story is also one of resilience and perseverance. He overcame many challenges to build one of the world's most successful beverage brands. He's so passionate about using his platform to make a positive

impact on the planet. And I really applaud his philanthropic efforts as well. Today, we talk about success and sustainability in business, building Vida Coco, the characteristics you need to be a successful entrepreneur, do you have to be born with it, not being afraid to fail, is there a perfect moment to start, mistakes from the beginning and growing pains, health benefits of coconut water, bringing celebrity investors on to help build the business, the Vida Cocoa project and how they have helped build communities and impact farmers around the world, and advice for young entrepreneurs and when to take the leap. I really hope you guys enjoy this conversation. I absolutely love Mike and the Vida Cocoa team. It's been a pleasure working with them and I learned

so much from him in this conversation. Don't forget to check out the Bloom Black Friday sale. Put it in your calendar. You don't want to miss it. Without further ado, let's hop into this conversation with Mike. Today on the show, we have the co-founder and executive chairman of the largest coconut water brand in the world, Mike Kerbin. Mike is a highly successful entrepreneur who co-founded Vita Coco back in 2004. And since then, Vida Coco has become one of the most recognized and respected beverage brands in the world with distribution in over 30 countries. His success is not just about building a great company. He's also deeply committed to sustainability and social responsibility. And Vida Coco has become a

leader in promoting ethical and environmentally conscious business practices. You guys may have seen people are mixing their bloom greens with Vita Coco on TikTok and all over social media. So it's definitely become a trend for our companies to overlap. In this episode, we'll be exploring Mike's journey as an entrepreneur, the story behind Vita Coco, and the future of the beverage industry. So without further ado, let's dive in. Welcome to the show. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Where did you grow up? Did you always know you wanted to be an entrepreneur? What was your story? I always knew I'd wanted to be an entrepreneur. Actually, my father, my grandfather, my great

grandfather were all entrepreneurs. There's not a male in my entire extended family who's ever gone to college. And pretty much, I don't think anybody's ever had like a real jobby job. Like it's been all entrepreneurship, a lot unsuccessful, some somewhat successful. But I always knew that I wanted to do something on my own. Did you thrive in school? Like how were you as a student? I thrived socially. Academically, it was a disaster. I grew up with learning disabilities, always struggled in school. Um, academically it was a disaster. Um, I grew up with learning disabilities, always struggled in school. Teachers used to always say like, how are you going to have a job if you can't read, you can't write. And I was, I would, I would always say I'll have a,

an assistant or a secretary. Well, it turns out we have spell check and everything else. I don't even need that anymore. Right. So I think, you know, building a business in a time with all the technology around to, you know, help compensate for the learning disabilities So I think, you know, building a business in a time with all the technology around to, you know, help compensate for the learning disabilities that I have and have had, I think has been amazing. Yeah. It's funny because I feel like a lot of the most successful people I speak to struggled in school. I mean, my husband, Greg, CEO of Bloom, he struggled majorly in school and he had learning disabilities as well. And now he's crushing it. I personally struggled in school. It wasn't something I thrived at either.

So I do kind of feel like that's a common theme with people who are successful. I think it gives you like, when school doesn't come easy and you struggle there as a, you know, at a young age, I think you're always kind of driven to almost prove yourself, no? And everybody growing up thought I was going to amount to nothing, except for my family, right? My father was very positive and always, you know, you're going to start your own business and you're going to be just fine and you're going to do your thing and so on and so forth. But like at school and around school, it was always a lot of negativity. And I was always like, I'm going to prove these guys wrong.

And that was my motto, like through life. What was your household like? Was it supportive in your entrepreneurial journey? Yeah. So I grew up with my dad, a single father, and he was all about positivity. And, and, you know, like even, I mean, it's funny as we would talk as a little kid about religion, he would always say he's a stewist and I'm a Mike'sist. And it's like, you believe in yourself and you talk to yourself and you, you know, you manifest positivity, you manifest things happening that are positive and things that you want and want to go get. And that was kind of how I grew up with this incredibly like focused, positive attitude that you could do whatever you want to do.

You just got to put your mind to it and you've got to like, you know, go after it. You know, I've always, always been that way in everything that I've done. And it shows. I think that's really interesting and a great way to grow up. I find that myself included, a lot of people struggle with that, overcoming that feeling that you don't deserve success or it wasn't meant for you. So you felt like you were meant for success from the beginning. Yeah. And what is success? I mean, I still don't know if I'm successful, right? It's like,

I feel like I've accomplished a lot. I feel like I have so much more to accomplish. And like, that goalpost is always moving. Yeah. And always wanting to do, you know, more to accomplish more. to accomplish more. And yeah, I've created successful businesses. I've done quite a lot, but there's always more to do. And I think that's what motivates me. What do you think are some of the major characteristics that you, do you think you should be born with them or they can be learned over time

to be a successful entrepreneur? I think you have to, you can't be afraid of failing. And when you don't come from like so much, whatever that means, like if you're not, whatever, it's great at school, or you're not like the best athlete, or you're not like whatever it might be, you're a little less afraid of failing, right? Because you're not like on a pedestal at a young age, for example. And I think there's something to that

with entrepreneurship. It's like, okay, if I fail, who cares? I haven't done much or I haven't done anything yet anyway. And I think that belief that failing is not the worst thing in the world allows you to create so much success as an entrepreneur. I think if you're, I know so many people who want to be entrepreneurs and they're just, they're constantly afraid to take chances.

Yeah. And that's, you just hit a wall every time if that's your attitude, right? It doesn't work as an entrepreneur. Then you go and you get a job and you, you know, become a consultant or a lawyer whatever it is, and you work your way up and so on and so forth. I feel like a lot of people wait for that perfect moment. There's never a perfect moment. They want the stars to align and for someone to give them permission and for everything to feel just right.

Would you say when you started Vitacoco, it was the perfect moment? So I actually dropped out of college. I went for a year to college, University of Alabama. I had a blast. It was so much fun. But then I realized I was kind of like not doing anything. And I wanted to do something. And I started my first business after I left school. And then about eight years later, I started Vitacoco. And I did it as a side project. Like Vitacoco was a little side project as I was building my other business. And then that kind of took off and now I've got both businesses.

What was the first business? It's a computer software business that I started when I was like 19, which I still have today. And so was I looking for the perfect moment to do something? No, I was visiting a friend of mine in Brazil after he had moved to Brazil,

American looking for something to do there and coconut water was everywhere. And it was like this healthy alternative to Gatorade. And everybody was, you know, drinking coconut water as a health and wellness drink and thought maybe there's an opportunity in the US and that was it. It was not a, you know, it was not overthought. I never had a business plan. I just felt we could build something. Let's try. I was shocked when I read this statistic that hair loss affects over 80 million Americans. It's so common that by 35, two thirds of men will experience some form of hair loss. And it's not just men. 40% of Americans who experience hair loss are women. I see a lot of people posting about postpartum hair loss. I personally experienced hair loss when I went through COVID. So I feel like we can all relate to this in some way.

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up to 40% off site-wide when you use the code PURSUIT. Use the code PURSUIT for up to 40% off site-wide at Cozy Earth. Did you have any failures at the beginning or any big mistakes? Tons. How much time do we have on this podcast? Yeah, it was because I didn't have a business plan and because it wasn't overly thought through, I think that enabled us to be super flexible and move quickly, but we made a lot of mistakes. I mean, one of the biggest and I think most fun to look back on, but most horrible at the moment was when I imported our first shipments of Vita Coco. I went around, sold it to retailers, pre-sold it. And I was like,

so excited. We're launching next week. We've got this big launch and everything else. We spent all of the seed money we put into the business on product. So product is three shipping containers of product coming to the US. The day before they arrive, the shipping company calls me up and says, I need your FDA number. What is, what FDA number? Like, what do you need? Oh, well, we need it registered with the FDA. I'm like, oh, I didn't do that. I didn't know.

How do I do that? And they're like, this could take three months. And during that time period, you can't import the product. You can't start selling it. Either you have to put it in an FDA warehouse, which will cost you $30,000 a month, or we have to destroy it. And she said something like, or you can export it.

I said, export it? She goes, yeah, you just can't bring it into the US. You could ship it back to Brazil or wherever it came from, or you could ship it somewhere else. And I realized that I had met this beer distributor in the Bahamas at a trade show a couple months earlier. I called him up. I asked him if I could ship him all the product. He's like, I can't sell that much product. And I'm not going to buy it from you. I don't know if it's going to work. So I got on a plane. I went

to the Bahamas, shipped the product there, got a rental car, spent weeks going door to door selling in bars, restaurants, people's homes, anywhere you could imagine, and built a little business in the Bahamas. Wow. Sold most of the product, made our money back, and then started like four months later in the US. Rather than destroying all of it. I wasn't going to destroy it. I was going to find a way to sell it. How much was in that inventory?

15,000 cases or something like that. A lot of product. How do they ship coconut water? So we pack it, you climb a tree, you crack a nut, you get the water, you process the water to treat it so it's sterile and you package it in a Tetra Pak and then you box it and ship it ready to go to the US from the point of origin, right? So if we're producing in Brazil or we're producing in the Philippines, it comes from there ready to go to the grocery store in a box that you would see in the grocery store. At the time, was coconut water or coconut products in general trending as much as it is now?

Didn't exist. In the US, it didn't exist. It's like you go on a tropical vacation and you get a coconut on the beach. And then by the time I got to Brazil in 2003, it was starting to show up in a package format in grocery stores in Brazil, but it didn't exist in the US. So when we launched, we were the first ones selling packaged coconut water really in the US. And it just so happened that that same exact week that we launched, another brand launched at the same time. A guy from, you know, from New Jersey who created this brand called Zico and started selling it in New York at the exact, the exact same week. How competitive are you? I'm a little competitive. I would imagine. I would imagine. I'm a little, I'm not like aggressive competitive

I'm competitive I think I'm competitive with myself and I always want to if I start something I always want to do as best as I possibly can and when this other brand of coconut water showed up for example

I mean it was war we went to war with this poor guy and he fought back and it was war. We went to war with this poor guy and he fought back. And it was like this battle for years of like, it was the coconut water wars. And it was amazing. We had a great time and eventually, you know, they don't really exist anymore. RIP. Sorry, Zico. Yeah, exactly. Sorry. So what did you do to differentiate Vitacoco from Zico?

So first we out hustled them. It was literally like out hustling them in the streets. I realized that, okay, this is a long time ago. Rollerblades were still kind of cool. I realized that I could hit a lot more stores on my rollerblades in New York City than I could walking. So every day put on the rollerblades and I went store to store and I would hit more stores than he could hit because I was flying around town, right? And so it was like every little advantage that we could get, we took. And we just, you know, we, you know, found a man in a van to deliver the product. I would sell all day long and then he would deliver it the next day and I would do the bookkeeping at night. And then, you know, sometimes during lunch, I would stand in stores and hand out samples and just slowly just built the business, you know, just grinding away.

So this was before Zoom calls? This was basically before the internet. So you couldn't just hop on a call with the different stores? Like you were physically going? You had to go to a store. Yeah. And there was no D2C business. So I couldn't, it's like the old fashioned way of building a business.

No social media. No social media. That's insane. We were one of the first beverages to ever sell on Amazon. And that was like five, six years after we started. Wow. So what were your selling points trying to convince people to sell Vita Coco in the store? It was nature's Gatorade, right? It was like you sell all this Gatorade and Powerade and now there's this natural version of it that is incredibly hydrating and consumers drink it after working out or after doing hot yoga or whatever it is. And you have to carry it. And then they would fight me on that. They're like, this is really weird.

It's a strange thing. It's the water from a coconut, but it doesn't really taste like coconut. It tastes more like water with a slight texture and a sweetness. And so it was a bit of a battle. And I would go and I'd put product on the shelf and say, watch, it's going to sell out like that. And then at night when the manager wasn't there, I would go in and buy the product off the shelf. And it was this constant trying to prove ourselves to stores. And then it started to work and they would carry it. And then all of a sudden winter would come in New York and they would take it off the shelves. And I'm like, what do you,

why don't you sell it? No, that's a summer drink. And it was like, so there's always this challenge to overcome. And coconut water was definitely not a thing. And now it's becoming, 20 years later, it's becoming a thing and it's becoming much more prevalent and much more of kind of a household staple. I'm obsessed with coconut water. I love it. What are some of your favorite like health benefits of coconut water? I think it's the hydrating, right? It's like, you know, whether it's after a workout, you jump off the Peloton and you need, you know, super hydration, or honestly, if it's, you know, after a late night out and you need the recovery in the morning, it's, you know, it's an incredible late night out and you need the recovery in the morning.

It's an incredible hydrating, loaded with potassium, which accelerates the blood flow. And it's this incredible hydrating beverage. I also like to, I'm gonna sound between now talking about hangover and then where I'm going next, I'm gonna sound like an alcoholic. I'm not, but I also love coconut water in a cocktail.

So I drink, like my go-to is tequila with a splash of coconut water. It's a great mix. We've been doing the same thing. Like Fi, we literally were just in Austin and we were mixing coconut water with tequila. It's fantastic. Maybe you splash a lime in there if you want to,

but it is the best drink. And it's simple. Like when I'll have a dinner party, I used to put, you know, I used to have wine on the table. Sometimes I do, but it's usually a bottle of tequila, a bunch of Vita Cocos and a bucket of ice and some sliced lime. And people just sit around and pass the bottles around and they make drinks the whole time. It's so easy. I feel like this is a secret that no one's sharing because it's the best drink ever. We just let the cat out of the bag. Yeah,

we did. We should have gatekeeped that one because I learned about it from Miranda Kerr because she did an interview where she shared her favorite healthy cocktail was coconut water and tequila. So I started doing it and obviously I love Vita Coco. So that's mine and Greg's new favorite drink.

In addition, great hangover hack, Bloom Greens with Vita Coco. Then you're doing a double whammy. Double whammy. I feel like that's why everyone on TikTok is doing it because it's the perfect way to fight that hangover hack, bloom greens with Vita Coco, then you're doing a double whammy. Double whammy. I feel like that's why everyone on TikTok is doing it because it's the perfect way to fight that hangover. 100%. What was the vision for the brand of Vita Coco?

Because obviously you had this great product, but what was the vision for like who's buying it? So in the early days, it was, we started selling in like yoga studios was the thing. I had never done yoga in my life. I started taking yoga classes just because I wanted to be able to sell the product into the studios. And that's how I started building it in yoga studios. And so it was, that was the consumer, right? Who you would expect to see at Bikram or hot yoga. Over time, the consumer has really changed. And today the consumer is quite diverse. It's actually more than 50% of our consumers are non-white. There's quite a big percentage

of our consumption that is happening in urban environments, young urban millennials, Gen Z consumers who are drinking and coming into the brand, which is really nice to see. How do you guys go about marketing to that audience, like a younger audience? So what we've done is kind of really focused on usage occasions. So a few years ago, we realized people were making smoothies at home and they were starting to use coconut water in their smoothies. And the team started doing a lot of, you know, digital and social really focused on that occasion. And today, I think something like 30% of the coconut water usage in the country is in smoothies and used to mix with things like smoothies and also with products like, you know, Bloom and so on and so forth as a mixer in this, you know, context. And then it's also like finding these different occasions and talking to consumers about that occasion

and helping them think about what to use during those occasions, I think is a big benefit for us. And now you guys have a variety of coconut products. What do you have now other than the coconut water? So we also sell coconut milk as like a dairy alternative, but now we have a partnership with alfred the coffee chain on the west coast and now we're expanding to other coffee coffee

chains around the country new york and la and then expanding from there with this barista blend so it's our coconut milk that foams incredibly well and so people who might have been using almond and then moved to oat are now looking for something with a little bit of a cleaner ingredient list and so on and so forth. And the Vitacoco Barista blend is actually working really well. It's incredible in a matcha latte. It's like the best. We just actually came from Alfred and had one. Okay. So I love this because I have a lot of health experts on this podcast and coconut milk is by far the best non-dairy milk option you can choose. I personally have been avoiding nuts, so I'm not drinking almond milk.

Oat milk can spike glucose levels. I always want coconut. And I'm finding like coffee shops aren't, they're not holding coconut milk anymore for some reason. So this makes me really excited. They're going to. Okay. We're on it.

Let's go. We're doing it for you. Amazing. I'm going to keep asking until they have it in the store. Do it. Good. So we talked about success before. How has your, you know, you've done extremely well. At this point,

how do you keep going? Like, what's the next vision? So funny. I, you know, we, yes, we've had success and we built the business into, you know, this, this nice size business. We're a public company now, trading on NASDAQ and all these amazing things that we've been able to do. But I think it's the super early days. It's really like, I feel like Coconut Water is finally becoming mainstream. I like to compare it. Lately, I've been talking a lot about Ocean Spray. Totally random, but this is a big business. Ocean Spray is like four times our size. Our household penetration, meaning we're in like, call it 10 to 12% of households around the country.

Ocean Spray is in 40% of households around the country. You know, and so I think about that brand, they take a cranberry and they have this supply chain advantage on the cranberry like we have on the coconut. And I just think the coconut is so much cooler than the cranberry. And there's so much opportunity between coconut water, coconut milk, other coconut products to really create like the ocean spray of the coconut category. That's the long-term objective. What do you notice in the beverage industry in terms of trends right now? Well, clearly there's a lot going on with influencer-based brands.

I mean, you look at Prime Hydration, which is Logan Paul's thing. You know, there's other things that are, you know, working. Celsius is another brand. So I think one is like brands that, you know, are getting to consumers in a big mass way through, you know, content creators and all of these type of things. And the other thing is functionality. I think consumers, especially now, as they're maybe looking to save a little bit more or put their money towards better places, they're thinking about health and wellness.

They're thinking about functionality. So they're thinking about something a little bit more in their beverage than premium bottled water, for example. Those brands are declining. Sparkling, you know, seltzer water things like LaCroix and these type of things. These things are all declining because consumers want more. They want functionality. They want health and wellness. And I think that's where we play a role. What do you think of the probiotic soda movement?

There's a lot going on there too. There's a few brands that are doing well. I personally think it's less about the probiotics and more about the flavor. I think they're quite flavorful. And this is another thing. It's exactly what I just mentioned. So people were buying tons of sparkling waters that are very lightly flavored. So whether it's AHA, LaCroix, whatever these brands might be, bubbly, lightly flavored, they want more. So yes, the probiotic thing is a nice thing to layer on top, but these things are flavorful and they actually taste good. So I think people are buying, moving from only like drinking 12 sparkling waters in a day to maybe having one,

two or three of these type of flavorful, kind of healthier sodas. It's like a better for you treat almost. It's a better for you treat. I really love Zevia's, but I'm not sure. I don't think a lot of people do. I think there may be lighter on flavor, but I agree with you from our perspective too. The reason our greens have done so well

is because of how great they taste. There are other greens on the market, but they taste like trash. So people don't buy them. Yeah. No, I think that's true. And I think it's people want something that tastes good, right? They want to do better for themselves. They want to be healthy, but they also want something that they actually enjoy,

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You mentioned the influencer social media movement with the beverage industry. How do you guys go from rollerblading store to store to the industry now? Like, how do you evolve and keep up with what's going on? I mean, it is evolution and it's been, you know, a 20-year evolution, right? I think we went from the rollerblades to then doing deals with Madonna and then Rihanna and these type of people who were influencers, again, even before social media. And they were quite influential.

And that's actually, I think, where our brand started to really take off around 2009, 10, 11, when we brought these people into the business as investors who were then promoting our brand on stage and in interviews and so on and so forth. still very influential, but content creators are the more influential brand developers today than anything else. They actually, I think, are able to drive trial and drive purchase in a different sort of way because they just have such a bigger platform. Yeah. Rihanna, I think, was the first time I ever heard about you guys. I was in ninth grade and I remember seeing a huge truck with Rihanna on it. And I think that's the first time I heard about you guys. That's awesome. And you're right. The TikTok is out there are moving the needle. TikTok completely changed our entire business. And I think it's important to stay on top of that. Can you tell us about the Vitacoco project? Yeah. So, you know,

the business model in general is a really interesting business model because we're buying coconuts, 3 million coconuts a day go into our product. And we're buying these coconuts from small family farms all over the, I guess you could call it developing world, the tropical world. And these farmers, you know, they're not big plantation owners. They're small family farms where one brother is a fisherman and the other brother climbs the coconut trees, and that's how they support the entire extended family. And so we realized very early on that we had this opportunity to help further develop these communities. And we started with farmer

training programs, just helping the farmers get better at what they were doing. So we have farmers who were five, seven years ago making $1,700 a year who are now making $17,000 a year because we've taught them and worked with them with local communities about intercropping ginger and pineapple between the palm trees, helping them get much more productive coconut palms, all of these things. And as we were developing that, we realized there was an opportunity to do a lot more in the communities in terms of education. So we've built over 30 schools in the Philippines and we have all these opportunities, I think, to continue to help develop the communities that are giving us the raw material, selling us the raw material that we're bringing to the Western world. So it's this kind of, it's really this nice program. And then on top of that, this year we launched a program planting coconut seedlings basically as a big piece that we've been doing this for years,

but now we've set real targets. And this is a way for us to not only further help these communities with better, more productive trees, but also it's a carbon offset. So it's really an interesting project for us. So this is something we've been doing for 10 years now or so, and it's having a real impact in these communities. So social impact was important for you from the beginning? To be honest, I didn't even think about it at the beginning. Again, we didn't have a business plan, so it wasn't part of the founding of the business. It was something that happened as we started developing the business. We saw an opportunity to do more and to do better and to be impactful. And I think that's kind of, that's how it came about.

We didn't create the business like a Tom's Shoes or like an impact-based company. We became one over time just because it was the right thing to do. And it worked really well for our business model. And it's become a very important part of our business. Incredible. And I think it is so important to have a mission driving the whole team and the whole company. You need to keep that in mind every day. And we do the same thing. The impact is important. It's not only, like I said, it's not only important as a human to have as much of a positive impact on everybody you come in contact with, especially through work

like this. But it also helps with retention of employees, recruitment of employees, consumers like it. So it's this incredible thing when a company can be successful and give back and have this type of environment. It helps in so many ways. What would you say is the most personally fulfilling part about your entrepreneurial journey? I would say, and this is why I love consumer goods much better than computer software, is seeing people enjoying your product, right? Seeing and hearing stories of people,

oh my God, it saved me in this situation. And it's so rewarding. Even to like be in a random place, like, you know, somewhere in the Middle East or somewhere in Asia and see people walking down the street, chugging this product that you created, you know, 20 years earlier in your little apartment in Brooklyn. It's an amazing, that is like an amazing experience to see people enjoy it that, you know, and you've brought it to all these people all over the world. Have you been to Expo West? I'm assuming yes. Couple of times.

Yeah. It's like insane. It's insane. When we started there, it was like us and a bunch of hippies and that was it. Are you saying that you're not still? I'm kidding. No, but it was like, it was, it was really like everybody was, you know, in their yoga gear. Wow. And now it's become, there's everybody's there. There's bankers, there's big CPG.

It's like Coachella. It's Coachella for natural products. It's CPG Coachella. Yes. And you guys had a great booth this year. Thanks. It was incredible. So I, yeah, it was my first time going this year and I was trying to find the Vitacoco booth and I got so lost.

I was in an area that I should not have been in. But anyway, I managed to find Jim. Okay. We love Jim. And yeah, the booth was incredible. Thanks. And it's so fun to go to Expo West and just see like what's trending at the moment. Yeah. And then you go back the next year and half of those brands aren't there. Right? It's crazy. Everybody, you know, they start something, they go there, they try it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And the ones that work continue to go every year. And then, you know, next year you'll see the same people selling something completely different. At what stage did you guys get a booth? Because we've never had a booth.

Again, the show was very different when we first started. I would say it would have been our second or third year in business and it was a tabletop. It was literally a table with a cloth and a banner behind us that we had printed out. Wow. Oh, you got to do a before and after of that because your booth is like a palace now. It's a little different. I was the booth this year. There you go. I had a bloom jacket on and I was like talking to people. Walking the show, right? That was honestly even more effective for our brand because I can just tell the story and meet people. So what advice would you give young entrepreneurs listening who have dreams of having their own business, but haven't taken that leap? One thing that I would say is figure out the right moment to take the leap. And if you

haven't figured it out yet, take the leap, right? I think that's like the biggest thing. It's taking that leap, especially if you're in a job and you're like, I have this great idea and I want to start something. Start it. Because before you know it, your work life has passed and you're more focused on being on the golf course or taking care of the grandkids. You got to do it. Life is short and you got to seize the moment. And I think that's probably the most important thing. I love that advice. Just take the. And I think that's probably the most important thing. I love that advice.

Just take the leap. I think that's huge. Thank you so much for joining us today. You guys get ready to see more of Bloom and Vita Coco out there in the world. We're so excited to be teaming up and doing more exciting projects this year. And thank you so much for joining. Where can everyone find Vita Coco? Find you?

You can find Vita Coco anywhere you find a beverage. And obviously all the social channels and V vitacoco.com and everything else. But Vita Coco hopefully is everywhere you could find a drink. Amazing, congratulations. Thank you so much, you too. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only.

It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and does not constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor or health team. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Go comment on my last Instagram at Mari Llewellyn with the guest you want to see next. I'll be picking one person from the comments to send our bloom greens to. Make sure you hit follow so you never miss my weekly episodes. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to share and leave a review. See you next week.