Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Sipping Wisdom With Kyle Cooke: Balancing Stardom and Start-Ups

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

Welcome back to The Radcast! Today, we are excited to have special guest Kyle Cooke joining us. You may recognize him from Bravo TV's Summer House and as the CEO of Loverboy. Kyle shares his insights on the key role consumer demand plays in the success of innovative brands. He also looks towards the future, teasing us with the possibility of new content formats and exclusive behind-the-scenes content. Kyle emphasizes the importance of staying ahead of the game in the ever-changing landscape of content creation. Don't miss out on this episode and learn from a true master in the field! Kyle's Journey from New Hampshire to New York. Kyle reflects on his journey to New York City and shares the story of how he got involved in Summer House casting, highlighting the opportunity reality TV provides for launching brands. (1:10) Content is King - Building a Platform and Brand. Kyle stresses the need for content creation and commitment to succeed in the digital age, sharing his personal story of adapting to being in the public eye. (8:58) Behind the Scenes of Summer House. Kyle talks about the reality of filming Summer House, the relatability factor of reality TV, the balance between work and play, and the evolving cast dynamics in order to continue a reality show over multiple seasons. (11:19) Loverboy - From Concept to Success. Kyle shares his approach to strategic branding and positioning in the beverage industry with Loverboy, and how it aligns with his personal and professional aspirations. (22:26) The Entrepreneurial Journey. Kyle emphasizes the importance of learning from failures and disproves the notion that success comes without any hurdles along the way. (27:19) Distribution Challenges, Strategies, and The Future of Loverboy. Kyle discusses the complexities of alcohol distribution, the importance of creating consumer demand, and his vision for Loverboy, while reflecting on the future and exploring new content creation avenues. (30:41) Evolution of Content Creation. Looking ahead, Kyle discusses his plans for the future, hinting at the possibility of new content formats and behind-the-scenes insights. He stresses the importance of continuous evolution in the ever-changing landscape of content creation. (39:11) If you want to learn more about Kyle Cooke, follow him on Instagram @imkylecooke and his website https://drinkloverboy.com/.Learn more by visiting our website at www.theradcast.com.Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/RadicalHomeofTheRadcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. I'm Ryan Alford, your host of your number one marketing and business show on Apple Podcast. We want to thank you for that. We join today.

We say if it's radical, we cover it. I don't know. This is about as rad as it comes, especially on the, entertainment meets D-2-C e-commerce side. We're a star at Bravo TV show Summer House and the CEO of Lover Boy. That sparkling hard tea, you can't miss. Kyle Cook, what's up, brother? Good, good. Thanks for having me.

Hey, man. How we doing? Hey, just living to dream, brother. Living the dream is South Kakalaki. You got it. I know. You're in Manhattan, I understand. So, yes, my old stomping grounds. holding it down in NYC baby.

Yeah. Has that always been home? No, well, God, at this point, I guess technically I'm a New Yorker. I grew up in New Hampshire.

You know, I thought if you had a two-car garage, you must be super filthy rich. So very modest, you know, middle income kind of upbringing. Been in New York since 2007. I moved down here to join a college buddy of mine

to do a real estate startup. And aside from two years at business school, getting my MBA, I've been here. Yeah, since 2007. Hey, there you go. You're definitely a New Yorker now. I think 16 years makes anybody a official whatever they are. This is when you get on the other side of life and business and everything else. You're transitioning from like startup to businesses and everything else.

I know we'll get into that. But I mean, everybody's, it's not even a guilty. I don't even feel guilty about it, but I think everybody's like pleasure is reality TV. Like, especially like coming through our age. Like, you know,

it was so big coming up. You had all the MTV shows. You've had all these, the Kardashians, you've had everything else. Talk, walk us through. I think we should start there

with just that journey because I'm sure people watching or listening, you know, know the name, know the face if they're into the show or anything like that. But I'd love to just understand that journey. Yeah,

well, I think even just kind of talking about the guilty pleasure aspect of it. I think I would say pre-Cardashian era, pre-influencer, you know, creator era, it was looked at as like, why would you do this? You must have a joke of a career or no career at all if you're going to put it all out there, you know, and just do it for fame, right? And I think the Kardashians kind of changed everyone's attitude towards reality television. And, you know, I think it's just so mainstream now that it's no longer a guilty pleasure.

It's a pleasure. You know, people openly talk about it. You know, I have guys that wait in line at these meet and greets to say hello to me. And I don't think there'd be a guy in sight 10 years ago. No one would admit they're watching Bravo 10 years ago. So, yeah, it's been a wild ride. And I mean, look, I originally looked at it. at it from an opportunistic standpoint. I'm like, listen, this is, this is a captive audience.

This is how you build a platform, how you build a name for yourself, how you launch a new age brand. And it just so happened that the concept was already a variation of what I was already doing. My friends here in New York, we all do different things professionally. We pull our money together. We rent the house in the Hamptons and we go out every single weekend or at least some of the weekends of the summer. And you kind of, you know, pinball back and forth, back and forth. And that kind of summer house or sharehouse lifestyle is something that a lot of people can probably relate to, particularly if you lived in New York. And it wasn't that novel of a concept to turn into a television show. But the Hantons, aside from, well, speaking of the Kardashians,

they did some shooting there, obviously real house size a shot there. But there's never been a show it's truly like based in the Hantons that has stood the test of time. And, you know, I think that's that's kind of where we are today. You know, we just filmed season eight. I think what energized the network about our show is it was about an existing group of friends, the real world Jersey Shore model where you put a bunch of strangers that are handpicked to be polar opposites and basically fight. Like that model's been done.

So how do you evolve it? And I think that's kind of what we do with Summerhouse. Yeah. It's, uh, how did it like, how did it manifest? I think people always want to know, like, maybe I'm sure you've told the story before, but for our audience, like, how did that come about? So I was working on a nutrition startup. Um, it was pre-launch, um, spending my, every spare dollar I had to my name, you know,

on either renting house in the Hamptons or building my app. And a buddy of mine that I went to undergrad with forwarded me this casting email. And he's had a house in Montauk since the 80s. And I think his fourth had, his sister had forwarded it to him. And he was just like, dude, if anyone's going to, you know, have a role in like ruining this town forever, it should be you. And I was like, what a compliment. Yeah, thanks, buddy. I think. Thanks.

But, you know, I was kind of at that point in my career where I'm like, all right, if I do launch this thing, acquiring customers, that's the number one challenge, it's the number one cost. I don't have a boss. I could use a free house. Like, all these things kind of like spoke to me. And I'm like, hey, there's a very rare chance this will go anywhere. But I went out to the initial casting. It was a one-man band that hired a casting company. and nothing became of it.

Months go by, you know, the audition tapes changed hands to some more seasoned producers. And they were like, listen, if we can tap guys like Kyle to go round up their friends and we latch on to an existing friend group, we could probably sell this to Bravo because there's something there. And that's when I kind of got more involved and more interested. I'm like, listen, if this is the real deal, there's actually a shot in half. that this actually makes it to television, it's worth me putting in the effort. So, you know, I kind of worked hand in hand with those producers, essentially September through June.

What year was that? This is 2015 into 2016. Yeah. Because it took about nine months to kind of, you know, work out the kinks, get the right people in front of the camera, and then, you know, work with the network to, figure out how the hell to shoot a show like this. Because Bravo, I mean, yes, there's, there's some surveillance camera footage in like shows like below deck, but nothing to this extent. I mean, every room is mic. It has a camera with infrared technology. It's a robocam,

so you can get a lot better quality than than the little GoPro's they use in below deck. And, and yeah, you know, it was just next thing you know, end of June of 2016. I'm getting miced up and I'm like, my God, I cannot believe this is happening. So, and that was season one. And we shot in 2016 and it aired in Q1 of 2017. So one, you know, for our listening business audience, like Carl is a good businessman and recognized that, you know, gaining customers is difficult. And you have to pay to get in front of, to get reach and frequency. A lot of the audience seen a lot of times.

And so whether he was selling underwear or hard spiked cider or fitness equipment, he knew that getting in front of that audience, he could talk about or build his personal brand up with which to then market any product. I'm putting words to your mouth, Kyle, but I'm reading him between the lines and for how to all this works, right? Well, thinking it this way. When I graduated business school was 2011. And one of the expressions that a professor said over and over again is cash is king. I think that's kind of changed to content is king.

And I say that because you don't need cash to create content, but every company needs content to acquire customers. And so, sure, my cheat code was a Bravo television show. But back in 2015, streamers, the Netflix, the Hulus, the Amazon's of the world, hardly existed. There was probably two or three shows on Amazon at that time. And so today, people have many more options at their fingertips, right? I mean, you can launch a behind-the-scenes show on you launching your brand on YouTube. And again, content is king. And Gary V says it all the time.

Every company needs to be a content company. And so that's the takeaway here. like, oh, you know, you could shrug this off as like, oh, this guy's got a TV show, unfair advantage, et cetera, et cetera. I saw the opportunity. And yeah, I put in the work. But you can do that on any platform, not cable, but maybe YouTube or TikTok, you name it. And that is exactly right, Kyle.

That's why I respect the hell out of what you've done. And it goes back to, you went down the, you started to go down this path. Like, when reality TV started, the social media networks did not exist or did not exist in the form they are now. So you had to rely on TV is the distribution channels for the content. What's evolved now is you've got TV. And in many ways, TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and Twitter are like stations in a way. Like there are other distribution platforms, right?

So the last thing I'll just say on this topic of kind of content is king, I heard some crazy statistic that something like 9 out of 10 podcasts uploaded to Apple or Spotify or whatever, never see a second podcast. In other words, people put out a podcast and never follow it up. So whether you're trying to make a TV show or you're trying to get your TikTok or your YouTube or your whatever channel up and running, you have to put in the time. right like i put in a year's worth of you know work before we even shot a single frame of summerhouse if you think about going all the way back to the original casting so everything takes work and i think it's really easy to throw in the towel if you don't go viral you know your first or second stab at it so that's the last thing i'll just say is persistence and drive and commitment

is needed you know no matter what you're trying to do 100% with that. I've told that story many times with our very own show here. The first 49 listens were all my mom. So, and then now we get $1.5 million a month. So it's like, yeah, I mean, but it's been five years. So it takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. Before we get into some more of the business and how you've kind of parlayed the show,

talk to us about the reality of like Summer House and now Winter House. Like, what's that like? Like, tell us, give us the real nitty gritty. Well, I think the reason why people are obsessed with it is because reality television is a heck of a lot more relatable than almost any other, you know, medium, whether it's a TV show that's scripted or a movie or, you know, a game on, you know, professional athletes or a concert with. the professional artist. Reality television, the beauty of it is like, we're all just normal people. Sure, we have our screws loose.

Some people are more dramatic than others, but I think the relatability factor is the secret sauce. And from there, it's, well, it's relatable because it's a little more organic and a little more authentic than watching something that's scripted. And I think that's at the core, like every brand wants to be authentic.

Every brand wants to have, you know, organic look and feel and pull within customer, you know, within the consumer world. And I think that's what lends itself to being such a powerful platform. Now, as for what it's like, I mean, look, I quickly forget that the cameras are running. You know, our show shoots 24-7 right through the weekend. You can't sit there and think about what you're going to say. You can't premeditate anything. I mean, I'm sure some people do. But you got to kind of live in the moment.

It's one of the very rare occasions where none of us are on our phones. You're present and you're just kind of living in the moment and reacting. You know, and sure, it's a, there's a lot of alcohol involved in our show, which kind of proves my point. We are not thinking about what we're going to say. That'd be literally impossible. But when you're filming it, it's fun. I mean, sure, you can have a bad day, but it's a fascinating process.

Obviously, we shoot exponentially more hours than makes, you know, the air. And so I love watching it in its final version because I'm seeing things I wasn't privy to. The way Bravo shoots, we do these interviews. where you have an opportunity kind of reflect and have a little more self-awareness than you would in the moment. I mean, there's all sorts of kind of little

kind of hidden gems that make the way Bravo does it just so, so good for consumption. And yeah, I mean, it's really hard to describe until you see it and you're in it. But, you know, the producers are they're not, they're not telling us what to do. They're not trying to tell us what to say,

but they are moving things along because if you have a big night out, you have a big blowout fight with your friend, the next day it's not necessarily human nature to just go right up to them and confront them and talk about it. The producers are there to like, hey, guys, I know you'd love to just chill by the pool and nurse your hangover and avoid the elephant in the room, but that's not how you make a television show.

And that's kind of the key point where I was going to say is like, the, you know, people talk about, like, when you think about social media, like the cringe where, I don't like seeing myself on camera, you know, like I'm, you know, cringe worthy, like, this is everything times a thousand. And so did you, I'm sure you just had to, and everyone on it, you have to just immediately get over that or is it still tough to watch? No, I mean, look, don't get me wrong. I mean, my TV debut, I was wasted in a hot tub with.

with Stasi from van der Pump because our show kind of spun off off of the Vanderpump franchise because we had like an organic connection with that cast. And so Stasi and her friends came to the Hamptus to visit. That's where we came in and the next thing you're watching Summer House. And my first couple minutes on television were really embarrassing because I was

absolutely hammered. They took their pretty little time to make their way to the beach. We were already hammered on Rose. And by the time I got in that hot tub and trying to make a move, I was embarrassingly drunk. But you know, you kind of, I guess I got that out of the way right out of the gate. And I don't have any issue watching things back. I mean, sometimes it's very cringe, particularly if it's not just me. Maybe it's, you know, my relationship. But it's, it's all part of kind of what we signed up for and sure some people are going to handle it better than others for me I kind of wear it all on my sleeve and you know I definitely try to be in touch with you know

my feelings my emotions all that mushy shit um you know I think that's actually what makes casting guys challenging a lot of guys um are like teflon yeah and they're not in touch with some of the more vulnerable things that make them a dynamic individual and dynamic enough to be casted. Yeah. Amen. The last thing I'll say is about that is like,

how do you balance? Like, I just think about it. And I know it's just like that short weekend. But the live, you know, work hard, play hard aspect. I mean, does the play hard getting, get in the way of the work hard sometimes. Oh, yeah. I mean, I joke, but it's like, it's like, yeah, you work hard,

you play harder during the summer. Yeah. I mean, look, it's been a grind. When we film, it's not just the weekends, right? Like Friday morning rolls around. You usually, you know, drive out to the studio. They go pro your car because it's a three-hour commute. And they want to capture some of that build up to the house.

And then from there, it's, you know, 24-7 through Sunday. Then you had to drive back home, which is often three hours. And that's nine times out of ten off-camera, thank God. But, I mean, gone is your free time. Gone is your time to decompress during the weekend or during, you know, your Sunday. And then to make it even more challenging, they want to capture some of our life during the week, working, going out to to eat, grabbing a coffee, catching up with a bud. So we have to make ourselves available.

Usually it's Wednesday and Thursday, depending on what's going on. Yeah. And we often don't get that call time until like the day before or the day of sometimes. And so I have to tell my team, hey, you know, my schedule on Wednesdays and Thursdays has to be somewhat valuable because you never know when I'm going to get called in to go film something for a couple hours. And then once the season's all done with, you know, we have these interviews every couple of weeks to help connect the dots.

There's press commitments. And then when it airs, that also is a distraction. Yeah. So factor in Winterhouse, which is a condensed filming schedule, but it's a crazy, crazy two weeks. And then there's still obligations, you know, once you've wrapped. And I got, even in, in 2022, I shot a third show called The Traders for Peacock. So I, you know, I have very little bounce. But, you know, I've yet yet to start a family.

I'm trying to build up my nest egg. And, you know, no one wants to hear the pity story of like, oh, Kyle's busy because he shot three TV shows and runs a company. It's like, this is what I signed up for. So, you know, no point in complaint. Yep. Is it ever, do you ever fall in love with the, you got to love the process, you know, of it all? And it's like, I think you either love it or you hate it.

If you hate it, you probably don't last eight seasons like you have. I mean, that's all I can imagine, right? Yeah, I think, look, like one of your questions before we started rolling was just like, hey, is it the same cast? And the fact of the matter is, in no world would you be summering with the same people year of a year of a year of a year? I mean, half my friends that I met in Montaag don't even live in New York anymore. Some people are married. Some people have kids.

You know, plans change. So the show has kind of evolved to take that into account. And look, some people are unbelievable, you know, individuals. But like, maybe they just aren't cut out for TV. Yeah. So we kind of, I think I chalk my staying power up to just, hey, I'm not in the same place I was eight years ago. Thank God. And, you know, I'm evolving for better, for worse.

And, you know, we're able to kind of capture some of that. And I'm hopefully solely but surely giving hope for all of mankind that guys like me that once this is part of time we're like scared of commitment. and we'd use their job as a means of justifying why they're not in a relationship. And guess what? There's hope. There's hope. There is hope. I think it's a perfect transition to a lot of hope.

A lot of hope and lover boy. Yes. Everything's riding on lover boy. I hope it's not a strategy, my friend. You've got strategy. I know it. I see it. That's why you're on the show.

Let's talk lover boy. How did that come about? and how's it fucking doing so great. Yeah, look. Like I said, when I, when the original casting opportunity came up, I was working on this nutrition app. And I did a little research about Bravo. It's like the number one rated network among women on cable television.

They're a little more affluent, educated than a lot of other audiences on television. And guess what? Who controls the disposable income of most households? women. So all these things kind of check the box. And then when I looked at what I was focused on, which is nutrition, I was like, I bet you a large percentage of the audience that watches Bravo wants to look good and feel good. And nutrition is a huge part of that. And I looked at what people were spending on fitness and how much they were neglecting on the nutrition front. I was just like, I'm going to do something about it. What I didn't understand or appreciate is that that

would be nearly impossible to bring the life on camera. I built a nutrition app where you connect with a coach. There is nothing about that that is TV worthy. In fact, when I would try to do something to showcase what I was working on, they'd be like, well, we need something visual. Can you do a workout and then talk about the nutrition app? So we would shoot that half the time it didn't make the air. And the times it did, people like,

after the fact thought I had a fitness app. I know. After me in the kitchen, it's nutrition, it's nutrition. So all this while, when there's confusion and disinterest and challenges in bringing this venture of mine to life, everybody was asking what we were drinking. What's the rosé? What's this hard tea? What the heck is this hard seltzer?

And it was like the opportunity was staring me in the face. 99% of alcohol products don't even have a nutrition fact panel or the ingredients listed. Here I am talking about the importance of nutrition and we're drinking products that once I did a little research were absolutely horrible for you. I actually felt bad telling them the name of the hard Citi we were drinking on the show because it was just full of sugar. And like everyone's trying to cut out sugar Monday through Friday. Why would you just drink nothing but sugar during the weekends?

Like that tasty margarita that it's frozen coming out of the machine, full sugar, go figure. So the opportunity to staring me in the face, there weren't that many hard shelters at the time. But I was just like, this is going to change how people think about drinking because there's a nutrition fact panel. You can see the ingredients. It's light. It's refreshing. It's an alternative to beer. It's an alternative to wine and spirits too.

But all these hard shelters kind of taste the same. and I looked at the fact that there was only one hard tea that had, you know, mass market penetration and distribution. And it was the same brand that hadn't changed in 20 years. And I realized there was this theme in alcohol. Alcohol is like 20 years behind the rest of food and beverage. And so I was like, why create another heart shelter if I can create the first premium, better for you hard tea.

And that was essentially the inception of lover boy. It was, hey, online hard seltzers, we're going to use better quality ingredients other than just natural flavors like a La Croy or a white claw. We're going to use better quality ingredients. But just because you're getting more flavor doesn't mean you're going to get all the calories and carbs associated with some of the traditional hard teas, hard lemonade. on the market. And we've kind of filled this little void and continue to kind of dominate it in between, you know, like a hard seltzer, which is, you know, kind of underwhelming, but better for you than the alternatives. And then this like full sugar, full flavor experience that two of those and you're, you know, you basically have consumed more more sugar,

you know, in that sitting, then you're supposed to consume for the entire day. Yeah. So, Lover Boy, we started with our sparkling hard teas, and then we realized, my God, look at how much sugar is in an operal spreads. Look how much sugar is an espresso martini. We started building out these other product lines to fill other voids we saw in the marketplace. Brilliant with the show. I mean, everybody wants to know what you're drinking, you know? Like, it was the perfect, like, influencer campaign within the TV show, right? Yeah.

Everyone's like, how are you guys partying this much and like waking up and doing it all over again? I'm like, well, first things first, drink lover boy because our Spartanity hard teas have zero sugar. And sugar plays such a big part in why you feel like absolute crap the next day. And you go into the, you know, your Monday work week feeling like all the gains you made from eating clean and working out were completely lost and it's this vicious repetitive cycle. And by cutting out sugar, I mean, my God, it's like we eliminated those vicious hangovers. And I mean, I just got this question down in Dallas. I was at a pool party that I was hosting. And people were asking me, like, how do you do it? And I'm like, I drink these, you know, I drink lovable. Yeah, drink your own product.

What's the entrepreneurial journey been like? I know it hasn't been all roses. I mean, it's tough, right? You've had and made some really smart decisions, obviously switching to this product, having the TV show, having, you know, that built-in influencer base, so to speak. Sure. I mean, look, I feel like I've been an entrepreneur ever since I was a kid. You know, once upon a time, so I sold cut go knives. I learned, you know, how to cold call, how to close someone on the spot in college. I ran a contracting business where I had 50 people working for me, painting homes and commercial buildings and just adding a level of professionalism in a service-based industry

that lacked professionalism. I've worked in healthcare. I've worked in real estate, you name it. I went to business school thinking, like, I'm going to emerge from there with my MBA to start some type of tech startup. And I did do just that, but I had multiple failures along the way. chasing trends instead of starting a trend. And, you know, I think all those learning lessons, all the failures, you know,

make you a better entrepreneur. And I think that like the Mark Zuckerberg's neon muscle the world really distort the reality of entrepreneurship. Like very rarely do you step up to the plate, having never swung a baseball bat and hit a grand slam, you know, on national television, right? Most of the time, you know, the startup that you are known for, that business that you own and run that your friends and family, you know, respect you for. That wasn't your first rodeo. And, and yeah, I mean, look, I'm 41.

And, you know, it took me a long time to find success. You know, when I was, I think there was probably a 15-year gap between when I really tasted success running that contracting business. where I, as a 20-year-old, netted 50 grand in six months after all my expenses were paid. And fast forward to when Loverboy had its first profitable year. I mean, that was like a 15-year gap that I was just trying to find my way. How's distribution been like for Loverboy? Like, what are your channels and, you know, where are you sold the most? And, you know, what's it been like trying to grow that?

Sure. Well, I think a lot of people understand that alcohol is tricky. Obviously, there's a lot of regulation and red tape. And some people have heard about the three-tier system. Some haven't. But essentially, by law, I'm required to sell to a wholesaler who then sells to a retailer. I can't go to retailers direct. So that's the three-tier supplier, wholesaler, and retailer. And if you don't have wholesalers on board, Because they're your actual consumer. Then you're never going to get into retail and retail will never sell it to consumer. And as a result, that's actually part of the reason why alcohol is so far behind. This three-tier system creates a disconnect between the suppliers and the consumer. And so you're putting products out there that are archaic and dated.

But, you know, your wholesalers don't know any better because they're not selling to the consumer directly either. And, you know, when you think about the Bravo consumer, it's not the consumer that's going into convenience or liquor as much so as going into grocery. So our strategy, you know, was to go to where our fan base is and build that early adopter strategy and parlay that into almost reverse engineering the typical cycle. normally you're going to your wholesaler, begging and pleading, and then going to the retailer. We almost did it the exact opposite. We had consumers asking for it. Then the consumers were asking their retailers for it. The retailers were asking the wholesaler for it.

So you create pull instead of pushing shit out to your wholesaler. And that, again, that's all driven by content, right? Yes, it's driven by my TV show. but anybody, I mean, Jake Paul's doing it. With Prime. Logan Paul's doing it with his YouTube channel and his Instagram, right? So there's a thousand ways to do it now. Yeah.

What's, uh, as you look back, you know, you mean, you're, what, six, five years you into Loverboy 2018. So like, what do you look, do you look back? I know you don't live in reverse, but like, what's been like the biggest learning lesson? I mean, like any industry that you're, technically an outsider, you know, entering in. You know, you don't know what you don't know. So you have to be like a sponge, you know,

but there's definitely times where, you know, we were way too hung up on this decision or we took way too much time to expand or we took certain things, you know, from a supply chain perspective for granted. And so, look, we've had strategics try to, you know, invest. We've had strategies try to buy us. we have had every venture capitalist in consumer packaged goods inbound and try to invest. And there are certain things that perhaps we were a little naive, you know, or cocky or, you know, what have you.

You know, anytime any brand has been around for a good couple of years in the consumer realm, you know, there's always a chance you kind of lose your edge. but we are just laser focused on understanding our consumer, continue to set trends instead of follow, you know, follow trends. And yeah, just every day is a learning lesson. What is the master plan with lover boy? I mean, you know, if you can share, like what does that look like, that roadmap? Yeah, I mean, look, I think I think I am, I'm very much in the mindset that I'd love a boy to be a household name that lives

well beyond the Bravo universe. And I think we're already kind of approaching that. You know, people are drinking it and have no idea who I am. They have no idea what summer house is. And I think that's the goal, right, to build a brand bigger than me, bigger than the show. We are still in single-digit weighted distribution. What that means is, you know, obviously some retailers like the Walmarts of the world sell a heck of a lot more volume than a mom and pop. And so weighted distribution takes into account the chains.

We're still single digit distribution. And the biggest challenge we've had in the last 18 months is our wholesalers aren't taking enough product in to fill the shelves and prevent out of stocks. So until we can solve the out of stocks, until we can get our weighted distribution up into big, you know, double digit. ideally like 25%, we just have so much left on the table, so much opportunity. And so we're laser-focused on execution and building a brand that can stand the test of time. And, you know, would we take a call from a street strategic now that we wouldn't want to have two, three years ago because we were so nascent? Absolutely. But, you know, I'm not looking for distractions.

Like I said, if I'm in execution mode, these need to be due diligence pretty quick. Yeah. I mean, is that a, is it just meeting the right people? Like, is it just getting in front of more people? Like, like with that three-tier system, like, what's the magic trigger that's just like the windfall? Well, you have to demonstrate consumer awareness, consumer pull, whether you have a big marketing budget or some content strategy. And then, I mean, look, you need a product that offers points of differentiation.

There's been dozens upon dozens of attempts to take on the number one hard T. But all of those products were me too look alike products that didn't really offer any differentiation. They were similar brands, similar branding, going after the similar consumer with a similar sugar-fueled product. So you kind of have to have points of differentiation. And look, I'll be honest. Like, it is way harder to launch, you know, a product that plays in what we're

calling this fourth category, whether it's better for you or beyond beer or ready to drink. You have to have, like, a lot of stars aligning today versus even just two years ago. and certainly pre-pandemic. Yeah. I always like to say it's, don't be better, be different. Yeah. It's like, that's the key.

Yeah. And don't spend your time stressing out about the competition. Because if you're different, then it doesn't matter. Yeah. Well, if you're better, you're competing. If you're different, you're dominating, right? Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. I love it. It's like, imagine trying to take on Nike. Our shoes are better. Our clothing is drier and fits better. See what I did there? Yeah. You know, good luck.

Good luck. Good freaking luck. Exactly. Exactly. You can have a way better product, but you don't have the Nike swish. Yeah. Exactly. Just do it.

The, where's the show going on? Where's this all headed, man, outside of a lover boy? I'm just talking about where's Kyle Cook headed? Where's summer house, winter house, you know, what's the future hold? Yeah, look, I think I hope the show continues to follow me, Amanda, our friends, our company as it evolves. And like I said, I hope it continues to evolve. I think that's what makes the television show great. You know, will I age out of the summer house concept as it is?

I suspect I'm going to start a family at some point. And I also don't plan to raise that family in New York City. But, you know, I think I got a few years left from, you know, from that perspective. Winterhouse is a completely different beast. It's so much fun. It's two weeks of the year. And, yeah, it's, it's. It's a wild ride.

But yeah, I mean, there's a side of me that wants to think about the next chapter and continue to put content and content creation at the center and think about what haven't we done. Guess what? We haven't had the time or the team or the bandwidth to do YouTube or start shooting some behind the scenes. So that's the kind of stuff that I'm focused on. Yeah.

I love it, man. Well, maybe we'll get the invite up to one of these summer houses or something. Hey, we're known for our, our, oops, sorry, draw my cat. We're known for our theme parties. You know, I think, I don't think there's another show that has put theme parties on the map quite like summer house. And it's, it's a lot of fun. And if you ever find yourself in the Hantons, you hit me up. Yeah, I will.

Hey, guys, we're going to, we're going to be keep up with you, Let's give everybody all the websites, the social handles. Yeah. Yeah. So lover boy is obviously my bread and butter. It's my baby. So that's at drink loverboy.com. And same handle across the Instagram, Twitter, et cetera.

I think we actually have the lover boy handle on TikTok, but we're not too active there because there's some challenges pushing a brand, an alcohol brand on TikTok. And then you can find me, just search Kyle Cook on Instagram, Twitter. Technically, it's the letters I am, and then my name, Kyle Cook. But yeah, I try to be active, but I could be a lot more active, put it that way. Kyle, I really appreciate you coming to show. You shared a lot of insights, especially on the business side, that probably people didn't understand or know that relate to reality TV and everything else. So I really appreciate the transparency and authenticity.

You got it, Ryan. Thanks for giving me a platform to share it. And, you know, thanks so much for listening along. Hey, guys, you were to find us, the radcast.com. Search for Kyle Cook. That's Cook with an E. You'll find all of the highlight clips and everything today. And look, I want you to go into your grocery store.

And I want you say, I won't lover boy. That helps. It helps. It does. Let's get the push going with the pull. You know what to find me. You know I'm at at Ryan Alford on all the platforms with that blue checkmark before you could buy it. We'll see you next time on the Radcast.

To listen and watch full episodes, visit us on the web at the radcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, the dot rad. Or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical. You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast.

I'm Ryan Alford, your host of your number one marketing and business show on an Apple podcast. We want to thank you for that. We join today. We say it's radical. We cover it. This is about as rad as it comes, especially on the entertainment meets D to C e-commerce side. We're a star of Bravo TV show Summer House and the CEO of Lover Boy. That sparkling hard tea, you can't miss.

Kyle Cook, what's up, brother? Good, good. Thanks for having me. Hey, man. How we doing? Hey, just living a dream, brother. Living the dream is South Kakalaki. You got it. I know.

You're in Manhattan, I understand. So my old stomping grounds. Holding it down in NYC, baby. Yeah. Is that always been home? No, well, God, at this point, I guess technically I'm a New Yorker. I grew up in New Hampshire. I thought if you had a two-car garage, you must be super filthy rich. So very modest middle income bringing.

Been in New York since 2007. I moved down here to join a college buddy of mine to do a real estate startup. And aside from two years at business school, getting my MBA, I've been here. Yeah, since 2007. Hey, there you go. You're definitely a New Yorker now. I think 16 years makes anybody whatever they are.

This is when you get on the other side of life and business and everything else, you're transitioning from like startup to businesses and everything else. I know we'll get into that. But everybody's, it's not even a guilty. I don't even feel guilty about it, but I think everybody's like pleasure is reality TV.

So I said like coming through our age, it was so big coming up. You had all the MTV shows. You've had all these, the Kardashians, you've had everything else. walk us through. I think we should start there with just that journey because I'm sure people watching or listening

know the name, know the face if they're into the show or anything like that. But I'd love to just understand that journey. Yeah, I think even just talking about the guilty pleasure aspect of it, I think I would say pre-Cardashian era, pre-influencer, creator era, it was looked at as like, why would you do this? You must have a joke of a career or no career.

at all if you're going to put it all out there and just do it for fame. And I think the Kardashians kind of changed everyone's attitude towards reality television. And I think it's just so mainstream now that it's no longer a guilty pleasure. It's a pleasure. People openly talk about it. I have guys that wait in line at these meet and greets to say hello to me. And I don't think there'd be a guy in sight 10 years ago. No one would admit they're watching Bravo 10 years ago. So yeah, it's been a wild ride and look, I originally looked at it from an opportunistic standpoint. I'm like, listen, this is a captive audience. This is how you build a platform, how you build a name for yourself, how you launch a new age brand. And it just so happened that the concept was already a variation

of what I was already doing. My friends here in New York, we all do different things professionally. We pull our money together. We rent the house in the Hamptons and we go out every single weekend or at least some of the weekends of the summer. And you pinball back and forth. And that kind of summer house or sharehouse lifestyle is something that a lot of people can probably relate to, particularly if you lived in New York. And it wasn't that novel of a concept to turn into a television show. But the Hantons, aside from, well, speaking of the Kardashians, they did some shooting there, obviously real house size a shot there. But there's never been a show that's truly based in the Hantons that has stood the test of time.

And I think that's where we are today. We just filmed season eight. I think what energized the network about our show is it was about an existing group of friends. The real world Jersey Shore model where you put a bunch of strangers that are handpicked to be polar opposites and basically fight. Like that model's been done. How do you evolve it? And I think that's what we do with Summer House. Yeah.

It's how did it like, how did it manage? I think people always want to know. Maybe I'm sure you've told the story before, but for our audience. So I was working on a nutrition startup. It was pre-launch, spending my, every spare dollar I had to my name on either renting house in the Hantons or building my app. And a buddy of mine that I went to undergrad with forwarded me this casting email. And he's had a house in Montauk since the 80s.

And I think his Ford had, his sister had Ford. it to him. And he was just like, dude, if anyone's going to have a role in ruining this town forever, it should be. I was like, what a compliment. Yeah, thanks, buddy. I think. Thanks. But I was at that point in my career where I'm like, all right, if I do launch this thing, acquiring customers, that's the number one challenge, it's the number one cost. I don't have a boss. I could use a free house. Like, all these things spoke to me. And, and I, And I'm like, hey, there's a very rare chance this will go anywhere. But I went out to the initial casting.

It was a one-man band that hired a casting company. And nothing became of it. Months go by, the audition tapes changed hands to some more seasoned producers. And they were like, listen, if we can tap guys like Kyle to go round up their friends and we latch on to an existing friend group, we could probably sell this to Bravo because there's something there. And that's when I got more involved and more interested. I'm like, listen, if this is the real deal, there's actually a shot in hell that this actually makes it to television,

it's worth me putting in the effort. I worked hand in hand with those producers essentially September through June. What year was that? This is 2015 into 2016. Yeah. Because it took about nine months to work out the kinks, get the right people in front of the camera, and then work with the network to figure out how to shoot a show like this.

Because Bravo, yes, there's some surveillance camera footage in shows like below deck, but nothing to this extent. Every room is mic, it has a camera with infrared technology. It's a robocam so you can get a lot better quality than the little GoPro's they use in below deck. And yeah, it was just next thing, end of June of 26th. I'm getting miced up and I'm like, my God, I cannot believe this is happening. And that was season one. And we shot in 2016 and it aired in Q1 of 2017.

So one, you know, for our listening business audience, like Carl is a good businessman. And recognized that gaining customers is difficult. And you have to pay to get in front of, to get reach and frequency. A lot of the audience seen a lot of times. And so whether he was selling underwear or hard spiked cider or fitness equipment, he knew that getting in front of that audience, he could talk about or build his personal brand up with which to then market any product. I'm putting words in your mouth, Kyle,

but I'm reading him in the lines for how to all this works. I'm thinking it this way. When I graduated business school was 2011, And one of the expressions that a professor said over and over again is cash is king. I think that's changed to content is king. And I say that because you don't need cash to create content, but every company needs content to acquire customers. And so, sure, my cheat code was a Bravo television show.

But back in 2015, streamers, the Netflix, the Hulus, the Amazons of the world, hardly existed. There was probably two or three shows on Amazon at that time. And so today, people have many more options at their fingertips, right? You can launch a behind-the-scenes show on you launching your brand on YouTube. And again, content is king. And Gary V says it all the time. Every company needs to be a content company. And so that's the takeaway here. You could shrug this off as out of this guy's got a TV show, Unfair Advantage, et cetera, et cetera. I saw the opportunity. And yeah, I put in the work. But you can do that on any platform, not cable, but maybe YouTube or TikTok, you name it. And that is exactly right, Kyle.

That's why I respect the hell out of what you've done. And it goes back to, you went down the, you started to go down this path. Like when reality TV started, the social media networks did not exist or did not exist in the form they are now. So you had to rely on TV as the distribution channels for the content. What's evolved now is you've got TV. And in many ways, TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and Twitter are like stations in a way. Like there are other distribution platforms, right? So the last thing I'll just say on this topic of kind of content is king.

I heard some crazy statistic that something like 9 out of 10 podcasts uploaded to Apple or Spotify or whatever, never see a second podcast. In other words, people put out a podcast and never follow it up. So whether you're trying to make a TV show or you're trying to get your TikTok or your YouTube or your whatever channel up and running,

you have to put in the time. Like I put in a year's worth of work before we even shot a single frame of Summerhouse. If you think about going all the way back to the original casting. So everything takes work. And I think it's really easy to throw in the towel if you don't go viral, your first or second stab at it. So that's the last thing I'll just say is persistence and drive and commitment is needed no matter what you're trying to do. A hundred percent with that. I've told that story many times with our very own show here. The first 49 listens were all my mom.

And then now we get 1.5 million a month. Yeah, but it's been five years. It takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. Before we get into some more of the business and how you've parlayed the show, talk to us about the reality of like Summer House and now Winter House. Like this, what's that? Tell us, give us the real nitty gritty.

I think the reason why people are obsessed with it is because reality television is a heck of a lot more relatable. than almost any other medium, whether it's a TV show that's scripted or a movie or a game on professional athletes or a concert with a professional artist. Reality television, the beauty of it is we're all just normal people. Sure, we have our screws loose and some people are more dramatic than others. But I think the relatability factor is the secret sauce. And from there, it's relatable because it's a little more organic and a little more authentic than watching something that's scripted. And I think that's at the core. Like every brand wants to be authentic.

Every brand wants to have, you know, organic look and feel and pull within customer, within the consumer world. And I think that's what lends itself to being such a powerful platform. Now, as for what it's like, look, I quickly forget that the cameras are running. Our show shoots 24-7 right through the weekend. You can't sit there and think about what you're going to say. You can't premeditate anything. I'm sure some people do. But you got to live in the moment.

It's one of the very rare occasions where none of us are on our phones. You're present and you're just living in the moment and reacting. and sure, there's a lot of alcohol involved in our show, which kind of proves my point. We are not thinking about what we're going to say. That'd be literally impossible. But when you're filming it, it's fun. Sure, you can have a bad day, but it's a fascinating process. Obviously, we shoot exponentially more hours than makes the air.

And so I love watching it in its final version because I'm seeing things I was privy to the way Bravo shoots, we do these interviews where you have an opportunity to reflect and have a little more self-awareness than you would in the moment. There's all sorts of little kind of hidden gems that make the way Bravo does it just so good for consumption. And yeah, it's really hard to describe until you see it and you're in it. But the producers, they're not telling us what to do. They're not trying to tell us what to say.

but they are moving things along because if you have a big night out and you have a big blowout fight with your friend the next day it's not necessarily human nature to just go right up to them and confront them and talk about the producers are there to like hey guys I know you'd love to just chill by the pool and nurse your hangover and avoid the elephant in the room but that's not how you make a television show and that's the key point what I was going to say is like the people talk about like when you think about social media, like the cringe where I don't like seeing myself on camera. Like I'm cringed with it.

This is everything times a thousand. And so did you, I'm sure you just had to, and everyone on it, you have to just immediately get over that or is it still tough to watch? No, don't get me wrong. My TV debut, I was wasted in a hot tub with Stasi from Vanderpump because our show spun off of the Vanderpump franchise. because we had an organic connection with that cast. And so Stasi and her friends came to the Hamptus to visit.

That's where we came in. And the next thing you know, you're watching Summer House. And my first couple minutes on television were really embarrassing because I was absolutely hammered. They took their pretty little time to make their way to the beach. We were already hammered on Rose. And by the time I got in that hot tub and tried to make a move, I was embarrassingly drunk. But I guess I got that out of the way. right out of the gate.

And I don't have any issue watching things back. Sometimes it's very cringe, particularly if it's not just me. Maybe it's my relationship. But it's all part of what we signed up for. And sure, some people are going to handle it better than others. For me, I wear it all my sleeve. And I definitely try to be in touch with my feelings, my emotions, all that mushy shit. I think that's actually what makes casting guys.

challenging. A lot of guys are like Teflon. Yeah. And they're not in touch with some of the more vulnerable things that make them a dynamic individual and dynamic enough to be casted. Yeah. Amen. The last thing I'll say is about that is like, how do you balance? I just think about it. I know it's just like that short weekend, But the live work hard, play hard aspect, does the play hard getting, get in the way of the work hard sometimes? Oh yeah, I joke. But yeah, you work hard, you play harder during the summer. Yeah.

Look, it's been a grind. When we film, it's not just the weekends, right? Like Friday morning rolls around. You usually drive up to the studio. They go pro your car because it's a three hour commute. And they want to capture some of that. build up to the house. And then from there, it's 24th, 24-7 through Sunday.

Then you get to drive back home, which is often three hours. And that's nine times out of ten off-camera, thank God. But gone is your free time. Gone is your time to decompress during the weekend or during your Sunday. And then to make it even more challenging, they want to capture some of our life during the week, working, going out to to eat, grabbing a coffee, catching up with a bud. So we have to make ourselves available. Usually it's Wednesday and Thursday, depending on what's going on.

Yeah. And we often don't get that call time until the day before or the day of sometimes. And so I have to tell my team, hey, my schedule on Wednesdays and Thursdays has to be somewhat malleable because you never know when I'm going to get called in to go film something for a couple hours. And then once the season's all done with, we have these interviews every couple of weeks to help connect the dots. There's press commitments. And then when it airs, that also is a distraction.

So factor in Winterhouse, which is a condensed filming schedule, but it's a crazy two weeks. And then there's still obligations once you've wrapped. And I got even in, in 2022, I shot a third. show called The Traders for Peacock. So I have very little balance. I get to start a family. I'm trying to build up my nest egg. And no one wants to hear the pity story of, oh, Kyle's busy because he shot three TV

shows and runs a company. This is what I signed up for. No point in complaint. Yep. Do you ever fall in love with the, you got to love the process of it all? And it's, I think you either love it or you. you hate it. And if you hate it, you probably don't last eight seasons like you have. That's all I can imagine. Yeah, I think, look, like one of your questions before we started rolling was just like,

hey, is it the same cast? And the fact of the matter is, in no world would you be summering with the same people year of a year of a year? Half my friends that I met in Montaag don't even live in New York anymore. Some people are married. Some people have kids. Plans change. So the show has evolved to take that into account. And look, some people are Unbelievable individuals, but like maybe they just aren't cut out for TV. So I think I chalk my staying power up to just, hey, I'm not in the same place I was eight years ago. Thank God. And I'm evolving for better for worse.

And we're able to capture some of that. And I'm hopefully solely but surely giving hope for all of mankind that guys like me that once it's about a time where like scared of commitment and we'd use their job as a means of justifying why they're not in a relationship. And guess what? There's hope. There's hope. There is hope.

I think it's a perfect transition to a lot of hope. A lot of hope and lover boy. Yes. Everything's riding on lover boy. I hope it's not a strategy, my friend. You got strategy. I know it. I see it.

That's why you're on the show. Let's talk lover boy. How did that come about? And how's it fucking doing so great? Yeah, look, like I said, when the original casting opportunity came up, I was working on this nutrition app. And I did a little research about Bravo. It's like the number one rated network among women on cable television.

They're a little more affluent, educated than a lot of other audiences on television. And guess what? Who controls the disposable income of most households, women? So all these things check the box. And then when I looked at what I was focused on, which is nutrition, I was like, I bet you a large percentage of the audience that watches Bravo wants to look good and feel good. And nutrition is a huge part of that. And I looked at what people were spending on fitness and how much they were neglecting on the nutrition front. I was just like,

I'm going to do something about it. What I didn't understand or appreciate is that would be nearly impossible to bring the life on camera. I built a nutrition app where you connect with a coach. there is nothing about it is TV worthy. In fact, when I would try to do something to showcase what I was working on, they'd be like, we need something visual. Can you do a workout and then talk about the nutrition app? So we would shoot that half the time it didn't make the air. And the times it did, people like after the fact thought I had a fitness app.

You're like, no. After me in the kitchen, it's nutrition. It's nutrition. So all this while, when there's confusion and disinterest and challenges in bringing this venture of mine to life, everybody was asking what we were drinking. What's the rosé? What's this hard tea? What the heck is this hard seltzer? And it was like the opportunity was staring me in the face.

99% of alcohol products don't even have a nutrition fact panel or the ingredients listed. Here I am talking about the importance of nutrition. and we're drinking products that once I did a little research were absolutely horrible for you. I actually felt bad telling them the name of the hard C that we were drinking on the show because it was just full of sugar. And like everyone was trying to cut out sugar Monday through Friday. Why would you just drink nothing but sugar during the weekends? Like that tasty margarita that it's frozen coming out of the machine, full of sugar, go figure.

So the opportunity to staring me in the face, there weren't that many hard shelters at the time, but I was just like, this is going to change how people think about drinking because there's a nutrition fact panel. You can see the ingredients. It's light. It's refreshing. It's an alternative to beer. It's an alternative to wine and spirits, too. But all these hard shelters taste it's same.

And I looked at the fact that there was only one hard tea that had mass market penetration. and distribution. And it was the same brand that hadn't changed in 20 years. And I realized there was this theme in alcohol. Alcohol is 20 years behind the rest of food and beverage. And so I was like, why create another hard seltzer if I can create the first premium, better for you, hard tea? And that was essentially the inception of Loverboy.

It was, hey, online hard seltzers, we're going to use better. quality ingredients other than just natural flavors like a LaCroix or a white claw. We're going to use better quality ingredients, but that just because you're getting more flavor doesn't mean you're going to get all the calories and carbs associated with some of the traditional hard teas, hard lemonade's on the market. And we've filled this little void and continue to dominate it in between like a hard seltzer, which is underwhelming, but better for you than the alternatives. and then this like full sugar, full flavor experience,

that two of those and you're basically have consumed more sugar in that sitting than you're supposed to consume for the entire day. Yeah. So lover boy, we started with our sparkling hard teas and then we realized, my God, look at how much sugar is in an operol sprits, look at how much sugar is an espresso martini. We started building out these other product lines to fill other voids we saw in the marketplace. Brilliant with the show.

Everybody wants to know what you're drinking. Like, it was the perfect, like, influencer campaign within the TV show, right? Yeah. Everyone's like, how are you guys partying this much and waking up and doing it all over again? I'm like, first things first, drink lover boy because our Spartanee hard teas have zero sugar. And sugar plays such a big part in why you feel like absolute crap the next day. and you go into your Monday work week feeling like all the gains you made from eating clean and working out were completely lost.

And it's this vicious repetitive cycle. And by cutting out sugar, my God, it's like we eliminated those vicious hangovers. And I just got this question down in Dallas. I was at a pool party that I was hosting. And people were asking me, like, how do you do it? And I'm like, I drink these. Drink your own product. What's that, what's the entrepreneurial generity been like?

I know it hasn't been all roses. It's tough, right? You've had and made some really smart decisions, obviously switching to this product, having the TV show, having that built-in influencer base, so to speak. Sure. I feel like I've been an entrepreneur ever since I was a kid. Once upon a time, I sold Cutco Knives. I learned how to cold call, how to close someone on the spot. In college, I ran a conference.

contracting business where I had 50 people working for me, painting homes and commercial buildings and just adding a level of professionalism in a service-based industry that lacked professionalism. I've worked in health care. I've worked in real estate. You name it. I went to business school thinking, like, I'm going to emerge from there with my MBA to start some type of tech startup. And I did do just that, but I had multiple failures along the way, chasing trends instead of starting a trend. And I think all those learning lessons, all the failures make you a better entrepreneur. And I think that like the Mark Zuckerberg's and Elon Musk of the world really distort the reality of entrepreneurship. Like very rarely do you step up to the plate having never

swung a baseball bat and hit a grand slam on national television, right? Most of the time the startup that you are known for, that business that you own and run, that your friends and family respect you for, that wasn't your first rodeo. And yeah, look, I'm 41. And, you know, it took me a long time to find success when I was, I think there was probably a 15 year gap between when I really tasted success

running that contracting business where I, as a 20-year-old, netted 50 grand. in six months after all my expenses were paid. And fast forward to when Loverboy had its first profitable year. That was like a 15-year gap that I was just trying to find my way. How's distribution been like for Loverboy? What are your channels and where are you sold the most? And what's it been like trying to grow that?

Sure. I think a lot of people understand that alcohol is tricky. Obviously, it has a lot of regulation and red tape. And some people have heard about the three-tier system. Some haven't. But essentially, by law, I'm required to sell to a wholesaler who then sells to a retailer. I can't go to retailers direct. So that's the three-tier supplier, wholesaler, and retailer. And if you don't have wholesalers on board, because they're your actual consumer, then you're never going to get into retail and retail will never sell to consumer. And as a result, that's actually part of the reason why alcohol is so far behind. This three-tier system creates a disconnect between the suppliers and the consumer. And so you're putting products out there that are archaic and dated, but your wholesalers don't know any better because they're not selling to the consumer directly either. And when you think about the Bravo consumer, it's not the consumer that's going into convenience

or liquor as much so as going into grocery. Our strategy, our strategy, was to go to where our fan base is and build that early adopter strategy and parlay that into almost reverse engineering the typical cycle. Normally you're going to your wholesaler begging and pleading and then going to the retailer. We almost did it the exact opposite. We had consumers asking for it. Then the consumers were asking their retailers for it. The retailers were asking the wholesalers for it.

So you create pull instead of, of pushing shit out to your your wholesaler. And that, again, that's all driven by content, right? Yes, it's driven by my TV show, but anybody, Jake Paul's doing it with Logan Paul's doing it with his YouTube channel and his Instagram, right? So there's a thousand ways to do it now. Yeah. What's as you look back, you mean you're, what, six, five years you into Loverboy 2018. So what do you look back? I know you don't live in reverse, but what's been like the biggest learning lesson? Like any industry that you're technically an outsider entering in, you don't know what you don't know. So you have to be like a sponge. But there's definitely times where we were way too hung up on this decision or we took way too much time to expand or we took certain things from a supply chain perspective for granted. And look, we've we've had strategics try to invest.

You've got strategies try to buy us. We have had every venture capitalist in consumer packaged goods inbound and try to invest. And there are certain things that perhaps we were a little naive or cocky or what have you. Anytime any brand has been around for a good couple of years in the consumer realm, there's always a chance you kind of lose your edge. But we are just laser focused on understanding our consumer, continue to set trends instead of follow trends. And yeah, just every day is a learning lesson.

What is the master plan with lover boy if you can share? What does that look like, that roadmap? Yeah, look, I think I am very much in the mindset that I'd love Lover Boy to be a household name that lives well beyond the Bravo universe. And I think we're already approaching that. People are drinking it and have no idea. who I am. They have no idea what summer house is. And I think that's the goal, right, to build a brand bigger than me, bigger than the show. We are still in single-digit

weighted distribution. And what that means is obviously some retailers like the Walmarts of the world sell a heck of a lot more volume than a mom and pop. And so weighted distribution takes into account the chains. We're still single-digit distribution. And the biggest challenge we've had in the last 18 months is our wholesalers aren't taking enough product in to fill the shelves and prevent out of stocks. So until we can solve the out of stocks, until we can get our weighted distribution up into double digit, ideally like 25%, we just have so much left on the table, so much opportunity. We're laser focused on execution and building a brand that can stand the test of time.

and would we take a call from a street strategic now that we wouldn't want to have two, three years ago because we were so nascent? Absolutely. But I'm not looking for distractions. Like I said, if I'm in execution mode, these need to be due diligence pretty quick. Yeah. Is that a, is it just meeting the right people? Is it just getting in front of more people? Like with that three-tier system, what's the magic trigger that's,

just like the windfall. You have to demonstrate consumer awareness, consumer poll, whether you have a big marketing budget or some content strategy. And then look, you need a product that offers points of differentiation. There's been dozens upon dozens of attempts to take on the number one hard tea. But all of those products were me too look alike products that didn't really offer any differentiation. They were similar brands, similar branding, going after the similar consumer with a similar sugar-fueled product. So you have to have points of differentiation. And look, I'll be honest. Like it is way harder to launch a product that plays in what we're calling this fourth category, whether it's better for you or beyond beer or ready to

drink, you have to have a lot of stars aligning today versus even just two years ago and certainly pre-pandemic. Yeah. I always say it's, don't be better, be different. Yeah. That's the key. Yeah. And don't spend your time stressing out about the competition, because if you're different, then it doesn't matter. Yeah. If you're better, you're competing. If you're different, you're dominating. Exactly. Yeah, I love it. Imagine trying to take on Nike.

Our shoes are better. Our clothing is drier and fits better. See what I did there? Yeah. Good luck. Good luck. Good freaking luck. Exactly.

Exactly. You can have a way better product, but you don't have the Nike swoosh. Yeah, exactly. Just do it. the where's the show going where's this all headed man outside of a lover boy i just talk about where's kowl cook headed where's summer house

winter house what's the future hold yeah look i think i hope the show continues to follow me amanda our friends our company as it evolves and like i said i hope it continues to evolve i think that's what makes the television show great will i age

out of the summer house concept as it is i suspect i'm going to start a family at some point. And I also don't plan to raise that family in New York City. But I think I got a few years left from from that perspective. Winterhouse is a completely different beast. It's so much fun. It's two weeks of the year. And yeah, it's a wild ride. But yeah, there's a side of me that wants to think about the next chapter and continue to put content and content creation at the center and think about what haven't we done.

Guess what? We haven't had the time or the team or the bandwidth to do YouTube or start shooting some behind the scenes. So that's the kind of stuff that I'm focused on. Yeah. I love it, man. Maybe we'll get the invite up to one of these summer houses or something. We're known for our, oops, sorry, draw my cash.

We're known for our theme parties. I think, I don't think there's another. show that has put theme parties on the map quite like Summer House. And it's a lot of fun. And if you ever find yourself in the Hantons, you hit me up. Yeah, I will. Hey, guys, we're going to, we're going to everybody keep up with you, Kyle. Let's give everybody all the, the websites, the social handles.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so Loverboy is obviously my bread and butter. It's my baby. So that's at drink loverboy.com. And same handle across the Instagram, Twitter, et cetera. I think we actually have the Loverboy handle on. on TikTok, but we're not too active there because there's some challenges pushing a brand,

an alcohol brand on TikTok. And then you can find me, just search Kyle Cook on Instagram, Twitter. Technically, it's the letters I am and then my name, Kyle Cook. But yeah, I try to be active, but I could be a lot more active, put it that way. Kyle, I really appreciate you coming to show. He shared a lot of insights, especially on the business side, that probably people didn't understand or know that relate to reality TV and everything else. So I really appreciate the transparency and authenticity. You got it, Ryan. Thanks for giving me a platform to share it.

And thanks so much for listening along. Hey, guys, you were to find us, the radcast.com. Search for Kyle Cook. That's Cook with an E. You'll find all of the highlight clips and everything today. And look, I want you to go into your grocery store. And I want you say, I won't lover boy. That helps.

It does. Let's get the push going with the pull. You know what I find me. You know I'm at Ryan Alford on all the platforms with that blue checkmark before you could buy it. We'll see you next time on Radcast. To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at the radcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, v.rad.com or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.