Spotting Billion Dollar Investments Was Hard Until I Learned These 3 Rules | Rohan Oza

Every deal on Shark Tank— that's a beverage. I know they're looking at me.

Nobody wins the lottery 7 times. You got sharks spitting out the product, you've got a terrible brand name, and you pick up 25% of that company. Sold for a billion and a half.

Is this just art or is there some science behind it?

One of the biggest lines of Robert Woodruff was like, he wanted Coke to be within arm's reach of desire. Brand is creating that desire. 1 in 10 Americans influenced the other 9. The goal is to spot that one.

Can you teach us more about how it's done?

It's actually 3 things. One is spotting stuff early, one is building the brands, and the other is actually— I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel. You are—

you're the brand father. You have been brand— you, you have been crushing it in the beverage space. I was reading the, like, research on you the last couple of days. I knew about Poppi, I knew about Vitaminwater, but I didn't know the extent of it. Can you, can you brag for a second? Give me— shout out some of the brands that you've been involved with.

I actually have started none of them. I only co-founded one, which is Poppi, and I'll tell you that story. But the rest, I just bought them early or I bond with founders. I think it was like Vitaminwater, Smartwater. They were tiny. Vita Coco. Even things I lost money on were well known, like Popchips, Vital Proteins, One Bar, Bulletproof— lost money, but still well known. What else? We have Farmer's Dog, Once Upon a Farm, and then probably Poppy's my sort of most famous one.

That's an insane, insane roster.

It's funny, actually, one of our founders who you know, a guy called Gilles Rez, who's the co-founder of Jim Connor Fine Foods. Yeah, was at a— we had an LP conference and, you know, we're so focused on like the brands and the teams and growing stuff and like you sometimes bury yourself in the weeds and you don't sometimes ladder up. And he's like, bro, when you look at the sheet of brands on Kavu, which is the, the fund that I have sort of masthead, it's insane, this ecosystem you've created. And I think you do need to do a better job of almost leveraging that ecosystem. And it kind of, the light bulb went off cuz he's a founder, right? He's growing an incredible brand. And I, part of it is I focus on individuals and sometimes we've gotta bring the whole gang in to realize the strength of what we have.

It's sort of amazing because when a lot of people say the word brand, it's sort of related to taste. And both of those are, can be pretty nebulous. But you sort of are like Paul McCartney or John Lennon where like You've made enough hits where you're like, okay, is this just art or is there some science behind it?

Nobody wins the lottery 7 times.

Yeah, I mean, that's quite high accolades to be in any conversation that uses the Beatles' name. But there's always luck, guys. It's not like this. You can't— you got to— the dice has got to roll your way a little bit. But if you have a game plan, which I've sort of honed over time, the odds flow in your favor. And so I've— I've created some mantras and some principles and so on and so forth that I actually created after the fact. Because you don't go in saying, all right, guys, I've got 5 mantras. You almost like, you have a few hits, you're like, how did this happen? And then I rewind and go, okay, this is kind of how it happened.

Give us one. What's one of the first ones you realize, like, okay, all right, that this is one that matters. We got to put that concrete.

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Can you define what a brand even is?

And then the distribution is putting it in arm's reach.

Arm's reach. You nailed it. Exactly.

Sam sent— texted me a clip this morning of when Poppy walked into Shark Tank. And at the time, they're not called Poppy. They're called, like, Mother or Mothers or something like that. They're not a soda that tastes good. That's like prebiotic. They're apple cider vinegar. So it's amazing because it's like, you know, when there's these documentaries and it's like the dude who followed Kanye around 10 years before he became famous at all. And you're like, I can't believe we're so lucky that this guy happened to just follow this young artist in Chicago. Who happened to become Kanye West. And so there's this thing where it's like you see them come into the Shark Tank. I think they have something like $250,000 in revenue, some, some $200,000 to $400,000 of annual revenue at the time. Yeah. Different brand, different drink, no revenue. All the other sharks go out. So you're, you're in a bidding war with no one.

Yeah. Nobody.

Nobody. They, they go, all right, sharks, taste this healthy drink. And they make people take a shot of apple cider vinegar and they're like, this is horrible. And they're like, Yeah, it is horrible, but it's great for you. Now, what if it could be great for you and also taste good? That's our product, which is— it was a really good actually pitch.

Yeah. The title of the video is Sharks Disgusted by the Poppi.

Like, they were— I think Kevin may have spit it out. I can't remember.

But so you got, you got sharks spitting out the product. You've got a terrible brand name. Mother's in cursive and it looks like an old, like, sparkling wine or something like that. Yeah, a totally different formulation. And you pick up 25% of that company. I think Poppi sold for $1.5 billion or something like that.

Oh, north of $2 billion. Okay. Unbelievable exit. What happens? And it's amazing that the whole thing was captured. What happens between the time you see it? What are you thinking then? And then what were the things that actually transformed that business? Because I think that's a perfect, like, case study.

Yeah. Let's go to phase 1. So these guys come out, like, every deal on Shark Tank that's a beverage or food, but really beverage. Like, I can do the range, but beverage is kind of my wheelhouse. I don't know, DNA gifted with that. So beverage comes out and like, I know they're looking at me. Like, Cuban's a bigger name than me. Kevin's a bigger name than me. You know, Lori's the queen of, you know, digital and QVC. But beverage, they look at me. And then these guys come out. I'm like, here we go again. Because I'm now 3 seasons in. I'm like, you know, someone's going to hit me up with some nonsense beverage, you know. And we had some real dumb ones along the way. But this really good-looking couple comes out, you know, husband and wife, like straight out of Central Casting. Like they look like Sam, you know, like this chiseled, good-looking, you know, white boy.

And I'm friends with Steven, and we became friends because I DM'd him and I just said, we look alike. Yeah. What are we friends? I swear to God.

He does look a little bit like Steven.

I'm not kidding.

So these bloody 2 good-looking guys 2 good-looking guys come out, a guy and a lady. She's like, I don't know, 8 months pregnant. She could deliver any second. So immediately I'm like, they've got hustle. So one, then they pitch the product and I'm like, horrible packaging. I don't like the brand name. You know, I like the word mother, but everyone has a mother. You can't trademark it. It's not really a trademarkable thing. But like, let's try it. So that's, that's the trains running on that track. Okay. In the separate track in my head, I'm a soda kid. I've been looking for soda. I grew up in Zambia, in Africa, right? So in Zambia, we only had 3 beverages: Coke, Sprite, and Fanta. That's it. But I came off sodas because sodas, shit ton of sugar. They're not good for you. They're no value. But in the back of my head, I've always been looking for soda I can feel good about. But I didn't go into the show thinking that. But in the back of my head, that's the running track. I try this. Actually, it was this one. Ironically, it was the orange one. And so for me, that is still— this is my top two. Orange is my favorite and cream soda is my second. So funny, the two flavors I drank when I was a kid. It's amazing what 40 years, years later, it's throwing back to the 9, 10-year-old Roman. Crazy. Anyway, so I try the orange one and I'm like, oh my God, this is Fanta meets Orangina. If you guys ever And I'm like, this liquid is in my head, takes me back. This is my modern soda. But I don't get excited because I know the minute I get excited, these guys get excited.

And so I think you were the last one to talk, at least in the edit. I don't know if that's actually how it was, but I thought that was incredible patience to let the other sharks play out before you chimed in, because obviously you would influence them.

What about the name? We had David Placidt come on who named BlackBerry and Swiffer, and he gave us like a masterclass on naming product. Poppy is a, is an incredible name, right, for a soda pop brand, uh, to find that super easy to say, recognizable, fun. It almost feels bubbly in the name.

Like, yeah, here's it. So I'm strategically creative, right? Stevie and my team is what I call tactically creative.

That sounds like something I would say when I don't want to do work.

It's exactly that. Yeah, she works much harder. Yeah, good one. So So it's a triangle offense, right? Alison and Stephen had created the product. It's a great product, but their insight was apple cider vinegar, healthy beverage. My insight is I want soda. So what's America for soda? It's pop, right? So that's what everyone— In England, it translates less, although poppy's exploding in the UK now. And Stevie's goal was how does she take what they had created, what my strategic game plan was, and create a name that rolls off the tongue. And we had a bunch of them. At one point I even liked Mom and Pop because I'm like, it was a throwback to like mom and pop stores and all that. And people told me it was stupid and they were right. But, but then when they came out with Poppy and Stevie presented, I'm like, okay, right.

Can we— all right, let's go back because you only invested, I think, $250,000 or, or $400,000 into Poppy. And so it was really small business. You shut it down at half a million in revenue and you re— branded it and restarted it as Poppy. Do you remember what was the revenue growth up until you exited for $2 billion?

And did you put more money in in the beginning to push marketing, or did you guys raise? What'd you guys do?

Yeah, we kept raising. I mean, there's— I mean, beverage is expensive, by the way. Like, I put more money in. My fund, Kavoo, came in. So my business partner Brett was like, look, I believe in you. I don't get beverages early. If you get it, Kavoo's going to back it. So we— everyone went in, right? And so we kept backing it. We raised a chunk of money., but everyone got a great return because of the exit number. It's not really what you get in at, it's what you get out at.

How much did you raise in sum?

I mean, all in? $40 million maybe?

Wow. Well, that'd mean— that's amazing to go from that. I didn't realize you guys were that new. So 20— roughly 2021 to 2025, '26, $0 to $2 billion exit.

Yeah.

What was the most satisfying when you had— was it Poppy or was it something earlier? Was there something where maybe even it wasn't as big financially, but just you just were proud of kind of the way you made it work?

Sometimes more, more often it probably doesn't.

More often doesn't. The one guy I think was really good at it was a guy called, Kurt from Vital Proteins. I don't know if you know him. Kurt founded Vital Proteins. We partnered with him as well. And that guy was— he was actually a rocket scientist, like legit. So he was a founder and a brilliant operator. So that's, you know, it's a unique rarity. But in this case, we brought in Chris Hall and Chris ran Sparkling Ice. So I had to spend a lot of time like coaching and begging and then convincing and a combination of all of the above to get him over. But he was a game changer because you need to operate and he helped take it from like 50 to 500.

Man, it's still amazing how good you are at this. And I think we should talk about that because there's a handful of skill sets that are— you just— I call them ATM skills where you just become like a moneymaker, you know, like if you can create an audience, you're probably a moneymaker. If you could sell, you're probably a moneymaker. If you could do good branding, you're probably a moneymaker and you've done it many times in a row. Where did you learn how to do this? Because I know you worked for Mars, you worked for Coke. Is that where you learned how to do this? And, and can you teach us more about how it's done?

Actually, it's interesting you bring up that point. It's actually 3 things. One is spotting stuff early, right? One is building the brands, and the other is actually how to sell them. And it's— people forget the last part because there's a big graveyard of brands that have got built, got to scale, but never fully exited. And there's a bigger graveyard of those who just didn't go anywhere. And I think part of it— so take my learnings. My learnings on Mars were less so because I was in manufacturing operations. So my learning there was almost like the importance of supply chain operations, gross margin, like the boring stuff that people forget. If you don't have good gross margins, you cannot make money. And if you can't make money, you go bankrupt. And by the way, I've still made that mistake. I had an incredible product called Chef's Cup. It was a jerky before Chomps. Like, my buddy invested in Chomps, and he and I would joke because we were like neck and neck and Chef's came out first and I just didn't have great gross margins and I should have focused more on that. Chef's got shut down or got sold for nothing and Chomp's became a juggernaut. And so he keeps laughing at me. But I think from, from, from that perspective, I learned from Mars a little bit, you know, and you still make mistakes. With Coke, I really, I learned how to do disruptive marketing and branding because I was lucky. I was in Sprite back in the heyday when we you know, signed Missy Elliott and Kobe Bryant. And I did like a bunch of hip-hop stuff. And it was, it was really cool. And then I was at Powerade where Coke didn't care about it. So they said, do whatever you want. So I learned creative disruption early, even though I was in a corporate environment. And then they fired me because I was a little too disruptive. And so I went to Vitaminwater, and that's where I really start to learn how to— and that's my second mantra. Is how to make brands part of pop culture. There's a lot of guys who report the news. Very few people make the news. And so for me, with Vitaminwater, Smilewater, I started by making the news and that those brands became part of pop culture.

That sounds cool. But what does that mean? Make the news? I don't know. I'm too dumb to understand that.

So make the news. So the first influencer, mega influencer ownership deal I did, because remember, everything before 50 was very much a sponsorship deal, right? You sign a celebrity, they get in, that's the deal, right? The equity ownership— arguably Michael did it in a different way with Nike, so— but that has come out later, and it wasn't really well known then. But with 50, I didn't have the money to pay 50. He was huge at the time, right? And so I met with Fif and his manager Chris Lighty, and actually there's two guys I was looking at for Vitaminwater because Vitaminwater was a great brand. It was a kind of little bit Upper East Side, you know, New York preppy brand. It wasn't like nationwide cool.

It wasn't getting shot in the face 9 times.

It wasn't getting shot in the face cool.

Rap about it.

Yeah, exactly. Although it was only 8 times because one bullet went through twice.

But anyway, of course.

He got what, like 1-2%, something like that, in the company?

I can't tell you exactly what he got, but he— because we have a deal, I don't give the exact number and he doesn't kick the shit out of me. But, um, but he made a lot because honestly, I gave him enough equity for him to make good money if we sold the company for $400 to $500 million. That was our goal of Idlewater. Like, I remember Mike Rabone was the co-founder of Vitaminwater was like, bro, put it up on his board. If we get to this, this, this, we're going to get to $150 million in revenue. We're going to sell for $450.

Without— you can't reveal it because Curtis Jackson will Curtis Jackson you. But yes. Well, is it like— would it be crazy to give someone 10% of a company like that?

All right, let's take a quick break. And I got a question for you. When a buyer asks AI for a solution like yours, does your business come up? Most companies have no idea. And by the time they found out, they've already lost the deal to another company that did. HubSpot has AEO, which helps you show up in the moments when the right buyers are looking for a company like yours before the first click, before they fill in the form. That is the moment HubSpot AEO is built for. Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. It seems like that, you know, the kind of the influencer influencer thing obviously works, obviously makes sense, but also obviously goes wrong sometimes, right? You know, for example, this podcast, we got bought by HubSpot. HubSpot was like, yo, we want to reach entrepreneurs, we want them to use our software. So they went to us because we influence a lot of entrepreneurs. If we influence a million entrepreneurs, we're valuable to them and many other brands. And so, but there's many people who get that partnership wrong. You know, celebrities are busy, they're, they're divas, they don't really care. Maybe you didn't make it incentive enough and it's hard to claw back. So like, I guess, how confident were you and what made it go right versus go wrong?

When you're looking at these deals, what would you say are the traits that the winners have in common? And what would you say the traits are of the losers? So for example, we had this guy named Chad who started, um, Groons On and he told us, yeah, yeah, Chad's great. Yeah. So he sold it for $2 billion, I think. $1.2 billion in 35 months or something insane. And we were like, and he was like, basically he was like, I called my shot. I worked at a PE firm and I realized that the TAM needs to be big. My CAC to LTV needs to be 1 to 3. Like, he's like, I kind of had it down to a little bit of a science. He didn't say it that way, but that's how I interpreted it. What's the science in your head of not for investing, but for building a winning product?

What are the big TAMs that are left where you're like, we still haven't found the winning kind of brand or product in a certain category? Like if I go to that grocery shop or I go to the supermarket, where do you see the opportunities right now?

Which aisle? Everywhere. Let me explain why. Go down every aisle next time you go to the grocery store. By the way, my wife gets super pissed with me because she sends me out to get stuff from the grocery store and like 2 hours later, It's like, where the hell have you been? I'm like, honey, this is my business. Like my dumb ass wandering around the grocery store figuring out what's broken. But that's the scenario. Go down and say, okay, would I buy all these products? And my guess is if you go to a traditional grocery store where most Americans shop today, you would probably say, mm, no, no, no, no, yes. So you have 7 nos before you get to a yes. Go down the candy aisle. Okay, I have an investment in a brand called Skinny Dipped. Have you heard about it? Have you heard of it?

Yeah, I love this. Yeah, this is so addictive, right?

But mother, the Almond Tam is, is okay. It's, it's chocolate. Is this almond? Almond Tam is this big. Creating sweet treats that don't have guilt, right, is this big. So Skinnyhead chocolate-covered almonds. The brilliance of the founder was after X number of years, she's like, this shit ain't working. It's doing fine, but my tams aren't big enough, right? To the point you made with Chad. She pivoted. She created peanut butter cups, she created coconut bites, and she created wafers. You want to name me the 3 products that do that? Reese's, Almond Joy, and KitKat. By the way, all 3 of these products sub 2 grams of sugar. So now I can have— and I do— a coconut bite every day with my coffee or after dinner because I need to have a sweet fix, but Zero shits given because it's 2 grams of sugar. You don't care. It's 2 grams of sugar. You give your kid, you'll have it. 10 grams, 20 grams. Your mind starts clicking a little bit.

Is it possible to even be more specific when you're walking around the aisle? Is there a spot where you're like, this product should be right here on this shelf and it's not?

Yeah.

So go, go to the confection shelf and say, what will I eat? And I look down, I'm like, almost nothing because everything is fully loaded with sugar. And it's really highly processed. So now take the process down. There's a lot of good stuff that's less processed, better ingredients. Can we agree on that? There is. However, the sugar content is still high. So now I've evolved from horrible stuff to maybe like an Alter Ego chocolate or a Hu chocolate. They're great, but they still got a high sugar content. So you ask me what I do, I go sit at the entire confection shelf. I put my arms up like this and look around. What would I eat? The only thing that I can eat is Skinny and maybe one, one other product because I feel good about it.

So let me ask you a question. You had this great line where you go, the shelf space is the original algorithm. The same way that content creators are constantly trying to figure out how to get on the YouTube shelf or the Instagram shelf, how do I get discovered there? It's even harder, arguably, because there's a very, like, mafia-like business practices that occurs in behind the scenes of these shelf spaces. Like, I've walked through one of our events that we do, guys have like brands at Target or Safeway or whatever. We walk through and we do store walks and then they explain, you know, MrBeast, he'll explain how the candy aisle works and he'll explain Mars and Hershey's and the tactics they use and how the color— you're color blocking your section, etc., etc. So you get this sort of PhD in each aisle. I think his market's a little bit different. So, you know, you sell like, let's say, Skinny Dip, just a little higher price point. Better for you is like the bigger angle. Whereas, you know, he's, I think, the number— like the one of the fastest growing brands in Walmart. Right? And so his price point has to be a big constraint. So he has to play a slightly different game. But he's doing a lot of stuff with like, his better for you isn't in the ingredients, it's in the business practices. So like, we don't use child labor in the cocoa farms and, you know, things like that, which is, you know, he cares. He's trying to get everyone to care. Will it change people's purchasing decisions? I think is a question. But I guess the thought process is like, how do you get the shelf space?

Well, I think— so I'll reverse engineer. One of the advantages I bring to the mix, right? We talked a lot about influencer and so on and so forth. The second influencer, and probably as important, is retail buyers. And I have now established, because I've brought up a run of great products and exits and scale, I have great connections with the top people at Walmart, Target, and Albertsons and Kroger, et cetera. And just maintaining those relationships are key because when I bring a product that I've invested in or Kavoo's invested in, they will give us a shelf space. And I think that's— a lot of entrepreneurs come to us because they're like, okay, great, I can do X, Y, and Z, but if I just get one meeting with the top guy at Walmart, that could inflect, you know, inflect my business in a way that's unique. So I have the relationships now. However, retailers are smart and they are actually closer to the consumer. Than big corporations. So they are seeking the products of tomorrow while maintaining what I call the brands of yesterday, because you can't eliminate the brands of yesterday. Too much money, too much revenue. At the same time, you then also have to bridge to the brands of tomorrow. And Sam, to your point, I mean, take Bobby. I mean, a regular soda is probably a buck for a can, right? A poppy is probably a buck 60, 70, 80, depending where you buy it, 90. Would you pay the extra 50 cents, 60 cents, 90 cents? Probably. I'm not— it's not like I'm buying a, you know, a BMW versus I'm buying a Toyota. It's like a $20,000, $30,000 difference there. Here it's a 30, 60, 90 cents difference. So a big part of what I do also is when I go to retail, is whilst the product might be premium, I still want to try and appeal to a large amount of Americans in their ability to reach those products where they're attainable. And so I think that the, the retailers are looking for brands that are attainable, even though it's a slightly premium, that are the future brands.

You said something earlier that was, that was kind of important. You go, the third thing I do is how to sell it. And there's a huge value swing at the end. Yeah. When me and Sam sold our companies, it's kind of amazing. You work 6 years, 7 years, 8 years, and then 50% of the value is going to be how good you are at this M&A thing at the end. It's crazy. Which you've never done before, but it's the biggest deal of your life. And so I've seen that firsthand, how important that is and how it is a separate skill set for an entrepreneur that you're very low repetitions in. So it's hard to even get good at it.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's a really unfair advantage because a reputable buyer has done this many times and it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter to them necessarily if it fails, they'll just get fired worst case scenario. But for you, it like changes your life completely.

Yeah.

So how do you go get Coke to buy a company for $2 billion? What do you, what do you go to? What do you do? How do those conversations happen? How do you negotiate those deals and why do they buy them for so much?

So that's again why I mean, I've established and I don't have relationships everywhere, but, you know, I have a relationship with a lot of big CPGs, right? Coke, Pepsi, Hershey, Mondelez, you know, KDP. So I've done that over time. A lot of these guys I've either worked for, worked with over time because I've been doing this now for 25 years in the industry, right? Maybe longer. And so relationships with the top guys is critical. And so, you know, with Wanba, I walked them in back in the day to Hershey, to the CEO of Hershey at the time, right? I didn't negotiate the Vitaminwater deal. The founder of Vitaminwater, Darius, did. Brilliantly, and I learned from him, by the way. So I'm on the sidelines watching this guy go to town. I brought Coke to the table, so I call Coke because I used to work for them. Sandy Douglas, the mentor of mine, he brought the CEO. He was the president, and they negotiated with Darius. And I saw what he did and I learned from that.

Out of that negotiation, what was one thing you picked up?

Dial in on that. That's interesting because, A, knowing if you have a great brand is actually a bit challenging, but overreach and underreaching, that is also very nuanced. Is there like, is there like some more specific details that you can give on how you know Like, for example, do you look at comps and you say, we're just going to be the top quartile? What do you do?

I also think that there's definitely like a je ne sais quoi. There's a showmanship that is involved here. It's very— I've known you now for 57 minutes. You have it. You have a likability, a charisma, whatever it is you want to call it. Are you in the room negotiating these deals?

In some, I am. So with Poppy, we brought a— it's also good to— you have to have a banker, and bankers have done this, right? So get a good banker. You know, get good reps. So we had Goldman Sachs, uh, with, with Poppy. I built a great relationship with them. They actually brought Pepsi to the table initially, and without getting into it, the number and the offer was inadequate. So I did what I said is a risky move, which is I walked because I didn't like the construct of the deal. Uh, and then someone else came to the table. I also walked because I didn't like the construct of the deal. And if you probably speak to Steve and Allison, they were probably getting nervous at this point because, you know, I was blessed to have had exits before. They hadn't had any. And even Stevie was losing it at one point because they're like, this is life-changing money that Ro's saying no to. But I just didn't like the construct because it wasn't a full buyout. The earnouts weren't. And so third time's a charm. So when Pepsi came back, I ended up negotiating that directly with them.

Did it change your life too?

Yeah, it's, you know, you— when you have a massive win like this, you always have to step back and realize how blessed you are, not take it for granted, see what you could do for others and those around you. And a good thing for me was I let a lot of people into the deal. So it wasn't just me. I had family, friends. One of my closest childhood friends was in the deal. And so when you affect other people beyond yourself, that's, that's huge.

You know, today's podcast is brought to you by my friends at Mercury. They make the world's best banking product. I think you know this already. I use Mercury for all of my businesses. I think I have like maybe 7 or 8 businesses. We use Mercury as our business banking across all of them. And now they actually just launched a personal banking account. So I have my personal account there. I moved off of Wells Fargo and Chase. I'm just all in on Mercury.

Why?

I like products that are easy to use. I like products that get me and the problems that I have. So like, very easy to make a joint account with my wife, very easy to spin up virtual cards., one click and I get savings yield. It just has all the stuff that I need in one place. So if you're looking for the best banking product on the market, it's definitely Mercury. I will fist fight anybody who disagrees with me on that. Go to mercury.com/personal and learn more. Mercury is a fintech, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services are provided through Choice Financial Group and ColumNA. Members FDIC. You said, uh, a bunch of things earlier that I want to, uh, ask you like the same question but with a different caveat. So sometimes I'll be like, hey, how do you sell this company? You're like, well, I call the guy, I know him. How do you get on the shelf? Well, they know me and I know them. And like, that's true and great and an extreme advantage today. But two problems. One, you didn't wake up, you weren't born with that. You earned that somehow. And the second is it's not, you know, most entrepreneurs don't have that advantage if they don't partner with you. You know, just in general, people have to figure out how do you survive. No one's going to come save you. Do you have an insane hustle story from the beginning? Because that's what gets me excited. After this, I'm going to go work and nothing fires me up more than a good hustle story.

I know that Kavu is incredibly successful now. I know that I believe it's many billion-dollar funds. You've had multibillion-dollar exits. And I know that you started like in the Mars factory, like I think you said, counting M&M's. The show's called My— sorry, Twix. The show is called My First Million. I don't know, like the middle ground. What did you do to make your first million? Because was it investing your own money in brands? Was it because you got equity in Vitaminwater?

Did you raise money for a fund right after that? Were you like, oh, this is—

I did my own thing. So I did Vitaminwater, Smartwater. I exited. I had my own money. So what's the phrase they say? You invest off your balance sheet. Some bullshit finance phrase. So anyway, yes, I invested off my balance sheet, meaning I went in solo, Rohan, into Vita Coco, into Bai, into Popchips. And Stevie was my right-hand wingwoman in this case. And so she was my— she learned marketing from me. We did it together. And now she's the head of marketing for Carvoon.

That's really interesting. And what I'm asking is really personal, so you can avoid it or you can give as much information as you want. But I find that to be cool. And there's a lot of people listening who are like, I would like to make a little bit of money and spend a little bit of money doing what this guy's doing. That's badass. I don't want to start a fund yet. Are you able to give any type of numbers as to what you had when you started investing in PopChip and all these companies?

Yeah, I can give you a range. I was investing anywhere from probably half a million to $2 million.

That's a shitload for an angel investment.

Yeah, I wasn't that smart, dude. I was a little bit unhinged. I Long term, I worked out great. I don't advocate you go that heavy.

Were you really rich?

No, I was just— I was a— I think I bet on myself a little too much. So yeah, I had a lot more money than that. But I think you have to be willing to lose if you're going to win.

Did you tell yourself like, okay, I'm willing to lose $10 million, but I'm going to bet— I'm going to bet on myself to go make a few concentrated bets? Did you? Did you sort of mentally partition like, this is losable money, or you just— you were just going and you didn't even think about it?

There's a lot of stress. So basically I was kind of doing the math. I'm like, okay, I'm in for this, I'm in for this, I'm in for this. And then like, you know, X years later, I'm like, well, you know, I mean, you know, I'm in for 10, but I've made, you know, 10 times that. So I think I'm good, you know what I'm saying?

So it's like, it's what it was organic, like, you know, what, what, man math. I like it.

What percent— what, for the principal, not the markups— what percent of your liquid net worth was in private deals?

Yeah, a lot. I also, I really should have done a better job with my publics. I was very like into my privates because I had made my money on private. So it's far too high percentage.

Was it like all?

No, no, it's probably about a third though.

I mean, like, okay, okay.

I don't know, like, I don't know what— it was a decent amount. I can't remember exactly. I was rolling heavy. I was like in my 30s. And like Popchips was a great brand and I bet on that, but I didn't understand the importance of a prep stack.

So you were just like making bets and then like going out and hustling on your behalf. You're like, hey, I'm going to Beverage Forum and I'm just going to figure out how to wheel and deal a little bit.

Yeah, I was working with these companies. Like I would help the Popchips guys with influencers, you know, or with marketing or team. Like I'd bring in the head of sales, the head of marketing, or—

You were free. You were like a free hire a little bit.

I was. Yeah, I was like, I'm like, let me in, I'll help you out. Sometimes I got equity. Pretty for helping. And so the good news is my hits in, in Vita Coco, the coconut water, by Vital Proteins, and Poppi far outstripped whatever I lost.

And so the, the order of winners was Vitamin Water, you did that with, you did it with Smartwater, and then what was the order, the next 5 deals?

Uh, I did Vita, Smart, then I did Vita Coco. The coconut water, which is great. Kerbin's an incredible operator.

Did that exit?

Shit, the guy's got— what, the company's worth $2.5 billion on the public stock market?

Oh wow, I didn't know that.

Okay, wow. With a thing like coconut water, right? Like, my, my business partner Ben, he's been trying to get me to drink freaking banana water. He's like, oh, banana water. And I do— it's nasty. Can't believe he likes it. But he's like, banana water, that's the next coconut water. I'm like, I don't think it is. How do you spot the real trends versus the false trends? Are you just trusting your own taste buds? Or is it some research you're doing? Are you watching what high schoolers are doing? Like, what are you doing to figure out real trend versus fizzle-out trend?

I think one of the great tests of marketing is can you sell water? How do you sell water? Right? What's the— there's a marketing genius about figuring out how to sell water, and not just once, how to sell it many times in many different ways.

And so I've only done one water, by the way. I've done many beverages, but only one water.

Okay, well, so Vitaminwater, not a water.

Yeah, Vitaminwater is flavored, right? Poppi is flavored. Vita Coco, Bai, they're all flavored. Like, when you just— straight water? I still don't know how the hell I did that, but, um, I'll take a crack. The founder, Darius, created Smartwater with a really good story, which is vapor distilled water. It's how water is made in, in the world, right? Water evaporates from the ocean, goes up, hydrogen, oxygen separate, all the impurities fall out. It comes back to Earth. That first drop of rainwater before it enters the atmosphere, before it hits the ground, that's pure water. So that was the initial vision behind Smartwater. The packaging was not great. It was invisible. So I redid the package. The current package was me and my team, which sits on shelf today. Then we did the influencer strategy, and I felt that Evian was the only player in America that was in premium water, but it's a French company and was in plastic being shipped across the ocean. It didn't make sense, and neither did Fiji being shipped from basically Fiji. Like, why can't we have a premium American water that has— and the thing is, your watch is a badge. When you walk around with the watch, more than anything else, it's a little bit of a reflection of you, right? That's why at home, who cares? You buy the casebacks at Costco in 24-packs for like $2. But when you're walking around, you want a little bit of a different badge. And I think with the team I had, Jennifer Aniston became the face of the brand, the new packaging we did. Smart became this like go-to accessory, particularly for women, and the brand took off. And I think when Coke bought Vitaminwater, if you ask them today, the brand that has worked out for them is Smartwater, not Vitamin.

And is what— is there something to this idea of placement? So like, I remember when Beats by Dre came out and it was this headphone brand, just like many other Bose and others, but instead of going for audiophiles, everywhere you saw it was basically hip-hop artists and athletes walking into the stadium. And it became like synonymous with like the pregame lock-in associated with the coolest athletes and artists. And like, that was amazing. They created billions of dollars of value by, by that association, that placement of the pregame or the walk-in, at least for me. And I think that I've read stories about Grey Goose and some of the liquor brands where they would put it in the limousines at the afterparties of the Oscars. And just where it was seen was almost just as important as the story of how it was triple filtered and distilled because Nobody actually ends up knowing that shit. They just see where it's seen. Did you ever use that tactic or what is that?

That was huge for me back in the day. So now this strategy is done really through social digital, right? So digital influencers, when, when the all top sororities are running around posting Poppy and having it at the sorority kickoff parties, I have an army of amazing college ambassadors and Poppy is the number one drink on college campuses.

Modern day, like, Red Bull playbook, basically.

Yeah, but it's kind of a better for you, feel-good vibe, and definitely works better for women than, you know, like, from a, from a connection standpoint. So, but back in the day, I did this with the Oscars, with the Golden Globes. Smartwater was the first water on the table at the Golden Globes before they were pouring out of just the— and so I did a deal with them. So suddenly every table you go to, you're seeing a Smartwater there. And then Vitamin, I used to sponsor mainly because I wanted to go to the parties. So Patrick Whitesell, I don't know if Patrick is too big time now, but Patrick in Denver, the coolest post-Oscar parties, Oscar and VMA, Golden Globe parties in LA. So just for me to get access to those things, I would sponsor them. But the good news is all the— like, I remember going to one and it was back in what I call round one of J.Lo and Affleck dating. And I was at the party and like J.Lo and Affleck are there and everyone's drinking Vitaminwater back then. This is like 2003, you know, 2004. So I think you're dead right. In the early days, especially with products, they've got to appear in people's lifestyle areas as both physically and digitally.

You're a hustler. I didn't realize how big of a hustler you are.

If you lose your hustle, you lose your edge. Like the guy who Sean and I know, Gulrez, who is the CEO of, uh, Jim Connor Fine Foods. Like, he's like, bro, you are bloody intense. Like, when I get into sessions with him, he's like, I thought you would just chill out. You're a father, you're successful. I'm like, bro, it's go time. Like, we're building your empire. Let's, you know, there's no, uh, you gotta have a hustle mode. And I think also founders respect that.

So I wanna ask you a little bit of a different question. I'm obsessed with brands that last a long time.

Yeah.

I'm also a massive American history buff. And some of the best brands in America, you know, they've been around for over a century. Coke, Snickers, M&M's, like brands that you've worked with. I think Mars is like a $50 billion a year business that's family owned. Hershey's is run, I think, run by a family trust. I think they do something like $10 or $20 billion a year in revenue. And these brands, you know, everyone talks about getting healthy, but like Reese's probably isn't going to go away for the next 50 years. Coke, it's probably not going to go away for 100 years. And also, you've worked with startups. Is there anything that I or Sean or the listener can learn from these old big companies that have been around for 100+ years?

Yeah, look, they do a very good job of two things. They're managing their installed base, so they have fantastic retail presence and they do, in my opinion, when I— great marketing to maintain relevance for their brands. Amazon was shocked. How well they do it in a world where technically you shouldn't be eating or drinking any of those products. However, where they are smart, and I give Pepsi credit for this, they do go out and buy the future as well. Like Pepsi bought Poppi, not because it's an apple cider vinegar beverage, because they're seeing the vision. This could be right up there. And they've said it to me, is between like Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Poppi, that should be their, their, their soda lineup and choose what you want. If you feel like having a Pepsi, great. And by the way, the growth is all coming, Sam, from their zero sugar products. So it's not coming from core Coke or core Pepsi. It's Pepsi Zero. Yeah, correct. Pepsi Zero is crushing it. Coke Zero is crushing it. And so Poppi fits into that realm. So they see that you still maintain your legacy, but you have to make sure you pick up the future, otherwise you will get left behind. And so I think you're seeing it like Unilever bought your boy Croons, right? Like that. They're buying the future. There's a lot of M&A. Hershey just bought Lesser Evil like that. They are buying the future and I think they— but they're getting a little savvier and a little wiser in how they do it. Before they would build, get brands that I don't think were built to last. And now, to your point, Sam, I think they're trying to find brands that are built to last. And for me, if we look at all the exits we've been a part of, whether those brands continue growing 40% would just maintain a good scale. Vitamins, Smart, Poppy, Vital Proteins, Bai, Farmer's Dog, like all these are still— Once Upon a Farm, you know, we IPO'd that brand recently. They're all still there and they will be here if managed right for the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years.

Sean had a good question that he was telling me that he had for you, but I'm going to ask it. And he has a guy— he hasn't gotten to it yet.

That's the kind of guy I am.

He hasn't gotten to it. He's a gifter.

He's a gifter.

Yeah, I'm going to steal it from up. And it was basically, if a young guy were to go and shadow you, what would they be surprised about? How you spend your time?

Shadow you for like a day or a week?

Yeah, it's a great question, Sam. So a few things. I think what allows me— I think they will be a little surprised of how I can change lanes so rapidly. So part of my success and part of my failures around my ADD So I can go from 5 different company conversations with different founders to then figuring out the plumbing problem in my house to the new house that I'm trying to buy, but getting screwed on with the price. Like, I can change lanes and gears very rapidly and be fully engaged. But by the end of it, I'm exhausted, right? My brain shut off, and then I have to watch TV to unlock, to sort of calm it down. So one of the things they'll find is how I rapidly able to change, change lanes. The second thing is, even though I personally don't operate at a detailed level personally, they'll be surprised how detailed I get with the brands and founders I partner with because I have great recall of information. And so they're surprised sometimes the founders think I've forgotten something. From like a month ago when I asked him about it. You can ask Gil Rez. He's a classic where I'm like, 3 weeks ago we spoke about this. Where are you on this? He's like, shit, how did you remember that? He thought because I forgot to come back, he could ignore me. And so my ability to recall and retain info, because you have to go deep with founders, because if you go shallow, you're not helping them out. It's gotta be meaningful stuff that helps impact their business. And then the third thing, um, is I'm blessed to be living a great lifestyle. I, I, you know, I'm living the American dream, right? I'm an immigrant. That came here and did well. But I also am able to do high-low, right? So from where I eat, I mean, I'm, you know, the taco stand or where I go, I go and do the grocery shopping. I'm not sending someone. I'm like, I'm there, I'm picking stuff up. Because I think if you don't live in reality, you then can't operate in reality. You kind of end up in this 1% world, which doesn't help when you're dealing with products that deal with all Americans.

What do you stink at? Where's your weakness in business?

I think sometimes I may have too much belief. You know, when you love a product and you're like, you kind of have faith that blinds you a little bit. To the, to the, whether it's the, whether it's the founder you, you think is amazing or whether you love the product and you're not overly focused on the gross margins because, you know, I'm a big Field of Dreams guy, build it and they will come. But if you don't build it correctly, I feel the dream won't come. And sometimes when I love something a lot, I end up ignoring some of the red flags. So I think, Passion is a super important element, but passion at all costs can be dangerous.

Let's leave it with this. While we're in the business of stealing questions, Patrick O'Shaughnessy has this great question he asked the guests at the end of every one of his Invest Like the Best episodes. And he asked the guests, he said, what's the kindest thing anyone's ever done for you in your career? And I'm just curious, what comes to mind when I say that? Like, what's the kindest thing anyone's ever done for you?

Kindest thing anyone's done for me. I should have shot out to a guy. I was, uh, it's probably two of them. I've been adopted a couple of times. One time, uh, was at, uh, Coca-Cola when I was about to leave because they gave me a brand called Box Wood Beer. You know that? Like, remember I told you I have a few mantras? One of my mantras, influence the influencer. The other has become a part of pop culture. The third one is live the brand. Well, I can't live boxed root beer. I don't understand it. I grew up in Zambia. I bloody hate root beer. So I was on Sprite. Someone demoted me and I ran boxed. And two guys— and I was about to leave and my career would have been toast because I was going to some travel.com bullshit site that ended up folding. And two guys, a guy called Todd Putman and a guy called Darrell Cobbin, kind of heard that I was leaving, saved me, said, we'll give you something different. Don't leave. They put me on Powerade and that changed the trajectory of my career once. And then when I got to Vitaminwater, I was doing great. I took over all the marketing, but the founder and I kind of had different visions on how to market. And I don't think he liked my approach, but I was what was bringing the heat to the brand. And I think he wanted to fire me at one point. And so Mike Repoli, who was the president of the company, changed reporting structure and put me under him so that— because he and I got along great. He said, Ro, look, take ego aside. Either you want to report to the CEO and get fired or report to me and I got you because now you're my guy. And so I said, I want money. I don't want ego. So I reported to Mike and I still ran marketing, but had the founder could have fired me, right? I was an employee at will. That would have also changed the trajectory of my career.

So this is only the second podcast that you've done, is that right?

Yeah, correct.

Dude, thanks for coming on. Where should people go find you if they want to follow more or, you know, get more of what you're doing?

You know what? It's, it's a really good question. It's a horrible answer. You actually can't go anywhere yet other than you guys.

And wait, so you don't have social media?

Subscribe to this podcast if you want to see him again. The last one that was like that was Brian Johnson. He came on and he was just, he was just hacking on his own body in his own privacy of his own home. And then he came on this podcast and, uh, so, you know, maybe you'll have a Netflix documentary soon.

Maybe I can, I can reverse age by 20 years. My wife would love that.

We were, uh, we were his first podcast. And, you know, Sean, I don't know if I ever told you this. He called me last year and he goes, hey, I just wanted to thank you because you were the first podcast that I ever did. And you guys asked me a lot of really hard questions that I never even— I never even thought about. And so, A, I'm thankful for you for doing that. And B, when I saw the response, I was like, oh, I should do media, right? And I should go hard. This works.

It's crazy. And look what he's done. So you guys are the influence. But remember the 1 in 10? You are the 1 in 10, guys.

My, my contrarian belief about Brian is that Brian Johnson is the greatest marketer alive right now. Possibly. I think he understands social media at a level that I don't know anybody else does. It's kind of remarkable.

Maybe, but yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Well, thanks, man.

Thanks for coming on.

You're awesome.

Pleasure. Thanks for taking the time.

All right, that's it. That's the pod.

I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.

Hey, let's take a quick break. I want to tell you about a podcast that you could check out. It is called The Science of Scaling by Marc Roberge. He was the founding CRO of HubSpot, and he's a guest lecturer at Harvard Business School. The guy's smart and he sits down every week with different sales leaders from cool companies like Klaviyo and Vanta and OpenAI, and he's asking about their strategies, their tactics, and how they're growing their companies as, you know, head of sales or chief revenue officer. If you're looking to scale a company up, if you're a CRO or head of sales that's looking to level up in your career, I think a podcast like this could be great for you. Listen to The Science of Scaling wherever you get your podcasts.