Insight
Growing slower enables a business to find its market, not buy it
“If you can grow slower, you can really find your market and not buy your market.”
Disclosure
Guayakí raised early capital without promising investors an exit strategy
“When we raise money, we raised it with no exit strategy. And typically that's the first question investor has is, well, how am I going to get my money back? And we would say, we're not sure we're not ruling out selling, but it's not something we're focused on.”
Opinion
Pepsi's yerba mate brand is struggling due to premature consumer awareness
“One of our competitors is owned by Pepsi and they're on the Pepsi trucks and they have unlimited distribution, but it's not really working. And I think it's because it's just premature. You know, the market's not ready. There's not enough customers that know a…”
Insight
Raising smaller funding increments helps recruit patient, mission-driven investors
“At those smaller numbers, you can really find people that are really believe in the mission and vision and will stay with you long term.”
Insight
Guayakí created local marketing 'thunderstorms' instead of a national 'gentle rain'
“We also had this insight that, and I think Pierre actually came up with this, was that we could either be a gentle rain, meaning that we can spend a little bit of money in market nationally, or we can create thunderstorms. And the idea was like, let's focus re…”
What-if
Premature scaling would have prevented Guayakí from developing core canned products
“How do we grown fast out of the gate? We wouldn't have figured out the bottle or the can. We wouldn't have had those products. We probably would be owned by someone already because it seems like the faster you grow, the faster you kind of hit that plateau.”
What-if
Major beverage distribution could have tripled Guayakí's size but risked brand dilution
“And had we done that, we probably would be two or three times bigger than we are now, but we also might be that size and getting canceled, you know, or we might be not involved.”
Disclosure
Guayakí raised $30 million in 2019 solely to fund direct distribution
“So, 2019, end of 18, end of 19, I think we raised about thirty million, and most all of that went to, all of that went to distribution. That was purely a hundred percent distribution.”
Assertion Partly supported
Guayakí reached $100 million in revenue without Costco, Walmart, or Amazon
“We got to a hundred million without Costco, Walmart, Amazon, any of those big retailers that are usually a big part of it.”
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Guayakí tea bags became the second best-selling tea in natural foods
“I think in the natural foods industry at one point, our bags were the number two selling tea and the loose was like number six.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Guayakí remained unprofitable but close to break-even from 2004 to 2011
“From like probably 2004 to 2011, we weren't profitable, but we were always close, you know?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Guayakí avoided 2003 layoffs by instituting company-wide pay cuts
“We actually did not lay anyone off through that experience, and I bring it up only because it was a big decision, and it was kind of formative to how we grew. We decided that everyone would take a pay cut rather than lay people off, and so the Samiyas, we took…”
Assertion Supported
Venture funds linked to Ben & Jerry's founders invested $300,000 in Guayakí
“And it turned out when they sold to Unilever, they created two small venture fund, two, five million dollar funds, one run by Pierre Ferrari called hot fudge and one run by Chuck Lacey called Bardrock. And so they were both our first bigger investor, bigger me…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Guayakí pitched a distributor immediately after BodyArmor presented with Kobe Bryant
“One time our LA distributor, I wasn't doing the presentation, but the person on our team that did it,
They had to follow body armor and body armor brought in their new investor, Kobe Bryant.”
Assertion Supported
Between 75% and 85% of US tea is consumed cold
“You know, statistically in the United States, it's like 75 or 85% of tea is consumed cold.”
