The Ledger
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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…”
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.”
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.”
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.”
Karr: Argentine sun-grown yerba mate tastes 'offensive' to unaccustomed consumers
“If you drink the Argentine stuff that's sun-grown, it's really like almost offensive, unless you grew up drinking it. It's pretty bad tasting.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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.”
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…”
Co-founder Alex Pryor demanded 10-20% equity to source yerba mate from Argentina
“So he basically says, give me 10 or 20% of the business, and I'll send you the yerba.”
Guayakí co-founders funded the business with nine maxed-out personal credit cards
“I mean, I think we had nine personal credit cards maxed Chris and my brother, Steven and myself, we got every, you remember that time that was that time. In the mid nineties, they just started sending everyone credit card offers. So we just like said yes to th…”
Guayakí's founders personally served over 5 million cups of mate on tour
“And I think Steven Dolmiguel and I personally served over five million cups of mate.”
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.”
Guayakí secured an initial $50,000 local bank loan without physical collateral
“Yeah, we got a 50,000 dollar bank loan locally.”
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.”
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?”
Adding soy milk and honey raised Guayakí product acceptance over 50%
“So we started putting honey and soy milk in the mate and making mate lattes. And then the, like the percentage of like maybe 15, 20% of the people actually trying and liking it went up to like 50 or more.”
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…”
Guayakí's first eight tons of yerba mate were hauled in a U-Haul
“He was actually the very first one who started helping out Alex and I, even before Steven and Chris, because he actually ended up kind of joining as a quote unquote intern and helping drive up like the first eight tons of Yerba Mate from Los Angeles to Slowtow…”