The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 19 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Cessario: Brand Is the Moat Because Giant Corporations Can't Create Brands
“Brand is the moat, and I think it's hard for people to wrap their head around what that means, but there's a lot of Sort of historical precedents to show that that's the case... It shows that giant companies are really bad at creating brands. Like they, there'…”
Cessario: Action sports entertainment used by Red Bull is a limited genre
“All we are doing is we just want to make legitimate entertainment, not marketing. And it's a tried and true Approach that Red Bull was very successful with, Monster was very successful with, where they blur the lines between an entertainment company and a beve…”
Tom Rinks: Consumer brands must maintain strict discipline around their distinct edge
“Be really disciplined on who the, what the brand is, right? If you look at Ben and Jerry's and the names of their products and the humor and the way they write, they went all in on that liquid death, all in on their edge. It's just so, I know who they are.”
Cessario: Liquid Death is tracking significantly more than $100M in revenue
“Oh, yeah. Significantly more.”
Cessario: Liquid Death made $100K first-month sales on $2.5K ad spend
“I think the first month, we only spent maybe 2500 bucks in paid media to generate a 100,000 dollars in sales.”
Cessario: To make teens think a product is cool, market to twenty-somethings
“If you want teens to think something's cool, you actually market it to people in their twenties.”
Cessario: Challenger brands fail when copying big corporate sponsorship playbooks
“Like if we start trying to play The same game as the big guys, where it's like, oh, let's go sign a two million dollar athlete endorsement deal, or let's go wrap a NASCAR for a million dollars. Like, that stuff is not gonna move the needle for you, and you're …”
Cessario: Whole Foods was the only retailer willing to stock Liquid Death
“It was the only retailer who would even give us a chance. I mean, we had talked to, I don't know, like a broker for Target, and they were like, ah, yeah, guys, we don't think this is the right fit for mom. And, like, any of these other big retailers, like, wou…”
Raz: Liquid Death launched its billion-dollar brand with a $1,500 video
“You know, Liquid Death launched its brand with a 1500 dollar video.”
Gob hires former Liquid Death VP of Cult Indoctrination for partnerships
“I am very lucky to have just hired the ex-VP of Cult indoctrination from Liquid Death. He just joined our team this week, and he's gonna be going out there and trying to get as many new brand partnerships as possible”
Liquid Death launched with a $1,500 viral video
“Mike Cesario didn't have a big budget when he launched that brand. He spent 1500 dollars making a viral video that went, truly went viral.”
Raz: Liquid Death reached nearly $200M in revenue within two years
“And Mike Cesario entered that saturated market, and you know, within two years, they're close to two hundred million dollars in revenue.”
Cessario: Liquid Death Transatlantic Shipping Costs Surged From $3,500 to $12,000
“Literally over the course of two months, ocean freight costs went up like five X or something insane. And all of a sudden we started getting killed on ocean freight costs in the back half of 2021 where, you know, we might have been spending You know, 3500 doll…”
Cessario: Liquid Death produced its first viral video ad for $1,500
“No, we made this whole thing for 1500 bucks. My wife, Carly, edited the whole thing. She actually edited almost all of the early liquid death video stuff.”
Cessario: Liquid Death Generated About $45M Top-Line Revenue in 2021
“In 20, 20 20, 21, I think we, you know, we did I think it was like 45 million in like gross top line revenue.”
Cessario: Aluminum can makers required minimum production runs of 200,000 units
“The minimum, minimum you can produce is, like, 200,000. And so you're talking about a quarter million dollars or 150 grand, something like that, just to do the bare minimum run of a canned product.”
Cessario: Liquid Death Received Distributor Inbound Before Producing Inventory
“I literally had a seven 11 franchisee from Michigan who said, hey, I own three seven 11. How do I get this in my stores? I had the biggest non-alc distributor in New York called Big Geyser. One of their people reached out saying, hey, can I talk to a sales rep…”