The founder of Drinkfolio.com asked me a few questions on my product, company, and my experiences as a new business owner:
Interview:
Q – Why Bare Mixers? (reasons why you chose to create your own drink)
A – This is a long story, so I will try to sum it up. My
business partner, Chris and I, originally started a company making
Italian Ice. We are both from the East Coast and Italian Ice is very
popular there. For those of you don’t know what it is–it is like sorbet
and people go crazy for it on the East Coast when it is stifling hot in
the summer. We called ourselves Claudio’s Italian Ice (named after my
dad) and we participated in many street fairs and farmer’s market
throughout San Diego. We got a lot of great feedback and had a good
following at the farmer’s markets. We made 2 flavors, lemon and
strawberry, and they were great tasting while also being all-natural and
low in calories. It was always very important for us to create a food
product that contained 3 major elements. It had to be all-natural and
low in calories, and most importantly, it had to taste great.
All of our friends loved our Italian Ice and started requesting that we
bring it to parties so they could mix it with liquor. I loved using it
as a mixer because I loved margaritas but they were so high in sugar and
calories, so I used my Italian Ice as a substitute. Creating a cocktail
mixer seemed like a much more promising and appealing road for us, so
we went back to the kitchen and started trying out different options for
cocktail mixers. We said good bye to Italian Ice and created our
all-natural, low-calorie sweet and sour mix originally called SoCal
LowCal. Our first flavor was actually a strawberry puree much like a
daiquiri mix, but it was all-natural and really delicious and fresh. The
margarita mix, however, seemed like a better route to take for our
first product to market. The strawberry flavor will come soon enough!
Since the product was so well liked in San Diego, we decided we wanted
to introduce it nationally, so we changed the name to the more appealing
and all-encompassing, Bare Mixers.
Q – Why choose a mixer? (why the choice of specific drink segment)
A – I wanted to create a product that would satisfy the need
for great tasting cocktails that weren’t so high in calories and sugar.
Like so many other women, I work out and I try to stay healthy. When I
go out to a bar/restaurant, I like to enjoy a martini or a margarita,
but I always end up buying a vodka soda because I don’t want to waste
the calories on cocktails. If I am going to eat something unhealthy, I
would rather have it be dessert not drinks! I realized that most other
women felt the same way, so I decided to take the knowledge I gained
from my existing product and try to create another healthy product. And,
that is just what we did in creating Bare Mixers.
Q -Why choose Bare Mixers? (what makes your brand special/first choice Over other cocktail mixers)
A – Bare Mixers is simply the best tasting cocktail mixer. It’s
great that I can say my product is all-natural and low in calories, but
really the most important thing about a food product is that it tastes
good. And, Bare Mixers does.
It is made with only 4 ingredients–purified water, 100% real lemon and
lime juice (not from concentrate), and Organic Agave nectar. It is light
and refreshing and comparable to cocktails made with fresh squeezed
juices. Bartenders never want to believe that, so they taste test with
my product and make side by side drinks with fresh juices and Bare
Mixers, and they are always pleasantly surprised that our mixer does
taste just as fresh. As with most food and beverage products, there are
many competitors out there, but I am confident that people who get the
opportunity to taste Bare Mixers will choose it over the others.
Q – Experience & knowledge (what is your background, knowledge & interests pertaining to the beverage industry)
A – When we started the company, I had no knowledge about
startups, or about creating, marketing, and selling a product. I knew
even less about the beverage industry. I am an English teacher by trade
and that is the career I intended to do for my entire life. In my mind,
starting a business after grad school was just a minor detour, something
that sounded like a fun adventure, and a way for me to get to sleep in
every morning and work on my own schedule. I didn’t know anything about
branding and marketing a product. I had no idea how much money and time
and relentless determination it would take to get the product bottled,
labeled, and shipped correctly. Looking back, I still don’t know what I
was thinking. I guess I was naïve and headstrong and ridiculously
optimistic.
Since then, I have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge about the
food and beverage industry and how to survive in the industry when you
are most definitely the underdog. I also quickly learned that women are
rare bread in the beverage industry and this was probably the reason
that no one had thought to create a product like Bare Mixers when I was
originally looking for it. During our rebrand process, I realized how
difficult it is for any company, big or small, to organize all the
little details that have to come together in order to make a great
looking product.
But even more importantly, I learned that I love being a business owner
because I love having the ability to create my own success. And,
someday, the teacher in me hopes to help others do the same.
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