Welcome to the Community Call Podcast.
I am Melissa Travers, Director of Community here at BevNET & NOSH, here with my co-host, Sarah Casagrande, Principal and Sales Advisor at Generation CPG.
If you're enjoying the show, please follow and review us wherever you listen.
Sarah, it's so great to have you back here again.
Just last week, we were talking about Halloween candy.
Now, all my leftover Halloween candy is on the BevNET table in our lunchroom, hoping someone will take it away from me.
And now, we're into November.
It's all about leaves and what else?
Turkey.
Turkey.
It's all about Turkey.
We're getting ready for NOSH Live December 5th and 6th, BevNET Live December 8th to 10th in Marina Del Rey.
So that's very exciting.
I do want everyone to know that if you have any questions about the event at all, whether you should come or not, what to expect, anything about the pitch slam, just slack me, slack.bevnet.com.
I'd be happy to chat about that.
And it's also kind of the unofficial beginning of the holiday season.
And it's that time when try to get as many appointments as you can before the buyers go on holiday hiatus.
So are people still getting appointments, you know, this first week of NoVet?
Like, what's the cutoff?
There are retailers still doing reviews.
A lot of them will start to slow down.
Retailers that don't have a published review calendar might say, come back to me in January.
In years past, I've gotten appointments around New Year's Eve, sometimes the week before Christmas, but it's usually pretty slow.
Come Thanksgiving, a lot of buyers are in holiday mode.
They're kind of focused on everything that they have on their plates for the busiest time of year.
They're going to want you to come back around in January when things kind of ramp up again.
Is there some sort of sales etiquette if I'm a brand?
And I don't know, let's say I've just launched in a new region or I've launched globally or whatever it is.
I mean, folks still have issues that they want to communicate to their buyers about.
Is there a rule of etiquette?
Like, is there anything you shouldn't bother a buyer with when it's so busy during the holidays?
I mean, I think just always be respectful, be patient, understand that sometimes those buyers have so much on their plate.
They're receiving so many emails that they're not able to respond to you right away in real time.
Obviously, like, just be courteous.
If it is urgent, obviously try to get a hold of them.
If it's something that can wait or isn't that important, try to ask yourself, like, does this need to be sent right now?
It really depends on the situation, the buyer.
I just try to be respectful.
I mean, I do that anyway all year round, but especially around the holidays.
They're just focused on ordering enough inventory, managing the staff.
It's just a busy time of year, so.
Well, that is certainly great advice.
Well, I had a chance to try my first holiday seasonal product.
It was Desois Saint-Moritz Mule.
This was something they sent to the office and it was really tasty.
It was a mix of pomegranate juice, cranberry juice, ginger, and some adaptogens.
It's smart for the holidays when people are trying to cut down on drinking maybe.
Yeah.
I love ginger.
Give me more ginger.
All the ginger, right?
And gingerbread.
Gingerbread is a big one.
Do you have any favorite holiday flavors or seasonal items that you look forward to every year?
Anything peppermint stick.
So peppermint stick, bark, ice cream, cookies.
I'm all about the peppermint.
I also really like eggnog.
So Talenty used to have an eggnog gelato that was really great.
Special.
You can only order it during the holidays.
What about pumpkin stuff?
Are you a pumpkin lady?
I'm not.
I've never had a pumpkin spice latte.
Proud to be one of the few who just haven't crossed over to that side.
Yeah.
You know, honestly, even pumpkin pie.
I mean, I know that.
I don't know.
I feel like we're going to get a bunch of hate mail.
Yeah, it's fine.
We're ditching pumpkin spice.
Yeah, let's just come right out there and say pumpkin pie is just okay.
It's just okay.
It's fine.
It's just not fine.
Like it's fine.
It's pumpkin pie.
Yeah, it's fine.
Well, glad we cleared up the holiday flavors, and I feel like we maybe have started a pumpkin controversy.
The other thing I wanted to mention on the seasonal front was this Fly By Jing Advent Calendar.
I know that folks listening to the podcast can't see it, so I'm going to describe it.
It's pretty big.
I feel like it's maybe like two feet long and...
That's as big as my desk.
That's huge.
Yeah, it's amazing.
And it sounds crazy.
How could you have a Fly By Jing Advent Calendar, but it's 12 days of delicious items from Fly By Jing.
I haven't opened any of them yet.
It says that they're two ounces each, so that means they're TSA approved.
I mean, if you get this Advent Calendar, you can take your chili crisp on the plane.
That's genius.
That's a great gift.
Right?
Do you think I should open one of these or is that cheating?
No, open one.
All right.
Give me a number, 1 through 12.
Ooh, three.
It's the magic number.
Three is the magic number.
All right.
Let's see.
Ooh, Sarah.
This is my favorite one.
Which one is that?
Oh, it's so cute.
Isn't it adorable?
Oh, baby.
It's the sweet and spicy, and I know I'm going to butcher this.
Z-H-O-N-G.
Jiang sauce?
I know I'm going to butcher it.
But this one is so, so, so good.
I would put this on anything.
I'm glad you picked three.
Me too.
What are the other ones?
Do you know?
They're all hidden behind the squares.
And I took a look at the website to see if they mentioned what was behind each door to see if I'd ruin the surprise.
I didn't see it, so I feel like maybe I should leave it as a surprise for people who order it.
You should.
You should leave it.
But that's a really great gift idea.
I might have to buy one of those.
I was just going to say that's a really good hostess gift.
Or host gift.
Or host.
Yeah, I mean, anyone can host, right?
Yeah, except for me.
What's a...
have you gotten or given any good hostess gifts?
I bring a bottle of wine, a nice bottle of, I don't know, high-end liquor, cheese.
Like one time I put together like a little charcuterie board and wrapped it up.
You?
You know, someone brought to my house one time some really amazing English muffins.
Stowed in skillet.
They were stowed in skillet.
Those are the best.
They have a pumpkin one.
I will say that is good.
You're a liar.
You said you didn't like pumpkin.
And in fact, you're a closet.
I forgot about that.
You're a closeted pumpkin lover.
I don't know who I am anymore, Melissa.
Yeah, but so somebody brought over some really nice English muffins and some really nice butter for like a morning breakfast.
I thought that was so nice.
That's a great idea.
Yeah.
What kind of salted butter do you remember?
Good butter makes a huge like that on some gingerbread.
Some whipped cream.
You know, I want to say it was Kerrygold and I know Kerrygold isn't the fancy.
Although it might.
It's definitely the fanciest butter at Market Basket.
Like I've tried some of the other fancy butters and I don't know.
I just think that Kerrygold salted butter.
I find it very hard to do better than that with like an extra sprinkle of flaky salt on top.
Yeah, you and your salt.
I do love salt.
What's your brand?
I think it's Maldon just because it's the easiest one to find.
I think I have a Curio Spice Flaky Salt at home in my cupboard.
Oh, I think it's the Aegean one, the Curio Spice.
Put it on salmon.
It's awesome.
Even my kid will eat the salmon when I put that on it, and she refuses all other types of seasonings.
So that's a winner.
That would also be a great host gift.
It would.
Put that in a little basket with some, I'm still loving the Fly by Jing.
That's genius.
Genius, right?
You can take that all the way to the bank.
Well, the holiday season can certainly boost sales for a food or beverage brand, but with proper planning, it's manageable.
But what about an unexpected viral moment?
When a brand, especially an emerging brand, suddenly faces a surge in demand, it can become overwhelming.
In this episode of Community Call, Kendra Bennett, CMO of Bon Bee Honey, and Maya French, co-founder of HappyPop and Koia, share how they managed the influx of business while growing their customer base, sustained the sales boost, and kept their sanity through it all during their viral moments.
Please enjoy.
Today on Community Call, we are talking about going viral with Maya French, founder of HappyPop, and Kendra Bennett, CMO, and founding family member of Bon Bee Honey.
We are going to hear all about their viral moments, how they happened, how they adapted to accommodate the surge in demand, what the lasting impact on the business was, and how you can be prepared if it happens to you.
Kendra and Maya, thank you so much for joining.
This is going to be a really exciting chance to take a peek behind the scenes and see what happens when you have a viral moment.
Thanks for having us.
Well, it's great to have you.
Maya, let's start with you.
First of all, just for anyone who's unfamiliar, can you give us the HappyPop story?
Tell us when you launched the kind of proposition behind the product and all that good stuff.
Yeah, definitely.
So I've been in the beverage world for, I think, over 10 years now, which is insane to think about.
Previously, founded the brand called Koia, plant-based protein, exited that brand in 2021.
And we came up with this idea for HappyPop kind of at the tail end of the pandemic, seeing a lot of people that were just unhappy, maybe lacking dopamine.
We wanted to create a functional beverage that you could actually feel.
So HappyPop was originally functional energy.
Now today, it's mood boosting energy.
And basically this beverage is, it's sort of like a pop, it's an energy pop as we used to call it, because it's only sweetened with fruit juice, so it has a sparkling, so it has a pop-like texture.
And we have this ingredient called Makuna Purines, which converts the dopamine in your body, and we have 100 milligrams of caffeine from green coffee.
So it gives you a happy boost.
It is one of the few things that I've tried that I actually can feel.
So super excited about the product.
And great to again, have you here and talk about your viral moment.
Let's get into the viral moment itself.
It was almost sort of an accident.
Definitely was.
I think it was just like a normal workday where I was waking up and checking my emails.
You know, the night before, I was testing some ads, maybe just running about $25 towards some UGC people explaining the product.
So when I checked my email, I saw a lot of orders coming in from Shopify.
I was like, Oh my God, the ads are working like I'm a genius.
I cracked the code.
And then I was like, wait, this is a little abnormal, the frequency of which they're coming in.
And so I immediately started checking all of our social accounts to see, where's this coming from, this influx of orders and interests.
And when I opened up TikTok, I swear the app almost exploded in my hand.
So many notifications.
So what I discovered was there's an influencer named Emmy.
She had about a million followers on TikTok.
And she was talking about this drink that she had had.
And she said, hey, the drink makes me feel happy.
This is all within the first 10 seconds of her storytelling.
She's like, it's the happy drink.
And when I drank it, it made me feel so good.
I was happy to do my taxes.
So this is all great.
And people are like, oh, man, this is so exciting.
But then she says, but this drink has this ingredient in it called kratom.
And apparently somebody said it's like a synthetic opioid.
And so I was like, wait, wait, wait, that's definitely not us.
And so a lot of people started flooding our page with curiosity, but also a ton of hate.
Saying like, what is this kratom?
It's bad for you.
So immediately I sprang into action and I'm trying to defend our honor, saying, hey, no, this doesn't have kratom and it has an ingredient that's actually good for you, boost your dopamine.
And then people, they made up this term called Gas Station Crack because you can usually get weird stuff from gas stations.
And so instead of being defensive, I thought, lean into it.
And so I created this discount code called Gas Crack.
And I said, hey, gas crack, 25 percent off.
In every video on our page that was getting a lot of attention and going viral, I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of views, I would pin this comment there.
So anyone who is coming to the page that was new would see the comment.
And so that led to a ton of orders, a ton of people actually using this discount code.
And then they were like, oh, wait, this product's actually better than what she was speaking of.
And eventually we found out that she was talking about New Brew, which is a beverage, a functional beverage that actually has kratom in it.
But they responded a little bit too late.
So we were able to capitalize off of their viral moment.
I'm sure they had a viral moment as well, but we acted much faster.
All the searches were for Happy Drink.
And our sales grew 31,000% overnight.
This was only our first production run where we had produced about, I don't know, 25,000 units and we sold out in a matter of like three days.
So it was very, very overwhelming and exciting for us and we learned a ton.
How long did that kind of excitement last on social media?
It's crazy because you think it'll last only a couple of weeks, but I guess when things go viral, they still live on the internet for a while.
So I would say it was about a couple of months where that excitement was still, we were still seeing new people coming in, engaging with the content and still asking questions.
And yeah, it was great for a long time.
I think you said that you did, was it three months of orders in two days?
Yeah, three months of orders in two days.
So everything that we had forecasted for the next three months, we had just sold out, which gave us another set of problems because it's like, well, now how do we fulfill these orders from customers who are wanting it and we just don't have a product in hand.
We're going to get into all of those details in a little bit.
Thank you so much for that, Maya.
All right, Kendra, first of all, could you tell us about Bon Bee Honey?
I mean, you're as amazing as HappyPop is in mood lifting.
I mean, I feel a huge mood lift every time I eat one of your bars because they're just so delicious.
How was the business started?
Thank you so much for that intro and I think maybe the best case scenario would be having a Bon Bee Gourmet Honey bar and a HappyPop at the same time.
Off the charts.
The background of our company is, first of all, we are a family business and my dad was actually trying to create a recipe that our mom made for him when he was a Vietnam fighter pilot.
So he was an F4 Phantom fighter pilot and eating very unhealthily.
So my mom made a honey based snack to give him some energy that was cleaner.
And fast forward 35, 40 years, my dad tried to recreate it without a recipe in hand.
So he was guessing for three months, just trying to get this right.
Eventually, he accidentally made what is now Bon Bee Gourmet Honey Bar or Peanut Pecan variety right here in the blue.
That's our OG, that's dad's recipe.
But it was so good that he just had to bring it to market.
He names the company after my mom, who he calls Honey Bunchy.
So we are Honey Bunchy LLC, makers of Bon Bee Gourmet Honey Bars.
And then he launched the company on their wedding anniversary as a tribute to her, which is the sweetest thing ever.
So every February 28th, we have a double anniversary for our company and for mom and dad.
That is as sweet and delightful as the product itself.
Well, thank you for sharing that.
And let's move on.
You actually had two viral moments.
Yes, yes.
And they were actually very close to each other.
And it was all last year, I think, 2023 for us here at Honey Bunchy was a total blur.
We actually had a nice go with 7-Eleven in January last year.
We've been part of their Brands with Heart program on two occasions.
They took us to their annual trade show to share our products with all of their franchisees and corporate locations.
And that was in the beginning of February.
We were just, a lot was happening with 7-Eleven.
Unfortunately, they decided to give us a test set in 10 stores in Dallas to see how it sells in the stores.
And so I had a LinkedIn viral moment, actually, where it was probably 4 o'clock in the afternoon, getting ready to go home.
It was like, I really need to announce that we're in these stores so that people can support us.
And I just whipped up a quick post.
It came from the gut and the heart, you know, I did not put a lot of thought into it, but it was very genuine.
And it absolutely blew up.
The people of Dallas, they came to the call, and oh my gosh, I mean, they were doing videos of going into the 7-Eleven locations and buying all the product and sending pictures of empty shelves.
And I think I had 900, almost 1000 reposts and almost 7000 reactions.
It's been viewed 1.1 million times.
And that was 18 months ago.
And I'm still getting reactions and comments on that post.
So we all post on LinkedIn, you know, all the time, some of the time.
That's never happened to me.
What was it about your LinkedIn post that do you think that made it go so big?
You know, the mystery, the algorithm.
I wish I knew because I would replicate it over and over again.
You know, I specifically asked, if you are in Dallas or you know somebody in Dallas, we need your help.
And it was a real call to action that came from the heart.
So it was descriptive.
It explained who we were, what they can do to help us.
It was very specific.
Well, everyone should certainly check that post out to see how it happened.
So the LinkedIn post, it sounds like, drove people to the 7-Elevens to buy the product off the shelves.
And then how soon after that, was there anything else about that LinkedIn viral moment that we should talk about before we move on to the Shark Tank?
Well, I would say probably what's interesting about this is the timing, because that post went up, I believe, at the end of March last year.
And that is maybe a week later, we got the notice from Shark Tank, that we were going to be airing in front of three and a half to four million people.
And so with the momentum that I received from that post, now I had a lot of engaged people, a lot.
And so as soon as I got the heads up from Shark Tank, that we were going to air in three weeks, that gave me the green light to tell everybody.
So now I have an engaged audience that's ready to hear more.
And so when the Shark Tank announcement came out, the pipeline was primed already.
It was ready to go.
And so we ended up airing on Shark Tank April 16th, just a few weeks later.
And so that created our second viral moment from last year.
And what sort of increase did you see?
Let me back up a little bit.
Did you see any increase in your web sales from the 7-Eleven post?
It is interesting.
I actually think most people were driven to the stores because that was the call to action, which is great because that's what we wanted.
And I'm sure people were going to the website, especially when it was sold out.
The challenge was that there was unfortunately not a promo code because I was more focused on getting them in the stores.
I didn't want to give them a promo code to our website and have them come to our website instead.
It was all about getting them into 7-Eleven.
So it helped our retail sales, so brick and mortar for sure.
And I am not sure what the numbers would be on our online.
I know there was a bump.
I just can't target that specifically to that post, unfortunately.
No, no, no.
That's very interesting.
And you had a rebrand that coincided with Shark Tank.
Naturally.
I mean, when you go on Shark Tank and air in front of three and a half to four million people, what's the next best thing to do but to change your name?
Why not?
Or not.
So we had actually been planning to change our brand name for years, and we had already put the wheels in motion.
We had been given the notice that we were going to be going nationally with Kroger in June with them picking up the order in May.
So we decided, OK, we're going to roll out our new brand name, Bon Bee Honey, which used to be Honey Bunchies.
We're going to roll that out with our Kroger launch.
It'll be nice and seamless, and we'll have plenty of time to prepare.
So we had already purchased packaging.
We had grabbed all of the social media handles, domain name, emails were set up for our Kroger launch.
And there's just no way to plan for something like this.
It was just incredibly fortunate that we had this, and we had already started building our inventory for Kroger when we got the heads up on Shark Tank.
So because we knew we were going to be in front of three and a half to four million people, we did not want to sell them on a brand name we were going to change a month later.
So because we had everything lined up, we went ahead and flipped the switch two weeks before we aired on Shark Tank as Honey Bunchies.
So this is Honey Bunchies.
So we had to make sure we didn't confuse our current customers or the folks that were watching us on Shark Tank.
And so we came out with Bon Bee Honey, and we did everything in our power to make it as seamless as possible.
So as you can see, the packaging really didn't change.
It was just the name.
We put out a lot of social media.
Our website was announcing it.
We got on it so darn fast that if anybody googled Honey Bunchies, the first thing they're going to see is Honey Bunchies is now Bon Bee Honey.
And it was shockingly seamless.
I'm still pretty amazed that we were able to pull it off.
But any media that we garnered from our Shark Tank exposure, we had gotten to that brand name change announcement so quickly.
It was one of the first things every single publication said when they wrote about our Shark Tank experience.
So that just flooded the web with that information.
It really helped a lot.
I'm sure it went seamlessly because you and your team worked so hard and so carefully.
So, you know, big kudos to you.
Even without a rebrand a couple weeks before or something like that, it's crazy trying to deal with something like this due to the increase in demand.
Maya, this is something that you were talking about.
I mean, you know, you did 3,100 or whatever the number was.
I mean, if that's so far above the number that you're typically doing, how did you meet the increase in demand?
Yeah, we definitely had to set aside allotments for retailers because we were in Erwann.
That was our test market.
And it's very important to not go out of stock in those retailers, especially if it's your only retailer.
So we set aside, you know, products for that, but we did want to fulfill as many orders as possible.
But when we ran out, what do you do?
So I immediately started researching pre-orders.
I'm not that great at Shopify, I'll admit.
But I found a pre-order app so that the customers who were wanting a product right away, it's like, hey, we can create some type of demand here.
And they can actually get a discount if they pre-order.
So we started accepting pre-orders for about two months and being really, really communicative with all of our customers, letting them know like, hey, look, this amazing thing happened, but we're unable to get your products in the next couple of months.
And I think the other challenge is like, how do you raise the money or have the money on hand to actually pay for production?
And as any brand owner knows, ordering ingredients takes a few weeks, sometimes a few months.
Getting line time for production also takes a while.
And it was really interesting because we were at the point, we were switching manufacturers.
We were doing so much.
So during this time, we thought, I might as well do everything all at once while we have this down time.
So we also somewhat rebranded and changed our entire packaging.
It took all of our learnings from everything that we learned from our customers and how to actually properly talk about this product.
So going from functional energy to mood boosting energy, because we're like, wait, people actually like the mood aspect of this.
We don't need to hide it anymore.
Making sure this happy face was very prominent on the front as a very strong brand mark that's recognizable.
So all of these changes and then moving our manufacturing to California, moving our warehouse to California, switching our fulfillment.
Very grateful for the time that we had to do that and to make those changes and then be communicative with the customers about the changes that were happening.
So we saw an even greater lift when we were actually ready to fulfill those orders.
Everything all at once seems like a mantra for any brand owner.
So did you go ahead and re-brand after you had that TikTok moment and then in between trying to fill the orders that came after that?
Yeah.
So I think the order went, we got the TikTok moment.
We learned a lot about how to speak about the product and what was wrong with the messaging before.
So we immediately got with this amazing brand.
You guys might know Fred Hart.
We immediately like, hey Fred, help us out.
Let's make this product ready for primetime.
I think we finished that within like two weeks time, sent the new label over to the printer right away, which takes about three to four weeks.
To get the new printing plates and to print the labels, we ordered the cans.
So all of this was simultaneously happening.
We definitely had to make sure everything was aligned so that we can hit this date.
Even then, it was like, we want to give the consumers a date in which we will relaunch, but we don't know exactly when that date will be because there are so many variables that are changing at any point in time.
We had to communicate as much as possible.
Even if there was a delay, we had to send out an e-mail, I'm like, hey, as much as it hurts, hey guys, it's not actually launching this date.
It's coming in two weeks instead, but you could still pre-order, there's still time to get the discount.
Then we even cut off the pre-orders at a certain date to create more of that demand.
Like, hey, you have to do it by now, or you're not going to get the discount.
So smart.
What are some of the other things you did from a customer service perspective that helped you build on the growth even though you didn't necessarily have the product to fill all of the demand in the moment?
Yeah, I think there were a lot of questions about the ingredients in our products, so making sure that we were taking those questions into account and redoing our FAQ page, so that people know, hey, these ingredients aren't harmful, this is how you use them in an effective way, this is how you use the products.
Also, if there were angry customers, just making sure we respond right away with very heartfelt messages.
I had created a discount code for very, very angry people that was so sorry for 50 percent off.
Just trying to be as empathetic as possible because when you get so many angry messages from people who just, they just want to experience your product, it can hurt, it hurts like emotionally.
And so I think the best way is to make that better for everyone is just to be as open and transparent as possible.
And people will be understanding.
It never helps to ignore people or to give them false promises or over promise and under deliver.
These are things that I've learned throughout my career.
And hey, they came handy when I needed them the most.
We're going to get into the emotional component of it as well, because I mean, that's something that I think probably all founders struggle with on some level, because it's everything all at once.
But when you add something like this on top of it, that's so much.
So we'll get into that in a moment.
Could you walk us through what you did from a production standpoint?
So you said you were you moving co manufacturers anyways?
We realized that, hey, we can't afford to do another run with a smaller manufacturer.
And we really need to if this is going viral and we're going to keep up the momentum, we really need a manufacturer that we can scale with.
So we were actively looking for someone that we could scale, especially with our can size being 8.4 ounces.
There are not a lot of manufacturers that can do that.
But luckily, we found a partner who was able to slot us in like almost immediately and work with us, giving the timeline of just ordering ingredients and making sure that they arrive on time.
But it was a challenge when you have like less than two months to scramble and just change everything all at once.
But yeah, luckily we have amazing partners.
How long did it take you to do your first run with the new manufacturer?
With the new manufacturer, I would say yeah, about two and a half months with all the ingredients.
And I think the longest lead time is probably changing over the labels.
That was the toughest part.
That's amazing.
Can't make any mistakes with labels at all because if you're printing, let's say, I think we went from a 25,000 run to over 100,000 cans.
And so when you're printing 100,000 labels, they cost that much money.
But the other exciting part is like you can use that momentum and excitement to easily raise money through angels or family offices.
So let's talk about that.
How did you fund the growth?
Yeah.
So we made a lot of money at once.
We invested that back into the business, of course.
We had some money in the bank.
So we immediately, it was like with the money that we have, we know that we need to order ingredients that have the longest lead time first.
Right?
And things that had the shortest lead time, well then we were calling up family, friends, sending out emails to our network.
Hey, look at this assignment.
Thank you BevNET for posting about it.
Also gave us more amplification within trade.
And so I think, yeah, it was just making a ton of phone calls and raising money.
We were able to raise like an additional like 150K, which helped fund our production run.
But we had to be very methodical about like, what are we spending the money that we have left in the bank on?
I appreciate the detail around ordering the ingredients that took the longest lead time first.
Those are just some of just the small details that I'm sure made this possible.
Well, thank you for walking us through all that.
Now, Kendra, I would love to hear the same about Bon Bee Honey.
Let's start off with production.
What did you need to do in order to meet the surge in demand after Shark Tank?
As I mentioned earlier, we had already started ramping up production for Kroger.
So we were very fortunate in that we had already stockpiled some product.
But then the issue became all of that product went to Shark Tank customers, and we still had to fill this huge PO for Kroger.
So there was, I mean, we went around the clock, really.
We produced in-house, I hadn't mentioned that earlier.
So that helped in that we're able to really control what we're doing.
We don't need to wait to get in the production run.
We can just flip the switch in some regards.
Fortunately, we had all the packaging.
We had the ingredients because of Kroger.
So if we hadn't had that, believe me, we would have been doing the pre-order option that Maya mentioned, and a lot of Shark Tank entrepreneurs do do.
So for any of you watching this and you're wondering what you can do if you go viral, that pre-order is a really good backup in the constant, clear, kind communication.
We're completely self-funded.
We have been from the beginning, and it's always a strain, especially if you have this crazy hockey stick moment.
So we were very careful about how we started building our Kroger inventory.
And fortunately, when Shark Tank aired, that most of the funds were available through Shopify very quickly.
So we could turn that around.
So we had enough inventory to buy us some time, get some of those payments, replenish as needed.
And it just, you're always just trying to stay one step ahead.
And we did get thrown a curve ball.
And just a heads up for everybody watching too.
If you have a moment where suddenly you sell bonkers on Amazon.
So we were selling on Amazon and on our website during Shark Tank.
Amazon as a security measure holds your funds indefinitely really until you don't really know how long.
In our case, they held our funds for over a month.
So when a month beyond when we should have been paid.
So that put a lot of strain on our company, and I know on other companies that have experienced the same thing.
So we were very fortunate in having some contacts that were willing to give us a loan to float us.
And then we were able to pay them back once the money started coming in.
So having contacts that you can lean on, again, we don't have investment.
So having friends, family, or industry contacts that just want to help you succeed.
And this was an industry contact, by the way.
It was, we have leaned on our friends and our family before.
Thank you, everybody out there who's helped us.
But yeah, you really have to be able to respond very, very quickly when you're going through something like this, because so many things happen that you just cannot anticipate.
Like I had no idea Amazon was going to hold our money.
And why did they, it was a security measure?
How does that work?
I cannot speak for Amazon and exactly why this happened.
But my understanding is that there have been some bad apples that will list the most viral thing in the moment, get a bunch of sales, collect the money, because Amazon pays every two weeks, collect those funds and then disappear without shipping any product.
So they get the money, but they don't send the product out.
So this was their way to ensure that the customers were actually getting a product and this is legit.
You actually did sell all of these items.
I see that makes sense.
Okay, so you have Amazon, you have 7-Eleven, you have your own website Kroger.
Were there any of those entities that you sort of had to delay in order to satisfy the one that seemed to be blowing up in the moment?
Well, we were also on walmart.com, as another e-com source for us.
We turned that off, sorry Walmart.
We just had to be sure that we could manage.
We didn't know what could happen.
I was talking to a lot of Shark Tank companies in the weeks leading up to it and just, I didn't want to have too many variables, so we turned that off just to limit the amount of sales channels online.
We actually did not have to short anybody, which is a miracle.
We did extend our lead time, that we communicated to all of our retailers.
So gosh, we're probably in about, if you include Kroger, well Kroger hadn't launched yet.
So maybe like 2500, 2500 locations and a lot of them mom and pops.
But we made sure to reach out to Whole Foods Rocky Mountain Region.
It's one of our very strong retailers, Natural Grocers, King Super's.
We reached out to all of our distributors, all of our retailers and let them know, hey, this is coming, Shark Tank is coming.
And if you don't order up now, you might not be able to get product for a while.
So we made sure to communicate to everybody to get their orders in as quickly as possible, and they did.
All of our distributors and retailers were putting in orders quickly.
We got them filled so that they weren't needing to order so much while the Shark Tank orders were coming in.
So just managing the inventory flow was really important.
And we were also communicating to all of our online and Amazon customers, letting them know that there was an extended lead time.
Amazon, as many of you know, part of the beauty of it is that you get your orders very quickly.
And that typically happens when the products are warehouse in an Amazon warehouse.
We, however, filled our own Amazon orders.
And so we could change the handling time.
We weren't prime at that moment because you have to have a quicker ship time.
But we changed our handling time to bias that window that we needed.
On our website, we let everybody know there is a two to four week lead time.
And thank you for understanding.
We sent emails out, just constant communication like Maya was doing, just to give us that cushion in case we needed it.
And to keep our production team replenishing during that window.
So as it's going out, there's more inventory being produced at the same time.
Any interesting things that you noticed around which of your venues saw the most lift between all of the places where the product is available?
Any thoughts around what you saw and whether there was anything surprising in there?
Sure.
So of course, all the online sales, everything online, Amazon, our website, and not really knowing what was going to happen with that.
Is the website going to crash?
We made it through that unscathed, but that we expected.
Brick and Mortar had a nice lift.
One thing we did see is a lot of mom and pops that saw us, and mom and pops in independent locations.
The beauty of those, though, I mean, I love our chains very much, but there is a long lead time to get on the shell when you're working with a larger chain or distribution.
So working with the Fair Wholesale Online, Mabel Wholesale, and some of these Wholesale websites, where we get a lot of our mom and pops in independent locations.
I saw a rise in those guys coming in because they saw Shark Tank too.
And for them, all they had to do was log on the website and order up.
So they also had extended lead times communicated on.
So that was neat to see.
Maya, your product was in Erewan as far as Brick and Mortar goes.
Did you, does Emmy also reach the Erewan shopper?
How did that play out?
Yeah, definitely.
I would say we were in a few influencer accounts, and I would account Erewan as that account.
So we saw a huge lift in Erewan and in Pink Dot, and I assume as they are influencer accounts, many of their shoppers are active on TikTok.
So I guess if you Google it today, or you search on TikTok, it's called the HappyPop controversy.
And so a lot of them were aware of the HappyPop controversy, which led to, I think, about a 50% increase in our sales.
So we doubled our sales at Erewan.
We saw lift because Erewan does share the data, if you pay for it, which we do.
And then our Pink Dot, the guy at Pink Dot, the buyer, he was calling us, he was like, oh, the product is selling so well, I need another case or two.
But of course, some independent retailers, we had to give longer lead times to Erewan was top priority, making sure that their shelves didn't stay empty.
But we definitely saw lift outside of Shopify.
You talked a little bit about your rebrand and how you made the mood boosting element of the beverage more prominent.
How else did the viral moment change the way that you communicate with your customers?
Yes, I think we understood, I think before we were like, DTC is very, very hard for beverage, just because if you're selling a 12-pack, it can cost anywhere upwards to like $30 or more, which makes it for a tougher buying decision for somebody who's trying something for the first time.
With this specific product, because it has a functional benefit for it, that people can actually feel, it's actually an easier buying decision, because people see this as something that they can supplement and use in their daily lives, so they're more willing to make that buying decision.
So then we notice, hey, we have an opportunity to actually do well on DTC, which before we didn't think so.
But even then, I think that it's hard to acquire new customers.
So although we do know how to speak about the product and what people actually care about with the functional ingredients that are in our product, I think Amazon would probably be the best channel.
So we're actively setting that up to go live in Q1 of 2025, just because the Amazon customers are already on that platform to shop so it's easier to acquire a customer.
If they're searching for very specific things, very specific functions, obviously, our keywords will pop up first, so it would be easier to find something like this, in which there aren't many competitors that are doing mood boosting beverages.
Like you say, it's so hard to acquire new customers, which you did a lot of in a very short amount of time.
What was the lasting impact after the dust settled?
So we acquired 2,000 new customers.
Our TikTok went from five followers to 1,300 followers.
And, you know, thousands of likes, which has been really exciting.
And so we saw an increase in engagement.
We saw a slight increase in following on Instagram, which was surprising that the TikTok fame didn't really translate to Instagram.
But there has been a steady increase in like search for like Happy Drink, which has led to our website Better SEO.
And then today, our customer repeat rate is about 48%, which is amazing and we've maintained that.
And we gained 60 new subscribers.
So customer retention has been great.
And we've doubled down on those consumers, actively communicating with them.
People send us great messages all the time.
Like, hey, I just...
We've created this kind of like this vibe where people are like messaging us and saying, hey, I hope you have a happy day today.
Or I just want to share this happy story.
And so that's even created this community around our brand, in which now we know how to bring more people in with this exact same messaging.
Amazing work.
Kendra, what's the lasting impact for Bon Bee Honey been like?
When you have a situation, a viral moment, and something like Shark Tank for us, is that is something that you can rekindle over and over and over.
You just don't want to let it die.
You have to pay attention to it.
So if you keep paying attention to what happened, it keeps going.
Think of the flywheel effect.
You just keep it spinning and moving by feeding it.
So with Shark Tank, we aired in April last year on ABC.
We aired again in July on ABC, which is about a third of the viewing audience when you re-air on ABC.
Then it goes over to CNBC and it's a constant re-air cycle.
So we have now been on national television on Shark Tank 14 times that have counted in the last year and a half.
And every time, some people see it and they don't know it's a re-air necessarily or a rerun.
So it's like brand new and we get people emailing us and letting us know what their thoughts are and how excited they are about the product.
So it's like the gift that keeps giving.
It's really exciting.
Now, the re-airs are not that crazy hockey stick sales moment, but you always notice.
I mean, it's a nice little sales lift.
And as far as the growth, our email list went from about 1,500 to 7,000.
Emails from that experience, our reorder rate is around 60 percent.
In that month, that first month that we aired the first time on Shark Tank, we had a 1,500 percent growth from the same month, year over year, and we're maintaining about a 240 percent growth from that previous year.
So when you have a moment that you get in front of a lot of people, if you can make it as easy as possible for somebody who's never heard of you until that moment to try your brand, you got to make it the lowest hanging fruit you can.
At the time when we aired on Shark Tank, we only had our 12 count sleeves.
We didn't have a little sample pack.
It just would have been incredibly difficult to build out a bunch of sample packs and we're talking thousands and thousands of them.
We were already getting flooded with the 12 packs.
Looking back in hindsight 2020, I think it would have been really valuable to have a very affordable option just for somebody who spent a few bucks, something under $10, so that they could just try it.
Because then, you now collect an email address.
You've got them tasting your product, which with our brand, once people taste Bon Bee, it's 99.9% are hooked.
It tastes so delicious.
It's a salty, sweet, amazing combination.
So if we could just have that very easy entry point to get them to try it, we probably would have generated a larger customer base.
So we are actually still a lot of those people came to our site and the ones who didn't order did sign up on to our email list, many of them.
So we are actually reaching out to them now.
Whenever you get a lot of exposure in front of customer base, that's valuable for retailers to know because now they know their shoppers have seen your brand before.
They're going to recognize you.
They're going to have an emotional connection with Maya.
You had that gas-crack hashtag.
It's just classic.
It's wonderful.
They have some kind of an emotional connection.
It's not just that they've maybe seen the brand on another store shelf.
It's that they have something that generated an emotion, maybe laughter or in our case, we had an emotional Shark Tank episode, so maybe they felt a heartfelt reaction that they wanted to support us.
So that's extremely valuable when you're wanting to build out your brick and mortar presence and with your retailers.
A lot of retailers were very excited to see that we were going to have a national air date on Shark Tank.
It really did help quite a bit.
Great advice.
How did you deal with all of the extra insanity on top of the insanity of running a brand?
Is there anything in particular that helped you get to the next day?
Oh gosh, yes.
I wish I could turn the camera and you could see right over there, I have a cot in my office with a blanket and a pillow.
And it's been there since last year.
I actually was sleeping on the ground in my office many times and I decided to upgrade and get a cot.
So yeah, the hours were crazy.
It's really hard as an entrepreneur to take care of yourself.
Really hard.
I'm also a mom, so moms have a tendency to put themselves last also.
And then you throw in a viral thing.
So I took a pretty huge hit on my health.
I, you know, you probably heard of the Freshman 15.
When you go into college, it's kind of a fun little white hearted joke.
I pretty much think I had the Shark Tank 30.
It was like, what happened to me?
The stress was pretty intense.
So having a cot, just trying to squeeze in power naps, trying to stay optimistic.
I am a very optimistic person.
HappyPop would probably take me over the top.
But doing your best to try to catch a little bit of sleep, having family, friends, somebody you can talk to, industry contacts, I cannot stress this enough, building your network of people who will understand what you're going through.
For me, I was able to reach out to a bunch of Shark Tank companies and they were able to give me some helpful tips on how to manage everything that was about to happen.
But it can be tough for family and friends to really understand, and it's not always easy to share what you're going through because they just haven't felt it.
Enjoy it.
Enjoy it.
I don't think it gets any more realistic than put a cot in your office, so thank you for being so transparent.
Maya, as far as advice for other entrepreneurs go, if you had to tell someone one thing that they should make sure they have in place, sure for a viral moment, but also like any crazy spike in sales, what would you tell them?
Yeah.
So viral moments are very lucky moments.
So I say always be prepared because luck is when opportunity meets preparation.
So for us, we had set up the TikTok, we set up a user-friendly Shopify page.
So everything was in place for that viral moment to happen, except for fulfillment, of course.
We were fulfilling out of our homes and had to eventually move to a better fulfillment partner who could fulfill these orders in two to three days versus five to seven.
But yes, I would say prepare for these moments even if they never happen.
Just make sure that you have your TikTok set up, all your social channels, you have UGC or just content explaining what the product is and how it helps people.
And so when that viral moment happens, you're not really caught by surprise.
You're just able to ride the wave and capitalize off of it in the best way possible.
Amazing.
What was it?
Luck is when opportunity meets?
Preparation, yeah.
I love that so much.
Do you also have a cot in your office?
How did you deal with all of the insanity on top of everything else?
We have a futon.
We were definitely working around the clock, fulfilling and taping boxes.
People were getting frustrated, of course.
They're like, this can't be my only job.
We have other things to do.
Turn it off.
I'm like, wait, you guys want us to stop selling?
Are you serious?
Which is insane to think about.
But yes, I do believe wholeheartedly in Power Maps.
I can't survive without them.
Yes, because sometimes you're working really, really late, and you always have to get up very, very early.
Being on the West Coast is the absolute worst.
Everyone's up before you.
So I definitely agree with the Power Maps.
And then emotional regulation, leaning on friends and partners.
When we went viral, we have a couple of investors who are content creators or influencers.
They have like over a million followers, so they're used to all the attention.
And so leaning on them for advice, like, how do I manage this all?
And then how do I engage the influencer that helped us get all this attention?
And so I completely agree with everything of leaning on your resources and managing your emotions in the best way possible, making sure you're getting rest and taking care of yourself the best way that you can.
Because if you can't fully show up, you have to be the leader and you have to get the team in order and in action to show up as well, because it's super hard on everybody.
And lots of HappyPop, I'm sure.
Lots of HappyPop.
I would not be alive today if it wasn't for this HappyPop.
Well, thank you so much, Kendra Bennett of Bon Bee Honey and Maya French of HappyPop.
I cannot thank you enough for telling your stories and being so honest and forthcoming with all of the details about cots and futons and everything else.
Thank you so much for joining us.
That concludes another episode of the Community Call podcast.
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