Welcome to the mentor.

I'm Mark Boris, Taylor Bird Now Chapman and Steve.

How are you going, mate?

Good?

Good, good to be here man, co founders of Hiro.

Is that how I say it?

Or Hero?

Yeah?

Hiro?

Yeah?

Hero really yeah, it's like a Nike Nike will let the kind of fans debate sometimes, but it came from hydration Hero kind of combined.

Right, Okay, I was I was on the money, so because I was trying to work at the derivation of the name.

H y r roh.

And you guys are partners in the business, co founders, but at the same time you also husband and wife.

Now yeah, and understand co parents as well.

Parents got kids.

Yeah, it was a race between the business and the baby.

They came at the same time.

Yeah.

Yeah, so baby just yeah, the baby just one.

Yeah, you got to have the baby first image about that, well.

The production date of Hire's first run was the same date as Taylor's due date.

Really yeah.

Yeah, she couldn't come, but it was too far from the hospital to the production.

Yeah.

How did you feel about missing out on their first day of production?

It was a bit sad, but at that stage of pregnancy, I was okay to stay.

Damn it, I better have this kid.

Yeah, I know.

We've got another one on the way now, fifteen months old at home, and then another one due in December.

Well let's talk about Well, I want to talk about lots of things.

Maybe I could go back to I noticed that I'm not sure which one of you was both of you.

I think Steve, you were a founder of another business before.

Yeah, Shine was a healthy new tropic and you drink.

So why don't we just talk about that?

It says Shine plus New Tropic drink.

You managed to get major retails I Presuma talk about the big retails well is in cold.

Yeah, yeah, it took me seven years, but over we did seventy six million sales and we did seven thousand stores at the peak there.

So what are we talking about now?

Which period of time?

And you know I was twenty four started that and yeah seven years was that journey end to end?

And neotropics are kind of natural ingredients that are good for the brain.

So Ginko blow by elthene engines in green tea, b vitamins, et cetera, and effectively wanted to create a healthy red bull.

Yeah yeah, but so did it have some caffeine in it.

Yeah, yeah, I had some natural caffeine from green coffee being extract.

Yeah okay, So why would you do this and what's your background?

So why all of a sudden you feel like, you know, inspired to set up a newtropic drink.

I think I've always loved business since the beginning of as long as I can remember.

My first books were reading about Branson and anything I could do to make an honest dollar as a kid was just what I love spending time on.

It was selling GHD hair straight and is out of the back of my backpacks, you know, after school at the Eastern Suburbs Bondo Junction bus up to when I was eighteen, I launched an app.

I saw Facebook and eBay kind of coming together with like a social commerce and created Facebook marketplaces before Facebook marketplaces end up getting sued and shut down and there was an expensive lesson to learn at twenty and then from that I realized, like, I love entrepreneurship, I love business.

Wanted to learn from people smarter than myself.

So, like the name of the show, as I sought out a bunch of mentors.

One of our mitual friends, Andrew Rello was one of my first mentors.

And then another gentleman, doctor Sam Prince, who's a filantherperse doctor, had its owner of Zamborro Mexican restaurants, and I was his apprentice for two three years, trying to learn as much they could about business and fast track as many learnings as I could.

Helped him scale some of his businesses.

We started a few together and on the back of that, after kind of three years is his kind of right hand.

We were working really really long hours.

We were like, how do we get more from my brains?

Why isn't there something healthier than a red bull on the market to kind of keep you going?

And we both stumbled across New Tropics and we thought, let's let's have a crack.

And when you say you stumbled across it, I guess you'd actually literally stumble across it.

And you didn't walk on.

The path and tripped over to me.

Had you Had you heard of the word Newtropic before?

I think I got curious with the movie Limitless by Bradley Cooper.

I thought that kind of sparked me googling and probably read it.

It was down some Reddit sub forums where they got onto these different new tropics and compounds.

Sam being a doctor, had come across some research that had suggested that certain ingredients can help with cognition and brain function and things.

So we knew from the science perspective plus the biohacking kind of underground world of Reddit, that there were ingredients out there.

And then it was a combination of finding what was legal, what was safe, what was clinically research what you could put in a food in Australia, and then we ended up on the formulation and yeah, we got it to market and that was my really cut in the teeth of you know, darting and launching and scaling a beverage brand and had to figure out how to manufacture and supply, chain and sell and brand and market and build a team.

And yeah, that was an incredible journey for seven years.

So what do you learn and what have you brought into this business and from shine from that product?

What do you learn Like it's I forget about from a moment that's new tropic and the market needs it or you needed it.

And there was probably a lot of people who like you, who would have liked the idea of being able to get something to give me a bit of performance edge, But what do you learn what put that stuff aside?

But what do you learn in terms of executing on a business like It's overy have a great idea, but the execution is most important.

But one you've got a manufacturer, So what did you learn, for example about making this new tropic drink?

I mean, yeah, deciding where to make it for example.

I think I've probably learned the hard way around unit economics and making sure you're making an honest doll at the end of the day.

And in Australia with the market size and labor costs and all the rest of it, with contra manufacturing plus distribution through you know, big sheds and trucks into the coles and woolies of the world who need to make it quite a healthy margin themselves.

It's very, very hard to make a good profit at scale.

So that was probably the hard lesson I learned.

There's so many positive lessons around speed to market, disruptive market, in building a team and culture.

We were rated one of the best fifty places to work in Australia there.

I think what Sam did really well which I've definitely borrowed and learned from is I think he surround himself with really really smart people as well and gets you know, if you might not be the expert in something, you bring on someone who has a depth of experience and the ten thousand hour rule in their field.

And you know, we very much tried to do that with hire from day one, who get the best in the world to build in consumer brands from people who designed it, to the website to the market, into the sales, to the people who run who are run our.

Ads, and also execution, like for example, the product.

The product's got to be good to taste good.

Yeah, I mean it has got to look good, it's good to be clean, it's got to satisfy what Australian audience expects.

Yeah, yeah, very much.

Trying to understand consumers where they are, where they're heading.

You know, the importance of I guess, clean labels, natural ingredients, zero sugars.

And then I think where we were ten years ago is health drinks needed to taste healthy.

And then the consumer expect today is it should taste like a full sugar soft drink, but also be super healthy and clean.

And I think consumers today one at.

All, one a bit of earth and Taylor.

We were around along with Steve in those days.

The end part.

No, we actually met.

We've been together three like we Yeah, not.

A long time with long So what's your background there?

So my background is a bit of a mixed bag.

But I haven't had much experience in business before starting Hiro.

A lot of learnings happened along the way, and from Steve, I've been a primary teacher.

I've worked in social media sales account management for a tech company.

But basically for me, I've always been an active person and then became pregnant and started realizing how dehydration really impacts your health, and then we wanted to create a product.

I guess I was the consumer as well.

But because that's interesting, you should say they're bout dehydration, particularly during pregnant your own physical changes during pregnancy, because you want you want to have something that's safe.

Yeah, and but that actually does It's again it's again about performance, but it's also probably a little less than neutropics.

It's probably less of bad performances than a new tropic is.

It's more like about maintenance and safety but also some performance.

In other words, I want to better do all things I could do before now that I'm pregnant.

A lot of people view hydration has been reactive, but if you're proactive with it, going to prevent a lot of those symptoms from happening in the first place.

Did you experience something like did you feel compelled or was it an idea that Steve and you're just sitting around having a beer, even having a beer, but like talking about stuff like, yeah.

I think Steve had come up with the idea of seeing a gap in the market really like for hydration or a better for you kind of sports drink or hydration drink.

There was a lot on the market that was kind of full of sugar or artificial ingredients, but nothing that was a clean product in Australia unless it was targeted at athletes or a medicinal purpose, like after you've been sick and then you're replacing what you've lost.

But I guess we hydrola we've all had when you got to the campus by hydralighted by tablet and pissics something.

You drink it and no one knows what's in it, but you just drank it because it chema.

So yeah, and I think that was the market.

It was you had gatorad Parade in one end sports drinks full of sugar artificial, no one healthy, I knew you actually drank the stuff even though they were on all the billboards.

And then you had medicinal clinical hydrolight, which was if you really seek or diarrhea and you go to the US and it's like everyone drinking electrolytes most days and it's what brand you take in, not are you going to have them?

And it was a new consumer behavior that just wasn't met at all in Australia.

Did you just did you?

Were you inspired or motivated let's call it.

From what Taylor was, it was definitely back to it.

Yeah, it was.

It was the first thing.

You know, we going to the doctor's appointment and we found out and they're like, cool, make sure you say hydrated and have a let The doctor said that, yeah.

Especially when you're sick in them, if you're if you're vomiting or you're nauseous, it's like be on top of your hydration.

That's like the number one thing that's interesting.

Then that makes sense too, because if you're got morning sickness and your puking everywhere, you're puking up a lot of water or a lot of fluids, and then I guess you've got to have something that tastes all right, because like what if you you're ingesting, you're going to feel like you get up straight away, So especially if it tastes like crap.

Yeah, I've never been a big water drinker.

I've always struggled to get why is that.

I don't know, I think, I think as well, I can't remember being told to make sure I'm drinking water growing up.

Maybe that's just like my family.

So I think I got in the habit drink some water.

Yeah, I know, I don't remember that at all, So I think maybe I just never got in the habit of it.

And then like I'm very active and I was like into all my sports and everything, so there would be times where then I'd feel like water tastes amazing, but on a day to day, I'd really struggle to get it in.

I'd buy the new drink bottle and stick to my three leaders for a few days, and then that would just wear off and I'd had luckily, like i'd be lucky to have a glass.

I think, like besides coffees and.

Exactly, I would just have beers and coffee and call themselves hydrated, and both those things will make you more dehydration.

Yeah, you feel like you're to take a peel all the time.

The reason I take a peel all the time because they're working in that way.

That's what they do.

They make you take a beal all the time.

Dietics, Yeah, yeah, diarretics.

I'd add no sugar cordial to my water as bad as maybe I have a sweet tooth or something.

And to be honest, consume behavior that we're seeing is people drinking way more water now because they're adding some flavor and function to it and they're going I'm looking forward to my experience.

I'm feeling a bit better from it because the water's exorbit in the cells, but at the same time, it just tastes good.

I think when we started looking into it, there's a start that eighty percent of Australians are dehydrated, which is four in five people.

So it wasn't just us.

It's every day people, not just elite athletes or people that are sick, but your office workers, your mum's hilaris goers and that's everyone.

So we wanted to create a product to that kind of spoke to them as much as it spoke to me.

And so do you remember the moment you were sitting there and you just sort of set up this business?

I think we like, after I left my previous business trip to Europe planned we're going to take some time off, and then on my very last day actually of my last company, we found out we're pregnant.

And it was like, all right, cancel Europe.

We're going to start a family here, and if we're going to be here, like, let's build another business.

So, you know, I was doing some consultancy here and there, but I love building brands, and I thought, okay, what can we get to market quite quickly?

You know, we've got a taking time clock now nine months before I need to start supporting the family, and we need to kind of have something to be doing and paying the bills and daycare is not getting any cheaper.

And then it was I really want to build a director consumer market and a director consuber model.

Really want someone that was high margin, repit purchase rate and something that hadn't been done before in Australia successfully but had a proven overseas demand.

So we saw the market there was in the US and no one had done it here, and I thought, so you could kind of make a decent sized bet and kind of you know, tailhead some savings.

I had pretty much my long serve.

They pay out and we put it on the business and got to market pretty quickly.

It's interesting, this is your.

This a packet of Yeah, so we've got and.

Then fifteen sash ages.

Yeah sashes okay, So and this is sort of fairly popular.

And I'll get into the ingredients at the moment, but in the second half of the show.

But this is sort of fairly popular style of delivery of hydration products in the US.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it's very new in Australia with the first yeah yeah, because.

I just find it incredible that people aren't thinking about this sort of stuff.

Well, that was one of the presposes.

It was that product in the US that I was buying important and it's expensive here.

Well you get I think there's an agent here there.

Yeah, actually has it.

A few years ago they pulled out of the show market because they just didn't care about it, right, And also it's got double the sodium, so a gram of salt is a lot of salt for most people who aren't very act and we thought that's four times what you find in a hydralaede or gatorade, and we wanted to be for that everyday consumer and we thought five hundred milligrams was the sweet spot and if you really did need, you know, the extra salt, you could have too.

And that's good for business as well.

So I see Riggers Duplessis has got his one two.

Now there's a lot since we've started.

There's probably one hundred and fifty that popped up.

Now yeah in Australia.

Yeah, both in Australia and globally as more as well.

So did you get ahead of the market.

Yeah, I think there was a couple of Sleepers in Australia that we're doing not much.

We launched quick and aggressive and fast and had a lot of hype.

So what day did you launch?

This?

Fourteenth of April this year?

Last year, ye were in market fourteen to fifteen months.

Yeah, so it just take me through this for a second.

So you get the idea, right, it's a great idea.

Yeah, it was November.

We kind of sleep three.

Yeah, we incorporated, so we've got a I got the idea, we got the name.

It's cool.

You know, we don't.

We can get a little bit weird and crazy about the names.

We've got the name, it's sort of makes sense.

Can you say to yourself the ingredients, the formula, and that's your let's call it your secret sauce.

How do you you're not scientists?

I don't know you're a scientist.

No scientists passionate chat.

To be t okay, but yeah, you're real.

They call citizen scientists for this, at least in your So you say to your to each other, okay, it's great, I'm really excited this sort of thing we do.

You're pregnant, we're going to do something for the family growing up, and we're committed.

We're passionate about it.

A bit of research.

We know there's not that many brands in Australia.

It's a bit of a sleeper, but it's killing it overseas.

So all the tick all the right boxes, and you say, okay, well, what's going to be in our stuff?

How does that conversation go?

Like?

How do you how do you manage that conversation?

What do you do?

I think for us we'd look at it from a few angles.

One would be what does the science say, and a lot of take out the US players for a moment, but a lot of traditional Australian players were formulated twenty years ago, twenty five years ago.

And we know so much more about food science, performance, nutrition, exercise, psychology and performance.

So there's a lot more science now what we actually sweat out in exercise, What is the components and the ratios of the electrolytes within the sweat.

So we know a lot more now about what was on the market in Australia traditionally.

And you look at the US as a kind of guide and you kind of go, what's in the leading products there?

And did you buy them?

Did you bring up?

Do you go on line?

And so let's get the ten top ones in the US.

We've got them, try and taste them.

Yeah, look at the ingredients and on the back and just see what the general run of the mill is.

Well, we've got you know, Google sheet with thirty or forty competitors in there with all their ratios all of that, and quickly you kind of see, okay, there's some consensus around the right type of so magnetes and potassium.

That's that's a general formula.

Those three I know you've got other stuff in yours.

Really they're the key three and there's vitamin seeing there.

You've got seeing there.

Yeah, and I'll come back to that.

But see, you've got your spreadsheet, and you've got you know, the top players of you all chosen.

You see what the levels of levels of ingredients are, and you see with the extra ingredients in any one of them, and I guess you then somehow work out the common denominator.

You sort of say, well, there's equal amounts of sonia, potassium and whatsm, there's equal amounts of this thirty thirty three percent of each and that's let's say that's the common denominator between you know, ten of them out of the twenty of them.

Do you just can't say?

Well, okay, apart from taste taste profile, why don't we do that?

Or do you go along to a scientist a food time.

Yeah, we worked with food scientists, we worked with flavor technologies, and then we all worked with the performance dietitian.

So okay, let's talk about well, let's talk about a performance diititian.

So how do you find a personally?

This, I mean, how do you select that person?

Yeah?

Well, thankfully.

We started the fundraising journey by this point and to raise.

Money yeah yep, yeah, pre launch on the idea.

Yeah yeah, and my background, I guess yep.

And we're talking to Matt to Borr from Athletic Ventures, I do you know.

We wanted very much to get athletes and talent and invested into the company, not just pay the money to post about it.

So one of the biggest things for having athletes on board was one making sure it stacks up from a scientific perspective.

So Matt de Borr, who was a GWS player in the AFL and he's on the board of the AFL or on the board of GWS, he recommended Jess ben Love, who was a performance dititian and connected us and said, hey, I think if you're going to get athletes on board, you need this thing to stack up from the science perspective as well.

And we worked with her and we got Home on board and she invested in the company as well.

She works with Olympians, she works with top CEOs and executives and AFL players and women's sports as well.

So she did a full review lit review of the science and our formulation and the ideas that we had at the time, and we kind of finalized the formula.

And did she give you a report for example, and you guys sort of sit and read the report and sort that makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was multiple discussions back and forth.

She said, this is all the science, this is the option you could go with.

This is where you can and should include, and you can include a challenger.

Yeah, like sometimes it was hydration is a very interesting topic where you can't hand on heart said, this is the perfect hydration formula for everyone.

Yeah, because everyone's different.

Correct, I might sweat were not training, but I'm might swet just sitting here.

Yeah, you might sweat double the average person.

You might sweat half.

And then within the sweat how much sodim is in your sweat and you can be a salty sweater or would be a low salty sweater with high sweat volume.

Like, there's there's so much complexity in personalization to this where any brand that says is the best, it doesn't make sense for every single person.

So we wanted to pick a sweet.

Spot, a common denomena, a common.

Denomena that would make sense for again, the eighty percent of the population.

If you needed to have more.

You could have more, but what was the And with a consumer in mind, it's not who's just the elite athlete, but also who's the mum, who's the trade on the construction site.

We wanted to kind of tap into the mainstream consumer and the current solutions on Australians weren't hit in the mark.

We needed more salt, not less, and that was something that we found no Australian products really had, except for there was one Australian product that just copycattered the formula of a US product which was doing quite successfully.

Yeah.

So it's interesting because when I was a kid, my dad worked in a factory and during the school holidays he would get me a job there.

And from the age of like fifteen, whenever it is, you can start working.

And it was pretty bloody hot, anding like that.

And what they used to do is just to hand out salt tablets to all the stuff.

And I used to have a big actually just a little tablet, a little not a capsule, but tab and they used to drink the water make it feel like puking because I don't know what it was.

The salt was really strong for me anyway, but it was like it was like it was a it was a metal metal workers factory, so it was trade a trade union factory.

It was actually mandated by the unions.

Still is today and some in ground construction site you have to give it to them because the leedge lights on hot days when the temperature gets on a certain point.

Well, our factory was always boiling out like it was.

It was just terrible because it was all everything was heated everywhere, Like I couldn't believe the first one walked in and rearly died.

But but and that was that was just sodium chlorid.

It's just salt.

Didn't have magnesium or anything potassium, anything else like in it.

But at least it was a recognized thing.

That was my first that's my first experience.

I mean obviously had the experience when you know, you had diarrhea, your mummy sort of dragged down down to the chemistry you'd be getting the hydrolight.

But my first experience in it was in sense of just replacing what you sweating.

Was actually this is fifty years or sixty sixty years ago, but nearly sixty fift early on.

Yeah, and well it wasn't going electrot but it was sort of recognition that we sweat and that we need something because the outcome.

Because I tried not doing it a couple of times and I actually got quite faint.

And you know, because I was a kid, and those days, it wouldn't have been drinking water, like there was no bottle.

We couldn't buy a bottle of water.

You just didn't buy a bottle of water.

There's no such thing.

And if you drank water, you had to get under the toilets and bore the bubbler and drink out of the bubbler.

And you don't know how much you're drinking because it's not measured.

You're just taking a few SIPs of the bubbler and gat back in your sweat.

And I remember a few times I was getting before I started taking the tablet.

I got I got faint, and I told my dad, and my dad said, well, you got to take the sole tablet and drink drink a bottle of water.

Which is funny this We know this shit, but we haven't been doing anything about it.

But what you guys are doing is you've done your research on probably far greater than just sodium chloride.

You have gone right down the tree of all the various electrolytes that the core three.

Yeah, yeah, of course sodium is the main one that you lose, so that would make sense.

Just give you the and then generally use half of that you lose in potassium, and then half of that again in magnesium roughly.

So it's like fifty five type of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we've got five hundred to fifty hundred.

And.

Maybe we could just talk a little bit.

I don't know if you want to talk about it, but the importance of sodium, magnism and potassium, particularly sodium for our brain because our brains works on electricity, and you need that NA plus which is a sodium mine because it loses an electron, but you need that in your system, in your bloodstream feeding your brain, so your brain can have electrical it can work electly.

Yeah, you think about a pipe in if the pipes are dry, you're not going to get water through it.

And now because it needs it, it needs a there's sody mine.

If it's not there, and if you don't have your system, you you won't think properly.

You actually you won't collapse physically, but your brain won't send messages to places that are supposed to be sending message to so you won't be welkwarden and you can actually get to a wabbly, which is the reason why.

We've got golfers on the totally fall apart often just dehydration.

And and and then if then if you sort of peel it back wheel back a little bit, then you think there's particularly young people these days, I guess, Andy, maybe even old people I guess too, But definitely in my era, on Friday night, every Friday night, you would what me and my mates did, because you know, we come off the back of Vietnam War, and a lot of my mates we went to war in Vietnam.

Now I missed it by a year.

I voted.

I voted in favor of golf with them.

He got drafted and my mates were a year or two above me.

And but on Friday night, the mentality was go to the gym.

Afterward, we go gym, we smash ourselves.

Then would drink any water.

Then you go to the pub and you drink twenty beers or at least ten, and then then on Saturday morning, Saturday, we used to do it, especially in the summer, we put a backpack on fil for the sandgaf a run from those days, bond I do to the harbor Bridge.

Early on rock In as well, but no water.

Yeah, so dehydrated from being on the booze all night and then none of these sort of containers.

It just wasn't even heard of.

And you wonder why you felt like shit for about three days and I think it was the hangover, but it was actually I look at it back now and it was the dehydration.

Total dehydration.

Like you think you had a good sleep, you did really good sleep, Well you just passed out.

Yeah.

We track like a recovery on Whoop and it's like clear as day when you're probably hydrated, your recovery scores are through the roof.

Well, it's interesting abot Whoop too.

So Whoop will say to you, I don't know if you guys journal, but Wop will ask you to journal about your hydration and if you and I'll try this, but if you journal two glasses of water, it doesn't matter what you have.

Just journal it just for the fun of it, and then your journal the next day, assuming all other things remain the same.

Journal aid class of water.

It gives you much better recovery score and if you have had a and if you've had a because WOP can't track your recovery, can just calculate it, Yeah, based on the inputs you give it, heart rate, all that other staff exercise that is tracked, but also requires you to put stuff in there, tell what's going on.

And it's if you if you have a shitty recovery one of the things, and if your HIV is a really good for example, who's always going to say hydration?

Yeah that can Plus I think I'm a big fan, like what gets measured gets managed, and you end up with these trackers right now with sleep and recovery and heart variability and steps.

Steps was probably the first one we start tracking, and everyone saw the impact of oh if I take ten thousand steps, all these positives come out.

Hydrations is glaringly obvious, too simple that it sounds stupid sometimes answer that everyone else is missing.

And I was the same.

I'm, you know, an avid biohacker with ice bars and breath work and new tropics and all the things, and you know, I wasn't hydrated properly, and it was it was almost dumb to admit out loud, but as soon as I started actually putting some soul in electrolytes in my water, I felt so much better everywhere else.

It's such a downstream effect and for me health the fundamental is a slip nutrition and diet, so in an exercise, but like nutrition includes hydration.

Like I think it almost needs that now we think everyone all everybody ever talks about is protein and other things, which is true creating and all less needs reportant.

But you need hdwo I.

Yeah, yeah, and not just hate show beheahow with electrolytes.

They're going to help you exorb behhd in the water.

And it's such a fun example to use where if you go to the hospital and tapping you up with the IV drip because you're dehydrated, they're not putting in they're putting in saline water, which is literally just salt and water.

And that's because that's how the body actually needs to absorbit, and if you're going to put it straight in, it needs to be in the format your body uses.

Yeah, they'ren't put in tap water in this, thank god.

So you're so your your formulation is maybe you just take me through the formulation.

You guys' what do you got in here.

I tell five hundred milligrams of sodium, two fifty potassium, one hundred magnesium, and then forty five milligrams of vitamin C, which is your daily dose of vitamin.

C as your recommended IDA call it.

Yeah, wag your bottoms in it.

One.

It helps with flavor and it's a it's a good food product to have in most things.

And then when you're for example, it was a fun fact, but like if you're on long fast in journeys as well and for its minut fasting and kido and things like that, the one thing that limits your ability to continue fasting often is vitamin C.

And if get quite sick.

That West Kurby comes from from long sea travels is they don't get enough fightam and sea.

So we have a fasting community people who enjoy longer fust.

Were being hydro Yeah your community, yeah.

Yeah, so we highros.

We wanted to service that community as well, so we don't really call it out much.

It's it's has some benefits to hydration, it has some benefits to general energy levels and and kind of wellness.

But the core three of the magnesium electrolytes sodium and potassium.

Right, So, and then then the next step is, so you know you've got your corn ingredients, you've done your research, you've included someone into the business, you've made a decision what your proportions are going to be.

But what it looks like you're thrown into vitem is seen because there is some some requirement relative to your own community, and they like it.

It's not it's not like going to break the bank, but it's it's nice to have and it's equal to the recommended allowance of these things.

Are DA forty five grams milligrams or grams milligrams of wos Yeah, right, it's an infidity milligrams of botom See.

Then you've got the flavor profile and maybe color profile too.

So what's the process of deciding what So this flavor here is lemon and lime, I don't know if that's one.

Of those them.

So how do you choose your flavor profiles?

Also, how do you choose which favor flavor profiles you should you should have in your kit bag?

I think it's again to market research and consumer kind of understanding of.

But do you go to the do you go to consumers or do.

You wouldn't say this early.

I would say you can kind of look at research of top selling flavors of sports drinks, top selling flavors of soft drinks, top seven flavors of gum, of vapes, of whatever consumers that you're kind of going after, and then you can get a sense of what are the core staples that particularly.

I think for a new brand, you're trying to convince a customer of a few things on are you trustworthy?

Is it going to taste good?

Is it going to be what it says it's going to be?

Is it going to work?

Like?

You've got a bit of a barrier of entry to get up to speed if no one's ever tried you before and there's no reviews, there's no testimonials yet.

So I think if you try and innovate in every part with everything's new consumers, the barrier of entry goes up even further.

So if you stick to some common flavors that people are familiar with, that they know they can get around, at least they're not questioning the flavor.

You're not going to say, my first five is liquish chocolate.

Yeah.

I think no one's ever show what the fuck?

Yeah?

If you earn the trusts over time and you bring out a special addition and you start innovating a bit more risky on flavors.

I think that's cool.

That's a really interesting thing.

You said a trust, because I've always taken the view trust is based on familiarity.

Yeah, it's not.

It's not something in the initial stages at least, it's what am I familiar with.

Yeah, I'm familiar with my family.

I trust my family, even though some of them might be annoying or whatever.

I trust them because I know what they're likely to do because I'm familiar with them.

So I'm familiar with orange, lemon, lime, yeah, tropical, whatever.

No one's getting freaked out by those flavors.

So that's important.

So in terms of building part of the trust around your brand, you bring into the game in your formulation things that are already trusted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's like I like to think N plus one, like what's the familiarities of the category that you want to build on and where do you want to innovate?

And for us, the formulation was an innovation in Australia and then the format, which was the stick pack.

They were two new things the rest.

We wanted to make sure it was familiar enough around flavors and in Australia, like the number one people number one reason why people repeat purchase a food or beverage is flavor.

It needs to taste good.

You get the first purchase on a clean label and a cool brand, but repeit purchase comes down to flavor and then a little bit further down the track is performance.

Flavor profiles are incredibly important.

So you've got your formulation, you've got your me if they have profiles, did you start off.

With three to start?

We had five on the list and then we picked the top three to launch.

Okay, so you've got your three, which have sort of got four.

Now, yeah, I wouldn't say it a bad would be borrowed from you know, market research, which is which is then you've gone.

Then you've gone branding.

Okay, branding being you know, color palettes and all sort of stuff.

And and also you know font logo thing on there that's lemon lime.

That must be your logo is tropical.

That's tropical.

So you don't have a logo one logo for High Ray other.

Than the names, the name, and then we've got the icon is h that kind of becomes right, it's on the back there.

We can use that sometimes.

But yeah, okay, so, so to fall out a word, which is great for a logo, being the name.

It's easy to so, but what what made you decide to they're all red and white or whatever color that is.

That's your own color, but let's call it read for the sake of so red and white.

What what made you decide to do red and white?

I think we wanted to enter the market with something that was different to what was already on the shelves and that would stand out if someone saw it.

We actually engaged shell If you said, well, we were starting to look at shells like if.

It was on lunch shelves or physical shells.

Just a product that would stand out amongst other products that were already there.

But you're not currently against other products that are physically.

We're in a couple of stores because we're more like if you put all the brands on a page in a position in map, you like its hydrations ware like blue so obvious, white and blacks are so obvious to keep it clean, and so it's like, what's going to stand out amongst this?

Do you think a consumer is doing that, I think.

Psychologically, And in the beginning it wasn't.

We didn't have the thought, no, we don't want to be on shells like that was always an option, and we had thought if we were on the shelf, we wanted something to stand out or something to double look at our product and pick it up kind of right, And then we engaged Peter Brennan.

He's a co founder of Heap's Normal.

Do you know He's Normal non alcoholic beer.

They kind of may be through their brand, and we had a conversation with him and the next thing we knew we're doing a brand strategy in our living room with him and kind of just diving into the consumer and what we wanted out of the brand.

Ultimately, we wanted to create something that was bold and fun and relatable for the everyday consumerment.

Ye okay, I like those three words, So tell me take me through the bold, fun, relatable relative to this for example that the packaging and the font etcetera.

Well, we think like the bold, like the red and the white, it stands out.

It's kind of making a statement.

The fonts in our why that's kind of representing the funness of the brand, and then that all comes through in our content and our tone of voice and how we show up in the community as well.

And again for the related.

Run that, yeah, we felt everyone was kind of boring in the space.

It was clinical, it was scientific.

It was like, I'm going to educate on the benefits of elect lights, but I'm entertained.

Is it?

So?

Therefore, is your marketplace say different to parents, your parents, but like different older parents you go and buying it because they're buying hydro life for their kids because the kids are sick.

Are you?

Are you suggesting that, for example, your your cohorter, people who your community are younger because they're looking for fun.

I would say both.

I'd say, we've got my dad drinks that loves it on the golf course.

All these mates absolutely love it.

Yeah, he's not a good case study.

Yeah my dad your dad.

Yeah, yeah, her mum loves it as well.

Trying to think, but no, I.

Mean, but is your marketplace younger?

I'm trying to work out.

I'd say we've literally got the stretch of the fifty five year old plus who knows the points of hydration electrolytes who wanted a brand that one had the right electrolyte ratios, but to that was something that stood and felt premium and all the rest of it.

So the trust piece, the trust piece.

Yeah, and I think and yeah, we've definitely got a bunch of younger audience as well, And it.

Was more of how we came across in our content.

And one of our first campaign pieces was like a dehydrated Anonymous And so I think that did speak to the older demographic as well, because who were characters.

Yeah, we had like an old mum who just thought what it was enough.

We had this crazy dehydrated sports player.

We had a party girl who's drinking you know, water between her tequila shots and digging wives and she like dedraded with all the obvious reasons why people are dedraded and they will come together.

People could relate to Dehydrated Anonymous as like.

In terms of campaigns.

Yeah, as a marketing video we launched it.

It was quite fun.

So and how did you find this?

Because that's good only okay if I just because at some stage you're gonna launch, you got to say, oh shit, we gould have holy stock, We've gotta buy this stuff, and these packaging in advance we've gotta get it faced up here.

And yeah, the website, brand stuff cost on how you how'd you fund it?

So initially was just yeah, like U S Evans and somewhere annual leave payout for my last company, right brand going to get the brand going, to get the website going, and then we end up raising pout a million.

Bucks and what do you call what do you got?

Preceed?

Yeah, pre revenue preceed locally or overseas, both both.

We end up with of that million, let's call it.

We really wanted to get key ambassadors on board, so we end up getting you know, show this top YouTuber on board from Sarah's Day which wellness Mum.

Yeah, more tapped into the wellness mum polarates health and fitness female.

Do they put money, You've got them on board?

No, So yeah, everyone putting in.

We didn't want to influence a model that was transactional.

We wanted them to have skin in the game because we think consumers these days just see past someone pushing a product, and I even myself know that from I have a little following and then just from myself working with brands, people are going to trust an ambassador or an influence more.

If they've actually put their own money into it shows that they really believe in the product, and that also shows they show up for the brand more as well.

So with Sarah, she invested money and then she can she unlocks options through getting involved as well, and she's been part of future product development, creating her new flavor.

We're about to launch.

The campaign strategy is behind something we just filmed with her.

So they're just more involved in the brand.

And when you raise a million dollars, says, that's obviously to get the business kicked off.

And you know, I didn't mind sharing.

You may not want to share them out, but like, how hard is it is it for you to work out how much you want to give away a minook away bitch of transacting you.

I think, like rule of thumb, you kind of want to be keeping in between ten and twenty percent of each round, so you kind of have enough for future rounds and enough skin in the game at that early stage as well.

So yeah, I think it was probably ten to fifteen percent dilution first round.

We're about to close another round, which is probably other ten to fifteen percent dilution at a much higher valuation.

Evaluation, and it's been in terms and because a lot of people love to know this because in terms of the valuation, you've just got an idea at this stage, I mean at that stage, I should say hard to value because you're not getting either DAR or even turnover.

Probably no, it's pre prepate revenue much So what does.

A conversation you go Like when you're talking to your investor, you say, well, you know, I'm going to offer you ten percent for a million bucks, which means the business sort of enterprise value of what you're is this sortly ten million dollars sort of round at top of think, well, nine million dollars free money?

How do you what does it the investment?

How do you adjustify their valuation?

Look?

And you've got you've got the type of profile of investor knows the early stage risk of it goes to a hundred times or goes to zero, and then it's a conversation around, okay, what does first year revenue look like realistically?

And then can you work off afford multiple of that?

So in fast growth FMCGs, it's like CpG brands, you're probably working up for three to five times revenue multiple.

So you know, first year revenue times out by three is not a bad place to start.

So let's say you're looking at a ten million bow day one and it was closer to five for first round.

Okay, five millions, so it's just five minute dollar valuation.

Se you're looking at five times, that's five times, it's one hundred's a million bucks?

Yeah?

Yeah, a goal was a million bucks first.

Yeah, so you can sort of say revenue, revenue, Yeah, revenue, okay, so no profit.

So you're going to be able to say then they say to you, well, how do you know those two that you'll make a million dollars?

How can you convince me that you'll make a million dollars worth a revenue in the first fwour months?

So how do you go through?

Yeah?

I think you'll go to that process.

Do you track record would would help?

Like I built a multimillion dollar brand before.

That's done that with less resource, like less experience of the twenty four when I started the first one.

So I think me having the confidence in what I was doing, have done it.

Before, the best way to bake the person and get it.

Yeah.

And then secondly is you look at market size.

You can you can break these things down with some basic if you can, particularly on e commerce, which I love, you can see how much roughly industry averages is for cost of a caier customer, your average gross profit margins, your average like repit purchase rate, and then your lifetime value over time.

So you can model this stuff out with some certainty.

But look, plans always wrong.

Yeah, I know, and no one can prove this right wrong at the time.

Yeah, well, I think it's a do we come on the journey with us, and then you can start adding though the levels of credibility you've going.

Oh, you've got the number one YouTuber on board, You've got Quaite Cooper, you've got Daily Chair Evans, you've got some top Olympians, you've got performance Titian, You've got we've got some epic entrepreneurs who've sold their companies for one hundred to million dollars to Coca Cola before on board.

We've got some US connections, We've got big content creators in the US ready to help in that market.

So I think if you start stacking prior experience market demand other people on board, the branded website that would already built with O and savings, it's becoming a lot more believable to go.

This thing's either going to go to one hundred million plus, therefore me getting it at a forour meal valuation is a good deal.

Or if it goes to zero, you'll probably the investor that is okay to go to zero.

And I think anyone invests in pre launching a business should be okay to lose the money as a as an investor.

Yeah, because they're doing sort of you know, it's like a one and ten, like they're saying, well, on this in ten, one one's going to kill Yeah, you know that's the model.

They take a portfolio approach.

Yeah, at that stage, so I think it's like, is this a good jockey and a good horse and a good category back?

Yeah?

And I think we gave them enough compelling reasons.

And then how do you find these individuals?

I had a good network previously, and then it's it's a Domino's game of going look who was the best perp?

Like me and Taylor sat down with some of other investors who'd come on board as well, and said, who's the dream that we'd want on board?

We wanted top athletes from rugby.

We've just signed a top AFL play on board as well, Rugby Union, Rugby League, YouTube, mum Polarties, and we then had names on the board and yeah, we knocked on doors and I probably pitched people.

So and I think listeners need to hear that.

So you know, you might have gone one hundred and fifty people to get ten.

Yeah, we end up with we have thirty eight on the first round, but I would have been I would have had one hundred and fifty conversations.

Yeah, and to some of those people, numerous conversations.

Yeah, most you know, like it's very hard to get fifty grande hundred grand off someone over one conversation, Yeah, off a business that doesn't exist yet.

How long was something like that take you, like you were talking about, It.

Was that we started in November and then we launched on April, and we pretty much shut the door in April May, so just after you launched, because I wanted to really everyone to be pre launched because that was the risk profile of that investment round.

And then once we'd launched, we went off to the races pretty quickly, so I would again, Yeah, we had people knock on the door all the time, and I said, look, I'll let you know on the next one.

And then yeah, within probably six to eight months we started raising.

And which is the second round?

How much a million bucks?

Again?

Just million dollars again, so like and this is like working capital or this is or is it more investment capital?

Like and what I mean by that is capital items, capital items you're.

Going to no infantry and then us infantry.

And then we know right now, for example, our lifetime value of our customer based on the first year of data, we know cost to acquire a customer.

We know that's a very good ratio.

So the more we can acquire right now, even if it is a break even or slight profits, is market share.

Yeah, and then it's it's where very well positioned to own this market, grow this market, and then dominate overseas as well.

So and in terms of where businesses lead this go after this, I mean you've already had one and sold it.

What's your plan?

Like, I mean path of world domination?

What's your plan?

What do you think when they can talk about like most loved hidration brand and.

Where we want?

Yeah, Well that's our that's our main mission, create the most love Ti hydration brand.

So not just a product, but a brand that everyone loves.

That's an interesting characterization of a mission, like loved as opposed to trust it.

Or we will make people entertain when people laugh.

We want the Warman fuzzies.

And I think sometimes brands can forget that the hero is the customer and we really want to support our customer more than anything and show up in their life to help them achieve their goals.

And for us, we start with let's say love, because then that shows up in customer service, and it shows up in product quality, and it shows up in how we show up in content and on social media like very much.

So you need to educate or entertain.

They're really the two options, or in rage if you want to go down that rage virality, but that's not for us.

So yeah, I think we have a lot more fun with it.

We have a lot more playfulness.

It comes through in our content, our storytelling where it's not just oh you should drink collect lights, Like how many times can you tell someone that versus all the fun ways you can show that and show up in people's.

Lives and how important have your I know, the equity influencers, they're not influencers, just not just influencer, but their equity influencers, how important are they for you?

Massive?

Is it content?

Content?

Yet Sarah posts organically all the time, and she has already with all these influences.

They already have their communities, They have their communities that trust them.

So getting them on board then gives us access to communities that then start to trust us as well.

And she sells to her community like we do see a difference when she posts and talks about the product, the sales do stuff And.

Is she valuable to you?

I don't mean it's a horrible way, but are valuable to you or dally chair evans?

Are they valuable to you because that gives you content for your for your social media?

Yeah?

I think I think both is Some are better offline.

You know, some might just open doors to Hey, go talk to this club, or go talk to this investor coming on the next round, or go talk to this strategic person in the US who help you there.

So we've got some that are purely strategic who might not have the world's beakause following, but either very credible or can open a lot of doors for us as well.

They allow us to also create content with them, But they also, like Reuben comes down to run clubs in the community and kind of just creates a nice atmosphere there as well.

Or then Daily and Quaid came and got involved in Sarah's shoot for her campaign, which makes it even better having all three of them involved in it.

So how often do you guys put stuff up?

Every day?

We content creation person is currently.

Away, she's in Europe at the most.

Generally three to five times a week a week.

That's that's not as often as I expect.

I think.

Yeah, we try to put a lot of thought into the content that we're putting out.

We don't just want to post for the sake of it.

We're trying to create something that's engaging and then hopefully go viral and that the community loves.

Yeah, as well, So it's coming through through Instagram, I guess I presume and your and everything's done online, like it's online sales.

Yeah, we've got a couple wholesales.

Yeah.

We started to build out a few boutique kind of wholesalers with gyms or recovery centers, just because we had so many people reaching out wanting to stop us, and also a lot of our local community saying, can I where can I just pick this up?

I don't want to pay for shipping or things like that, so we have a.

Few physically pick it up.

Yeah.

Really, people just want it deliveredly.

Most people do, but some people might need it right then and there.

I think it was the beverage.

Sometimes there is an impulse purchase, like I'm hungover right now, give it to me.

We've also got out although as well, which does give free shipping.

If you just keep rolling it out everything, it's amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I'm intrigued as to I mean, there's a minting question.

I could ask you, like I can all this technical stuff like expiry dates and blah blah, but I'm not going to get into that territory.

But I just want to.

I mean, you're obviously doing another round now, but have you do you get people sort of say, well, okay, Steve Taylor, the numbers that you presented in the first round based on of revenue, have you made those numbers?

And head of budget?

We do sharehold updates.

Yeah, yeah, so you manage your stakeholders.

Yeah, we're trying to do every second month.

We do share a shareholder memo, right and then I'll do phone calls or like, we've got some very smart guns in there, which I'll then if I've got a point a question on retail or paid ads or international or product development, then I go to them and they're all kind of there.

If I say, hy z, anyone know anyone who's in this world?

Or hire and talent and so generally at the end of my shareholder updates, will have kind of shareholder.

Asks where and how many people are willing for now.

We've got five equivalent full timers.

And include that.

Then probably got a bevy of consultants or contractors.

Yeah, a lot of agencies that work on email or ads or website.

And do you mix this stuff here?

Do you guys mix it?

Yeah, it's made in Australia, Mix in Australia.

Yeah, both so all sodium, potassium magnesium is companies.

Yes, I sold him.

You know it's Australian.

Australia's older salt farmers.

That's where we're going to him front.

That's cool.

Yeah, you know glass you know the Hrris farm with the blue and the like, it's with the little spoon.

Yeah, it's the same same company.

It's the oldest salt farmers and.

The potassium potassium.

They're big kind of farmers who called grade food food grade companies.

It's Australian arm of it.

I'm sure it might come from overseas.

Did you mix it up here?

Yeah, it's packaged packaged here.

Yeah, and then are you shipping it yourselves or is it ship three?

Yeah?

Okay, very interesting and yeah, we.

Didn't want to spend time packing orders.

And the plan was to grow fast and with the babies yeeah.

Yeah, well it's I'm going to watch this one and I'll try this this as well, but I'm going to watch this one.

I mean I do hydrate, yeah, I would love to get.

I don't say rehydrate because I try to.

I don't want to have to be rehydrated and what rather hydrate?

And water is like water, and I don't like the taste of water like you.

I don't really, I don't like the taste, but I don't.

Thought I was on my own book.

It doesn't taste like anything to me.

Yeah.

Yeah, I can taste chlorine water.

Yeah, for example, that's the pervading smell or whatever is I can smell in water, and I don't like it.

At all some places the chlorine smells.

Are you pretty good being on top of your hydration?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I forced myself to drink and I drink water, but then I'll hydrate.

I hydrate every morning for a think smart with.

Select See I'll add a sachet to more water, or like before I had the bottle and then I filled it up with more water water just because it helps me get through more water intake having that little bit of flavor.

How many so I can see that's six hundred meals.

So this is like seven fifty the top right.

Some people put You can put a sashe in the leader as well.

But how many those would you guys consume a day?

Probably need to, it's my base.

I'd have one first thing on morning because most people are waking up dehydrated.

They haven't touch liquids for six, seven, eight hours.

Generally you probably don't have too much liquid up before you go to bed, so you know, get in salt in your bloodstream and then water through your fluids is just the perfect way to wake up, particularly before you cafeinate.

And then generally I'm working out most days or doing a so on so around pre during our post a sweaty session, I have another one.

And if you're not, if you're not sweating this srning not having a right you need that, you need to your sweat.

But it's it's it's for for me.

Like first thing in the morning, I'm saying, I drink nearly a lead of water.

Nice, but I have to put something in because I can't.

I feel like I'm going to gag if it's just normal water.

Yeah.

Yeah, So but now because it's funny, because I've been approached for I was approached for somebody else from other season.

I turned it down, but for a whole lot of reasons.

But what the point I was trying to make is they've emarked Australia as an opportunity, so you guys have already got the early run on them.

Yeah, but look, we love competition.

It's more people telling consumers the important hydration and it's rising tide lifts or boats.

And if your best, you get market share forever.

So it's just like being the best you can be for your customers, you ultimately get them, Like our subscription churn rate is famously low.

Like once we get them, we know they stick around because they love the flavor and the function, and then it's going, Okay, how do we get more consumers?

More people need to be educated on the importance of it.

Great, more people telling people electrolytes the better.

People in Australia aren't as educated on it here as they are.

In the US.

Yeah, and we probably should be because we're I was going to say, a lot of a lot of trade.

Is a lot of construction workers.

The size a lot too, Yeah, more so than most other countries.

Better.

Yeah, it's a romantic exercise.

Great market for us.

And so whilst we're going to expand to the US and other parts of the world, like we've got a family here.

We love Australia.

It's the best country in the world.

So I would love to be the number one here and all globally as well.

Well.

Steve and Taylor Will congratulations on your nuptials, and congratulations and good luck with your next baby, and and importantly good luck for Hiro.

I'm gonna watch it and I'm gonna taste.

I'm gonna taste these and but guys, thanks very much, thanks for coming in and talk to me, and good luck to you with Hiro, and love the name, love the packaging, and old t about the taste.

Thank you, I appreciate it.

Stay hydrated.

The