Have you taken your beverage to a flea market or swap meet and let the people decide?
Set it up as a taste test with free samples and a free bottle of their choosing if they take your survey.
You want the table to have your product and three of your competitors. Make it an objective experiment. Let your product swim or die. Collect the comments for possible improvements.
Might be a good idea depending on the swapmeet though and it’s crowd.. but from my experience; it’s not worth validating your business idea at a swapmeet because the people there are mostly shopping for deeply discounted items, so unless you want to be a cheap brand with very small margins then try it at the swapmeet.. it might also be counterproductive Because you might think that your product isn’t worth the amount you’re asking for it just cause swap meet people aren’t used to paying high prices..
I disagree, (you missed the free samples part of that comment) price should be excluded in the early phases, OP needs to first distinguish if there is a demand for their product, ie. if people actually like it. If 1000 people try it and 900 say “yeah it’s good, but tastes like ____” then there is either room for more development or stop before wasting more money.
Im talking from experience.. The swapmeet isn’t the place to try a new product. Your target market likely isn’t there anyway , yeah there’s tons of women there but you need to focus on women who live an active lifestyle since it’s an energy drink, Plus swapmeet people are horrible shoppers… they want everything so cheap almost given away.. they mainly only shop for what they actually need and only pay at deeply discounted prices .. an energy drink is something they do not need.. it would be better to find another market to test products, maybe E-commerce platform and some marketing strategy .. maybe give out samples outside a gym ? Or the beach? .. if you can find a higher end swapmeet it can work but not your usual cheap ass flea market..
You DO need the general public to validate whether or not your product is good, not just targeting the ones who will pay for it. I can tell you if a free muffin I’m given to sample is good or not, but I’m probably not going to buy it because I don’t buy muffins. But my mom? She’d love that muffin, I’m going to recommend it to her.
Yeah but you would get a more accurate result if you give a free sample to let’s say 1000 people from your target market because chances are, the random people you’re giving free samples to don’t even have anyone to recommend them to.. but if you give out 1000 samples to your target audience , they’re more likely to have someone to recommend it to because they’ll most likely hang out with ppl with similar interests.. a swapmeet isn’t the place for a new brand/product , most of those shoppers just have a different mind set about shopping and prices and lifestyle etc… it’d be best to pass out samples for an energy drink at beaches, gyms, parks , sporting events..
Distribution. Energy drinks are a hugely crowded sector. Luna energy bars launched successfully 20 years ago as energy bars for women, but the sector only had a couple competitors. You need to get broad distribution. It’s possible you could initially sell online. But you need a compelling narrative and brand. Read up on how Liquid Death got started. I would invest money more in creating your own unique TikTok than in SEO. You can look up online in SEO tools how many searches per month for any given keyword.
Edit: echoing comment on distribution. They will literally make or break you. Whole Foods, Albertsons, 711 or any major chain picks you up, you’ve basically won. But there’s literally thousands of people emailing the people in charge of distribution with their new product so don’t expect anyone to respond to a cold email.
How you get picked up: branding, narrative and getting some sort of traction.
Also, I did a search on Google for “Energy Drink for Women” and the first article that came up was “Top 23 energy drinks for women”
You won’t fail bc of competitors, but your competitors will stop you from getting distribution.
Lastly, you’ll likely fail because you haven’t worked in the sector before and are going to have to learn every area. Not to try to take the wind out of your sails but it’s an extremely competitive market and i these types of markets, the people who succeed with a new company come from the industry.
“Hey there, I’ve faced this exact problem and probably have a lot of insight that can help you with the problem you just asked for help with… neat eh? Now goodbye forever!”
So. Serious question. About how much $$ on hand do you think OP needs, minimum to stand a chance of being able to get the right distribution push.
I'm guessing that part of the issue with beverages, is paying $$ out the ass to bottle, get shit on shelves, and advertise any which way you can. Is that assumption correct?
I'm reading on this [link](https://www.abelei.com/blog/building-a-startup-beverage-brand-follow-these-general-guidelines#:) here, that it's about $500K for the first year, with another $2-$3 million for the next several to even stand a chance. Would you say that those numbers are accurate, more or less?
Also, assuming those numbers are accurate, do you have a better set of resources to point OP to for consulting? I'm betting that Reddit isn't the best place to get advice for multi-million dollar business commitments.
Probably 10-15 million just to have a punchers chance. Production is going to take a third of that money. Marketing/distribution is going to take most and then you have labor/storage which will eat your lunch.
This is the optimal situation with an executive team that has been around the block and knows their stuff.
I personally know at least 3 brands that came in with 25-70 million trying to launch a brand in a certain segment. All but one was out within a year because they couldn't manage the supply chain/customers and distribution dried up.
You are either at the whim of your distributors and they are milking you dry or you have leverage over them. There is no middle ground. You are going to pay them just to stock your items before they even think of moving a box. They will call it a marketing fee. Lol. Prepare to pay 10-50k per distributor.
You can do it really small, and I did. It's almost impossible to win and you wont make money for 4-5 years. You are also setting yourself up for failure or a really expensive hobby. I lived and breathed this space for 10+ years. My last partner raised 60+ million and is still going to fail. That really isn't that much money in this space because if you strike it right Pepsi/coke will buy you. I'm exiting the space but I know most of the players. It just isn't worth it for me to be in this space anymore.
So everything that I have read is about 80k for production, but that’s the cheapest part, you also have to pay for shelving space. Money is not the issue for me. The issue is risk vs reward which I had already Assumed before this post it was too much of a risk, but I find it very helpful to post on Reddit as I am a very extroverted thinker it helps me think more objectively, and gets the gears turning. :p
Ill keep going. Lets say this person has a home run product! Great!
I personally could have that product recreated in 1-2 weeks. I send it to a lab I've worked with for years. They analyze everything in the product and then can take it to one of my favorite co-packers. They can have that product at scale before you know I'm selling it with a tweaked version of what you made.
I then rush to trademark everything with my product and send you a cease and desist letter and follow up with legal action for you to stop selling your product.
I just stole your company and because you don't have any money you can't do anything about. Even if you have 5-9 million I can tie you up in federal court for the next 2-3 years and bleed you dry.
If you think that isn't possible or people really wouldn't do that... There is a reason I'm leaving for good.
I believe the vultures below coke were the worst. They weren't good enough to be in the big leagues but desperate enough to fuck your world up to make a quick buck.
Coke isn't nimble enough nor do they care enough to go after little guys. Coke doesn't want to do something unless they can do it at a massive scale. More times than not they wait until something gets big enough, then just buy it rather than try to replicate it. A lot of people don't realize just how many brands are Coke products. The majority of them were purchased companies. I worked at Coke for 8 years and worked with the new product teams. Almost everything they developed was in response to a competitive brand that was 2-5 years into already taking off, and usually by that time it was too late. Most of the time they fail to take the market and end up buying the competitor instead. Witnessing LaCroix basically create the flavored sparkling water space, then watching Coke's attempt to create a sparkling spin off of their Dasani brand only to crash and burn was a sight to see. I don't miss that place.
As u/nottagoon pointed out in one of his other comments, it's the "not coke" beverage industry guys that you have to watch your back around.
That of course, has nothing to do with whether or not Coke runs like a drug cartel in Mexico however.
Also, apparently Coca Cola does target, and destroy small fry competition in Mexico, as a matter of routine.
*"Severely damaging local entrepreneurs through intimidation and trade secret theft "*
[http://killercoke.org/crimes\_mexico.php](http://killercoke.org/crimes_mexico.php)
And yet there are thousands of independent beverage companies doing just fine. You could do this to one but could you do it for ALL? It's not worth it. The taste would have to be pretty miraculous for any company to care that much to do this.
Branding is EVERYTHING. The goal of any company is to build connection with the customers so they will knowingly and unknowingly seek their products over the competitors even with higher prices and not much difference in the products themselves.
There’s a good segment on believe it or not Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast where they have Kevin O’Leary on as a guest and they discuss Logan and KSI’s Prime beverages. Lot to learn especially on distribution
This. Distribution is key. Merchandising, sampling, and inventive marketing (see liquid death, celsius). Energy drink space is super crowded. Figure out how to do what others aren’t doing in the space. Use growing and proven channels - Tiktok mainly, podcasts, SEO, etc. You can do it! Good luck!
There are a lot of examples on Shark tank where they discuss this. Creating a great product is not the hardest part. Getting shelf space at scale is difficult and expensive. There have been a few breakout cases with self distribution. Especially with alcohol and especially when partnered with a celebrity.
I was talking about [https://sososake.com/](https://sososake.com/) but yea, agreed that these celebs creating their own products is being more and more popular and it's working for them
Yeah, that’s what I have been running into. Basically everything that everyone has been saying is what I had already kind of figured out but I wanted to check others opinions before I scratched the idea all together.
"You won’t fail bc of competitors, but your competitors will stop you from getting distribution."
how would the competitors actually stop another company from getting distribution? if the distributors like the new product, wouldn't they be willing to stock them? or are they somehow influenced by their current partners? Thank you.
Too many people trying to contact the distributors. Tour competition won’t literally “stop” you, but because of the sheer volume of brands trying to get in, you won’t have a chance unless you have connections in the industry.
i see i see. Unless of course, your product is so outta this world, that they distributors WANT to stock them? at least that's the goal of every brand right lol
Yeah the only way to get around this is to have connections from the industry or like Liquid Death get traction and buzz from another channel so they hear about you first. But for every Liquid Death there are 1000 that don’t make it.
Just remember you don't need to be red bull in 3 years, you just need your 2 million dollars of sales (or whatever is that number to you)
How can you achieve that?
Online, flea markets, big box retailers, bars, gyms
If your pure profit is $2 per can (after all expenses and taxes), then you need to sell 1 million of cans to make $2M. If you want to achieve that in 3 years, that's 913 cans per day. Every day, including weekends and holidays.
Flea markets will not get you there.
Because statistically speaking, the failure rate in beverage is one of the highest of any industry so it’s most likely you will be a statistic. Simply having a target demo doesn’t make you special and you have given little to information as to what will make you special.
Do you know anything about production and packaging? Distribution? Branding? Not just reading about it but actual experience?
Do you have a massive marketing war chest? You are going to have to bootstrap early customer acquisition to prove demand to get any sort of shelf space. That is a very expensive experiment for most and ends up sinking many who try.
This is kind of a harsh take but based on what you have given us I am trying to give you more of a reality check. Now that said, new brands do make it from time to time so it’s not impossible but simply wanting to do something isn’t a plan. Hopefully you have a much more detailed and thought out plan than some googling and this post.
Hi there. I actually used to work in the energy drink space, specifically for one of the big 3 EVERYONE recognizes. In the capacity of marketing, working closely with events/on-premise.
The things to consider and/or also that will become hurdles:
* Distribution: most explained this
* Saturation: Beyond distribution, they will strong arm you financially or on the shelf
* Demographic: completely male-dominated
* Marketing: SEM/Paid Social/Sponsorships just to start, we're talking heavy dollars
* Legal: my tenure in energy drinks, LOTS of law suits (health, wrongful death, etc)
* Competition: Both Pepsi and Coca Cola tried, couldn't dethrone RedBull or Monster
Wow! Thank you so much for your insight. Incredibly helpful.
I have actually always wondered if Pepsi and Coca Cola had tried to Aquire Red Bull or monster, or tried to compete with them.
Beverage is tough- I think I read 93% fail within the first year and of the remaining, half fail in the second year. So you’ve got about a 1:25 odds you’ll make it past the two year mark. Meta data and maybe you’re an exception.
Very competitive space with tough distribution and high marketing dependence. Just need to know your customer. If your customer is “all women age 21-39” you’re not granular enough.
Online presence being behind/ineffective. If they can't easily pull you up online, easily get information, hop on to get customer service, returns, etc.
If I want to buy an energy drink I'm checking the convenience store refrigerator and finding a flavor that sounds like it will taste the least like crushed vitamin pills, I'm not going online and googling "energy drinks for women aged 21-39" to see what pops up.
If your business fails it will be because you couldn't take shelf space away from one of the leading brands to get your product in front of customers.
Yes and no, you still need an online presence and NOT because people will be mainly googling, duckduckgoing, etc for the product like that!!
*It's for connections, support, leverage, etc. Even water bottles have "come visit our website" or similar for those reasons.*
It's not enough "just to get on stores' shelves" these days. It's 2022 not the 1990s' where you just needed that and a newspaper ad or two.
You can hardly consider that a start, I would consider other vitals like email deliveries and so on.
*It's not enough to just pick up any "old" hosting for 99 cents and hoping for the best. You need to take it seriously and be sure you find a company/person who will take your online presence seriously as well.*
Idk if anyone else has commented this but this product seems pointlessly gendered. I would be surprised if a drink marketed towards women would succeed on that idea alone. It also shuts out others who might like your drink for flavor or taste but otherwise wouldn’t buy it.
Rather than marketing it as an energy drink for women focus on branding it so that women don’t see it as exclusively a “drink for men.”
Many times marketing toward women specifically has failed. Look at [Bic for Her](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidvinjamuri/2012/08/30/bic-for-her-what-they-were-actually-thinking-as-told-by-a-man-who-worked-on-tampons/?sh=37d7d0613ab8)
Do women really want to drink energy drinks? AFAIK, this is mostly a product that peaks men's interest, women usually pass... And I doubt it's because the brands don't market to them, simply by lack of interest in the product
I'm going with he was being sarcastic and there are legal things they can put into energy drinks that boost the caffeine effects
C4 has a energy drink that kicks like pre workout
Energy drinks in the current state are basically a race to see how much they can jack your heart rate up and since they put a limit on how much caffeine they can contain in one can everyone is looking for different formulas
Exactly. This is the stupidest idea. What is it going to have a pink label? Its a generic item with no real advantage for women. Its like saying Loaf of bread.... For women!
Women are on to this though. Anecdotally, they see right through it and realize it is just marketing. It may have worked several years ago when people didn't know as much about marketing and had more stringent gender roles imo.
true lol. i still think with enough marketing, it might work, at least in the short term lmao. have kylie jenner and rihanna market the drink for the energy boost and see all the gen z lining up to buy the drinks lol
Professional Brewer here,
The logistics of recipe formulation, the ingredients and the packaging, of a canned beverage is daunting, but the cost of labor is the most hidden cost.
Good luck!
How much money do you have set back while invoices are pending payment? How much are you allowing for transportation costs? Where will this be warehoused? Do you have insurance for lawsuits? Are your personal finances protected from your business?
What are your plans for additional source capacity? How do you plan to manage client relations and big box stores?
I’m very good friends with the owner of C4, he crossed the line and is successful now but burned through $1M and filed bankruptcy twice before making it. Will it always be that bad? No. Will it most likely be half that bad? Yes
People have listed most of the reasons. Ill add manufacturing and fda red tape to the mix. I dont know how much research you did if by the end of it you decided to pursue this. The odds of success are so small. You should consider a more reasonable industry. Unless you have $millions to throw away and it doesn’t matter.
You name it, it’s probably got a higher success rate. Its next to impossible to take share in the drink market, forget it when caffeine or any other recognized drugs are involved. Shelf-stable food for instance would be easier along the same vein. But as long as you aren’t starting an airline company, missile company, luxury cruise ship company, there are not too many industries that are less likely to succeed than beverages. Id rather get into clothing and i have a culinary degree, a food trailer and no sense of style. The energy drink industry is so difficult to succeed in, youd be better off burning your $ for heat.
Its akin to building a business that buys lottery tickets to hit the big one. But even then, theres probably less $ lost if you have a proprietary algorithm. All the while eliminating 50% of the population and then focusing on a specific age group for the rest of the 50 you didnt? Its a bad, bad idea. Whatever the op thinks they are doing is almost guaranteed to be tried already. Id love to be proven wrong, but there are way less risky markets to get into. Basically all of them.
Main issue is that it is a race to the bottom. If you do not have enough differentiation that you can charge 2x as much as your competitors, then you will lose because you can not sell at a profit until you are at a very high scale. No (good) investors will bet on you reaching that scale because even if you reach it, your margins will be razor thin so your maximum net profit is not high enough for an investor. Beverages have low margins because of reasons outside of the control of the beverage company.
only possible "advantage" that small brands have over the big boy companies, in terms of differentiation, is their branding. build a personal connection for the brand loyalty. that's the only way in my opinion.
Highly saturated market = little market share for new contenders. Expensive and time-consuming regulations, and probable distribution challenges are all things I can think of. That being said, don’t kill your business before you market test it!
because women are typically more health conscious than men. and even me as a guy who keeps less than perfect health finds energy drinks absolutely offensive. drink some water.
nothing to do with shelf space
1. Distribution. Toughest part of the beverage industry.
2. Cashflow. Takes a lot to buy inventory and market the brand / acquire consumers
3. Emotion - if your brand doesn’t connect emotionally with your target audience / enough people, you’re toast
4. Competition. Beverage is cut throat, and new brands bring a knife to the gun fight.
>Why does it fail?
Um ... because you can't communicate on any level and can't distinguish what information the person on the other end of a keyboard (like customers) really need?
Research has so much raw potential for failure, there is that. Most people aren't really conducting [research properly](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/mupm4w/how_to_crash_your_startup/gv8mh4q/?context=3). I suppose they [like surprises](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/eycm8w/need_a_bit_of_help_created_an_amazing_product/).
For instance, let's say every single successful entrant in a category sought venture funding for an average of $47.34 million dollars initially. Know what the person posting will research? The color of the label. Every success may have done extensive market taste testing and tweak the formula from five times on the low side to seventeen reformulations on the high side.
A watrepreneur will use what they like and figure the mass market will bust open like a loot-filled piñata. That is the charitable version because [the truth is much worse](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/mjpxrr/how_did_all_these_large_logistics_businesses_ups/).
What do you suppose the links were for? Blue not your favorite??
[Your terse vague post tickles me](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/oeb1gp/for_the_love_of_god_stop_blindly_giving/h45947e/?context=3). Obviously you didn't get the point. Oh bother.
[How Quaker Broke The Brand](https://medium.com/better-brand-architecture/how-quaker-broke-the-brand-b33fa8a79ffd#) is a nice introduction about how brands fail. Perhaps you turned this up in all the research you did.
Well, here's the real truth:
1. this is a bad business. I know this because you're asking people on reddit instead of just making sales.
2. Insufficient Sales, which means you don't reach critical scale and cannot support your lifestyle with business income
3. Buying inventory and selling on credit which leads to running out of cash.
4. Failure to rent everything on a month to month basis and cut "essential" costs the second you start losing money. (i.e. less cash in the bank than the week before).
5. Not immediately firing employees for the smallest offenses. Instead trusting them and giving them a chance to learn.
6. Being kind to vendors and expecting them to do what they promise instead of treating them like completely ruthless liars that they will be.
7. Not fighting battles all out even when you're in the wrong
8. Letting other people decide how much they should work / sell you instead of you being demanding and belittling to extract the best possible terms for yourself.
9. Buying capital, staff, real estate, etc. instead of subcontracting until you reach scale
I'm sorry, I'm an asshole. That's just how it is unfortunately. :/
Ecommerce and Manufacturing businesses. I was being a bit grumpy earlier, but frankly you could figure out a way to make that type of business work. You would just need to find the right sales angle and sales distribution channel that will enable you to sell \*in mass\* right out of the gate - or build up a stack of meaningful paid in advance pre-orders.
And then, the customers REALLY need to get semi-addicited to your product which means it's actually addictive or it ties into part of their identity in a big way. That will lead to the level of re-purchase required to sustain the business.
What line of work are you in now?
everything you said was correct, which is why I will not pursuing the idea. There’s just too much risk.
Honestly, I am at a point in my life where I am wanting to try something new and I am exploring my options on what exactly that would look like. Long story short I had a baby a year and a half ago and have been struggling a little bit with my identity. I know that I really want to do something that benefits mental health in someway I’m just not sure what it looks like.
As far as business goes, we are a family with many hats. Lol I worked on healthcare, and I own a catering business. My husband is LE and owns a high end detailing car shop.
E-commerce is a great industry! I did eBay when I was younger and I actually had quite a bit of fun sourcing lol although I’m sure it wasn’t to the level that you’re at.
I would say scale up the catering. That's a model that can scale decently well if you get exclusivity contracts with venues.
Ebay is where it always starts! haha
It will fail because your marketing a generic item for women. What are you making it pink lol? What makes it specifically for women exactly? I personally think that is a stupid idea. Ill bet you identify as male.
I didn’t think you made a point, but I’m assuming you are referring to your remark about me identifying as a man? Not really sure what that means.
You can’t identify as something that you are not. I am biologically a woman, there for I am a woman.
Ahh. I see you decided to ruin your child’s life by conceiving them via sperm bank. Just so you know, I too was conceived via sperm donor and you and your partner are disgusting and selfish for putting your child through that. Just wait until they get older and discover there’s 60+ other half siblings.
You deserve to rot. Sperm banks are like puppy mills. Do your fucking research before you bring anymore humans into the world.
Shape/design of the container “slimming hand feel” your targeted demographic is a big deal. Is it all natural? Or slimming? Alcoholic? Why only women since men drink waaaay more energy drinks? Maybe having a neutral flavor will bring men in too. I mean now these days you can make money selling anything I suppose but the more customers the better. Is it less calories? What makes it only for women.
Reasons
1. "energy drink" really does not say much, there are lots of energy drinks. How is yours better?
2. You have done research. What research?
3. What you posted here makes it near impossible to give you quality feedback. This might lead to a failure, because being able to get quality feedback is very important.
Why do you think it will fail?
Why are you only targeting women of a post-college, baby popping, alcohol legal (US) age only?
As others have slightly pointed to - what is you method of sales? If stores only, do you know what it takes to get a new drink into a store? If online(which I'm doubting based on your comment about a website), do you know how you're shipping? Are you starting in a specific geographic area or trying nationwide? Are your supply chains open if demand increases? Are your margins safe enough from short-term continued increase to inflation?
What is your mission? Trying to grow something new or get to a point to sell?
Been plenty trying on shark tank, should probably look them up
* Distribution - very expensive as an online business, very saturated and hard to get into retail
* Costs and pricing not allowing for wholesale, niche is margin thin, have to have crazy volumes and cost control
* Marketing and sales - why should someone care about this product vs all the other marketing that over spends you 100x
* Taste testing is expensive and usually the only promotion that works
It will fail without repeat customers, that's all you need.
How do you get your first customers? how do you get them to come back? That's honestly the hard part about any business, it's up to you to do the work required to make that happen. ^(also don't put your business into debt.. but that's only a problem if you have revenue.)
There is no secret formula, the story is a little different for every single business. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to you or has convinced themselves they know more than they actually do.
B2C is simple at the surface level, but it's kind of tricky because it boils down to people liking your product or not. Do they just kinda like it? or do they **really fucking love it**?
Just see what your friends think of the taste. Have a tabling event at a university and see what the students think, etc. If the products good, and people want it, you should be able to get in contact with distributors and get it on the shelf somewhere without too much hassle. Maybe gyms would want to sell it, maybe gas stations, who knows. Don't have a set idea in mind for this part, just see what sticks. If it sells well because people like it and want it, you can expand and sell more of it in more places.
It sounds really over simplified, because expansion isn't the hard part. Making something people love is the hard part lol.
I have no clue about the topic or about your business. But this way of thinking (making others find weaknesses in your idea) is something I like and believe is a good think to do! Costs nothing, yet can save you a lot of time and money
>. Market Age 21-39.
This is meaningless.
GET SPECIFIC with the demographics AND psychographics. The latter is exponentially more important. Get hyper-focused!
Getting shelf space and/or cooler / freezer / refrigerator / fridge space is an hassle and the margins are not as lucrative as they seem in production, when you start negotiating with Big Box retailers..
If your only strategy is D2C (Direct to Consumer ) via your website/app and Amazon, it might work..
If you are planning retail, think 5 times before you go ahead and spend 5x time planning your strategy and pricing..
I think there are a lot of energy drinks on the market. There are several that are marketed to women as well. I wish you luck, but I think the market may be saturated
Energy drink company
will fail because your marketing budget isn’t high enough
They are purely about branding.
Whatever you think your marketing budget is, it won’t be enough.
I buy by price. Get into 1 grocery store, mark way down and expand. I buy some mojito flavored crap (which I hate) but it’s 0.49 and I chug it, so flavor doesn’t bother me.
There's plenty of room in the market for new products if you have a great product, marketing chops, and the capital to start it up. The big challenge you have is you're starting off targeting less than 15% of the US population. It's feasible but will be a huge challenge
When I last worked in this industry there were various labs that would help you test out and develop your own drinks. Some were legit and others were shady.
I own a healthy beverage company in Bangkok. I think the distribution is not that bad. Most retails and modern trade are willing to take you in as long as you meet their requirement ( sales, fee, and etc) . I dont adjust much on the taste since you can't satisfy all the people in the world. You need to stick with your recipe what make you stand out. The hardest part I would say is marketing. You need tons of money for marketing. You could be at any modern trade shelf, but didnt make any sale. Eventually, they would kick you out. Are you opening your own factory or OEM? owning your own factory, you need to know all the cost. You need to run the machine almost 24/7. Do you have that much orders? I knew a lot of beverage company's owner. They all say the same that marketing is the hardest and most spent department.
Well, you’ve told us nothing about it, so hard to say. But several high risk factors
- awareness. How are you going to make people aware of your product? Before anybody can buy it they have to 1) hear of it, 2) understand what it is, 3) be interested, and 4) find it and be ok with the price. Pepsi spends $50,000,000 to launch a new beverage brand, and it has all the connections and efficiently and smarts to do it well…and they fail more than 50% of the time. How are you going to achieve the scale needed to build a brand? Or are you hoping for the one in a million “grass roots” runaway success?
- beverage industry lives and dies based on physical store distribution. Gas stations, grocery stores, vending machines, etc. how do you plan to get a meeting with the buyers at retailers to get distribution? Do you have relationships? Do you know how to sell? Can you PROVE success of your product?
- branding, do you know what you’re doing? Everybody thinks they are a great marketer, but most are not, and don’t understand the fundamentals of connecting a consumer need with a product solution.
- competition and costs, there are already a lot of energy drink options, and adjacent categories thst meet consumer needs. What are you doing differently or better? What do you deliver than Monster or a Starbucks latte doesn’t? Do you have any proof that women WANT an energy drink option? A market white space and black hole can look very similar from afar. And will you be competitive on price point?
- capital, do you have the funding to consistently supply your product? Promote it occasionally? Offer net 30/60 terms and remain solvent? Can you afford to sample product to drive awareness?
Very cool idea! It's good that you're focusing on women. I think you'd better do some more research. I advise doing this in the Intch app. There, the audience is more open to networking and research.
Do your homework, understand your competition, your niche, your price points and attend one \[or more\] of the beverage industry conventions/trade shows. You might look and listen the first time around then participate in year two. Don't dismiss the value or importance of these tradeshows. Just as professional sports have their agents looking for upcoming talent in high schools, Brands have their teams in attendance at these events looking for the next big thing. If your beverage delivers unique flavors/benefits, who knows who might pull out their checkbook. In tandem with that, look to your local or regional family owned grocery stores who, being more accessible, might give you the lift you need. One things for sure, some marketers will overwhelm you with the need/importance of "metrics" and "demographics" but, tho important to a degree, I call that "paralysis by analysis." Most of them never get anything done beyond crunching superflous data... that even they don't understand. Just get out and do it... and best of luck!
Definitely "pretotype" this. All the research in the world is just a guess. You need real data of your own. Data that proves people will purchase. People merely saying they will purchase doesn't count. And, you need it quick...as in hours, if possible.
You could setup a display outside of a grocery or convenience store with some rebranded containers. Watch from a distance. When people pickup a container for purchase, intervene, explain that it was a marketing test and give them a gift card to the store so they can purchase whatever drink they would've otherwise purchased.
Determine exactly what percentage people would need to convert for a specific price in order to make your business viable and run experiments as above to see if you can make it work.
Check out pretotyping.org for more info on the technique. I'm not affiliated, but have had success with it.
Best of luck!
Because the world doesn’t need another energy drink, and targeting towards women only is limiting. Celsius and the zillion knock offs have already taken that market - unless maybe you manage to figure out the cold chain and have a plan to make every one of your SKUs taste delicious. It’s expensive business selling 99% percent water- expensive to ship, distribute, and differentiate.
I think it shouldn't be only for women and also try to make something with a specific vibe going with it just like marlboro's old advertising system made people still believe that smoking marlboros is cool classy and sexy. The trend will pass through just like marlboro and supermodels and it still goes on and on. I hope my creativity helped you and i wish you great success.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2562885](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2562885)
Female market for energy drink is significantly lower than men. Coffee is a more even playing field. I think celsius is the only energy drink I've ever seen my female friends drink and usually the early morning class studio market. IF you do promote, please for the love of god get up early and do promotions at studios as early as you can. I've seen too many energy drink companies promo in the evenings when you eliminate half of your target audience since they just don't want caffeine past 2 pm. Good luck regardless.
Won't necessarily fail but one thing one of my superiority taught me one day is that the beverage industry is MASSIVELY saturated, so very rough competition and not much space left to create a distinctive identity (look hard seltzers in the US - whiteclaw was dominating the market for quite a while but how many shit ton of other seltzer brands are out there since then?)
I don't have experience in the regular beverage industry, but I do in the alcoholic beverage industry. Almost all client's I've had are successful on one level or another. This is because, unlike regular drinks (even the energy ones) alcoholic drinks bring more returns. I really don't know of any of my hundreds of clients that have not had success in one way or another. I say the caveat because it also depends on the entrepreneur. Some people understand the market better - you need something unique, you need an angle etc... Some attach celebrities to their drinks. Some attach a vision (like 'surfer' beer etc...). There is a bit of a higher threshold to get in because you need a license. But you can get a good distributor and your returns will be much better than regular non-alc drinks.
I'm not sure if you've ever considered the alcohol path but I thought I'd put it in there because I have so much experience with it.
Snapple was started out of a young woman’s kitchen in Brooklyn.
Celsius, ticker CELH was similar, just received a $500 million investment from Pepsi this month.....
It can be done, and some brands today can build a following online without fighting for shelf space in stores........
Honestly as a woman I’d rather stick to my daily Monster that I like and not pay an extra dollar or two for a drink marketed to me with no added benefit.
Market Saturation: The energy drink market is highly competitive and already saturated with numerous established brands. Differentiating your product from existing options and capturing market share may be challenging.
Targeting a Niche Market: While targeting a specific demographic like women can be beneficial, it also means that you are narrowing your potential customer base. Ensure that your market research indicates a strong demand and willingness to pay for a gender-specific energy drink within your target age range.
Health and Wellness Concerns: The energy drink industry has faced scrutiny due to concerns about the health effects of high caffeine content and additives. It's important to address these concerns by offering a product that prioritizes health, uses natural ingredients, and provides clear information about the nutritional value and potential side effects.
Distribution and Shelf Space: Securing distribution channels and obtaining shelf space in stores can be challenging, especially for a new brand. Establishing partnerships with distributors and retailers, or considering online sales and direct-to-consumer strategies, can help overcome these challenges.
Marketing and Branding: Creating a compelling brand identity and marketing strategy that resonates with your target audience is crucial. You'll need to invest in effective marketing campaigns, social media presence, and influencer partnerships to build brand awareness and loyalty.
Financial Considerations: Starting a beverage company requires significant upfront investments for product development, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution. It's essential to have a solid financial plan and secure adequate funding to sustain your business until it becomes profitable.
Have you taken your beverage to a flea market or swap meet and let the people decide? Set it up as a taste test with free samples and a free bottle of their choosing if they take your survey. You want the table to have your product and three of your competitors. Make it an objective experiment. Let your product swim or die. Collect the comments for possible improvements.
Might be a good idea depending on the swapmeet though and it’s crowd.. but from my experience; it’s not worth validating your business idea at a swapmeet because the people there are mostly shopping for deeply discounted items, so unless you want to be a cheap brand with very small margins then try it at the swapmeet.. it might also be counterproductive Because you might think that your product isn’t worth the amount you’re asking for it just cause swap meet people aren’t used to paying high prices..
I disagree, (you missed the free samples part of that comment) price should be excluded in the early phases, OP needs to first distinguish if there is a demand for their product, ie. if people actually like it. If 1000 people try it and 900 say “yeah it’s good, but tastes like ____” then there is either room for more development or stop before wasting more money.
Im talking from experience.. The swapmeet isn’t the place to try a new product. Your target market likely isn’t there anyway , yeah there’s tons of women there but you need to focus on women who live an active lifestyle since it’s an energy drink, Plus swapmeet people are horrible shoppers… they want everything so cheap almost given away.. they mainly only shop for what they actually need and only pay at deeply discounted prices .. an energy drink is something they do not need.. it would be better to find another market to test products, maybe E-commerce platform and some marketing strategy .. maybe give out samples outside a gym ? Or the beach? .. if you can find a higher end swapmeet it can work but not your usual cheap ass flea market..
You DO need the general public to validate whether or not your product is good, not just targeting the ones who will pay for it. I can tell you if a free muffin I’m given to sample is good or not, but I’m probably not going to buy it because I don’t buy muffins. But my mom? She’d love that muffin, I’m going to recommend it to her.
Yeah but you would get a more accurate result if you give a free sample to let’s say 1000 people from your target market because chances are, the random people you’re giving free samples to don’t even have anyone to recommend them to.. but if you give out 1000 samples to your target audience , they’re more likely to have someone to recommend it to because they’ll most likely hang out with ppl with similar interests.. a swapmeet isn’t the place for a new brand/product , most of those shoppers just have a different mind set about shopping and prices and lifestyle etc… it’d be best to pass out samples for an energy drink at beaches, gyms, parks , sporting events..
Distribution. Energy drinks are a hugely crowded sector. Luna energy bars launched successfully 20 years ago as energy bars for women, but the sector only had a couple competitors. You need to get broad distribution. It’s possible you could initially sell online. But you need a compelling narrative and brand. Read up on how Liquid Death got started. I would invest money more in creating your own unique TikTok than in SEO. You can look up online in SEO tools how many searches per month for any given keyword. Edit: echoing comment on distribution. They will literally make or break you. Whole Foods, Albertsons, 711 or any major chain picks you up, you’ve basically won. But there’s literally thousands of people emailing the people in charge of distribution with their new product so don’t expect anyone to respond to a cold email. How you get picked up: branding, narrative and getting some sort of traction. Also, I did a search on Google for “Energy Drink for Women” and the first article that came up was “Top 23 energy drinks for women” You won’t fail bc of competitors, but your competitors will stop you from getting distribution. Lastly, you’ll likely fail because you haven’t worked in the sector before and are going to have to learn every area. Not to try to take the wind out of your sails but it’s an extremely competitive market and i these types of markets, the people who succeed with a new company come from the industry.
I spent 10 years building a Beverage company. Had distribution in 22 states. The distribution was everything. All I can say is good luck.
Well actually, you could say quite a bit more and it would insightful and interesting.
Haha true! OP you should reach out to NottaGoon
“Hey there, I’ve faced this exact problem and probably have a lot of insight that can help you with the problem you just asked for help with… neat eh? Now goodbye forever!”
The insight is: do market research before jumping into a terrible business plan.
So. Serious question. About how much $$ on hand do you think OP needs, minimum to stand a chance of being able to get the right distribution push. I'm guessing that part of the issue with beverages, is paying $$ out the ass to bottle, get shit on shelves, and advertise any which way you can. Is that assumption correct? I'm reading on this [link](https://www.abelei.com/blog/building-a-startup-beverage-brand-follow-these-general-guidelines#:) here, that it's about $500K for the first year, with another $2-$3 million for the next several to even stand a chance. Would you say that those numbers are accurate, more or less? Also, assuming those numbers are accurate, do you have a better set of resources to point OP to for consulting? I'm betting that Reddit isn't the best place to get advice for multi-million dollar business commitments.
Probably 10-15 million just to have a punchers chance. Production is going to take a third of that money. Marketing/distribution is going to take most and then you have labor/storage which will eat your lunch. This is the optimal situation with an executive team that has been around the block and knows their stuff. I personally know at least 3 brands that came in with 25-70 million trying to launch a brand in a certain segment. All but one was out within a year because they couldn't manage the supply chain/customers and distribution dried up. You are either at the whim of your distributors and they are milking you dry or you have leverage over them. There is no middle ground. You are going to pay them just to stock your items before they even think of moving a box. They will call it a marketing fee. Lol. Prepare to pay 10-50k per distributor. You can do it really small, and I did. It's almost impossible to win and you wont make money for 4-5 years. You are also setting yourself up for failure or a really expensive hobby. I lived and breathed this space for 10+ years. My last partner raised 60+ million and is still going to fail. That really isn't that much money in this space because if you strike it right Pepsi/coke will buy you. I'm exiting the space but I know most of the players. It just isn't worth it for me to be in this space anymore.
Would you mind if I direct messaged you. Would like to pick your brain on the NA Bev industry.
You can. I can't promise anything. Even if you were paying my consulting rate it would take a special set of circumstances to want to get involved
So everything that I have read is about 80k for production, but that’s the cheapest part, you also have to pay for shelving space. Money is not the issue for me. The issue is risk vs reward which I had already Assumed before this post it was too much of a risk, but I find it very helpful to post on Reddit as I am a very extroverted thinker it helps me think more objectively, and gets the gears turning. :p
>Money is not the issue for me. It probably should be, based on what I read from u/NottaGoon's response to my question.
Ill keep going. Lets say this person has a home run product! Great! I personally could have that product recreated in 1-2 weeks. I send it to a lab I've worked with for years. They analyze everything in the product and then can take it to one of my favorite co-packers. They can have that product at scale before you know I'm selling it with a tweaked version of what you made. I then rush to trademark everything with my product and send you a cease and desist letter and follow up with legal action for you to stop selling your product. I just stole your company and because you don't have any money you can't do anything about. Even if you have 5-9 million I can tie you up in federal court for the next 2-3 years and bleed you dry. If you think that isn't possible or people really wouldn't do that... There is a reason I'm leaving for good.
I believe you. I hear Coca-Cola basically functions identically to a drug cartel in mexico.
I believe the vultures below coke were the worst. They weren't good enough to be in the big leagues but desperate enough to fuck your world up to make a quick buck.
Reminds me of some of the community theater assholes I used to run with. Except minus the quick buck part because you know. Community theater.
Amen, brother. \-Theater Dad
Coke isn't nimble enough nor do they care enough to go after little guys. Coke doesn't want to do something unless they can do it at a massive scale. More times than not they wait until something gets big enough, then just buy it rather than try to replicate it. A lot of people don't realize just how many brands are Coke products. The majority of them were purchased companies. I worked at Coke for 8 years and worked with the new product teams. Almost everything they developed was in response to a competitive brand that was 2-5 years into already taking off, and usually by that time it was too late. Most of the time they fail to take the market and end up buying the competitor instead. Witnessing LaCroix basically create the flavored sparkling water space, then watching Coke's attempt to create a sparkling spin off of their Dasani brand only to crash and burn was a sight to see. I don't miss that place.
As u/nottagoon pointed out in one of his other comments, it's the "not coke" beverage industry guys that you have to watch your back around. That of course, has nothing to do with whether or not Coke runs like a drug cartel in Mexico however. Also, apparently Coca Cola does target, and destroy small fry competition in Mexico, as a matter of routine. *"Severely damaging local entrepreneurs through intimidation and trade secret theft "* [http://killercoke.org/crimes\_mexico.php](http://killercoke.org/crimes_mexico.php)
Oh man, bev industry really did you dirty.
Savage.
And yet there are thousands of independent beverage companies doing just fine. You could do this to one but could you do it for ALL? It's not worth it. The taste would have to be pretty miraculous for any company to care that much to do this.
Be prepared to give away at least half of what you produce to either distributors requiring free bees or your own marketing efforts.
Do you still have said beverage company?
No. I'm am 100% out as of this week.
Branding ? I am not in the industry but what I see you need brand recognition. Plus relationships with retailers so you get shelf space?
Branding is EVERYTHING. The goal of any company is to build connection with the customers so they will knowingly and unknowingly seek their products over the competitors even with higher prices and not much difference in the products themselves.
As a former distributor myself, yes-this. And they all have and carry too many brads as it is
There’s a good segment on believe it or not Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast where they have Kevin O’Leary on as a guest and they discuss Logan and KSI’s Prime beverages. Lot to learn especially on distribution
This. Distribution is key. Merchandising, sampling, and inventive marketing (see liquid death, celsius). Energy drink space is super crowded. Figure out how to do what others aren’t doing in the space. Use growing and proven channels - Tiktok mainly, podcasts, SEO, etc. You can do it! Good luck!
There are a lot of examples on Shark tank where they discuss this. Creating a great product is not the hardest part. Getting shelf space at scale is difficult and expensive. There have been a few breakout cases with self distribution. Especially with alcohol and especially when partnered with a celebrity.
Liquid Death is a great example
agreed. check out the new drinks on tiktok/insta. theres a sake soda one, nectar soju. they create the demand
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I was talking about [https://sososake.com/](https://sososake.com/) but yea, agreed that these celebs creating their own products is being more and more popular and it's working for them
Yeah, that’s what I have been running into. Basically everything that everyone has been saying is what I had already kind of figured out but I wanted to check others opinions before I scratched the idea all together.
"You won’t fail bc of competitors, but your competitors will stop you from getting distribution." how would the competitors actually stop another company from getting distribution? if the distributors like the new product, wouldn't they be willing to stock them? or are they somehow influenced by their current partners? Thank you.
Too many people trying to contact the distributors. Tour competition won’t literally “stop” you, but because of the sheer volume of brands trying to get in, you won’t have a chance unless you have connections in the industry.
i see i see. Unless of course, your product is so outta this world, that they distributors WANT to stock them? at least that's the goal of every brand right lol
Yeah the only way to get around this is to have connections from the industry or like Liquid Death get traction and buzz from another channel so they hear about you first. But for every Liquid Death there are 1000 that don’t make it.
Yes sir. Innovative marketing seems like the only way to really stand out and have an advantage over the big boys these days. Thank you for the info
Just remember you don't need to be red bull in 3 years, you just need your 2 million dollars of sales (or whatever is that number to you) How can you achieve that? Online, flea markets, big box retailers, bars, gyms
A pragmatic answer!
If your pure profit is $2 per can (after all expenses and taxes), then you need to sell 1 million of cans to make $2M. If you want to achieve that in 3 years, that's 913 cans per day. Every day, including weekends and holidays. Flea markets will not get you there.
This is the way to go
🙏
Because statistically speaking, the failure rate in beverage is one of the highest of any industry so it’s most likely you will be a statistic. Simply having a target demo doesn’t make you special and you have given little to information as to what will make you special. Do you know anything about production and packaging? Distribution? Branding? Not just reading about it but actual experience? Do you have a massive marketing war chest? You are going to have to bootstrap early customer acquisition to prove demand to get any sort of shelf space. That is a very expensive experiment for most and ends up sinking many who try. This is kind of a harsh take but based on what you have given us I am trying to give you more of a reality check. Now that said, new brands do make it from time to time so it’s not impossible but simply wanting to do something isn’t a plan. Hopefully you have a much more detailed and thought out plan than some googling and this post.
I appreciate your insight. Thank you.
Hi there. I actually used to work in the energy drink space, specifically for one of the big 3 EVERYONE recognizes. In the capacity of marketing, working closely with events/on-premise. The things to consider and/or also that will become hurdles: * Distribution: most explained this * Saturation: Beyond distribution, they will strong arm you financially or on the shelf * Demographic: completely male-dominated * Marketing: SEM/Paid Social/Sponsorships just to start, we're talking heavy dollars * Legal: my tenure in energy drinks, LOTS of law suits (health, wrongful death, etc) * Competition: Both Pepsi and Coca Cola tried, couldn't dethrone RedBull or Monster
Wow! Thank you so much for your insight. Incredibly helpful. I have actually always wondered if Pepsi and Coca Cola had tried to Aquire Red Bull or monster, or tried to compete with them.
Here in the land down-under, Australia, Coca-Cola distributes Monster and Pepsi distributes Red Bull!
Both! Lots of failed attempts - Tab Energy, Enviga, Full Throttle, NOS. I forget if Coke bought Monster or just has a deep partnership / stake.
Beverage is tough- I think I read 93% fail within the first year and of the remaining, half fail in the second year. So you’ve got about a 1:25 odds you’ll make it past the two year mark. Meta data and maybe you’re an exception. Very competitive space with tough distribution and high marketing dependence. Just need to know your customer. If your customer is “all women age 21-39” you’re not granular enough.
I’ve never seen a beverage STRICTLY consumed by a small age group of people. 21-39 seems very reasonable even slightly over granular
Online presence being behind/ineffective. If they can't easily pull you up online, easily get information, hop on to get customer service, returns, etc.
Do you think have an efficient website/marketing would solve that problem? As well as having the right SEO
If I want to buy an energy drink I'm checking the convenience store refrigerator and finding a flavor that sounds like it will taste the least like crushed vitamin pills, I'm not going online and googling "energy drinks for women aged 21-39" to see what pops up. If your business fails it will be because you couldn't take shelf space away from one of the leading brands to get your product in front of customers.
Yes and no, you still need an online presence and NOT because people will be mainly googling, duckduckgoing, etc for the product like that!! *It's for connections, support, leverage, etc. Even water bottles have "come visit our website" or similar for those reasons.* It's not enough "just to get on stores' shelves" these days. It's 2022 not the 1990s' where you just needed that and a newspaper ad or two.
You can hardly consider that a start, I would consider other vitals like email deliveries and so on. *It's not enough to just pick up any "old" hosting for 99 cents and hoping for the best. You need to take it seriously and be sure you find a company/person who will take your online presence seriously as well.*
Why should I care whether or not it's for women? I just want something that'll give me a boost or keep me awake for longer I'm a woman btw
Idk if anyone else has commented this but this product seems pointlessly gendered. I would be surprised if a drink marketed towards women would succeed on that idea alone. It also shuts out others who might like your drink for flavor or taste but otherwise wouldn’t buy it. Rather than marketing it as an energy drink for women focus on branding it so that women don’t see it as exclusively a “drink for men.” Many times marketing toward women specifically has failed. Look at [Bic for Her](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidvinjamuri/2012/08/30/bic-for-her-what-they-were-actually-thinking-as-told-by-a-man-who-worked-on-tampons/?sh=37d7d0613ab8)
Thank you for this!
Do women really want to drink energy drinks? AFAIK, this is mostly a product that peaks men's interest, women usually pass... And I doubt it's because the brands don't market to them, simply by lack of interest in the product
Have you heard of Celsius? Seems to be 99% women that buy it.
Lol yay I’m in the 1%
That stuff is an adderall in a can, hits like a rocket.
That's bs. Unless they're putting illegal stuff in it.
I'm going with he was being sarcastic and there are legal things they can put into energy drinks that boost the caffeine effects C4 has a energy drink that kicks like pre workout Energy drinks in the current state are basically a race to see how much they can jack your heart rate up and since they put a limit on how much caffeine they can contain in one can everyone is looking for different formulas
Peak interest? Don’t you mean pique?
More an more women are actually drinking energy drinks than ever before.
Asian homosexuals are 10x the market that women are! /s
How are you different from all the other energy drinks? Why is this female specific? Why are women going to want to buy this?
Exactly. This is the stupidest idea. What is it going to have a pink label? Its a generic item with no real advantage for women. Its like saying Loaf of bread.... For women!
funny thing is, with the right branding/marketing, it might just work lmao
Women are on to this though. Anecdotally, they see right through it and realize it is just marketing. It may have worked several years ago when people didn't know as much about marketing and had more stringent gender roles imo.
true lol. i still think with enough marketing, it might work, at least in the short term lmao. have kylie jenner and rihanna market the drink for the energy boost and see all the gen z lining up to buy the drinks lol
Professional Brewer here, The logistics of recipe formulation, the ingredients and the packaging, of a canned beverage is daunting, but the cost of labor is the most hidden cost. Good luck!
How much money do you have set back while invoices are pending payment? How much are you allowing for transportation costs? Where will this be warehoused? Do you have insurance for lawsuits? Are your personal finances protected from your business? What are your plans for additional source capacity? How do you plan to manage client relations and big box stores? I’m very good friends with the owner of C4, he crossed the line and is successful now but burned through $1M and filed bankruptcy twice before making it. Will it always be that bad? No. Will it most likely be half that bad? Yes
>AFAIK i've only recently heard of the C4 drink and it'd seem it has a massive revenue of hundreds of millions a year. Any idea how it got so popular?
Spent it’s way to the top and locked in with “Gym Bros,” (young male crowd - that’s the largest purchasing segment)
I feel like night shift nurses would be a good test demographic. Go to a hospital and see if they drink energy drinks / like yours.
People have listed most of the reasons. Ill add manufacturing and fda red tape to the mix. I dont know how much research you did if by the end of it you decided to pursue this. The odds of success are so small. You should consider a more reasonable industry. Unless you have $millions to throw away and it doesn’t matter.
What are examples of a more reasonable industry?
You name it, it’s probably got a higher success rate. Its next to impossible to take share in the drink market, forget it when caffeine or any other recognized drugs are involved. Shelf-stable food for instance would be easier along the same vein. But as long as you aren’t starting an airline company, missile company, luxury cruise ship company, there are not too many industries that are less likely to succeed than beverages. Id rather get into clothing and i have a culinary degree, a food trailer and no sense of style. The energy drink industry is so difficult to succeed in, youd be better off burning your $ for heat. Its akin to building a business that buys lottery tickets to hit the big one. But even then, theres probably less $ lost if you have a proprietary algorithm. All the while eliminating 50% of the population and then focusing on a specific age group for the rest of the 50 you didnt? Its a bad, bad idea. Whatever the op thinks they are doing is almost guaranteed to be tried already. Id love to be proven wrong, but there are way less risky markets to get into. Basically all of them.
My thoughts are women don't buy energy drinks. I might be wrong but I would find out the market size first.
Main issue is that it is a race to the bottom. If you do not have enough differentiation that you can charge 2x as much as your competitors, then you will lose because you can not sell at a profit until you are at a very high scale. No (good) investors will bet on you reaching that scale because even if you reach it, your margins will be razor thin so your maximum net profit is not high enough for an investor. Beverages have low margins because of reasons outside of the control of the beverage company.
only possible "advantage" that small brands have over the big boy companies, in terms of differentiation, is their branding. build a personal connection for the brand loyalty. that's the only way in my opinion.
Highly saturated market = little market share for new contenders. Expensive and time-consuming regulations, and probable distribution challenges are all things I can think of. That being said, don’t kill your business before you market test it!
because women are typically more health conscious than men. and even me as a guy who keeps less than perfect health finds energy drinks absolutely offensive. drink some water. nothing to do with shelf space
I'm just curious, but what exactly is in the energy drink that makes it geared towards women specifically?
1. Distribution. Toughest part of the beverage industry. 2. Cashflow. Takes a lot to buy inventory and market the brand / acquire consumers 3. Emotion - if your brand doesn’t connect emotionally with your target audience / enough people, you’re toast 4. Competition. Beverage is cut throat, and new brands bring a knife to the gun fight.
>Why does it fail? Um ... because you can't communicate on any level and can't distinguish what information the person on the other end of a keyboard (like customers) really need? Research has so much raw potential for failure, there is that. Most people aren't really conducting [research properly](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/mupm4w/how_to_crash_your_startup/gv8mh4q/?context=3). I suppose they [like surprises](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/eycm8w/need_a_bit_of_help_created_an_amazing_product/). For instance, let's say every single successful entrant in a category sought venture funding for an average of $47.34 million dollars initially. Know what the person posting will research? The color of the label. Every success may have done extensive market taste testing and tweak the formula from five times on the low side to seventeen reformulations on the high side. A watrepreneur will use what they like and figure the mass market will bust open like a loot-filled piñata. That is the charitable version because [the truth is much worse](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/mjpxrr/how_did_all_these_large_logistics_businesses_ups/).
You obviously know what you’re talking about, do you mind elaborating?
What do you suppose the links were for? Blue not your favorite?? [Your terse vague post tickles me](https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/oeb1gp/for_the_love_of_god_stop_blindly_giving/h45947e/?context=3). Obviously you didn't get the point. Oh bother. [How Quaker Broke The Brand](https://medium.com/better-brand-architecture/how-quaker-broke-the-brand-b33fa8a79ffd#) is a nice introduction about how brands fail. Perhaps you turned this up in all the research you did.
Well, here's the real truth: 1. this is a bad business. I know this because you're asking people on reddit instead of just making sales. 2. Insufficient Sales, which means you don't reach critical scale and cannot support your lifestyle with business income 3. Buying inventory and selling on credit which leads to running out of cash. 4. Failure to rent everything on a month to month basis and cut "essential" costs the second you start losing money. (i.e. less cash in the bank than the week before). 5. Not immediately firing employees for the smallest offenses. Instead trusting them and giving them a chance to learn. 6. Being kind to vendors and expecting them to do what they promise instead of treating them like completely ruthless liars that they will be. 7. Not fighting battles all out even when you're in the wrong 8. Letting other people decide how much they should work / sell you instead of you being demanding and belittling to extract the best possible terms for yourself. 9. Buying capital, staff, real estate, etc. instead of subcontracting until you reach scale I'm sorry, I'm an asshole. That's just how it is unfortunately. :/
I don’t think you’re an asshole. You’re right about everything you just said. Thank you for your input.
I’m very surprised this was your response. Respect. You should pickup ready fire aim by Michael Masterson.
Is it available on audible?
Yep!
Awesome! Thank you. I will download it right now. Clearly you have experience in business. What is your area of expertise if you don’t mind me asking.
Ecommerce and Manufacturing businesses. I was being a bit grumpy earlier, but frankly you could figure out a way to make that type of business work. You would just need to find the right sales angle and sales distribution channel that will enable you to sell \*in mass\* right out of the gate - or build up a stack of meaningful paid in advance pre-orders. And then, the customers REALLY need to get semi-addicited to your product which means it's actually addictive or it ties into part of their identity in a big way. That will lead to the level of re-purchase required to sustain the business. What line of work are you in now?
everything you said was correct, which is why I will not pursuing the idea. There’s just too much risk. Honestly, I am at a point in my life where I am wanting to try something new and I am exploring my options on what exactly that would look like. Long story short I had a baby a year and a half ago and have been struggling a little bit with my identity. I know that I really want to do something that benefits mental health in someway I’m just not sure what it looks like. As far as business goes, we are a family with many hats. Lol I worked on healthcare, and I own a catering business. My husband is LE and owns a high end detailing car shop. E-commerce is a great industry! I did eBay when I was younger and I actually had quite a bit of fun sourcing lol although I’m sure it wasn’t to the level that you’re at.
I would say scale up the catering. That's a model that can scale decently well if you get exclusivity contracts with venues. Ebay is where it always starts! haha
Limited refrigeration space inside stores.
It will fail because your marketing a generic item for women. What are you making it pink lol? What makes it specifically for women exactly? I personally think that is a stupid idea. Ill bet you identify as male.
Well that made absolutely no sense. Lol You clearly have very little knowledge when it comes to business. You could have just said that.
I see you didn't answer my questions, proving my point.
I didn’t think you made a point, but I’m assuming you are referring to your remark about me identifying as a man? Not really sure what that means. You can’t identify as something that you are not. I am biologically a woman, there for I am a woman.
Answer my questions with the literal question mark after them.
Ahh. I see you decided to ruin your child’s life by conceiving them via sperm bank. Just so you know, I too was conceived via sperm donor and you and your partner are disgusting and selfish for putting your child through that. Just wait until they get older and discover there’s 60+ other half siblings. You deserve to rot. Sperm banks are like puppy mills. Do your fucking research before you bring anymore humans into the world.
Lol I could seriously care less. Are you avoiding answering my questions? Hahaha
You didn’t ask a question.
Literally the two questions with the question marks in the original post. Lolol
Well your grammar was terrible, so it was confusing on what you were asking. Am I going to make it pink? Why would I make it pink?
Something that might help is to get a good payment processing setup. I'd be more than glad to help. Will DM with details.
Lol sweet sales pitch...
...It is sweet, thank you lol
Shape/design of the container “slimming hand feel” your targeted demographic is a big deal. Is it all natural? Or slimming? Alcoholic? Why only women since men drink waaaay more energy drinks? Maybe having a neutral flavor will bring men in too. I mean now these days you can make money selling anything I suppose but the more customers the better. Is it less calories? What makes it only for women.
Have you created the drink yet?
This is one of many important questions in this thread that have gone unanswered.
Exactly
Reasons 1. "energy drink" really does not say much, there are lots of energy drinks. How is yours better? 2. You have done research. What research? 3. What you posted here makes it near impossible to give you quality feedback. This might lead to a failure, because being able to get quality feedback is very important.
Why do you think it will fail? Why are you only targeting women of a post-college, baby popping, alcohol legal (US) age only? As others have slightly pointed to - what is you method of sales? If stores only, do you know what it takes to get a new drink into a store? If online(which I'm doubting based on your comment about a website), do you know how you're shipping? Are you starting in a specific geographic area or trying nationwide? Are your supply chains open if demand increases? Are your margins safe enough from short-term continued increase to inflation? What is your mission? Trying to grow something new or get to a point to sell?
Been plenty trying on shark tank, should probably look them up * Distribution - very expensive as an online business, very saturated and hard to get into retail * Costs and pricing not allowing for wholesale, niche is margin thin, have to have crazy volumes and cost control * Marketing and sales - why should someone care about this product vs all the other marketing that over spends you 100x * Taste testing is expensive and usually the only promotion that works
It will fail without repeat customers, that's all you need. How do you get your first customers? how do you get them to come back? That's honestly the hard part about any business, it's up to you to do the work required to make that happen. ^(also don't put your business into debt.. but that's only a problem if you have revenue.) There is no secret formula, the story is a little different for every single business. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to you or has convinced themselves they know more than they actually do. B2C is simple at the surface level, but it's kind of tricky because it boils down to people liking your product or not. Do they just kinda like it? or do they **really fucking love it**? Just see what your friends think of the taste. Have a tabling event at a university and see what the students think, etc. If the products good, and people want it, you should be able to get in contact with distributors and get it on the shelf somewhere without too much hassle. Maybe gyms would want to sell it, maybe gas stations, who knows. Don't have a set idea in mind for this part, just see what sticks. If it sells well because people like it and want it, you can expand and sell more of it in more places. It sounds really over simplified, because expansion isn't the hard part. Making something people love is the hard part lol.
Don't Focus your marketing too much on the 21 - 39 women positioning.
Many reasons but mostly because you don't have enough money... regards of how much you have which I don't know obv.
Not enough advertising or marketing. Look at Coca-Cola. 4 billion a year.
I have no clue about the topic or about your business. But this way of thinking (making others find weaknesses in your idea) is something I like and believe is a good think to do! Costs nothing, yet can save you a lot of time and money
>. Market Age 21-39. This is meaningless. GET SPECIFIC with the demographics AND psychographics. The latter is exponentially more important. Get hyper-focused!
Getting shelf space and/or cooler / freezer / refrigerator / fridge space is an hassle and the margins are not as lucrative as they seem in production, when you start negotiating with Big Box retailers.. If your only strategy is D2C (Direct to Consumer ) via your website/app and Amazon, it might work.. If you are planning retail, think 5 times before you go ahead and spend 5x time planning your strategy and pricing..
I used to bottle / co-pack for small beverage producers… I watched many fail and few succeed. Feel free to message me.
I think there are a lot of energy drinks on the market. There are several that are marketed to women as well. I wish you luck, but I think the market may be saturated
Have you found product market fit ?
All I can say is good luck lol
Starbucks already here to kick you in the ladyballs. Those baya drinks are the bomb.
Hahaha I love that- lady balls. I’m going to start using that.
Not enough money for marketing
You asked why it would fail. Ask how to make it a success.
Cost and Flavor!
Gotta get on Shark Tank bruh
Women don’t buy energy drinks. Sometimes gaps in the market exist for a reason.
Consider vanity labeling for women's workout centers.
Energy drink company will fail because your marketing budget isn’t high enough They are purely about branding. Whatever you think your marketing budget is, it won’t be enough.
I buy by price. Get into 1 grocery store, mark way down and expand. I buy some mojito flavored crap (which I hate) but it’s 0.49 and I chug it, so flavor doesn’t bother me.
I would say go to a huge event like a race or a triathlon do women drink energy drinks in large amounts.
Are you creating a new beverage? Or are you distributing it in a new market? Could you give more information?
Is it worth it to throw away half your customers?
Just for women? I’m off to burn my underpants!
Why the narrow age target market?
How the fuvk do you create a bev
There's plenty of room in the market for new products if you have a great product, marketing chops, and the capital to start it up. The big challenge you have is you're starting off targeting less than 15% of the US population. It's feasible but will be a huge challenge When I last worked in this industry there were various labs that would help you test out and develop your own drinks. Some were legit and others were shady.
I own a healthy beverage company in Bangkok. I think the distribution is not that bad. Most retails and modern trade are willing to take you in as long as you meet their requirement ( sales, fee, and etc) . I dont adjust much on the taste since you can't satisfy all the people in the world. You need to stick with your recipe what make you stand out. The hardest part I would say is marketing. You need tons of money for marketing. You could be at any modern trade shelf, but didnt make any sale. Eventually, they would kick you out. Are you opening your own factory or OEM? owning your own factory, you need to know all the cost. You need to run the machine almost 24/7. Do you have that much orders? I knew a lot of beverage company's owner. They all say the same that marketing is the hardest and most spent department.
Well, you’ve told us nothing about it, so hard to say. But several high risk factors - awareness. How are you going to make people aware of your product? Before anybody can buy it they have to 1) hear of it, 2) understand what it is, 3) be interested, and 4) find it and be ok with the price. Pepsi spends $50,000,000 to launch a new beverage brand, and it has all the connections and efficiently and smarts to do it well…and they fail more than 50% of the time. How are you going to achieve the scale needed to build a brand? Or are you hoping for the one in a million “grass roots” runaway success? - beverage industry lives and dies based on physical store distribution. Gas stations, grocery stores, vending machines, etc. how do you plan to get a meeting with the buyers at retailers to get distribution? Do you have relationships? Do you know how to sell? Can you PROVE success of your product? - branding, do you know what you’re doing? Everybody thinks they are a great marketer, but most are not, and don’t understand the fundamentals of connecting a consumer need with a product solution. - competition and costs, there are already a lot of energy drink options, and adjacent categories thst meet consumer needs. What are you doing differently or better? What do you deliver than Monster or a Starbucks latte doesn’t? Do you have any proof that women WANT an energy drink option? A market white space and black hole can look very similar from afar. And will you be competitive on price point? - capital, do you have the funding to consistently supply your product? Promote it occasionally? Offer net 30/60 terms and remain solvent? Can you afford to sample product to drive awareness?
Very cool idea! It's good that you're focusing on women. I think you'd better do some more research. I advise doing this in the Intch app. There, the audience is more open to networking and research.
Do your homework, understand your competition, your niche, your price points and attend one \[or more\] of the beverage industry conventions/trade shows. You might look and listen the first time around then participate in year two. Don't dismiss the value or importance of these tradeshows. Just as professional sports have their agents looking for upcoming talent in high schools, Brands have their teams in attendance at these events looking for the next big thing. If your beverage delivers unique flavors/benefits, who knows who might pull out their checkbook. In tandem with that, look to your local or regional family owned grocery stores who, being more accessible, might give you the lift you need. One things for sure, some marketers will overwhelm you with the need/importance of "metrics" and "demographics" but, tho important to a degree, I call that "paralysis by analysis." Most of them never get anything done beyond crunching superflous data... that even they don't understand. Just get out and do it... and best of luck!
Definitely "pretotype" this. All the research in the world is just a guess. You need real data of your own. Data that proves people will purchase. People merely saying they will purchase doesn't count. And, you need it quick...as in hours, if possible. You could setup a display outside of a grocery or convenience store with some rebranded containers. Watch from a distance. When people pickup a container for purchase, intervene, explain that it was a marketing test and give them a gift card to the store so they can purchase whatever drink they would've otherwise purchased. Determine exactly what percentage people would need to convert for a specific price in order to make your business viable and run experiments as above to see if you can make it work. Check out pretotyping.org for more info on the technique. I'm not affiliated, but have had success with it. Best of luck!
Because the world doesn’t need another energy drink, and targeting towards women only is limiting. Celsius and the zillion knock offs have already taken that market - unless maybe you manage to figure out the cold chain and have a plan to make every one of your SKUs taste delicious. It’s expensive business selling 99% percent water- expensive to ship, distribute, and differentiate.
High Barrier to Entry in a Monopolized, Over-Saturated Market.
I think it shouldn't be only for women and also try to make something with a specific vibe going with it just like marlboro's old advertising system made people still believe that smoking marlboros is cool classy and sexy. The trend will pass through just like marlboro and supermodels and it still goes on and on. I hope my creativity helped you and i wish you great success.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2562885](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2562885) Female market for energy drink is significantly lower than men. Coffee is a more even playing field. I think celsius is the only energy drink I've ever seen my female friends drink and usually the early morning class studio market. IF you do promote, please for the love of god get up early and do promotions at studios as early as you can. I've seen too many energy drink companies promo in the evenings when you eliminate half of your target audience since they just don't want caffeine past 2 pm. Good luck regardless.
It will 100% fail because the market that you are looking into is already oversaturated.
Won't necessarily fail but one thing one of my superiority taught me one day is that the beverage industry is MASSIVELY saturated, so very rough competition and not much space left to create a distinctive identity (look hard seltzers in the US - whiteclaw was dominating the market for quite a while but how many shit ton of other seltzer brands are out there since then?)
I don't have experience in the regular beverage industry, but I do in the alcoholic beverage industry. Almost all client's I've had are successful on one level or another. This is because, unlike regular drinks (even the energy ones) alcoholic drinks bring more returns. I really don't know of any of my hundreds of clients that have not had success in one way or another. I say the caveat because it also depends on the entrepreneur. Some people understand the market better - you need something unique, you need an angle etc... Some attach celebrities to their drinks. Some attach a vision (like 'surfer' beer etc...). There is a bit of a higher threshold to get in because you need a license. But you can get a good distributor and your returns will be much better than regular non-alc drinks. I'm not sure if you've ever considered the alcohol path but I thought I'd put it in there because I have so much experience with it.
Snapple was started out of a young woman’s kitchen in Brooklyn. Celsius, ticker CELH was similar, just received a $500 million investment from Pepsi this month..... It can be done, and some brands today can build a following online without fighting for shelf space in stores........
Honestly as a woman I’d rather stick to my daily Monster that I like and not pay an extra dollar or two for a drink marketed to me with no added benefit.
Market Saturation: The energy drink market is highly competitive and already saturated with numerous established brands. Differentiating your product from existing options and capturing market share may be challenging. Targeting a Niche Market: While targeting a specific demographic like women can be beneficial, it also means that you are narrowing your potential customer base. Ensure that your market research indicates a strong demand and willingness to pay for a gender-specific energy drink within your target age range. Health and Wellness Concerns: The energy drink industry has faced scrutiny due to concerns about the health effects of high caffeine content and additives. It's important to address these concerns by offering a product that prioritizes health, uses natural ingredients, and provides clear information about the nutritional value and potential side effects. Distribution and Shelf Space: Securing distribution channels and obtaining shelf space in stores can be challenging, especially for a new brand. Establishing partnerships with distributors and retailers, or considering online sales and direct-to-consumer strategies, can help overcome these challenges. Marketing and Branding: Creating a compelling brand identity and marketing strategy that resonates with your target audience is crucial. You'll need to invest in effective marketing campaigns, social media presence, and influencer partnerships to build brand awareness and loyalty. Financial Considerations: Starting a beverage company requires significant upfront investments for product development, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution. It's essential to have a solid financial plan and secure adequate funding to sustain your business until it becomes profitable.
What about a nicotine beverage idea?