First publication in the paper, put a Benjamin on that!

Article in the D&C.

Just a quick update in case you missed it on our facebook, twitter and personal pages. We have officially had our first story published and landed new stores in Buffalo! Our grip on the northeast is growing.

We are going to be in Buffalo for another day, have to follow up with a distributor we talked to last week, and have an important meeting Thursday morning.

On a fun note, got a new car and managed to hit a deer carcass and blow out a tire in under 24 hours. Hopefully I dumped enough karma to last me through the winter. :D

Here's to moving forward.

-Jake

First article and sales in Buffalo...

First things first, we interviewed with the Democrat and Chronicle earlier this week and it looks like we may be in the paper tomorrow! We took a picture of the three of us in my basement with around 3 pallets of drinks around us. To put this in perspective, we have a total of 26 pallets in Rochester at the moment. I figured it'd be a good time to write a blog and welcome some new readers (hopefully!).

I also thought it would be nice to re-post a video of our first production run we completed last month.


Jake and I are road tripping to Buffalo tonight and will be spending the next few days making new sales there. On Sunday we drove 60 cases to our friend's house near the University at Buffalo, and are using it as a 'Buffalo basement warehouse'. We have a lot of friends and family in Buffalo and thought it would be a perfect place to expand to. We'd like to be available in more places in Rochester, however Coke, Pepsi, and Rochester area distributors control what goes in most of the stores, unelss we can get our hands on some mini coolers! (we're working on this one :)...)

Our sales have been ok in Rochester, some stores are selling out, while others are moving slow. Judging from the positive reviews of customers, we feel this is more a function of our drink not being well known than anything else.

Let's see, before I leave for Buffalo in a few minutes, what have we learned this week? We've hit some bumps, experimenting with different marketing techniques. Our main bump occurred because we put fliers up and handed out poster stickers at a college campus. We were completely unaware that you had to have wall fliers approved by the public safety office at the campus. Of course we wrote a formal apology and will rethink our methods for next time.

It's tough to market on a shoe string budget, but we're pressing forward. We've seen positive results in terms of website traffic and store sales in the areas we have hit with some kick a$ guerrilla marketing (or so we think haha).

Right on,
-Mike

First promotions and my car accident...

Last week we started promoting Vital Energy at two locations (RIT and Clawson's across from Fairport HS).

Jake and I found an old red wagon at my house. We loaded up Scottie's Saab to the brim with drinks, ice, coolers, and of course our old school wagon. As a side note, my car is currently at the collision shop because I was hit in a parking lot pulling into a spot during our first day of sales 3 weeks ago! (Jake found the accident hilarious, I can't say I was as amused).
Jake rolled the squeaky red wagon slowly down a long sidewalk at RIT and we set up shop at the Infinity Quad to hand out free samples. Some people hesitated to accept the drink because they thought we'd have some strings attached to the handout. But we didn't of course.

Students loved the stuff and everyone was surprised it had as much of a caffeine kick as a MONSTER, but without the carbonation and with much better flavor. For a 10 minute span after classes ended I was pulling drinks out of the coolers non stop and putting them on display so people could take them because they were snatching them so fast. Meanwhile, Jake became a pro at saying:

"It's an energy water with as much caffeine as a monster. We're available at Paradiso Pizza and Lucci's. We're from Rochester and went to RIT. ENJOY!"

Or something along those lines. Later that night, Scottie and I went back to RIT and hung flyers in every hallway of every building on campus. It took us around 5 hours and I think we walked around 15 miles doing it, and that's not hyperbole.

A few days later we visited Clawson's in the afternoon so we could sample Vital Energy to some local High School students/athletes. High School students were much less hesitant about trying the samples, and a few of them went back to school and brought their friends back to try some. It seemed like half the students liked our Tangerine flavor, while the other half loved the Acai Blueberry.

We also ran into a Coke sales woman who didn't realize we had caffeine in our drink. She assumed it was a Vitaminwater knock off, which it is NOT. The sales woman said she hated energy drinks because they were carbonated and tasted bad, and actually said she loved our drink and thought it was great we started up on our own.

This is getting quite long, so I'll let Jake blog about our first interview with a Democrat & Chronicle reporter.

Seeya next time
-Mike

Piggyback Jack... Jake

Piggybacking on the previous blog sesh, we are definitely having to adjust our game plan. Constantly. The first week was almost no sales, a car accident :D (nothing major but quite funny), and a general sense of failure.

We have learned that the home town advantage is really important to play up as well as focusing on the fact that we are an energy water instead of a standard "energy drink." We are getting better at the sales game and are slowly working out from our home area.

The first goal was to get into local stores so people could actually buy our beverage. Now that we are crossing that bridge, the next one is getting people to the stores and website to actually buy our drink. We have a few different things planned and will be starting that up this weekend as Mike mentioned.

The biggest barriers we have and are still facing is exactly what we have been told by those with experience in the industry... we have no background in the beverage world and we constantly need funding. I quote "If you don't feel a general sense of panic and urgency you are doing something wrong." Check on that one. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way being negative just keeping it real... yo. Holla. I digress.

Luckily in the next few weeks we have some big meetings, are setting up a board of advisers and getting our PR campagin in order. I have also started getting in contact with some bars for the winter season. That way you can avoid the cold outdoors with some tangy and delicious treats!

It is also good to hear that people are whispering about our company in the area. I am running into people who have heard about it or talked with someone we do not directly know, which is always refreshing.

See you next time Vital Vixens... and Vikings? hmmm need something catchy.
-Jake

In stores at last!

After 6 months of hard work, we have finally launched and are on sale around Rochester, NY, as well as online. Prices on our website are somewhat steeper than we had wanted, but liquid weighs a lot and isn't cheap to ship.

Selling to stores has been a learning experience. Both in becoming salesmen, and learning the intricacies of the beverage industry. Unfortunately you can't just create a drink and expect a store to purchase it from you. Some stores sell their cooler space to companies, others have exclusive contracts with major brands or distributors (like Coke or Pepsi....boo), and some stores are owned by corporations that require you to sell to the corporation instead of an individual store, as well as pay a shelf space fee for each store the corporation owns.

It'd be nice to have major dollars and a sales force to be nationally distributed quickly, but no such luck here! We're going at it the old fashioned way.

Our first few days of sales, we struck out at 95% of stores for various reasons. We came up with a new game plan that landed us in 10 stores the following day! We've found luck selling to mom and pop deli's, pizza shops, and non corporate gas stations and convenience stores. It's difficult to tell which convenience stores are corporately owned, and which are independent, so we've had to literally go to each store and meet the owners bright and early in the morning.

We're trying to focus on stores near college campuses, hospitals, and high schools because these are the main demographic for energy drinks (we consider ourselves an energy water, and a direct competitor of energy drinks in general).

We experimented with promoting Vital Energy at RIT and UofR this past weekend, but we quickly realized that Labor Day weekend is not a very busy weekend. It seems like everyone decided to BBQ with their families. At any rate, it was another learning experience, and next weekend we'll nail it.

This coming weekend we'll officially begin our marketing and promotional campaign (guerrilla style of course). We'll be at RIT campus on Saturday, and near the Pittsford Village Thursday or Friday, so come find us if you want a free sample!

Here are some more pictures of our first shipment, and Vital Energy in some coolers!

Drink on...
-Mike