Pioneering Cannabis-Infused Spirits with Justin Tidwell of Nowadays

This episode of Shopify Happy Hour features Justin Tidwell, the visionary behind Nowadays—a cannabis-infused spirit brand that's shaking up the beverage industry. Justin walks us through the evolution of his THC beverage brand, sharing candid insights on everything from product development hurdles to the art of organic marketing. 

He explains how pivoting during the pandemic fueled rapid growth, and why authenticity in influencer marketing and customer engagement is the secret sauce to building lasting credibility.

We also explore: 

✅ Launching products only when they’re 100% ready
✅ Harnessing organic marketing on TikTok to drive rapid growth 
✅ Balancing DTC and retail growth for sustainable expansion
✅ Tailoring strategies to a diverse THC beverage market
✅ Building a strong company culture and memorable customer experiences
✅ The future of THC beverages—education, compliance, and growth potential

If you’re in e-commerce, DTC, or just curious about building a groundbreaking brand in the cannabis industry, this episode is packed with actionable insights and real-world experiences to elevate your game.

Products and brands mentioned:

• NOWADAYS
• John D. Rockefeller’s Letters to his Sons
• Slate Milk
• glonuts
• Kemosabe

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Nowadays and Its Unique Offering
03:09 Crafting the Perfect Beverage: R&D and Flavor Development
06:02 From Concept to Market: The Journey of Nowadays
08:57 The Power of Organic Marketing and Social Media
11:59 Building Credibility Through Customer Experience
14:51 Influencer Marketing: Authenticity Over Promotion
24:05 Understanding the Target Market
27:01 Marketing Strategies and Growth
28:50 DTC vs Retail Growth
30:25 Navigating Retail Opportunities
33:28 Future of THC Beverages
35:13 Surreal Moments in Business
36:30 Hiring for Growth
39:39 Building a Strong Company Culture
42:02 Recommended Reads and Products
44:01 Efficiency as an Entrepreneur
45:52 Memorable Shopping Experiences
47:12 Connecting with Justin

Transcript

Dan (00:02)
Welcome to the Shopify happy hour. On this show, you'll hear from Shopify founders, operators, and experts on growth marketing strategies, lessons learned from the trenches, and other nuggets of e-commerce wisdom shared over a different drink each episode. Today, I'd like to welcome Justin Tidwell, co-founder and CEO of Nowadays, which is the first nationally available cannabis infused spirit. Justin, welcome.

Justin (00:27)
Thanks for having me, excited to be here.

Dan (00:30)
excited you're here as well. So it's funny that we're doing the podcast because recently, so I'm in the middle of or kind of maybe two thirds of the way through 75 hard, is, know, fitness program where no sugar, no process stuff and just, you know, lots of working out and with that is no alcohol. So I try to do it every year to just give myself a break from the weekend beer or two or cocktail that can, you know, lead to some not so fun hangovers and things like that. And there's a bottle shot.

that opened up nearby locally that my wife had been going to and every time I go I ask the managers and the staff there I'm like tell me about what you're carrying because they've been carrying a lot of non-alcohol beverages and they actually said recently I

we decided to do the podcast, I was like, what about nowadays? They're like, it's our best selling product. Like people come in and they fly right off the shelves. So you're definitely doing something right from a branding standpoint. congratulations on that. But before we kind of talk even more about the brand and the product and your background with it, why don't we?

Justin (01:22)
to hear it.

Dan (01:34)
start with the most fun part of the show and let's kick off a drink. So what do we have today? Maybe talk about what you're having and then I'll crack open what I got over here.

Justin (01:39)
Why not?

I'm gonna follow the old, it's five o'clock somewhere, because I'm in the middle of my work day here, but I'll always have a chance to crack open some nowadays. So I'm gonna do the Berry Can here. This to me is like one of the most just transferable, drinkable products we have like anytime, anywhere. So, cheers.

Dan (02:02)
Cheers to you, I've got Barry as well. So yeah, yeah, so I'll crack this guy open. Cheers, cheers. Happy Friday and five o'clock wherever that is, somewhere over the Atlantic right now. So yeah, have to, I'm not gonna lie, I have had nowadays before the podcast, I've cracked open some of these over the past few weeks and.

Justin (02:03)
there you go. Good choice.

Happy Friday. I'm heading home early today after this.

Dan (02:30)
I really like the taste and flavor profile of each of these. I think berry is my favorite. It's, you know, the,

the sparkling-ness, like all the bubbles. I nerd out on bubbles. I'm a big beer guy. And so I nerd out on the nitrogenation and kind of the size and mouthfeel of carbonation. think it actually makes a big difference for beverages, whether you're having just sparkling water or an alcoholic beverage or something like this. And the carbonation, I think, is really nice. The berry flavor is definitely there, but it's not too much. It's not very sweet. It's just a very light.

Justin (02:46)
nice.

Dan (03:09)
kind of nice nice flavor profile and Yeah, very good job on that maybe if you can talk about What we're drinking what's in it and how did you come up with this particular? Flavor profile or set of skews that you're now selling for the canned beverages specifically

Justin (03:31)
Yeah, so really we're one of those companies that, you know, our supply chain team hates us because our mantra is we're not going to launch a product unless we feel 100 % about it, not 99, not 99.9, 100%. So it takes us a long time and a lot of back and forth to get products to market because of that. But it's something that we know we feel really good about once it hits the market and that we can, you know, I'll sign my personal name on it every time somebody drinks it.

And so in our can beverages, they're really our flagship product. We launched was a 750 ml bottle, a style to replace vodka, replace tequila, make cocktails, take shots. And we launched that at crazy success, which we'll get into later. But a frequent question we got from people was, Hey, I want something on the go. I want something that I can take to a friend's party. I could bring on the golf course.

like give us a can, give us a can. So it really was driven by popular demand of like, we got to keep the people happy. So we wanted to come out with a group of flavors. So our initial flavors were citrus, berry, original, which is our proprietary tropical blend and spicy lime. And we wanted to give something that we felt like checked the box of everybody's flavor profile, who's at the party, depending on what type of mood they're in. So really a lot of quality and R and D behind it, but

Happy to hear that. You you like the flavor.

Dan (05:00)
Yeah, it's fantastic. These are very easy drinkers. It's pretty cold right now. We're in middle of winter and I'm in North Carolina and North Carolina winters can either be 75 and sunny or 20 and rainy and today's been kind of freezing rain, super cold, but this is a very easy drinker. Be great in warm weather, great in cold weather. So you really nail that. Can you talk about how you go through

Justin (05:13)
Yeah.

Dan (05:28)
from having the idea, so it sounds like you launched with one product that more of the cocktail style and then moved into the canned beverages based on consumer feedback. How did you get to the point where you knew you had enough feedback where it was worth pursuing this product set? And then once you have that, what does your process look like to then...

turning that idea into what we have now in terms of testing the marketplace, figuring out which flavors to go after, all that. Can you walk us through how all of that works?

Justin (06:02)
Yeah, for sure. I think like number one for us is we're not going to do anything else until we feel that we're at an A plus with what we're already doing. Right. So for with the 750 ml, we launched with that product because when the THC segment started to come around and it was before anybody had launched a product, we saw a lot of companies running towards developing RTDs or developing CAN products because it's a lot easier to make

THC tastes good when you have 12 ounces of liquid to work with. Where in our RTD product, we have one and a half ounces to make that same amount of THC taste good. So we said, let's really start with a really hard project that we think is difficult to get to the market. And once we perfected that, launched it, had a lot of views, lot of success and got a very strong purchase rate on that product, was only when we said, okay, let's open ourselves up to

what else can we do out there to really expand our market share, give customers what they may be looking at out there in the market and not going to us for. And just generally hearing what our customers have to say, like on our website, we're doing tens of thousands of transactions every single month. That gives us consumer touch point right on the customer to find out what do they want and how do they want it. And so from there, it starts with a broader idea.

Our customers are telling us they want cans. How do we approach this? Do we want to do seltzers? Do we want to do alcohol like flavors? How do we want to go with this? And we landed on canned cocktails because we felt there was a gap in the market for an elevated segment of canned products. And with a little bit more flavor integrity and a little bit kind of more punch to it. And so

We got with our team and at that point we're contracting food scientists to help us develop our beverages because at the end of the day, there's more just to the berry flavor. There's acidity levels on your tongue. There's how it feels in the aftertaste. And from there, it's usually months and months of R &D. And we'll start with a hundred glass bottles on the table with a hundred different flavors. And it's a team process of narrowing it down, narrowing it down, narrowing it down. So.

It's actually personally my favorite part of the job is product development. But it's also the hardest because getting 10 people in a room to agree on their favorite, as you can imagine, can be quite the process. But once you hit it, everyone in the room knows. And honestly, we knew they were going to be successful before we sold the first one just because of how much time and energy we put into actually nailing the physical product.

Dan (08:42)
those are very fun days but also maybe not the most productive once the tasting is done.

Justin (08:47)
for sure. We

always schedule the tastings for like 5 p.m. because we say, all right, after this, we're going to need to order in some pizza and we're going to just hang out because after that you're done.

Dan (08:57)
Awesome, awesome. Are you manufacturing yourself? Are you working with a co-manufacturer?

Justin (09:02)
We utilize third party co-manufacturing. The big reason behind that, and that's always been an internal debate for us is because at the end of the day, co-manufacturing offers quick scale. And we're at the point as a business where when we produce a product, we're producing in the millions of units. And for us to go to somebody who has that experience and has learned the lessons of creating a quality product and getting it to market.

to me is more important than us having our hands in the process at this point and how we can scale it.

Dan (09:35)
How did you go from idea, let's go back years ago when before nowadays was a thing, just a concept or an idea. How did you wanna come up with that, the idea for the business? And then how did you then move forward to the point of turning it into something from just that ideation phase into liquid in the bottle?

Justin (10:04)
So we're a rare case of a business that started out as truly a fun pet project and it kind of led us down the road. So I've been in the cannabis industry for over seven years. I started my first company out of college. There's a packaging provider to the cannabis industry. So we make child resistant packaging and we sell it to some of largest cannabis companies in the country. That gave me

a lot of early insights into what do these companies do well and where are we lacking in the market? And what I saw time and time again was that we're addressing people that already consume cannabis, we're addressing people that have a high tolerance of THC, and I see those products going time and time again. So in the back of my mind, I always had like, how are we going to get me into the market who's not a consistent cannabis user, my grandma on the market who has a stigma about the product?

And so that was always in the back of my mind. And then I was lucky enough being in the industry to see the emergence of the technology that goes into these beverages that allows them to be drinkable. And when I saw that, it started to kind of percolate in my mind. And I was actually at a party with a friend of mine who's now my co-founder, Anthony. Somebody had said to me, what do you think is going to be the biggest thing in the THC industry in 10 years? And I just threw out of my mouth, it'll be drinks, whoever is the smart person to figure that out.

I moved on with my night and Anthony called me and literally at midnight. And I don't know why I picked my phone up. My wife's looking at me like I'm crazy. And he says, dude, I can't sleep. And I'm like, what's going on? He's like, if you think this is going to be the biggest thing in the cannabis industry in 10 years, why are you sitting on your hands doing nothing about it? And so that moment kind of spurred us to start a project really during COVID that it was like, can we make a drink that tastes good that we feel good about that we can put our name on?

And we went that spirit route, like I said, because it was very challenging to work with one and a half ounces of liquid. And it took us a year and a half just to get a good tasting product. And it's just trial and error of sitting in our living room, having friends come over and launch the product. And from there, I'll say we got some lung sprinkled in luck into the matter because we were launching in the California cannabis market into dispensaries.

where is a traditional market where consumers are looking for high dose products. And we found out about the regulation that allows us to sell our products nationwide as hemp products. They contain the same THC that you can find in a dispensary, except they're in lower amounts. So we're able to sell them as a national product instead of through those regulated channels. We completely pivoted in 30 days and we launched our product with limited funding, a website and Instagram and a TikTok.

And from there, the rest is kind of history.

Dan (12:59)
I love the early pivot based on signals you were seeing. So let's stay around that time period. So within 30 days, you decide to move to more of, sounds like national e-commerce, is that right? Still focused on that. And you're using social, Instagram, TikTok. What was your strategy to get the word out? what were you doing? Was it organic? Was it paid? What did that look like?

Justin (13:13)
Yes.

Yeah, so when we initially launched, again, we had super limited funding. We had just spent a bunch of capital on a market that we weren't going to enter, which was the cannabis market. But we had such a strong feeling that our consumer was someone who doesn't necessarily go into dispensary. And that's why we decided to make that pivot. So we launched strictly with organic Instagram and TikTok marketing. And our strategy was

And it's really the design of our bottle. This one has some little hearts on it because we just had a little Valentine's Day party. But you bring this to a party, you put it on the counter and the goal behind the packaging design is for someone to look at it and go, that belongs here, but what is it? Right. And just that little frosted glass, it stands out to you and it says, that's different than the alcohol on the shelf, but it also belongs in the party. So that was like phase one was how do we make a product stand out that tree that gets your interest?

And when you put that product on social, it catches people's eye the same way it does when you bring it to a party. So first it started with product design and packaging look. And then second was working in social media and whether it's a regulated space of alcohol, cannabis, whatever it may be, you have to play within the lines of how you can market the product. So we face the unique challenge of I can't go on TikTok and say, Hey, try this cannabis drink. It's delicious. Right. I have to.

kind of play into what the product, hey, try this product that's gonna give you a lift, right? So was really putting it on social and playing towards what we thought people understood in the market. We were one of the first companies to use the term gardening, right? And kind of play that up on TikTok. We started posting videos for a few weeks and we saw $100 a day in sales and we saw $250 a day in sales. And I kid you not, and I'll never forget, it might've been the most shocking moment of my life.

I woke up one morning, I checked our Square app for credit card processing and I saw $100,000 was deposited into our bank account. like, huh? And I check, I'm like, where is this coming from? What's going on? And I go on TikTok and I see a video that we posted organically is going viral, going absolutely crazy. Ended up getting a couple million views, but generated six figures in sales for us and we didn't spend a dollar on it.

Honestly, we started and was like, let's get the word out, but I didn't realize, okay, now this tool is extremely powerful and how do we actually use this for us? So we put a big focus, our first full year on organic TikTok is all how we built our business. And we generated multi-millions of dollars in sales without spending a dollar. And it was really towards following the trends, letting consumers know this is a different product, but not able to say THC. And then...

quickly driving them to our site to learn more. So it's kind of a three-stage strategy, but our first entire year was solely organic.

Dan (16:27)
think that's the e-commerce brand owner's dream is to wake up with a load of cash hitting their bank account.

Justin (16:31)
And honestly,

like I hate, talked to a lot of young founders and people getting started and I almost hate our story because that's a one in a million thing to happen and like I'm aware of that. So I tell people, like, hey, don't expect to wake up with six figures like if sales, you know, in your second week, cause something went viral on TikTok. But on the flip side, it's very possible if you can communicate your product.

Dan (16:58)
The other thing is having product market fit and I think a lot of brands will try to push paid organic and before

considering lots of marketing efforts, it all starts with your product and your brand and making sure you're creating something that people actually are interested in and not entering a marketplace where there's a hundred other brands doing the same exact thing and there's no differentiation. You've got to differentiate from the start and also ideally have your marketing built into the product. And what's nice about beverages is that people often consume them together or at a party. And so the marketing kind of happens

Justin (17:15)
100%.

Dan (17:39)
through that just word of mouth which can do wonders for your customer acquisition costs. what did you know around that time when you were posting organic content it sounds like you were focusing on trends which is obviously very smart. Were you creating the content? Did you have a team creating the content? And were you working with influencers or affiliates to promote as well? What did your content creation strategy look like?

Justin (18:06)
Yeah, so at that time, we had a team working with us making our content. We would really drive home like, here's how we feel we need to market to this consumer. Here's the vision for what we're trying to do. And they'd bring the content back to us and we'd get it posted. At that point in time, it was really driven upon organic social on our own TikTok account. And then from there, what we noticed was as we were sending out thousands of bottles a month, our biggest

generator of revenue began people purchasing it and people talking about it, right? And it seemed like it almost shifted from people wanted to hear what other people had to say about the product. And it almost with us was people a lot of times said, is this a scam? can buy a THC drink online that actually gives me an effect, right? So what we realized was we need a halo effect around the product to build credibility. And so we started

utilizing a lot of purchasers who tried our product and really encouraging them to post about and say, hey, tell us about your experience because we had confidence in our product. And a lot of our drivers began to be people organically posting about it and telling others about their experience. And that's where we really saw a major lift because we got that credibility of, okay, this is not a too good to be true social ad, right? It actually does what it says it does.

Dan (19:33)
Are you anything specifically to motivate people to create content after they purchased?

Justin (19:39)
So initially we were bare bones. You purchase the product, you get a receipt, because we weren't ready for the amount of revenue that we had coming our way and the amount of orders. So really it was driven by going back to putting time into the product, putting time into the packaging and knowing that people are going to think it's intriguing and want to talk about it. And I think that like is a major point of where we nailed it on the head was

creating such a differentiated product that people actually want to talk about it on social because it also makes them interesting to bring something into their world. What we started to do post purchase after a while was actually incorporating into our email marketing, hey, post about us, like, you know, bringing it first to mind for them to go and talk about it. And that's really scary for a lot of brands because when you go to someone and say, post about your experience, you better make sure that you're delivering the experience that

they were hoping for, right? Because they could also go the negative way and talk about your product too. So when we really felt dialed in and like we were delivering on in every single area, we started encouraging people. And then the third component became gifting influencers, sending them a bottle, not paying for that exposure, but just sending it to him and say, hey, try this. If you like it, talk about it. And that we saw was kind of like stage one was us, stage two was organic.

you know, people who purchase and then stage three with sending free product as much as we could possibly send and just letting people talk about their experience on social. And it really just started to create kind of a massive buzz effect around our product.

Dan (21:16)
How are you finding those influencers and were you having some type of agreement upfront like, hey, we're gonna send this to you and we'd love you to create content or were you just getting a list and then just kind of sending it out? What did that look like?

Justin (21:31)
Yeah, so for us, it was really about paying attention to social. think social is the same thing as TV. It's the same thing as media. Who is relevant at that time? Where if you think of TV, what is the hot show, right? Is it modern family at that time? Like that's where you want to get attention. It's the same thing with social. There's certain individuals at that time that are relevant. So it's staying in touch with that. Who do we feel is a good representative of our product, representative of our brand?

And then sending them the product for free there was no You know quid pro quo of we're gonna send you this and you have to do that and that's right I advise against brands people that are creators particularly on social they're creative people and if you try to put them within a box and say live in this box It doesn't feel authentic to the person listening to it, right? If you pay me to go hey, I love this product buy it versus somebody pouring it tasting going

Oh my gosh, that's really good and having a real experience. I think your return on investment is going to be far more. And we noticed that with our viral videos, 10 times out of 10, they were people talking about their actual experience with our product versus a promo ad where they got a read off a sheet.

Dan (22:47)
Authenticity works. People can feel it and sense it, whether it's in person or online. Are you doing all of that, let's say, influencer outreach and management, is that, you using a platform for it, or do you have people kind of doing it manually?

Justin (22:49)
It does.

So we have an internal marketing team. So we have somebody that at this point is in charge of social media management and their literal full-time job now because of the success we saw organically in the past is find who's trending, find who's relevant, get some product in their hands and let the rest go for itself. So when I log in to our social, the amount of tagging that we have on a daily basis is like,

I used to look at every single one. Now I'm like, I don't have enough hours in the day to see the amount of people that are talking about the product. And that also drives what's cool about it is you get people starting to reach out to you at some point. So now we have, you know, 10, 20, 30 large influencers a day just saying, it's all this post would love to try it. Right. So it starts to do the job for you once you create enough energy around it.

Dan (23:56)
Love it, sounds like the perfect job for the right person, just living in social, finding cool people and.

Justin (23:58)
It is a great job for sure.

tell her every day, I'm like, you got one of the best jobs in the company.

Dan (24:05)
Nice, nice, good stuff. who is, who's buying this stuff? What type of person is purchasing nowadays? And do you see any difference between the canned beverages and more of the spirit, let's say that more of the, what would you call it? The glass bottle cocktail?

Justin (24:27)
Yeah, the

750 ml or bottle is what we call it. So we put a lot of thought into the design of our brand and the main driver behind it was, in our opinion, who's going to drive people at a party to try something new? And we really landed on the fact that in my opinion, whenever I was at an event at a party, usually it was female driven bringing

Dan (24:31)
Yep.

Justin (24:54)
the on-trend new product and me cracking it open and trying it. So we kind of skewed our marketing, what we call like 60-40 female-male. We wanted to feel like a mass market product that skews a little bit female. And that was particularly to design around getting trial at events because we feel that females are gonna be the leading driver of that. So, you you sit down and you're launching a company and you go, okay, our target market is female 25 to 35, getting off alcohol.

and then you launch and it completely blows all the numbers out of the water of what you thought you were going to do, right? So we kind of let the market speak and look at the data. What's very shocking is we have such a wide net. We have 25 year olds who are out of college and they're just over drinking. And we have an online purchaser that's 92 years old on a weekly subscription because it makes their knees feel better, right? So.

It's such a wide net. So what we try to do is from a marketing perspective, focus on market segmentation. if we're speaking to that 25 to 35 year old female, here's what we want to say. If we're speaking to that 65 year old, here's what we want to say and being very targeted about what we're saying to each demographic. Cause I think you could get stuck in the bucket of we're only a brand for this, but I think our product can help a lot of people.

So it's just conveying to them in their particular market segment, how can we actually get this product to you why would you want it?

Dan (26:27)
think there's an opportunity to go after all the 92 year olds with bad knees. The lifetime value on that segment might not be as high as the 25 year old, but it's a cool story to tell and you're helping people out at that age.

Justin (26:32)
Exactly, there's a lot of them out there.

Yeah. Hey, you know.

100%, 100%, that's for sure.

Dan (26:44)
Nice. So, you know, lot of this sounds like you're doing lots of influencer and organic focused on e-comm. What other marketing strategies have you tried that have worked?

Justin (27:01)
Yeah, so once we kind of took off as a brand and we went from a point of will people like this product to we know people like it, now we just have to get in front of people, we've started to deploy hundreds of different tactics. The benefit that we have of going organic as a brand was that we built an email list organically of over half a million individuals who intently signed up on our website.

I always say like we have our backbone in order, which is our email subscribers. Those people are purchasing at extremely high repeat rate. They're there. They're kind of the cornerstone of our business. And now it's how do we go out and build upon that? So now we deploy social media ads. So we're spending on Metta. We're spending on TikTok. We're about to join AppLovin and really kind of ramp that up.

and seeing very positive kind of CAC LTV ratios were profitable on first purchase, just kind of focusing on doing things the right way. We've dabbled into programmatic marketing. I think that's very hit or miss. If you're wanting to build top of funnel and build brand awareness, I think it's great, but it's hard to get a kind of dollar for dollar attribution of what you're going to do there. And then I think...

The last piece that's been big for us is getting out in the real world and letting people taste it, letting people try it. We have a very robust sales team. We're partnered with alcohol distribution across the country. And we feel that our DTC success is a strong indicator of what we can do in retail. And so getting liquid to ellipse is the easiest way to put it and being in front of people wherever they are.

Dan (28:50)
Are you seeing, where are you seeing more growth, D2C or retail right now?

Justin (28:55)
It's kind of interesting because we look at the end of the month with our finance team on what's going on. For what we're seeing, it's very fast growth but steady DTC. And what you see on wholesale is almost a hockey stick type approach where you're investing a ton down here, but then you're working to get to this point. So for us, having consumers know about us because of social gives us easier brand recognition on the shelf. So I always prefer to

to be digitally led first, let consumers try it online, perfect your product, perfect your messaging. Because once you go to retail, it's highly expensive and it's highly long-term. So you need to be ready to approach that customer exactly how they want to communicate with you. So online's a great way to trial, great way to get awareness. And then I think retail is more of a long-term play.

Dan (29:49)
So for retail, for a THC beverage, what options do you have? Because so it sounds like, you know, this could be something that could work at a cocktail lounge, right? Where you've got mixologists who are using this to make different different drinks or people are just serving it straight or at a regular bar. But then there's also, you know, places like Total Wine, then there's beverage distributors. So wine shops, there's lots of different options. Where do you see the

I guess opportunities in retail based on the type of distribution outlets.

Justin (30:25)
Our segment is extremely interesting, right? Because two years ago, three years ago, nobody knew or could buy a THC beverage online, right? Or in a store, in a traditional outlet. So we're what we call like an unregulated category at this point. So we self-regulate. So what that means is on our website, we're IDing on every single customer. We're making sure everybody's 21 plus. That's extremely important because as we build a new category, we want it to be very credible.

So when it came to retail, we wanted to only work with partners that could take that mindset and expand it. So we exclusively partner with alcohol distributors to distribute our product to retailers because they're set up to work within a regulated system and make sure our products are only going to 21 plus outlets. So our biggest driver of revenue right now are off-premise liquor stores.

That's kind of where our product is living, where consumers are finding us and buying our products. And I will give a shout out to Total Wine because they're an absolutely massive business that's leaned very heavily into this category. And they've done a great job of showing the potential of what can be done here. If everybody acts responsibly, make sure it's re-ID and make sure we have tested products.

Dan (31:47)
Well, I think the demand is there, right? That's been proven, you've proven that. There's some other brands in the space that have proven that. And I think it's been a long time coming because for years it was, you have alcohol, beer, wine, spirits, drink at home, go to parties, go to cocktail bars, breweries. And then people were smoking weed, right? Typically at home or at parties, not really out in public, just at home.

But the blend of this makes sense because as people have been more health conscious over the past, let's say decade or so, and as there's more more studies coming out about the harm of alcohol, people want other options. And what I like about, let's say functional beverages, including beverages that have THC is it's just another option when you go out or you go to Total Wine.

go to the supermarket or a bottle shop or out to get a cocktail. I think more options are better for everybody. As long as you know, there's some guardrails in place. But this is a, yeah, it's great to see brands like yours grow because I think it's good for the industry and it's just another way for people to.

Justin (32:52)
Yeah.

Dan (33:04)
you know, either increase focus or relax or de-stress or whatever it is in a way that might not cause as much regret the day after. Love it, love it. So where do you see things going over the next few years for the category, for the THC beverage category?

Justin (33:28)
So I think, and I tell our team this all the time, if this were a baseball game, because I was a baseball guy, so I use all those analogies, we're not even in the first inning, we're in the literal warmup is where I feel this category is. I see that this category in five years is the same size or larger than the alcohol industry in the US. I feel there's absolutely...

massive market potential because if you go on the street and we do this, we do random surveys, we're only seeing right now two out of 10 consumers knowing this product even exists. Not two out 10 have bought it, but knowing that you can buy it, there's so much room to drive market awareness. think the market is naturally going to grow a ton. And what I think the most important thing for the segment is, is to ramp up education and to

really be strict on compliance and quality products. I think those are the two things that are needed for this category to continue to skyrocket. And the great thing is there's a ton of great companies in this space that have that same focus. And if we're all aligned on that and we're wanting to push the needle forward in this category, I think there's no reason that in five years from now, going in and ordering a glass of wine or a beer is exactly as common as ordering a THC drink.

And the great thing about these products are they are very low dose and they're designed for people not to have a bad experience. So I think if that keeps replicating over time and people are having positive experiences with THC, then the sky's the absolute limit. So I'm nothing but excited about what this industry has for the next five years.

Dan (35:13)
What's been your most surreal moment since launching the brand? Besides waking up with a hundred thousand dollars.

Justin (35:18)
I think, yeah,

so we ended up doing a million dollars in our first 90 days in business just on our website. That was kind of moment number one for me. was like validation of when you think someone's gonna like this and then you know someone's gonna like it. I think number two for me is when we first started as me and my co-founder answering the customer service emails, ordering the product.

doing everything from A to Z. For me, was, we had our team meeting out here in January where we brought our entire team, got over 40 full-time team members now. And seeing that we've not only built a great product, but we built a great company with great people, that to me, like, literally I'm getting goosebumps right now is the biggest positive and what I get my joy off of at this point because...

There's only so far that founders can take a business and if you can build a team of incredible people that share your vision, the sky is the absolute limit.

Dan (36:23)
So how did you do that? What does your hiring process and vetting process look like?

Justin (36:30)
Yeah, so I think as you grow as a business, it really changes. And we were like in a very hyperbaric chamber of growth where you're going from really a year one company to a year five company in a matter of 12 months. So when, when I'm first hiring number one, I'm looking for people over over track record. Number one, like I'm really talking to the person, understanding them as a human being and what drives them.

And I'm looking for people that I see that it factor in them, like you're going to be able to deliver and drive this business forward, even if I'm not there to help you and hold your hand. So think when you're first starting, you're looking for people that are very wide and skill set. Hey, can you do the customer service emails? Can you run over to the warehouse and sticker these bottles? And those, you have to have a certain mindset to be that kind of person of running all over the place. And then I think as you grow,

you're actually starting to look for those very pointed people that are very, very good at a specific thing. So I think it's like when you're getting going, like you want that guy that's going to be up at midnight or a girl and do whatever it takes to make sure those emails are answered in the order of ship the next day. And when you're at our stage of the business, I want somebody that can exactly tell me what's the best thing we can do in this specific category to help us grow.

So I think it's knowing your stage of the business and always, always, always hiring for the person before their pedigree because I think 10 times out of 10, you're going to get a better result with somebody who is in the game versus just maybe has a nice degree or had a few good jobs.

Dan (38:13)
So you hire four persons, I assume your personality buy into the culture and the mission as opposed to just resume, right? So, so.

Justin (38:24)
100%. I think

like number one, are you passionate about the product? Because if you're passionate about what we're doing and what we're trying to change, that's going to drive you on the days where they're not good days. there's a lot of them when you're, when you're starting out. And then I think secondly is really looking for people that are willing to go above and beyond and understand that when you're starting out, it's not necessarily a nine to five. It might be.

you're on call for whatever it may be and you don't feel bad calling those people because you tell them upfront, here's what you're signing up for. If you're good with this, you're gonna have a great experience and if you're not, it's probably not for you. So I look at it like a two-way interview and I usually tell people, here's all the bad things you're gonna experience. If you still wanna do this, come work for us.

Dan (39:12)
I love it. other than, so when you onboard people, so you go through the interviewing process, it sounds like you're very transparent, which is super important. And then other than the team tastings, which sounds super fun, what else are you doing to keep people kind of locked into the mission, but into the brand and building and enhancing the culture over time?

Justin (39:27)
Hey

So when we were first starting out, like we didn't even have a training manual, right? It was like, hey, start here. We got a thousand emails, like let's go, right? So, and then as you grow, think continuing to keep the organization engaged and you have, you know, 50 people versus one, you got to keep everybody connected. So I think number one is like making sure you have clear lines of communication throughout the organization. And like I tell,

everyone on our team and I interview every single person that we end up hiring is whatever you need, you can reach out to me anytime or anyone else in our organization because we want you to know what's going on in our business. so really keeping a transparent and fluid organization where people could talk to whoever they need to and to get answers from the top down. And then having that structured. we have a quarterly, here's exactly where we're at in our business.

where we're pacing for it from a metric standpoint and really opening the floor to everyone and saying, hey, what do think we can do to improve ourselves as a business and get better? So I think if everybody's on that mission together, it's going to help drive the end result at the end of the day. Secondly, it's allocating the budget for people to get together and have fun. Just like in January, we spent a significant amount of money just to have our team out here.

but you can't put a dollar amount on having a team that's connected and driven and bought into a mission. So it's really investing in that as a business and budgeting for it. So making sure that we're doing that at least once a year, everybody gets together, gets to go on a boat, gets to have dinner, gets to have fun. And then I think the third piece is just recognizing people at the end of the day, because you talk to a lot of people, whether they're in large organizations or small, and it's, hey, when was the last time you were recognized for your work? And sometimes people say never, right?

Having a lot of mechanisms in place to recognize people when they do get wins. And just like we're on a mission together and like I want to feel close to the people that I'm building with. And so just driving that home through the organization is big for us.

Dan (41:47)
Well, sounds like it's working based on the growth trajectory, so strong work there. Okay, so let's move on to the speed round. So each answer 30 to 60 seconds or less. What is one of your most recommended books?

Justin (42:02)
I am a big reader, so that's a tough one. I'm gonna say actually John Rockefeller's letters to his son. It's a very interesting read because it's one of the most successful, powerful people that have ever been in this country. And it's heartfelt letters he's writing to his son about his ups, his downs, the things that he's done. And I think it's very insightful to see someone that reached that level of success be superhuman and kind of just

talk about the things that were on his mind and the things that he saw. So I learned a lot from that and I definitely would recommend it to anybody.

Dan (42:39)
I have not read that. I'm gonna add it to my list. Sounds similar to, so George Bush Senior had a book, I believe called Letters. And same thing, I remember I read that years ago. And you know, personality comes through when you're writing. I've written physical letters to family or friends or acquaintances. So nice, great recommendation. What's an under the radar product or brand you've used and like, but most people don't know about?

Justin (42:54)
for sure.

man, so I'll, I'll throw two out there. One, I don't know if I can consider them under the radar anymore. One is, cause I was also on my new year's grind, right? Of getting healthy, getting fit. one is a company called slate milk. I don't know if you've heard of that before. they're basically a canned, protein drink, low calorie, high protein. that just, it tastes like I'm drinking chocolate milk and it also just gives me my protein. So.

Pass off to those guys. Another one I've seen is a company called Glow Nuts. I don't know if you've heard of them, like G-L-O, kind of like healthy for you donuts. So that for me, like when I was desperate late at night, not allowed to eat a donut, I grabbed for those and it definitely saved me some sad nights of not being able to have a dessert.

Dan (43:57)
You are teasing a soon to be released episode of Happy Hour. Awesome. What is one thing in life you do better than most people, and how do you do it?

Justin (43:59)
There we go, all right.

man, my wife and I laugh about this all the time because she says, she goes, Justin, you're the most efficient person I've ever met and it's really annoying. And I think for me, like I have the perfect ability to get something done just to where it needs to be. It's not a 10 out of 10, it's not perfect, but just to where it needs to be to get it done and move on to the next. And I think as an entrepreneur, not being a perfectionist is your best asset. So for me, it's like get it done and move on to the next.

So I'd say efficiency for sure.

Dan (44:40)
How do you do it? How do you schedule your day or prioritize your most important tasks so that you can get those done?

Justin (44:47)
Yeah, so for me, I think it's starting the day right and getting my head right. So it's getting my workout in, getting my water and nutrients in and having some time to think, pray and just like really get my mind right. That's first. So I put myself first in my day. Somebody had said to me, if you look at your email first thing in the morning, you're waking up and deciding that everyone else is going to tell you how your day is going to go. And I kind of take that very seriously if I'm going to dictate how my day is going to go.

Then secondly, I have my most energy from 11 to two. So I schedule my most deep think things in that time period so that I can really execute and kind of be on. And then after that, I really let myself wander and like dive into things that I find interesting because where I'm at in our business, like I need to make sure we're innovative and ahead of the game. And I need to be able to wander mentally to be able to do that. So that's usually how I structure things.

Dan (45:46)
Tell me about your favorite shopping experience online or offline.

Justin (45:52)
man, that's a great question. So I was recently actually, it's a good one. was recently in Aspen. I don't know if you've ever been or not. if not, I highly recommend there's a store called Kimo Sabe. Have you heard of that before? It's like a custom hat. they're, they're very famous like online. and their experience from A to Z of welcoming you into the store, making you feel like you're literally part of a family. They're having fun.

not rushing you through your experience, but letting you enjoy it and just purchase a very customized product meant for you. But what really hit home for me was two weeks later, my wife had bought a hat, she loves it, wears it all the time. We got a handwritten note from the actual salesperson. I just said, hey, it was great to meet you. Thank you for coming in and supporting our business. That to me, like the personal touch.

We all have triggered emails these days. We do the same thing in nowadays. We have cadence emails, have cadence outreach. Everything's methodical. Having a personal touch on a business these days, I think just stands out so much. So, you know, no pun intended, but hats off to them for like their customer service and their experience.

Dan (47:06)
I love the pun, fantastic. Where can people connect with you to learn more?

Justin (47:12)
Yeah, so funny enough, I'm one of those people that is not heavy social media. don't have an instant for for running a business that grew on social media. I personally don't have an Instagram. I don't have a tick tock. I don't have all that. The best place to find me is LinkedIn. That's just because at the end of the day, I'm super interested in what other people are doing on there. And I think like I learn every day on the platform. So follow me there. You can get updates about nowadays and get updates about myself. And if you do purchase the product,

please DM me, let me know your experience and how we can get better, because we're always looking to improve.

Dan (47:48)
Justin, thank you so much for bringing Nowadays to Market as a way to provide a light and buzzy experience without the negative effects of alcohol. Thanks for sharing your expertise and insights with our audience and for joining us on the Shopify happy hour.

Justin (48:02)
Thanks for having me.