Shopify Happy Hour

Soda with a Spark: Unleashing Perfy’s Mood Boost with Founder Vasa Martinez

• Dan Cassidy • Season 1 • Episode 12

Share episode

This episode of Shopify Happy Hour features Vasa Martinez, the founder behind Perfy—a mood-boosting soda that’s not just quenching thirst but supercharging brainpower. 

Vasa takes us on a ride through his personal journey launching a brand that focuses on blood sugar regulation and brain health, while serving up innovative flavors and disruptive marketing tactics.

Get ready to discover: 

✅ The secret to forging rock-solid manufacturer partnerships
✅ Using organic social to attract distributors and retailers
✅ Winning strategies for blending D2C hustle with retail success
✅ Tools and platforms to move product early in your CPG journey
✅ Why limited time flavors can create buzz and be a win for a brand

If you’re an e-commerce founder craving innovation or a beverage buff on the hunt for the next big thing, this episode is sure to give you a new perspective on growth. 

Tune in and get ready to elevate your game—one sip at a time. 


Products / services mentioned:


Chapters

00:00
Introduction to Perfee and Its Unique Offerings

08:32
The Journey Behind Launching Perfee

17:11
Product Development and Manufacturing Insights

21:24
Navigating Early Challenges in Product Launch

24:25
The Synergy of D2C and Retail Channels

27:35
Building Trust Through Social Proof

30:21
Innovative Promotions and Customer Engagement

33:20
Strategies for Successful Shopify Brands

35:36
Lessons Learned and Future Aspirations

Dan (00:00)
Welcome to the Shopify happy hour. On the 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 Vasa Martinez, founder at Perfy which creates mood boosting soda with a mission to support metabolic and cognitive health. Vasa, welcome.

Vasa (00:26)
Thanks so much for having me.

Dan (00:28)
Of course, glad to have you on. I'm excited to try this. I've had some Perfy sitting in my fridge for a couple of weeks now and have been holding off on it and I'm excited to crack into this. So why don't we talk about, so I'm about to crack open the Dr. Perfy, which I love the imagery. You've got, looks like a pear and some berries on the cover or on the can art, which is super nice. And you've got a, sounds like something a little bit different. Why don't you tell us about what you have?

Vasa (00:55)
Yeah, I've got a limited edition pepperoni pizza flavor. It's very, very polarizing on the internet right now. But it's been a fun lunch. mean, a of founders sometimes say they don't have that much fun. This was fun as hell to execute a new product and a launch and a LTO strategy pretty solo. So I had good time with it.

Dan (01:13)
Fantastic, did you time that at all? So for anybody listening, we are in mid February, Super Bowl was in the past, I'm getting my weeks confused, last week, week and a half, right? So did you time the launch of that product to come inside with football season or Super Bowl?

Vasa (01:27)
Yeah,

I had nothing to do with football. It did launch the pre-sale on February 9th, but February 9th is National Pizza Day. So that was the strategy there. But this is all a big, like it's a real thing, it's a real product, but it's all just kind of a big ruse for our real launch, which is next week.

And I think by the time this goes live, it'll have already launched the pre-sale. So it was all to launch Cherry Cola. There's so many people talking about pepperoni pizza. And there's the VIP kids landing at media doors right now and influencer doors. So as they're talking about pepperoni pizza, good, bad, or indifferent, people are going to go to the site and they're going to see that the real launch is Cherry Cola.

Dan (02:05)
I love it, I love it. That's a, that could be a perfect pairing. Good stuff. Okay, so why don't you, while I crack this open, why don't you talk to me about what we're drinking? Because this is not just better for you soda with low sugar, but why don't you talk about what else are in these beverages?

Vasa (02:21)
Yeah, so, Perfie is a strategically positioned functional soda or modern soda, what they're calling it now. And it's more of a brain health soda than a gut health soda. It's not a gut health soda at all. There's no prebiotics or probiotics. It's not intended to compete with Ollipop or Poppy, although buyers and investors tend to think so. The real goal here is for it to be...

more for the people who want to kick their feet up and relax after work or for the kids that might be hyperactive when they steal their parents' sodas, it might be actually a good thing and parents are actually like winking when they comment on certain posts. definitely not intended to be a gut-held soda. I think there's plenty out there. It actually reminds me of the days when I was at Quest Nutrition when a new protein bar launched every week and every bar that wanted to be like Quest fizzled out and every bar that wanted to be like themselves won, like one bar.

Quest 1, RX Bar 1, Cliff and Kind, those are the five that I think about. There's more now, like more modern bars out now, but at that time the bars that were really being their own self and strategically positioned won and that's what I'm trying to do with Perfie.

Dan (03:25)
I love it. So I just had my first sip. It is super smooth, just a hint of sweetness, not too much. I typically don't drink, you know, your traditional sodas. I'm pretty focused on health, fitness, nutrition. And often at nighttime, if I want something, you know, I'll have sparkling water, maybe add some lemon or lime or something to that. But this is really nice because it's sparkling, it's smooth, it's got a hint of sweetness. And...

taste solid, but that's not where you stopped, right? You've also, in addition to making this a very lightly sweetened beverage, you're also adding other stuff to it. So can you talk about what else you're doing with these sodas?

Vasa (03:59)
Yeah,

the idea is pretty simple, but in practice it's kind of complex. It's water with juices. At first we launched with not from concentrate juices to have more of a freshness. Our next flavor, cherry cola, will have some concentrates.

Which is good for a number of reasons on our part, in terms of what else is in there There's a natural sweetener system sometimes. There's sea salt sometimes. There's not and the functional ingredients the constant is L the ending throughout the mall and Then based on the flavor will add in turmeric or ashwagandha as well

Dan (04:30)
Awesome. So can you talk about what L-thanein and ashwagandha and turmeric, while we're at it, what those will do for people?

Vasa (04:36)
I don't really make any claims. send them, honestly, like we got sued so many times at Quest for it. I try not to do that. I can tell you that there's good research on all three of those items. When I was selecting them during R &D, I went with things that are most effective.

and efficacious over time, or effective and safe over time. And that's aldeanine, turmeric, and ashwagandha, meaning if you drink five cans of purfi today and you drink every day for 10 years, it'll have the same impact and safety as it was on day one. So that's how I selected them in terms of what they do. Me personally, I noticed aldeanine helped me with certain workouts. My heart rate one day without taking aldeanine was a little bit different.

than a day where I did R &D. But there's tons of research out there that tell you about it. For the most part, L-theanine is great for stress, mood. Oshrigon is great for stress and anxiety. Turmeric's a great thing for inflammation. All of them combined in a way that's not intended to be a clinical dose. So there's been some legal issues out there with brands and...

those brands want to be food brands. Like Quest we wanted to be a food brand, not a supplement brand. So I dosed them in a way that allowed us to...

kind of have a target for a share of stomach, meaning if there's too much functional ingredients inside of one can, that limits our ceiling for how much a household can drink in one day. For instance, caffeine. You might find that energy drinks aren't allowed for kids in households and that limits share of household, share of stomach. Whereas something like a Perfy, if a kid has it, that's, that's okay. It's not like, we got to, do we got to do something about this? They can, they can have a Perfy and it should be okay. I would always check with a pediatrician.

But yeah, that was the main idea behind it was to microdose some nootropics and adaptogens, not intended to be a clinical dose, but people do feel the impact of it if they're not used to things like this. And the idea was not to put people to sleep. There was a time period where Perfie had double of the dosages and I fell asleep on my couch during R &D not trying to fall asleep at all. So I wanted to scale that back so there was no sort of safety issues.

Dan (06:31)
Sheriff's Derm, I like that term. I've not heard of that before. That's a nice term to use. So can you talk about, you know, I've got this Dr. Perfie here, which is pear and berries, and then you've got pepperoni pizza. Can you talk about the different flavors that you have and how you came up with those?

Vasa (06:46)
Yeah, the first three were kind of an ode to what the brand was initially going to be. The brand was initially going to be Agua Fresca.

and I wanted to really attack the Mexico market. We are in the Mexico market today, so we're fulfilling that destiny. But we're not positioned as an Agua Fresca. I can get into that whole story when you ask about how I started Perfie. So the first three flavors, the fruity ones, speak to that. Fruit Punch is our version of Hawaiian Punch. Tropical Citrus is a love child of a Pog Juice and Cactus Cooler. Pog Juice is a passion fruit orange guava.

Choblix that just has pineapple and blood orange as well. then blood orange Yuzu is our version of a sun kissed. And it's basically an orange soda with a little bit of a twang from Yuzu, which is not quite mainstream just yet in the States. And then Dr. Perfy is our version of Dr. Pepper. We wanted to do something that had the fruits that have in it. Berries are very, very low glycemic.

is going to be a staple in some of our future flavors you might find, as well as the tamarind. So the Dr. Perfie was our first big hit. I would say out the gate people were impressed that it tasted like it. I always love going to shows or demos and people from Texas are like, yeah, this isn't gonna taste like Dr. Pepper, yeah, right, whatever. And then they smelled it and their eyes kind of like opened wide and then they tasted it they're pretty close.

Dan (08:04)
It's been years since I've had Dr. Pepper, but the story of how Dr. Pepper got its start is pretty interesting. But as you were saying that, there's definitely a lot of Dr. Pepper coming through on this. yeah, what's nice about these, you know, as a, a consumer standpoint is it's very low calorie. The one I'm drinking now, the Dr. Pepper sort of spin off Dr. Perfy is 20 calories. There is 10 carbs, so very low calorie. And I think a nice benefit is all the Nutrobix and

Vasa (08:14)
Mm-hmm.

Dan (08:32)
other good stuff for mood boosting enhancements. So probably a little too early for me to feel anything yet, but I'm excited to enjoy the ride. Hopefully feel some mood enhancement as we go. So you mentioned talking through your journey. So let's move to that. So how and why did you launch this brand?

Vasa (08:52)
Yeah, so I started working on Perfy because at my agency you always get that itch. We worked with some of the fastest growing food and beverage brands in your fridge and pantry. Some of the coolest brands out there to be honest. And I always wanted to kind of...

check myself into the game as well, but it was always just a pipe dream. I had to focus on what I had to focus on. during, you know, right when I started my agency, things started really going well for my career. I had just left a couple jobs where I bet on myself, didn't have an income, and had to flip that into matching what I was previously making as quick as possible.

And in doing so, a lot of crazy things started happening. four months after, actually it was four months after I left Quest and just before I started, I incorporated Growth Buster. My mom was diagnosed with cancer and as a result of that, months later, one of my older brothers had a stroke and he's still paralyzed today. his was probably, it can be attributed to a tough marriage. His daughter was battling leukemia and my mom's diagnosis has kind of all of those building blocks to what happened to him.

few months later, my cousin passed from diabetes. And then a few months after that, my best friend from fentanyl. And kind of that whole story over and over again throughout 2020, before the pandemic, just before lockdowns in January of 2020, my old roommate of five years took his life in our old laundry room. So all of these things kind of piled up the last of which, I mean, it still wasn't the last passing of somebody that I cared about, but that particular one kind of threw me over the edge. during the lockdown, I kind of thought it was the end of the world.

and I gave up and didn't really do things that I normally did like work out or eat right so I quickly devolved as a healthy human and had to find some way out of it and

mentally I was kind of struggling through my mom's diagnosis. She was with us until December 23 and she saw a Perfie launch. And it was very, very cool to her because she didn't know that she helped me with the naming of it. She didn't know I was working on a beverage and in February, April, 2021 during development when it was going to be an Agua Fresca, she said, when you were two years old, used to grab it by the pocket and say, Ma, you're Perfie.

So that, I went home and trademarked it almost immediately. But that was paired with some people saying that even though I'm more than half Mexican, I kind of have the fairer skin and don't quite look the part. And I thought that was quite odd. so I wasn't set on what the name of the brand was gonna be and what the actual product was gonna be. So my mom's story led to a quick pivot and months later it launched as Perfie, the perfect soda. And here we are.

Dan (11:06)
How do you deal with all of the losses that you experienced over that short period of time?

Vasa (11:12)
I didn't ask beforehand when we were preparing if this is a curse-friendly show, but I will hold off on cursing. But it's not easy. It wasn't easy going from someone who people came to for fitness and nutrition advice to someone who doesn't look like that. It was tough. There was a time period where I didn't quite know what I was getting myself into. Seeing myself in the mirror, I didn't really see that I was going to a bad place.

And then finally I woke up and went to a fitness camp in Carl's Bad for five weeks and reversed the pre-diabetes and kind of checked it there as though it was a drug addiction. But when it comes to losing people, I suck at it. I have some personal experiences in my life that I'll probably never talk about.

that I could probably attribute to why I'm not good at loss. But I just power through and try to find some sort of anchor. Perfy is that anchor for me now. Growth Buster was it prior, but once my mom's thing happened, I needed a new Y.

Dan (12:08)
that her spirit lives on through the brand that you created and that she was around to witness the brand name. So many congrats on serving her memory well with that. So let's talk about how you actually, so you decide to launch the brand. What were the steps you took? Let's start with building the actual product. So from

Vasa (12:18)
Thank you.

Dan (12:28)
deciding which ingredient should be in there, choosing a manufacturer. Let's start with how you actually created the product. And then once you had product in hand, what your launch strategy looked like.

Vasa (12:41)
Awesome. I love telling this part of the Perfuse history because it wasn't perfect. The pre-launch, like getting a product commercialized, I would say was pretty close to perfect.

Certain things on my side weren't. So what it really looked like was for years I was always dabbling with contact forms on R &D websites. I knew that. I actually didn't realize I had friends that could do this, but that's okay. It worked out exactly as it should have. I found a few groups responded to some. Some didn't take me seriously because it was just me. And the one group that did was actually the number one choice that I had. They said, we'd love to chat and see what you're up to. And it worked out that I worked with them.

And what it looked like in terms of coming up with the products, I knew I wanted a beverage. I knew that I wanted it to be in a can. I didn't want single use plastic and I didn't want glass bottles. No offense. think most sodas are way more delicious out of glass bottles. I just didn't want to deal with weight.

And then it came down to guardrails. Now, I'm not a food scientist I'll never claim to be, but I can be somebody who knows certain guardrails. Like, I wanted to be under 30 calories per can. I wanted to be under five grams of sugar per can. I wanted to be under 10, 12 total carb per can. And I wanted the idea to be somewhat of a spin drift on steroids. I think spin drift is one of the tastiest sparkling waters, and it only uses fruit. The fruit does the heavy lifting. And my thesis was, what if we let fruit

do the heavy lifting still, but added a natural sweetener system and some functional ingredients. And the sea salt was all R &D. That was on them, super smart on their part. Where we can use it, we do. And then we went through months of testing different flavors. I sent them certain inspirational flavors that I liked, certain things, certain sodas that were the parallels, and then certain drinks that were currently in the market that weren't quite the parallels, but had flavor profiles and mouthfeels that I really enjoyed.

And that's where we started. I think we started with all three flavors and had different versions where we kind of chiseled it down to the final version. Some took all four tastings, some took three. The only one that took less than three was Dr. Perfie, which was supposed to be our eighth skew. And it immediately jumped to our fourth because of how good it was. I think we finished after like two tastings. It was really, really quick and my favorite flavor at the time.

Dan (14:48)
So for the tastings, you the chief taster? So you had this team kind of building out the different, let's say, formulations, and then you go in and you're tasting, and then once you land on something, how did you know it was right? Were you confident enough to say, yeah, this is it? Or did you do tastings on the street or with friends or family? Like, how did you go about that?

Vasa (15:08)
No, I really banked on my experience and what I think was missing out there. I spent way too much money tasting a lot of different things, most of which I didn't enjoy. So when it came to certain things, I went with my gut. there are certain, Perfie was actually better. At first I had a guard rail that was a little too strict. Like fruit punch before the fruit punch that was initially going to be launched had natural flavors in it.

and it was banging. I still think it's good, it's just a little more heavy on the strawberry. But when it had natural flavors, it had some cherry...

derived natural flavors that really gave that back-end mouthfeel and taste, it was perfect. I didn't go with natural flavors early on because there was an influencer that was going to potentially be an investor that wasn't really into natural flavors. So I made that concession and it turned out it didn't materialize. So rather than reformulate or go back to a formulation and pay all over again, I kept it as is. Fruit Punch is a cult classic.

I think people that love it love it people that don't probably don't like strawberry or pineapple So yeah, I think I hope that's answers your question

Dan (16:14)
Yeah, that makes complete sense. Sounds like you invested in yourself by trying lots of different flavors and drinks out there so you could dial in for what you wanted to see in the marketplace. Now, so you dial in your formulations, you get these different SKUs ready. How do you then move to the point where you are then selling product? What was your next step after that?

Vasa (16:34)
So

part of my scope with R &D was for different co-manufacturers to be vetted. A bunch of different things about co-manufacturers can be good or bad. And the one that I felt the most comfortable with, the pros were that at the time the MOQs were lower. Cons were that it's kind of nestled.

in a certain corner of the United States where as Perfie scales there will be a need to have another place to produce for efficiencies. But where Perfie was at and where was, my comfort level was with the Coman, we found one that I think is a fit and they're an amazing partner. I got lucky there, so that was part of it. I went to found them myself, I don't believe.

And if you put something like that on LinkedIn, you're going to get smoked for the rest of the year in terms of your DMs. it worked out good. RND helped me find the Coman. And then how do we go from Coman to commercialized product?

Trial runs. Trial runs are always good. You'd rather have a trial run where everything's messed up but it costs you X amount of thousands versus saying, we're good to go. This is just magically going to go from bench top to commercialization. And our plan says that we need X amount of gallons of liquid. And that's going to cost us X amount of hundreds of thousands. And if something goes wrong, then your exposures.

little too uncomfortable so I would advise that everyone does a trial run to make sure that the product actually works and I would advise that you find a coman where the form factor actually works if you want a wafer bar but the coman only does enrobed you probably shouldn't go to that coman there's a lot of different moving parts for liquid those sorts of considerations are

what the kill step is. Are they doing tunnel pasteurization or are you using preservatives? That may be a consideration for somebody. How things get carbonated can be a consideration for somebody. And where it gets carbonated. So all of those things are questions to ask whatever your product may be.

Dan (18:16)
tunnel pasteurization.

Vasa (18:18)
It's a tunnel that uses heat to kill off things that can be harmful to people over time.

Dan (18:25)
Sounds important.

Vasa (18:26)
Yeah, and that's one of Perfie's guardrails. didn't want to use... I gotta take a step back. With Perfie's main line of products, I don't want to preservatives. I wanted to do the process that we do do, which is tunnel pass. But with our LTL flavors, I'm very open. They're just limited time. They're fun things. So pepperoni pizza has citric acid. I think it was important. It also gets tunneled.

But citric acid is a preservative. Some people try to say that it's for flavoring. I would argue that it's probably not. I mean, yeah, it has flavor, but you can't really say that it's for flavoring. Our kill step is tunnel pass for pepperoni pizza, but I can't say no preservatives with this flavor, so it doesn't say that. But it is technically a preservative. So anywho, those are different things where you just have to be mindful in whatever you're producing.

Dan (19:13)
were your MOQs when you first got started with your co-manufacturer?

Vasa (19:17)
can't say that one, but they were low enough to be achievable. people probably wonder, actually I'll give value in a different way. Usually for LTOs like this pepperoni pizza one, it could be a big cash outlay in what you don't know if there's demand. So there's like five people that have commented on the pepperoni pizza one. I think it's from Independence Day where something like,

no one asked the scientist if they should do it or something like that. It was some hilarious thing. I think the dude that saves the day asked the question. And what they're basically saying is, you didn't ask us if we wanted you to do this. And that's quite OK, because my MOQs were so low on this LTO that we've already made our money back. And yes, this will be polarizing.

But I've been able to trade services with my agency for the command to get MOQs lower. I've been able to do certain things that as a good partner, it's like, you you scratch my back, I scratch yours. I like to call it money ball moves, like the movie Moneyball with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. So there's always things you can't do it in a new relationship, just like, you know, if you give handsome your business card, you can't say, let's I'm going to come over to your house tomorrow for dinner and a business talk. Like you have to work your way to those things. So my advice regarding that question is

Regardless what your MOQs are, building a strong relationship with your partners is important because there are going to be times where they need something of you and there's going to be times where you need something of them. And as long as you keep that relationship good, I think that you'll yield some good things. So I try to bring as much business to them as possible. No ask on my end, whether it's other supply chain needs or actual clients that will produce for them.

And then when I've got a favor, they've usually been great. I love them. I can't say who and certain details about certain things, but I can say that for everyone out there building a product, if you have a relationship where you actually love who produces your product, assuming it's not you, which likely it isn't you anyway, then you're in good place.

Dan (21:06)
Yeah, trust makes a huge difference in relationships, especially with, you're having an outside company manufacture the product, that you are putting, you're literally putting your brand behind. And so many things can go wrong. It's critical, right? If you don't have a good supplier, then.

something goes wrong as it's going to in lots of relationships, things happen, there can be miscommunication, people can make mistakes. So having a good partner to ride the ups and downs with you is great. And I love the moneyball moves that you're making. So whatever you did, good work there. So you get your first production run complete, right? You move forward with these, you said three or four skews to start.

Vasa (21:47)
Three to start.

Dan (21:48)
Three to start, and then how do you start moving product? What was your plan to then get cans into people's homes?

Vasa (21:55)
That's where the rub is year one.

It didn't really happen. Like year one really sucked. So I didn't produce a whole ton and I also didn't have a whole ton of demand. All I had was noise that Perfie was making like, this is cool. I messed up on the label at first. So we've had three revisions of the label. I call V1, V2, V3. Ultimately landed with what you're holding in your hand right now with the real fruit imagery. We initially launched with cute illustrations that didn't really hit. And if you look at any beverage set, every beverage has cute

Illustrations so buyers weren't into it so we didn't get cans in hands in a way that is viable for a brand meeting people are buying them We got cans in hands by giving them out the label was terrible. We couldn't get on shelf But we fixed it as quickly as possible very very quick to pivot and fix But we were sitting on product and we got through that product through a number of ways and the value in this answer is gonna be I think there are things like fair or Mabel There's pop-up grocer. There's certain this snack magic was great because it

had a leaderboard so whenever we were leading on the leaderboard we would post about that to show that hey this product doesn't suck but the label does and we're fixing it. So anywhere we can tell any sort of story about the liquid actually being good we did so and then that sort of snowballed into a better 2023 and then a better 24 and 25s would be better than 2024 both from top line and bottom line perspectives there's been improvements since year one which was 2022. So the way that I would say move product early on unless

Unless you're like a veteran in the industry and you pre-sell into a national retailer, I've seen it happen before where a brand's go-to-market strategy is, I think it was Sprouts and Albertsons, like nationwide. That's, can be 3,000 stores right there out the gate.

not a lot of brands are going to do that. A lot of brands are going to need to prove their worth. It's like the, I'm not sure who's familiar with Mike Tyson's punch out, but at first, you you're fighting Glass Joe, you're not fighting Mike Tyson yet. And you've got to work your way up the ranks. And that's, that's how I view 99 % of CPG or food and beverage to be specific is you got to prove yourself. No one's just going to put your product on the shelf just because you're into it. It's got to work. It's got a pencil out for them. So things like Mabel, again, fair range me, got to give them credit.

They helped me land my first few biggest, not first few, but like one of the biggest ones. They've landed multiple retailers and opportunities for us and they've even landed my agency clients. So on both sides of the spectrum they've been huge for both Perfie and Growth Buster. And you got to get out there and sample it. Do stunts, do whatever you want, but if your product is actually tasty, it's got to, you got to get people trying it.

Dan (24:26)
How do you think about the D2C channel and online? And how do you think about that compared to retailer, or I guess I shouldn't say compared to, but how do you see those channels working together?

Vasa (24:37)
hand-in-hand at first early in my career I thought they were this or that but it really is this and that and they both serve each other in what I believe like I'm no guru I just have done this for a while and this is what I believe is my point of view I think that they both if you think about like the recycle symbol how there's arrows going around that's kind of how I view Omni Channel and I'm gonna get super philosophical here

There's ways where if you start out mainly on Amazon or DTC and the financial model works that you can sustain and build yourself a house file or a Rolodex of customers and contact points.

That's pretty hefty. It's going to cost a lot of money, so unless your margin is enormous, you're going to have have injections of capital here and there. And that's fine. Then there's another one where you can go wholesale, but you don't have the velocity stories and the customers to support that. So you're launching in cold, nobody knows you. It's like going to networking event and getting on the microphone and saying, hey everybody, I'm Vasa. Not going to work, people aren't going to want to shake my hand. Don't do that. It has to be a little bit of both. And I think the easiest way to do this, where you can actually make a dollar

Obviously .com, your own website, is important. Amazon I used to hate on early on. I thought Amazon competed too hard and it couldn't pencil out financially. There are ways to do it. So once I learned about my shipping D2C for one 12-pack versus shipping pallets of 12-packs into Amazon, I did a little bit of both. I've got the Amazon Buy with Prime on my website. I don't mind where they buy from. Each one has its advantages. I set that up finally. And what I found, and where those arrows come in the

play is I've seen reviews people finding per fee in store and then stocking up online and then people buying online and doing impulse buys in store. So as long as you have a place where people can buy it that's good but there's even opportunity if you don't have the whole nation covered. I like to run the strategy on if you're running ads to support your D2C business assuming this is like meta

someone's going to comment, ooh, this looks great. Where can I buy it? And if they're in Idaho and you don't have Idaho covered and they don't want to buy on Amazon or your website because the MLQ is too high and they don't even if they like it, why do they want to buy a case of Perfie? I always like to ask them where they live, what their zip code is. And there's ways to win even in that. If we are near them, we'll find it on our store locator and send them the cross streets. Like, hey, it's at your Sam's Club on this corner and that corner.

And if they're not near one, then you can send them a retail request form. And that basically pings a local retailer and says, hey, I'd love for you to carry this brand. And if you get enough of those, they usually reach out to you and ask, you know, who's your distributor? So there's what I like to call multiple ways of winning. They all kind of serve each other. You have to look at it from a higher view than, you know, I'm a founder and an agency owner. So I look at things a little bit differently in my opinion. I'm not looking at every single ad and saying, this needs to drive this ROAS. I don't really even run ads.

I've found, like distributors have found Perfy through Organic Social. They have picked up Perfy literally, like our distributor under the Midwest found us on social. So I think it all services each other and you just have to have an open enough mind to know that just doing things right on your own channels can be very, very helpful.

Dan (27:36)
What are you doing on social that you think has drawn attention from distributors and retailers?

Vasa (27:41)
So I would say just now is the first time I've really focused on organic social, and that's the lunch of pizza. If you look at our grid, it feels composed. It feels intentional. And in the past, I've just been doing.

Honestly, all of the stupidest craziest stuff just to see if it sticks to the wall. Like I've gone on to Sora for TikTok and brain rot videos to see if you know just to have fun. And if it doesn't work, like who cares? It's not the end of the world. So to answer your question, what have I been doing on social? I have been experimenting for lack of any other words and I've been having fun. But the most impactful strategic thing I've done is having type one diabetics test their blood sugar. So every so often you'll see a slew of

type 1 diabetics drink Perfian, then test their blood sugar, showing that it doesn't impact it. They don't need a bolus, which means injecting insulin prior to consuming a bunch of carbs. And when they test their blood sugar and you see it flat, that's a testament that not a lot of others can say they can do.

Dan (28:33)
So that's something that, you know, consumer trust is insanely important and any successful D to C brand, if we're just focusing on online for a minute, gaining consumer trust is one of the biggest challenges, right? Because people just don't trust media companies or brands as much as they used to, which is why most successful e-commerce sites will have tons of social proof.

customer reviews, you'll see this product has five star ratings from 20 plus thousand sales or 20 plus thousand reviews, along with media mentions, because it takes a lot to earn that trust. But I really like what you're doing where you're, it sounds like you're, so you're actually having videos of diabetics who are drinking Parfee and then showing that their blood sugar is not spiking.

Vasa (29:15)
yeah, and our taglines boost moods, not blood sugar. And that sums up Perfie in a nutshell. Our intent is to be a mood boosting beverage, not a euphoric, like tons of adaptogens and awesome mushrooms and something like that. Just to be like a delicious drink that doesn't spike your blood sugar and it happens to have some ingredients that are good for your brain.

Our goal is to show that. The only way to show that, anyone can doctor up their own blood sugar. But having type 1 diabetics who need products they can trust the most, that's not to say that they can't have sugar. Type 1 diabetics sometimes have lows and they need to have sugar. But for the most part, they need to be in control of their blood sugar.

having them post it is, you can't beat that. And that goes for all of the permanent flavors. The LTO, we don't have Boost Moods, not blood sugar on it. We have Drink More Pizza. We don't have For A Happy You on the top. have Limited Edition. Pizza doesn't have any functional ingredients. It's just a fun launch that, you can see me, I'm sipping on it, I'm not forcing myself to. It's actually enjoyable to me. Some people don't like it, that's alright. People are talking about it. So yeah, that's the idea. Boost Moods, not blood sugar. Type 1 Diabetics. Test your blood.

sugar and the proofs in the CGM.

Dan (30:22)
I mean, just being around pizza boosts everybody's mood, right? Whether you're drinking a pizza flavored thing or eating pizza itself, just, makes you happy. So I think that's a legitimate way to go about it. So one thing I did see on your online store that I thought was interesting was the buy one, get one, or get a free per fee. Basically somebody purchases a can and then you refund them for a second can. Can you talk about how that works and how you came about that?

Vasa (30:49)
Yeah, I'm going to give a robust answer here with the context. So to plan promos in retail.

you need to be so far in advance. So if I wanted to roll out a program for April of next year with a distributor, a broad line distributor, I'd probably have to have that paperwork submitted sometime around now, or maybe in the next couple months. So you have to be really, really ahead of it. And as a startup brand with not a lot of budget, you're likely going to find yourself in a place where, one, you probably can't even afford those trade spends. Two, you're not thinking that far out in advance. You're just trying to keep a flow. So there's things like Aisle. I use Aisle.

you can run quote-unquote in-store loyalty programs. And what this does is allow you to create any sort of offer that you want. It can be specific to a retailer, it could be a blanket for all retailers. You can kind of drum up whatever you want to have. Perfies is just a simple one. I haven't gone in there and spent tons of time. But ours is simple. You buy two cans and we'll reimburse you for one via Zelle, PayPal, or Venmo in the next 24 or 48 hours. The best part of it is I'm not the one pressing those buttons.

I pay a certain amount per month if our redemptions go over that then I pay more on top of that But all of the Venmos and transactions come from the group that we're paying for I think it's very very valuable because there are some distributors that are gonna be like we need this man like send us more They're not really IRC's or instant redeemable coupons because those are usually clearing house things that you hand to a person checking you out at the register But they're ones where you scan a QR code you get a phone number And all of those sorts of good things and the best part about this in my opinion

We used to use companies like Enmar and Mandelkin Roads to support brands. We would send out cool coupons for influencers and VIPs, buy one get one, free VIP, like go get a pint of ice cream, whatever you want. And those all have their redemption fees, their clearinghouse fees, the cost of printing, and it really really adds up and you'll find that some people are upside down in their offer.

And it's kind of archaic and I think, no offense if you're listening to this and you're from those brands, think that you guys are dinosaurs. The fact that you charge somewhat, the fact that they charge so much more doesn't make sense because I might be up there in terms of, like I think a couple grand less a year, depending on your redemptions, but you get to have the customer's phone number, you get to remarket to them, you can see deep basket analysis, you can pull insights like.

I think 50 % of all Perfy redeemers have bought a protein bar or something like that. You can find certain insights that are very, very valuable and they're only growing. They're building product and product and no, I'm not an investor, I'm not an advisor, I'm just a user of the product, I'm a fan of the founder. And it's just a good product.

Dan (33:21)
That's great, sounds like you can then take those insights and either use those for productive or partnerships. So yeah, that's super insightful. What are you seeing from, what are you seeing successful Shopify brands, either those focusing on DTC or they're using Shopify as support for their retail efforts, what are you seeing successful Shopify brands doing that the ones who are struggling are not?

Vasa (33:27)
Yeah.

So I don't know if I would know which brands are successful and which ones are struggling. You don't really know until you know the finances. I would say...

Most brands that are using something like an aisle, there's also like a WeStock version of it, and WeStock is another brand that has something like that. I like there's a bunch of other people whipping together things that support a digital to retail presence. Real quick, digital to retail is a term I came up with a long time ago. I bought the URLs and I sold them last year. So it's something that's happening and is really heating up. I mean, it's what we did at Quest where it was the customers that requested Quest Nutrition at GNC, and that was the first national retailer.

to be the brands that are strong on D2C, what they're doing, they have tons of house file. Maybe they have subscribers, emailers, phone numbers. Maybe they have a newsletter too. They have an audience. They have social followers. I call that house file. It's a KPI and a metric that we keep track of for all of the brands we work with. How many followers you have here, here, here, and here. How many subscribers, how many emails, how many phone numbers. Because when you launch a new retailer with all of a big house file, you have an army that wants

to buy it at Whole Foods or Sprouts, whatever that launch may be. And if you segment your Clavio list or your Send Lane or whatever ESP you use...

You can start using your email list and your text list to promote regional launches. So if you launch on the East Coast and the Wegmans or on Publix or on the West Coast and the QFC or a Fred Meyer, you can just start using your online wins and House File 2 support retailers. They really, really love that. Some only look at followers. Some only look at reviews on Amazon. But if you put in your presentation how you're going to support them with this enormous portfolio or Rolodex of people that you

have, that'll go a long way.

Dan (35:28)
If you were gonna start over knowing then what you know now and you wanted to grow your brand to seven figures in revenue as quickly as possible, what would your playbook look like?

Vasa (35:36)
I wouldn't have rushed. I would say that I rushed even though I feel like I was taking the appropriate amount of time. I wouldn't have rushed to market. I would have probably tried to pre-sell into retailers. Assuming I can start over with the network I have now, which is even larger than the network prior to starting.

I would probably ask for a few more favors of, what are buyers looking for right now in this category? I don't know that I would do beverage again, even though it's so meaningful to me. I think the name would be the same. But I think that there are some easy... I would either create... If I was going to create something heavy, it would have to have a higher SRP. Like, there's some sauces out there that I think are really awesome. There's a sauce, there's...

something she just launched a AO which is like a Aolean mayonnaise type squeeze bottle thing. I probably would have a higher AOV like a 999 SRP or more if I'm gonna do something heavy and I don't know that I would stick to beverage. Maybe I would who knows but I definitely wouldn't have rushed and I would try to pre-sell into a retailer.

Dan (36:30)
What's next for the brand?

Vasa (36:32)
Launching Cherry Cola imminently. I have a lot of good meetings at Expo West. I have presented to lot of category reviews.

Honestly, just kicking butt. We've stuck around, we've done well, and there's no employees. I don't pay myself. We use my agency. We leverage a couple brokers. My agency does the ops. Simon on my team does that. So we're a very, very lean team. My goal is to continue staying lean, but also bring in some resources to help us take it to the next level. Because if some of these pitches turn into yeses all at once, it's going to be a rocket ship.

Dan (37:02)
Love it. Let's now move to the speed round. So each answer about 30 or 60 seconds or less. What is one of your most recommended books?

Vasa (37:11)
The Rise of Superman or Founder's Story by Dave Gerhardt. But my number one, I say in order 321, is Forging an Ironclad Brand. Lindsay Peterson.

Dan (37:21)
What's an under the radar product or brand you've used and like, but most people don't know about.

Vasa (37:26)
What was the first part?

Dan (37:28)
What's an under the radar product or brand you've used and like, but most people don't know about?

Vasa (37:35)
I was just thinking about this. Before it was Siate, nobody ever gave them the credit that they deserved for how big they were and how well they have different categories. Now it's Chalk Zero. Nobody talks about them. I think Chalk Zero might be doing 500 million DTC and they don't even talk about it themselves. That's my guess. That brand I think is enormous. Not one mention in PR that I've seen in about five, seven years. That brand is one to watch out for, Chalk Zero.

Dan (37:58)
What do do? I haven't heard of them.

Vasa (37:59)
They make everything candy. Like literally, they have marshmallow cream, their own Snickers version, it's called Raya, because that's the CMO's name. They are the most underrated brand, I think, in the world. Boon and beverage, at least.

Dan (38:11)
awesome.

What's one thing in life you do better than most people, and how do you do it?

Vasa (38:17)
I would say drum or sleep.

I think for as much as I work and as much energy drinks as I drink, I I sleep pretty dang good. And I don't mind sleeping 8 to 10 hours a night if I have to. And drumming, I've been drumming since I was 6 years old. I would venture to say that I'm probably a 90th percentile plus.

Dan (38:34)
California practice.

Vasa (38:36)
Any time I'm stressed, it's my flow. So The Rise of Superman, if you read that book, you'll understand what I'm saying. I was playing last night, so I'd say a couple times a week now.

Dan (38:45)
and for sleep, do you do anything to prep for sleep or have you always, is it just have you always been able to fall asleep quickly?

Vasa (38:52)
Nothing more than a bear does in its cave. Probably roll over once and that's it.

Dan (38:55)
Awesome. Tell me about your favorite shopping experience online or offline.

Vasa (39:00)
I would say the best shopping experience in person is probably Japan. I just felt like I was at the Golden Saucer in Final Fantasy VII. So it felt like just all of the happiness you can imagine from the lights and politeness of the people. I'd say that has to be my answer for in person. Online, I would think a shopping experience, I haven't purchased anything, but I study it, is the native website. They have so many SKUs that I don't know how they'll make it look streamlined.

Dan (39:23)
Where can people connect with you to learn more?

Vasa (39:26)
LinkedIn Vasa Martinez, I'm on X Vasa Martinez as well, but I'm I don't really say anything serious on X My Instagram is Perfy Vasa and You can hit the contact form on Perfy's website if you want to reach me as well. That's me. That's responding

Dan (39:39)
Vasa, thank you so much for bringing Perfie to market as a way to provide mood boosting, healthier soda, sharing your expertise and insights with our audience, and for joining us on the Shopify happy hour.

Vasa (39:48)
Thank you.