Paulo Sobral - The Hemp Beverage Playbook

On this episode, we’re joined by Paulo Lacerda Sobral, the CEO of Lolli Soda - classic soda, remixed with cannabis. Lolli focuses on legacy flavors like Cherry Cola, Grape Soda, and Orange Soda.

Paulo honed his beverage chops at big names like PepsiCo and Sierra Nevada Brewing before diving into the cannabis beverage space.

He brings deep expertise in beverage manufacturing, distribution strategy, and regulatory navigation - plus a clear-eyed take on what it’s really going to take to make THC drinks go mainstream.

Paulo shares what inspired the creation of Lolli, why he isn’t trying to disrupt soda, and the future of cannabis beverages in retail. We talk through the real costs behind hemp beverage ops and why so many brands fail to focus on quality.

Episode Highlights:

 🥤 Why Lolli is “classics remixed,” not wellness-forward
 🏭 Lessons from Pepsi and Sierra Nevada in scaling ops
 🌱 The challenge of THC beverage regulation state-by-state
 💸 Real talk: tolling costs, margins, and cold-chain myths
 🛒 Why convenience stores are a sleeping giant for cannabis
 📦 The importance of shelf stability and flavor-first development
 🧠 Navigating burnout and founder identity in the cannabis world
 📈 How to get distributors and retailers to actually care
 🎯 Why beverages require IRL sampling, not just DTC funnels

Table of Contents:

 00:00 – Intro & Texas hemp regulation discussion
 03:00 – What inspired Lolli + Paulo’s journey from Pepsi to pot
 07:00 – The state of cannabis and hemp beverage
 13:00 – “Traditional” beverage vs cannabis and hemp beverage
 17:00 – What makes a great THC soda (formulation + flavor)
 19:10 – C-stores
 23:19 – The on-premise channel
 24:45 – DTC
 30:00 – Who should your first hire be in cannabis and hemp beverage?

Links:

Lolli - https://www.drinklolli.com
Follow Paulo on LinkedIn –
Follow me on LinkedIn –
Check out https://www.kitprint.co for CPG production design support.

Transcript

0:00

you see like Texas is doing that and then I've seen like a lot of headlines at the federal level is that it's a lot of positive news so I don't really know I don't know what to believe what's I mean you know but better I do what's your take you know I think Texas was a big one because he went against his own lieutenant governor yeah the floods I have no freaking idea I'm not even trying to be smart on it cause the guy I kind of like being ignorant'cause then that way you know you're just kind of living in the moment so that's the way I'm taking it right now I think that's a good approach it's all you can do I guess right now right yeah so what's the latest is like there's gonna be like some sort of special legislative session like in the month month or two and that is this like does that mean this is the only topic to be discussed essentially is that what that means I don't know I haven't gone deep enough to find out that Texas goes into session every two years so I don't know what other bills he vetoed I don't know if those are included in it but yeah it's it's we're not gonna expect it to be the free for all open market like it was but beverages those beverages are the safest thing when it comes to THC you know is it THC a Delta 9 Delta 8 like what are they what are they even did they specify that in that Bill well the Bill was any form of THC was banned okay not not detected basically got it so they're gonna allow some level of THC now they're gonna probably cap it it's gonna be about form factors what type of like to get a hemp permit you just need to pay like 200 bucks no background check and and they rated some of these like smoke shops because they were selling stuff about above point three % but yeah I think synthetic cannabinoids are gone and this is just my thinking here I think synthetic cannabinoids are gone I think THCA flowers are gone I think inhalable of all form are gone but we'll see I have no idea I'm not I'm not that opposed to like HHC and some of these weird synthetic ones I don't know I've never tried those I haven't heard the I haven't heard good things I'll say that they only exist because to get around these loopholes cause it's cheaper to make them deriving it from other liquor which is how we make our drinks so I'm I'm fine yeah totally alright well yeah busy week well hopefully this will be a bit of a bit of a break alright welcome to shelf help today we're speaking with Paulo Sabral who is the CEO of Lolly Soda joining us in the Bay Area for those of you that don't know Lolly is a classic soda remix with cannabis that focuses on legacy flavors like your cherry colas grape sodas orange sodas super exciting time in the cannabis and hemp beverage space right now to say the least especially a lot of the stuff going on this week too which we may jump into um before that Palace been a good chunk of his career at Pepsi and in Sierra Nevada as well as some other players in the cannabis and hemp beverage space like vertoza and can so got a really a lot of context have a lot of good experience in Vietnam as well as traditional CPG beverage excited to get into it so first off Paulo just to start off just for the people that aren't that familiar with with Lolly give us just kind of a quick lay of the land in terms of origin story why behind the brand core flavors products you guys offer and then just a few places core places where people can get their hands on them and then we'll go from there yeah for sure so first of all great to be here I appreciate going over my background as you can tell I've been a big beverage early cannabis companies and cannabis beverages but for the last six years I've been narrowly focused on this category so I've had a pretty good view of the landscape out there and I think what we were missing was a soda in the market that looked like a soda first and foremost so we're definitely not the first cannabis soda many started in dispensaries we got Keef Cola uh they were kind of mine when I was at Bertosa can trip CQ Sweet Justice Green Monkey which both started in the Canadian market and I still think a lot of them cause they started in dispensaries might look like cannabis products first so as always differentiate there's cannabis products and then there's products that have cannabis in it and to me beverage has more mainstream potential if it's cannabis is treated as an ingredient rather than the star so we wanted something that looked and tasted like a premium craft soda first and that also just happened to get you high so obviously there's a lot of uh uh traction with Poppy Lolipop these brands they're definitely premium craft sodas they're promoting some type of functionality in their case gut health so we are again a premium craft soda that people love they love the flavor of it they love the mouth feel of it and then our functionality is that euphoric ingredient that we all know and love something else that we do different than a lot of the products you see in the market is how we position it so a lot of them lean into wellness see alcohol alternatives or their very cannabis culture forward we're just a fun soda and that also tells people drink what you want do what you want which is kind of going against a lot of the current trends of being more towards wellness people still like their indulgences they still like their vice it shouldn't be something you're drinking all day every day and it's usually not for most of our consumers it's just a little break and a little bit of fun in your day and for my time at Pepsi you know we Learned everyone loves soda so these flavors are already known and loved it just adds THC so that brings easier trial for consumers distributors retailers to pick it up and the team that started Lolly they they've been cannabis beverages for about five years now I met them very early in 2020 when I was still working at bertosa and a year later they launched a high end cannabis spirit called palamos in the California Dispensary channel which you know very well has its share of barriers challenges with barrier adoption amongst other things and so Panos made the wise decision to pivot to hemp a couple years ago I've stayed in touch with them throughout the years and when I was at Serena Valley Brewing I was the head of the uh business development for the Copack division we built a massive pipeline of hemp beverage brands lining up to work with us and California banned hemp derived THC in September of last year so not only was I gonna have to rebuild some of that pipeline but I was ignoring my ambitions to make this a massive category so with my connections logic knowledge and experience in this cannabis beverage space I just basically didn't want to live with regrets 20 years from now if I didn't make a move soon so I reconnected with the Palmos team they told me about the concept and they were about three months from launch at the time so I jumped at the chance to go for it and lead that launch as their initial go to market strategist and CEO this beverage space or beverages that use THC's as an ingredient whether in the regulated THC space or the hemp hemp space that's a garnering a garnering a garnering a lot of attention right now at the same time it feels like there aren't that many people that really have a lot of experience in this space it feels like there's only so many people that have more than what feels like five minutes and you're definitely one of those so just in terms of where we are today I guess just the Kings out here where where are we where are we today and then why does it feel like things are all of a sudden it might be in reality it's a 10 year journey and all of a sudden people are paying a lot of attention to it but yeah where we are today and why do you feel like it feels like things are exploding at least to an outsider let's say it's definitely been that long for cannabis beverages 10 years ago they did exist in the dispensary channel but you know we've been told companies like vertosa came around there was issues with stability with the THC ingredient being and maintaining potency over time as you know back then third party lab testing wasn't even required with the medical regulations but I I think now we're actually arrived as a legitimate category I just had lunch with our with our software provider for our CRM and they're they're a legitimate software provider for the alcohol industry and they're getting ready to report category data meals and start to report category data so how we've arrived at a as a really established beverage category I say it started first with the USDA Farm Bill in 2018 and as you probably know that permitted hemp cultivation domestically and many people including myself believe the department of agriculture intended to permit rope and not dope as they say so we wanted to source hemp domestically to make hemp protein powder hemp seeds hemp fibers you name it there was a little bit of talk about CBD and topical applications but for the most part they were not looking at cannabinoids when they were permitting hemp they were looking for another crop that farmers can make money off of but the language defined hemp as a type of cannabis that has no more than point three % THC by dry weight and the interesting thing is the Farm Bill regulates crops not finished goods like a beverage so about a year later I joined vertosa and back then we thought CBD would be the cash cow and it was for a minute but around maybe 2020 we started selling Farm Bill compliant hemp that contained Delta 8 THC and then some people started pushing down the loop including Delta 9 THC again using that legal definition as a finished good that has less than point three % THC by dry weight so technically it's farm Bill compliant but the farm Bill doesn't regulate that finished goods but anyways the train kind of left the station at that point and I think the second moment that was really crucial for our category was Minnesota defining hemp at a state level in 2022 and what they did was they looked at the farm Bill definition but they had their own definition that permitted up to 10 mg of THC in a finished good so that was clear and what was interesting with that is the first early big adopters were beverage distributors and liquor stores and that was allowed to be sold alongside other adult beverages both at retail and on the same distribution truck and that created a safe harbor for major distributors in Minnesota to feel comfortable to start carrying the drinks and I joined can around that time within 60 days we had a product launch in Minnesota a hemp derived version of can looked and tasted and got you high just like the cannabis version but we were struggling to get headway at the same time and a lot of don't use cannabis states marijuana states um we were in about 8 at the time and a couple of months later we're in Minnesota in the same trucks as Pepsi and Heineken so it's just kind of happened at once and less than a year later Total Wine and more brought in to Minnesota then they started expanding to other market and at that point the spark became a flame and that's got got us to where we are today talking about the state of today what is the next things are moving so fast so let's just say what is the next five years in this market look like both in terms of market standpoint also policy standpoint I think this is probably a timely question which might be a good time for you to maybe touch on to a certain extent what's what's been going on in Texas over the past week or two and then also what it seems like what conversations are happening at the the federal level and in Congress as well yeah so we we just survived a scare in Texas as you know we had a ban Bill that got to the governor's desk and he vetoed at the 11th hour uh and the silver lining I was looking for there cause you always have to look at it when we're in our category was this is gonna scare off some people that are just trying to get rich quick we had a lot of people do that with when Minnesota and Total Wine did their thing and the category got flooded with a bunch of people who didn't understand the regulations the challenges and they weren't weren't in it for the long haul so we had a lot of rapid expansion as distributors started bringing on the category didn't know how to who to vet in terms of suppliers who had staying power or not so a lot of them took on a lot of suppliers at once and now they're looking to put more stringent um uh put a more stringent magnifying glass on who they bring in whether they're scrutinizing the brand appeal the liquid quality is the liquid even having the potency as advertised on the can where does this company stand for stand from with a long term regulatory perspective do these companies have financial staying power so anyways I think we had a lot of uninspired brands saying the same alcohol alternative messaging that the category leaders like can started off with and it's really simple to make a uh Seltzer base and just add some powdered flavors on there and then add the THC emulsion to it and I put something out there that's acceptable that doesn't mean it's gonna change the world or even get long term consumer adoption but somebody who walks into the store and just looking for something that's gonna get them high at a certain price point is just gonna buy whatever's on the shelf so now I think you're actually gonna see it look like a real CPG category where again uh you're gonna have to have something special and differentiating message the reason for consumers to believe in your brand a targeted consumer base and something differentiated in your liquid as well and you're gonna start to see sub segments in the category so it's not gonna be just THC beverages you're gonna have just like with caffeine right you have coffee energy drinks and so on and so forth you're gonna see a lot of sub segments so cannabis tea cannabis coffee cannabis sodas cannabis seltzers cannabis spirits and they're just gonna get more granular when we see the set and it's gonna start to bleed into maybe other sets in the retail store shelves as well yeah you touch on this a little bit thinking about that that Pepsi experience you talk about you know gonna look a bit more like traditional beverage but in terms of where the the market is today where do you feel like are just those the biggest differences between yeah just say traditional big beverage like the Pepsis of the world versus where this cannabis and hemp beverage space is right now and and where do you feel like some of the similarities are are at the same time yeah I'll I'll start with the difference is um so you're talking about Pepsi that that's just the largest food and beverage company in North America and where it's wildly different is at its core I think Pepsi is a distribution company first and foremost when it comes to beverage they they have carried third party brands that they end up acquiring like Muscle Milk Naked Juice Cavida Rockstar not sure if they ended up acquiring Celsius I think they did but that's another example so they have a big portfolio and includes free the lay Quaker but speaking of beverages they leverage that massive portfolio of billion dollar brands to lock in shelf space at retail so when I was there I can ask for exclusivity from a college or a hospital saying I'm the only non alcoholic drink allowed in your building with exceptions of categories we've been playing like dairy so they can have milk and we can do that because we have high performing brands in every type of liquid you can imagine whether it's tea isotonic water carbonated soft drinks energy drinks protein drinks juices you name it so Pepsi gets that exclusivity or that dominant shelf space or cooler space and they can throw $1 million of innovation that can flop so obviously being a scrappy startup beverage brand you don't have those type of resources you don't have that type of clout with the retailer and you are um building a category and you're also dealing with these regulatory challenges so a lot of times you're having to educate the retailer on regulations as well less and less more less and less than the past now you can actually just talk like your beverage brand but it still exists today and it still was a burden we all carry so we aren't getting some national distributors involved in cannabis beverages and now but until they have ownership and brands I don't think they're gonna throw the bank at any of them so we're all scrapping to win on service and shelf velocity all the big players big companies without naming names are doing their research and kicking the tires but they won't enter until it's federally permissible for the most part so basically the main differences the vast resources network established brands established categories that allow you to incubate the innovation versus everybody just scrapping by trying to make some magic happen where it's all the same that's a shorter answer you still win by executing in market creating something that pleases a specific customer base the pitch still feels about the same at the retail level so you're still selling beverages to a retailer and the retailer is just trying to maximize their profit per square feet they don't necessarily care about your brand or liquid I know that cause when I was at Pepsi I didn't even pretend to be passionate about drinking the drinks I sold it was just conversations about trade math more than anything else they just want to know if people are walking in the door and going to buy it at what rate they're going to buy it at what is their profit per year right totally where it's on on that topic where do you feel like your Pepsi experience has really proven to be the most valuable coming into this space yeah for sure it's just knowing how to talk to these retailers knowing what increases shelf velocity knowing what motivates the retailer and then being in the distributor shoes I I know what what their challenges are what they're looking to do basically maximizing the space on their truck stops per day so again it's just the union economics the trade math those are all the skills I carry over and help me tremendously in in the and going into Canada's beverages yeah yeah that's super awful that makes a lot of sense I think historically like it's been pretty challenging for beverages I think for a variety of reasons whether it's there's not that much space in a dispensary to have a fridge the distributors are not really set up just because of you know the weight of beverages I think a lot of distributors don't want to go over that weight limit where they have to have that commercial permit and there's a bunch of various reasons and so just hasn't really been you know has things started beginning easier as they're seeing there's more and more interest from consumers we are seeing more traction at dispensary retail believe it or not uh we did have a lot of artificial hype I wanna say because a lot of companies were well capitalized without a plan to profitability in cannabis retail and the biggest challenge is manufacturing in my in my opinion so you touched on the dispensary channel challenges but you know now dispensaries are starting to realize what's not differentiating them is having the biggest selection of 22 different vape cards so they are allocating more floor space to beverages believe it or not but when it comes to manufacturing where it all starts as you know you need to get a cannabis license to manufacture beverages and most people who seek those licenses are making pre rolls concentrates stuff that takes minimal equipment minimal cap ex relative to beverages takes little space and it's not as sophisticated as a manufacturing process not as complicated as a manufacturing process and you also make more margin on a per unit basis so if you're in most markets you're a licensed cannabis producer you can't make anything that is not cannabis so if you think about a beverage manufacturer standpoint if you have an efficient line you want to get that line as busy as possible and you can't do that if you're only selling products that are only permitted to go into one channel where people aren't buying drinks at a large scale so it's a widely inefficient business from a manufacturing standpoint and the brands have to foot that Bill for the inefficiency so as a result your co packing fees are gonna be 6 x what you'll get in hemp so most brands I know in the regulated channel now are going to a pure licensing model where they partner with those manufacturers and distributors and then they just get a royalty on sales and if you are a manufacturer a lot of times they have their own house brands and the same thing with the distributor so if you walk into a dispensary today and look at a fridge it's probably just two or three manufacturers and or distributors that are stocking most of those drinks today so it it's just more efficient there's a lot of consolidation for manufacturing distribution and also brands yeah and how you feel like they might be a bit of an untapped gold mine for cannabis and hemp beverages why do you feel like this channel hasn't been much of a focus yet our brands waiting on our brands and our C stores waiting on some sort of catalyst or is this channel just simply not really been much of a focus yet I mean I think it's prime for the category but this combination of a couple things that make it challenging today cost regulations chain reluctance tend to be involved so about 60% of C stores are independents so you do have a lot of door to door selling you need to do where with uh Spec's Liquor stores in Texas or Total Wine and more we're in both those chains hundreds of stores with one point of contact so it's a lot more efficient for a brand yeah and when it comes to regulations unfortunately a lot of states are now permitting sales in only 21 plus stores it's better not alright band but C stores are instantly disqualified as a result it just happened in Tennessee I think Alabama trying to remember Alabama just change your regulations and when it comes to cost space is a premium at a C store so it's very competitive for non alcoholic beverages non alcohol you can pay to play so you pay slotting fees and Pepsi and Coke dominate that space at C stores like I was sharing earlier so many new brands have to support with a free fill the product might not be merchandised with the beverages it might be miscatchal opener cooler and retailers know that they can take advantage of brands cause uh the demand is higher than supply so they just cycle through exciting new brands give them free products even if they grant them a slot it's probably not a permanent one and cause C stores are always getting orders all the time too so even if it's not intentional you'll just have an empty slot that's gonna get filled before you even realize it and it's gonna be hard to get that space back yeah so what's what's the key to to winning in in this channel and maybe where does a brand's strategy need to differ compared to liquor stores the ones you're talking about and and grocery where you are you will sell I definitely think the job is a lot easier if you have a DSD distributor on your side right now so DSD if not familiar with the acronym stands for direct store delivery so they go in the inventory what's in the store and then they have a computer suggest an order and then they deliver it as well and it's usually the big dominant players like I mentioned Pepsi that they also fight for that shelf space so they're doing the fighting for you they're paying for the slot so then the conversation you have with your DSD distributor is what's in it for them what margins you're gonna get velocity you're gonna get can they build something better in house or is there another competing brand those are the conversations you have so it's almost like you do the pitch at the distributor level and then the distributor uses your muscle to get you into the C store yep that makes total sense in terms of retail and shopper marketing tactics for this channel specifically what should tools should brands have in their tool belt to shelf talkers aisle violators I imagine it's a lot of you know pop displays that are sitting up near the register that kind of stuff yeah the first thing I'll say is you think about your package so you got to stand out on shelf that's obviously given but the thing to remember about C stores is most of the products bought there are consumed instantly I think the metric I got was 90% of them from Neilson so it's a big focus on single serve so what's that you're going in the cold box cooler clings are great shelf toppers are great branded glides I really am a big fan of those cause it's kind of looks silly if a competing product goes into a glide with your brand on it I'm thinking about my time at Pepsi 99% of my C store business it's not my word it was single serve versus multi packs so you need to focus on a single serve when you're picking out your package your pack out you need cases that have less unit quantities not only cause the backroom is tighter for back stock but it also keeps the case cost low because a lot of them don't have a lot of cash flow to play with regular to big box retailer yeah I know that's probably more limited in Minnesota where I'm at you can buy that on menus at restaurants and what not I know that's not like every state but for the states where on premise is is worth playing and what what's working well on this channel well you mentioned it's pretty limited still because of regulations and also insurance liabilities and traditionally the channels more conservative since people are consuming at their establishment so most insurance policies today would drop you if you serve THC so to win you almost have to um present a insurance solution to to the establishment if they haven't brought on THC out there already there are some policies out there they are at a premium personally for the for my perspective it's worth it for the establishment because it delivers a different experience for consumers people like me who end up ordering a mocktail and then spiking my own drink and we have a sister brand called pamos that I might I think I mentioned earlier so they've had a lot of success with responsible high end establishments that are willing to let us educate their staff so that's definitely crucial and we find places on the menu we make sure that the potency is responsible that we're putting on us on premise establishment and pamos cannabis cocktails are just as complex and more enjoyable for the mixologist to make than their alcohol analogs so when we engage with a non premise operator who's willing to do the work to ensure their insurance provider is supportive and train their staff we'll offer a unique customer experience that helps really helps that restaurant or bar be behind cutting edge trends I know it seems like some brands are doing well I think breeze is probably the one that everyone talks about because they publish their numbers publicly and DDC is a big part of their business and seems like how they scaled so much but at the same time I could be chosen wrong here but I guess other than Amazon I don't really see anyone ordering Pepsi off of Pepsi's website DDC I'm curious how important do you feel like this DDC channel is gonna be in let's just say 5 years compared to where it is now yeah I mean when I left Pepsi I left in 2,016 I don't even think we're paying attention to it outside of just putting stuff on Amazon yeah and I have a ton of respect for the breeze team they know I love them um I think what they did really well is there's curious peoples on their phones that didn't even know THC drinks were a thing and they can get them delivered to their door it is the Doordash era and there's probably not accessible one in the stores where they've shopped already so they go for it try it out and they then fall in love with it um it's done a lot of wonders for our category and their brand is blown up as a result and it was a huge portion of our revenue when I was at can too even though can is already had traction at retail so a lot of them probably prefer to get breeze wherever their favorite drink is when they're on grocery trips and breeze knows this cause now they're focusing more on retail shout out to my friend Brian Dooley who also comes from the regulated cannabis industry who's now leading that charge for them so that said people buy drinks at C stores like I said it to consume on the spot people get drinks with their groceries when they're already getting food they're out in a bar and restaurant get a drink with their meal that's traditionally how we consume drinks and since you brought it up I think liquid people want to consume them instantly or stock their pantry and when they stock their pantry they're getting their other pantry staple staples so it's got to be bundled with grocery yeah it's just not where you sell a lot of drinks outside of Amazon where you just get something on subscription that you're going through a unit or two a day every day yeah yeah I agree with that on the topic of sell through packaging is is a big part of that if I came to you and told you I was getting ready to launch a brand in this space I'm about to kick off packaging design what are two to three things you'd tell me to keep top of mind or tips you'd give me or on the other side things to watch out for that might trip me up and this is where I have a ton of healthy friction when I was a consultant it's a great question and the thing to keep in mind is it's still an unknown category to most consumers and there's no consistent THC beverage look so we know what a beer looks like we know what looks like a wine we know what looks like a soda obviously some companies are pushing those boundaries but uh they do it to stand out and it's a reason like when you're standing out you might have a hard time staying in an established set so when you think about THC drinks the exercise I like to go through is what drink are you placing in the consumer's fridge and looks like that type of drink until there's a consistent look so you know a lot of times I see brands get too esoteric too cute treated like it's an art project a lot of confusion and noise and beautiful designs on the package and I always like to use example of my wife people are busy so she goes out and buys whole fat yogurt and comes back with low fat yogurt cause she was too busy or distracted to read the package so don't sit there and make something that's an art project for trying to sell on shelf keep it simple keep the message different they just want something instantly that looks like something they're familiar with and is part of their routine already and always keep your logo the star that would be my for basic guidelines there yeah that's a rough really helpful my um including a stint at Verto as you mentioned I think it's pretty clear on the you know the regulated t a or a dispensary channel you have to be a licensed THC regulated cannabis manufacturer there's limited number of those on the the hemp space what is the manufacturing and and co packing space look like is it still pretty limited or more more coming in coming into the market yeah what does it look like it's night and day from when I was at vertosa so I have a ton of scars from my time there it was a huge challenge of ours lucky for now the category there are a lot of craft blue brewers with a lot of line times not good for the craft Brewer but good for the category and they believe in the category now some are pivoting entirely to THC beverage co packing and vertoza now they've been around for 6+ years they have a lot of history case studies and they did a good job of educating co packers on how to make quality THC beverages but initially the co packer didn't want to take your guidance until the issue started to happen it was for a lot of reasons and part the category wasn't established or Tosa wasn't established technically are easy to make but having a stable emulsion in a a unique beverage matrix is where the challenge is so a lot of times co packers just wanted to sell the emulsion as a commodity so they viewed us as competition um but there's definitely a lot of availability now for beverage professionals and there's a lot of know how on how to make of high quality so it's pretty easy now if you have a co packer that's used to making let's say craft beer that they can make a high quality THC beverage with all the knowledge and resources we have versus six years ago when I started in it right totally what if I was an entrepreneur aspiring entrepreneur I thought I was more interested in this b to B route rather than building a consumer facing brand what opportunities do you see for entrepreneurs who want to get involved in yeah let's say I would not recommend co packing manufacturing or distribution the only reason is alcohol has its challenges right now so all those big alcohol players have the infrastructure already and yeah those games are just about how for the most part you know obviously got to account for service is how how many can you make and at what price so it's all a matter of scale so I was like to answer this about what people ask me for as a b to B professional it's data raising money or growing sales so I think the data is coming online also from these big players that are doing analytics for adult beverages markets are still a little too fragmented so if you can do something at a hyper local level that's really deep that might be a value yeah get granular at a local level if you're going to get into that game and sales brands want to be everywhere but can't afford too many full time boots on the ground professionals so we there's still opportunities for more at say third party sales agency can that can really help brands scale quick and fast yeah that's really good to keep what do the first 2 to 3 people look like that you recommend a founder in this hemp beverage mthc beverage space hire or or look for first of all ask what the founder skill set is but I think what's most important for any startup beverage brand is that beverage sales professional it could be the founder if it's not it needs to be a co founder or very early employee um and I think that's very important today especially um something else to consider now is I think a lot of brands are built online with organic content it was still a lot of traditional media where these big beverage companies can buy all the media time and media space and newspapers which remember when those were things but now people are digesting all their content digitally and anybody can make content with an iPhone so that needs to be somebody that's on the cutting edge of those trends lives and breathes your brand and knows how to build online community at scale yep and for someone that they're not in a place or maybe they just don't wanna build a company themselves they've had some experience in the traditional beverage space let's say they wanna get their foot in the door in this and how should they position themselves and yeah what are the leading companies looking for in terms of experience skill set that kind of stuff I definitely think it's going back to one of the earlier answers it's sales people that can create a market known to geography yeah so it takes a lot of effort to build trust with retailers so if they already have that book of business that trust they know how to sell drinks again these are drinks with an ingredient in it it's easy to teach the nuances of the cannabis ingredient um cannabis regulations all that stuff we have to deal with versus getting somebody who already has a huge network and knows how to move drinks at scale um so I I think for the most part if you're a beverage professional and you can just talk about the the the the skills and processes you put in place to move a lot of beverages at volume then you have your pick up brands you wanna that's really helpful for someone looking to get in the space has some traditional beverage experience they have decided hey I'm I wanna be an entrepreneur I wanna build build a brand in this space what are let's just say two to three things you tell them to keep top of mind and and or things to watch out for or maybe a bit of a some doses of reality let's say that's a great question I feel like throughout the last couple of half of my career here I've talked more people out of it than jumping into it it's uh it's harder than you think is the first thing and everybody says that about every CPG category this beverages are probably the hardest CPG category and then cannabis beverages are the hardest segment in beverages so even harder than you think after I say that so I would say find a way to be profitable quick or find investors with a long look at the horizon that will stay off your back and not question micro decisions the keep the thing to keep in mind is nobody's done this before so even though they're brilliant in other arenas they've had success elsewhere they're not going to know what you know until they get in the weeds themselves and they're not going to because they have money and probably better things to do with their time right so totally they gotta climb that mountain with you you know take it one step at a time not question all those decisions like I said and and the other thing is we all have a burden on education and regulations but it's important to know you're running a business too at the same time so I always use the example of Uber and Airbnb cause they did this really well they were skirting uh taxi cab and hotel regulations but they delivered a better consumer experience than the traditional taxis and hotels and when they got a certain scale they started paying for lobbying but initially they won the hearts of consumers and then the consumers started to become their advocates yeah so for a lot of people entering the space focus on your team focus on your customers and consumers and then whatever spare time and money you have you throw towards uh regulation fights um but I would say that would be my advice is to not get too deep into the weeds on that because once we get the will of the consumer on our side then there's gonna be no stopping this category yeah especially if you got traditional beverage experience don't come in thinking you know everything and coming in with a fair amount of a pretty humble approach knowing the space is is very different in a lot of ways yeah I I still don't know the golden playbook to be clear I just know a lot of what not to do for sure yeah that's great that's almost more helpful yeah I just moved out I just moved out to Minneapolis a month ago I think this is definitely one of the markets that's more places you can pick these type of beverages up where where are some places that I can get lolly out here both on the um retail side and that if there if it isn't any restaurants that I can go and see on the menu and order it at any what what places are come top of mind in Minneapolis you gotta go to top 10 liquors um so that's a figure I know that's not kind of the default one yet yeah yeah so that's our partner up there they're great we we still need to build out our Minneapolis sales support so we are uh if you're interested in the sales role up there then hit me up for sure but we're leaning very cool what's the best place to for people to follow along with you that are really interested in the space and what's the best place to to follow along with Lolly as well Olly please follow us on all socials uh the the usual suspects there uh for myself personally I'm pretty active on LinkedIn try to help people save time and money whenever I can uh destigmatize the plant which is that burden we all carry so I'm pretty accessible there just send me a DM say hi if you try it lonely give me your honest feedback I'd love to hear it perfect awesome pal has been great really appreciate the time and I also wonder like what how are they defining both as cannabis and hemp space effectively supported this space seem like yeah I saw you wrote about C stores not too long ago whether it's like you know compact how about on the on the the on premise channel on the DDC channel in terms of supply chain you've been in space for a while and what holes do you see totally shifting gears from a a team standpoint the 90s and up to the early 2 like what roles do you say are most in demand right now apple has been great super knowledgeable in the space