Episode of My First Million with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri.
Transcript
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Kind: captions Language: en because everyone was like this is such a silly idea and they raised all this money I mean I guess at the heart of what liquid death really is we’re really just completely trying to change the way healthy food and beverages are marketed at the end of the day most of the most hilarious memorable ad campaigns that you ask most people about it the last 10 years they’ll tell you Bud Light don’t suck ease Snickers Doritos skittles like all junk food and alcohol that’s the funniest most memorable kind of youth culture owning and energy drinks like redbull that’s like let’s not leave old spice out well it’s not really a pure beverage but yes but yeah it’s like all that it’s all junk food and alcohol that does all the funniest coolest youth culture marketing whereas healthy food is traditionally marketed to like mom and it’s quiet and it’s responsible or it’s like look better we’re you know show yo you know fitness models you know drinking bottles of water like it’s a very different they don’t use fun to market whereas unhealthy beverages stuff like that like they want to own fun so we’re basically doing that with water so we want to be able to take the healthiest thing you can drink that most people don’t drink enough of and brand it and build a you know a cool you know seeing around it where it’s something that you feel totally comfortable drinking a liquid death in a bar or at a house party right at a music festival or at work or in the gym and just making it more fun to walk around and have a walk right and you definitely made headlines when you raised all that money cuz everyone was like this is such a silly idea and they raised all this money I didn’t it’s a stupid reason I mean it was like an awesome company and totally worthy of going big but so it kind of worked right like you you definitely uh you definitely ruffled some feathers and I think that’s good no yeah I think you know I always bring up I one of the you know I listen to the Reed Hoffman podcast a lot master scale yeah and it’s like I loved it he always pushes he’s like truly innovative ideas are almost comical at first because if it seems like it makes a lot of sense right now it probably means there’s four other companies that have been working on it for five years already looks like the things that are truly unique and innovative like almost don’t make any sense at first there seem laughable I think like that’s kind of the case of liquid death I think it’s like we’re really trying to disrupt a category in a way that’s not just disruption for the sake of disruption you know I think it’s like we strongly believe that and I don’t think it’s something hard to understand you know in a category where almost all the products themselves are perceived as the same you know people are assuming I only drink Fiji because it’s got 0.75 more electrolytes than smart water which has 0.5 the pH is 7 point 7 it said 7 no it’s like most people assume water is the same it’s more of a brand play and we believe if we can make you laugh we have a way better chance at you giving us your dollar 69 then the faceless brand next to us who’s trying to shout at you electrolyte to let you know they’re like guys this all seems like snake oil to me like I feel like there’s real human beings behind liquid debt that I’d want to have a beer with so I’d rather give you my my dollar 65 and let’s talk a little bit about the form factor so is it’s a it’s a tall cam as what I’ve seen are there other form factors or no no it’s just the talk game it’s all can which is cool the branding of it is sort of like you know almost like heavy metal or punk rock how do you describe yeah yeah yeah I mean yeah I think at the end of the day you would you would say we’re like alternative punk metal inspired design and and vibe I think the way I like to think about our brand is like we’re a professional Resler like it’s all theater and fun and everyone thinks it’s trying to be real like no one thinks the undertaker is really an evil guy from the dead who likes metal no it’s a character and it’s fun to like buy a character yeah and that’s kind of that’s how we think about it like we’re just playing this fun sorry second we’re just playing this fun character it’s fun to choose to believe that yeah this is what it is and not take it too seriously and you’re right like you know if you’re at a bar or a music festival and you choose water you feel like you’re choosing you’re opting out of the fun and in fact they’ll sort of you know it’ll make you feel that way you know you’ll get the small plastic rinky-dink cup with the baby straw right versus if you ordered a you know alcoholic drink or something else it’s kind of that’s actually a good point I mean I don’t drink and I still go to bars and I always felt like I used to order sprites with lime in it because I was like looks like a gin and tonic yeah my god one being people feel uncomfortable what so I’ll just even though I don’t like to drink soda like I’ll drink it anyway and I don’t have an O’Doul’s because I’m like uh then everyone’s just kind of like it’s just gonna come up and so it’s it is a great alternative to that and so Mike I’m curious where does this idea come from so I think this was really just like a culmination of all my passions and experience sort of like converged into one you know it’s like I grew up in high school playing in punk rock and metal bands and skateboarding and you know I would do all the show flyers and album art and stuff for our bands which kind of got like the entrepreneurial probably side of things because like you know we’re booking shows and we’re selling merch and like we’re pressing records and doing all that kind of stuff then I got into a career of like graphic design which led into advertising so then I was like an advertising creative director for a long time and I worked on big brands like Nestle and Toyota and Volkswagen and Naked Juice and all this kind of stuff so I think I got a good sense of where I think big companies screw up I guess like where I think they’re short-sighted I can’t tell you how many boardrooms I’ve been in where I’m trying to convince all that social media isn’t some like niche little thing you add on to your business like it is the Internet when you say I’m going on the Internet nine times out of ten you’re going on social media you know it’s like I think a lot of brands are just way behind the ball to understand what it really takes to be successful in the social environment like your little social posts aren’t just competing against other beverages you’re competing against influencers who are uncensored and can do crate easy on the wall you’re again trash you’re competing against everything awesome on the internet when you’re scrolling through your feed that’s what your marketing is competing against so when you really think about it that way do you really think your little ad that seems like a typical beverage thing is gonna actually stand out in someone’s quick scrolling feed amongst all this other amazing stuff probably not so I think the bar for what stuff needs to be is way higher and I think that’s what I built liquid death around like we think about marketing like entertainment I don’t ever want to put something in your feed that feels like marketing I wanted to feel like actual entertainment that made you laugh or it was the funniest thing that you maybe saw that morning that you want to share with your friends or whatever that like we’re never just sticking marketing in your face like it’s always going to entertain you or it’s gonna do something of value that it gives you I’ve got questions like Sam I’m looking at their Facebook Ads right now and what you’re saying is true so here’s the two ads I see I wish I could show this through a podcast so I’m gonna show this to your ears but there’s a giant can of liquid death in front of a mountain and says this is dumb don’t buy this there’s another one that’s like I don’t know what you’d call this it’s like a it’s like the mountain from Game of Thrones but instead of his head is a can a liquid death erupting from his muscular body and he’s standing in a grocery store aisle grocery store aisle holding an axe and it just says like this is a villain nationwide at Whole Foods I’m gonna I want to ask a question about that but first is there any indication is there anything you can give me the shows or the listeners how big this business is like what what size you guys are yeah why should we why should we care about what you say something or not I want you to like impress people yeah I mean I can’t get into like specific kind of sales numbers but since we launched national and Whole Foods basically we launched the day the pandemic started so we went we went into Whole Foods March 15 and basically even even though we’ve been in a pandemic where they’ve had like 80% decreased store traffic and everything else going on we’ve had insane growth in Whole Foods and we’re now the fastest growing water bread in Whole Foods right and you’ve raised like how much money to make this far grand total since the very beginning of everything I think we’ve raised around 12 total right now so great okay so we kind of have an idea a little bit about sizing when you look at when you are looking at this business and what and what to start was that your perspective which is what is something that I mean it sounds like you’re into health and that type of stuff what is something that is like good for you but has [ ] marketing and how can I build a business around that was that your perspective in a nutshell I think it really came from you know you know where I grew up playing in punk bands and and metal bands and stuff like that I was still and a lot of my friends in that world were very much into health like I was a vegetarian at age 16 a lot of my friends in that scene were more my friends were even vegan a lot of them like you know didn’t drink alcohol I do and I think that’s one thing that we’ve been like misbranded is like liquid death its water for the straightedge crowd that is not what we’re trying to do I think it’s something that’s been adopted by them for you know the reasons of yeah it is more fun to walk around in a bar if you don’t want drink than something like this but I think another thing that the health food industry does and I don’t think we want to do is we don’t want to be preachy to people we don’t want to say you should be doing this and I shouldn’t be drinking this and you shouldn’t be doing that like we’re like hey you want to go rip some shots at a bar fine but maybe take a break and have a water for an hour you know or like hey you want to smoke weed or whatever it’s like great like maybe hydrate while you’re doing it right even it’s like hey you want to go buy a monster energy drink or whatever great maybe buy water too and have a water after you just pound a bunch of [ ] right happy that’s the good news anybody who does any lifestyle also drinks water and spray compared to any lifestyle that you want it sounds like you guys trying to do that [Music] [Applause]