Transitioning into Health-Conscious Investments: "I was starting to invest and better for you food and beverage brands, and there was this startup company called Raw Nature five in Chicago, and these two entrepreneurs that I invested in with some other people, and they were in about 20 stores around the Chicago area. And it was really good proof of concept."

Strategies for Natural Product Brand Success: "Like I mentioned, we were also doing a lot of in store demos, because in food or beverage, like, if you believe your product is good and people are going to like it, then you have to get them to taste it, right? And in the beverage world, they call it liquid to lips. So we were getting liquid to lips no matter what we had to do. And that worked. And our velocities were really high."

Expanding Retail Footprint: "And so we had this great selling story to the point where other retailers started to reach out to us. So we got reached out to by Wegmans, which is a great retailer, but you would call them a specialty retailer, right? So that wasn't really our plan for year if I grew up there. And so I was a little bit hesitant about launching there, but we had an investor and a board member, a guy named Bill Moses, who started Kavita and later sold that to Pepsi."

Emerging Retail Strategies: "So we're in the process of selling in multi packs. So four packs for the consumer. Those should be in Whole Foods and then Costco soon. And then we looked at multi serve. So, you know, there's 32 ounce bottles coming out and some retailers."

Entrepreneurial Insights: "I recently put a book out called Block Out Punch, an entrepreneur's journey from cast to clarity that I went through not only the Koya and the four logo story, but my own personal story, because, as you can imagine, theres a lot in there, right."

The Rise of a Beverage Giant: "It was a matter of two years that it was, it was the fastest growing product in the alcohol industry."

Regulatory Challenges with Innovative Products: "But we had everything legally approved through the federal and state governments. So we felt like, hey, this is. If you change the rules, we'll change. But anyways, the lesson there was, when you're dealing with big government agencies, they don't have budgets and they don't have timelines, right? And so the reality of that is eventually it's going to come back and bite you."

The Importance of Company Foundations: "The lesson coming out of that is like, boy, you gotta have a wild foundation in a company, in a partnership because if not, it can, it can totally crumble."

Entrepreneurial Mindset: "But what I've learned over the years is you can't really build a business with that goal in mind because you may make decisions that trying to facilitate that don't create the best long term situation for the company."

Trends in Nutrition: "what Koya stands for is delicious. First and foremost, protein, plant protein and low sugar. And then the last attribute, which is fourth on our recent survey, is high fiber, which is an unsexy kind of ingredient. But it matters to people, especially right now."