Hey everyone, we're super excited to announce the launch of our slack community for D two C pod. This is a space exclusively for D two C founders and operators to connect, share ideas, ask questions and support each other. You'll be able to engage with the best minds and operators and consumer. And currently we're on a waitlist and it will open up the community once we reach 150 members. So apply using the link in the description and we hope to see you on slack. So, before we kick off today's recording, I've got one more for you. Keeping up your momentum this year starts with the right selling tools. And if you're looking to increase revenue, grow faster, build more pipeline and close more deals, check out the all new sales hub from HubSpot.

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Visit HubSpot.com sales to start selling with sales hub what is going on? DTC pod. Today we are joined by Ariana Farahani, who is the founder and CEO at Plant Press. Um, really excited for this conversation because I was actually catching up with Ariana randomly. I didn't know what she did. We were chatting about, uh, you know, consumer products, CPG, and she mentioned that she was working on this brand and that she had also heard the pod. So it was just natural to kind of dig in, learn more about the brand, see where they're distributed, the success they've had so far. And so was really looking forward to this conversation. So, I guess without any further ado, Ariana, I'll let you kick us off.

Why don't you give us a little bit of background about yourself and plant press and how you guys got started, and then we'll dive into it.

Totally, Blaine, thank you for having me. Super excited to be on. So plant press is a super healthy alternative to coffee and traditional energy drinks. My background was never like, CPG or beverage, actually. I was working in neuroscience, working actually on like, medical marijuana research. So I was really introduced to, like, the CBD and THC space. I drank a lot of coffee to keep me going throughout the day. And I always face, like, a lot of anxiety and jitters.

And I started looking into how, like, CBD and caffeine could potentially, like, ease the anxiety. Um, so interestingly enough, like, that combination led me into the beverage world. And this was probably about, like, four or five years ago, right, when we saw a lot of, like, consumer brands coming into the CBD space, like recess and all of that. So I started playing around with, you know, a really clean ingredient beverage that had caffeine, that had electrolytes that could calm the jitters with CBD and started market testing in Manhattan. And what I found were people coming back to me being like, hey, I love this product. I'm drinking it as an alternative to my cup of coffee. I really only care about the caffeine. I don't care about any of the other stuff.

And it's, you know, 100 milligrams. It's not a super intense jolt like your Celsius or Red Bull. And so I found that there was kind of, like, another consumer out there besides me that had this need. So I consistently refined the product over time until it got to a place where it was really just selling with tastings and demos, not really any kind of marketing because I had no budget. And I started stocking places like corporate offices in Manhattan. So Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Amex headquarters, and people were, like, buying the products. And I'm like, wow, there's actually a market fit here. So I took all that data, I quit the science world, and then I really went full force into plant press.

And, you know, over time, it is what it is today now. So it was exciting, sweet.

So a lot to unpack there. Let's start with the beginnings of it, right? Like, you have a product that you want to build. Like, what was the first steps? You said you had no background in beverage, so, like, who'd you go to to, like, make this drink you poured in your kitchen, or how'd you come up with the formulation? Who'd you go to? What did, like, MVP of plant press look like?