What is conscious capitalism and how can founders be a part of the movement to elevate humanity through business?
What is conscious capitalism and how can founders be a part of the movement to elevate humanity through business?
Aimy Steadman is a founder and Chief Get Sh*t Done Officer at Future/Proof and a founding board member and board president of Naturally Austin, a community organization whose mission is to foster sustainable and responsible practices, stimulate conscious growth, entrepreneurship and exceptional leadership in the Central Texas natural and consumer products community.
As a college student, Aimy co-founded BeatBox Beverages, featured on Shark Tank. BeatBox Beverages has evolved to Future/Proof Brands, a next generation alcohol beverage innovation platform.
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Scott Case 0:00
Welcome to Founders Focus, a podcast made for founders by founders. I'm Scott Case, CEO and co founder of Upside, and I created Founders Focus to help share free resources and actionable advice. Together, we're building a community for business leaders, entrepreneurs and founders to come together to tackle today's challenges. This podcast is powered by my awesome team at Upside. Please visit foundersfocus.com to join the live video sessions or to catch up on past topics.
Scott Case 0:27
I am super excited to introduce you all to our co host for today. Aimy Steadman. Aimy has one of the greatest titles ever. And if I thought I could pull off such a title, I would have it too. She is the Chief Get Sh*t Done Officer, also known as the founder and CEO or COO of Future/Proof. And Aimy is a total rock star. And if you don't find yourself incredibly thirsty at the end of this episode, we have failed you, and you're going to hear why in a moment when Aimy introduces herself. So Aimy, welcome. Thanks for joining us, and why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Aimy Steadman 1:09
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. And my entrepreneurial journey really starts with my parents actually, in my immigration journey. So my parents and I moved here from Syria when I was about 10 years old, so my parents could become entrepreneurs. So growing up, I was always really curious about their businesses, and eventually ended up going to business school to learn how to be an entrepreneur myself. So at the time, it's 2011, I was in my mid 20s, we're seeing box wine at every party, tailgate, river float trip, but no one really loved the wine that they were drinking. And the brands didn't really appeal to our generation anyway, it was more like for retired people or something.
Aimy Steadman 1:49
So my business partners, Justin, Brad, Jason and Dan came up with the idea to make box wine less boring. So I actually met Justin at an entrepreneurship club, and he kind of recruited me to join the team. At the time, I was a DJ on the student radio station at UT Austin. And we were the MBAs that always wanted to go to the concerts together, the music festivals, music was really at the center of our social lives. So we wanted to create an alcohol beverage brand that revolutionized box wine, and was all about bringing people together and really centered around music. So we created a bunch of prototypes lean startup style, we tested out different sort of radio style packaging with different designers online and printed stickers, emptied out Franzia boxes, and filled them with our own kind of mixes of alcohol, lemonade, other mixes, stuff like that. We went to parties here in Austin, large apartment complex pools, we tested it out with our friends and things like that, we probably had more than 1000 points of feedback on product development of Beatbox back then. And so we launched the product in stores, actually, in March 2013, right before we graduated in May, with the world's first ready to drink portable party punch in a box wine format. So that was the very beginning story. And we graduated, I continued to work on our company, sort of nights and weekends, I had a day job at the time, actually at UT. And while I was working there, our company got discovered by RNDC, one of the biggest Wine and Spirits distributors in the whole country. And that was actually just through networking, through UT as well. So you know, Alan Dreeben, who's one of the owners of RNDC, met us through that community. He actually took us under his wing and helped us with packaging, like, I was like 25 years old and completely outside the alcohol industry so I didn't know anything about the industry really at all. So he really helped us figure out how the three tier system works all that. So we launched with them and actually got introduced to ETV which is a very important grocery retailer here in Texas. And we were doing all these tastings all the time and handing out samples and people always saying you should be on Shark Tank, you guys should go on Shark Tank. Like that's something you can just go do, right. But actually in the spring of 2014, I was still kind of working my day job and doing all this stuff, nights and weekends. And we ended up doing a casting call for Shark Tank during South by Southwest and ended up pitching on season six of the show. Mark Cuban ended up investing one of the largest investments of all time on the show, which is completely surreal and not something that I expected at all. So I got to quit my day job at that time. So that was how we got started with Beatbox and I was able to go be an entrepreneur full time.
Scott Case 4:58
That's awesome. So we'll come back to Shark Tank. But talk a little bit about your experience having that day job and sort of the side hustle. And we have a lot of people that are part of Founders Focus that are in that mode they've got whatever they're doing to kind of pay the bills, and they've got this passion, they would love to get to a place where they could transition there. And, I have to say having made a lot of weird punches in trash cans, it never occurred to me to put them in boxes and sell them. So a little disappointed in myself for not seeing the opportunity that you saw. But it would have been easy for you to sort of put it aside and say that was a nice project to do in Business School, what kept you going? And how did you kind of manage that tension there between doing a good job while at the same time trying to keep this dream alive?
Aimy Steadman 6:02
So fortunately, I had a very supportive role when I graduated. There was a role actually at the entrepreneurship department at UT for somebody that was starting a startup that wanted a day job, basically, so they created this role where I helped run the business plan competition, I had a background in online marketing so I helped them do that. But they also were supportive and let me take calls about Shark Tank and Beatbox and things like that, which f I was working in a different kind of job it would make it really tough. And honestly, it was really tough, it was probably one of the hardest seasons of this journey, just because I was working so much, I was literally working more than two full time jobs. And I remember every Friday and Saturday, even though we were going and doing sampling events, and going to music events and things like that, it was still work, I was completely sober the whole time and very exhausted, and we would keep Sundays sacred. So we would never do any work on Sunday, that was the one rule we had. And I spent a lot of time like researching meditation, researching mental health, I use that headspace app. And because when you are putting so much on yourself, when you're basically working two full time jobs and more, you need to maximize every minute that you have for relaxation and for rest and for catch up. And so learning about meditation and mental health helped me manage it all. And obviously, it wasn't easy, there were many super hard dark struggling days for sure, I don't want to like sugarcoat it, but having a supportive community and being prepared for it, having a plan for it, made it worthwhile, and then I was able to work through it and get to the other side of it. And that was very important, obviously.
Scott Case 7:57
So I want to push on a couple of other things you brought up, I think they're important. You talked about having a number of co founders, I have to admit that you rattled them off so quickly, there was no hope for me. But luckily for you, you probably didn't forget anybody. So it was either three or four people, is that right?
Aimy Steadman 8:16
So we started with a group of five of us and then Spencer, our first employee as well. And then when we graduated, two of the original five teams wanted to pursue other directions with it, right? They didn't want to go full time with it or pursue full time with it at that moment. And so they ended up just staying on as advisors, friends of the brand. We're still close with them today. Justin, Brad and myself ended up being a three of the original group that ended up doing it full time this whole time.
Scott Case 8:50
And was that discussion an easy one? Was it contentious? Was there discussions around equity and ownership and those kinds of things? And if you're okay to share them, not so much the details, but how did you work through that, so that you could come to a place where it sounds like the two that departed are still power fans of yours and you all were able to go and build the company the way you wanted to?
Aimy Steadman 9:19
I mean, we knew that, for example, one of the partners was a car guy, and he was able to have this opportunity to go design cars. And that was his dream job. And the other partner, he was really passionate about travel and he had an opportunity to work in the airline industry, hospitality industry and travel the world. And we kind of all knew that that was their direction when we were forming the company. And for them, it was more sort of like a business school project and investment, something that they were passionate about, but not something they wanted to do every single day. And so yes, we did have discussions about it from an equity perspective. They were more limited in terms of that initial sort of breakdown just because over time, I mean the model of vesting works really well for any kind of executive or co founder situation. And you can just kind of align on how many years and what percentage of equity makes sense for that role. And just do it that way. And we didn't know so much about that when we started the company, I was like 23 at the time, but I think it's definitely worth doing the research and just being really formal about it upfront so that everybody knows what they're getting into. As formal as you can be, as structured as you can be, and consulting your lawyers and things like that upfront, it just avoids drama down the line. So yeah, that being said that, there aren't hurt feelings or things don't end up that way. But with with all of us, we all know that we just have really great intentions, and nobody's out there to get anybody. And we've always kind of been able to come to consensus. Thank god.
Scott Case 11:03
That's great. Look, I think your point about vesting schedules is really important. I think for all founders involved, especially in the early stage of a company, because not everybody's going to be committed for the next four or 5, 6, 7, 10 years of the adventure, so smart to sort of pull those things together.
Scott Case 11:25
There's a question in the chat, it related to your founding team, you had a few folks that wanted to pursue other things, what brought the three of you, and you can speak just for yourself, how did you decide that pursuing an alcoholic beverage company targeted at your audience was where you wanted to spend the next three to 10 years of your life? Like why that? I understand you saw the opportunity, and then you could see it from there. But you probably could have done anything you wanted to so why that particular sector? What drove you from that standpoint?
Aimy Steadman 12:09
Yeah, that's a great question. I think you can do anything. It just depends what you're motivated by. For me, I was motivated to be successful financially. I wanted to do something that was scalable, where if I worked really hard in my 20s and 30s that that would set me up and my family from Syria, it's very impactful for me to have wealth in my family. So that was a goal of mine. I've always been passionate about music. I took a personality test recently and it said, I was the socializer. And Justin and Brad also have that same personality type, by the way, we all took the same one. So we love this culture of the party host. And the brand of BeatBox is really us and our personality and our friendship together as co founders. So the brand ethos is really exciting to me. And I love music, but I can't play anything. And so I can't be in a van. And so the only way for me to always be at music festivals is to be in alcohol. It just makes too much sense. But yeah, I mean, basically, I found an industry that needed innovating, it was extremely valuable for somebody from the next generation to bring innovation to it, because it's a valuable industry. As well as the opportunity to be sort of alongside my passions involving music and being social, so it's kind of a combination of the financial opportunity and the lifestyle. And I think I definitely could have made more money doing something else. But I couldn't have had a better experience or lifestyle doing anything else. So that's what I've been doing.
Scott Case 14:04
That's great. So I want to talk briefly about, just to pull on the Shark Tank thread. Lots of people have all kinds of relationships with the show. You obviously had a good experience on it. Was there one kind of takeaway for you, if you were advising other people who maybe have the opportunity or are going to pitch, that you'd say, hey, this was kind of the the key thing that I learned from that experience?
Aimy Steadman 14:36
Yeah, I mean, with Shark Tank, you just have to think about it, with all fundraising, you have to think about it from the other person's perspective. What's in it for them? And so for Shark Tank, you're thinking from the investor's perspective, that's Mark Cuban's perspective, what's in it for him, but also for Shark Tank's perspective, it's a TV show, so you have to give them really good TV. So if you want to be on Shark Tank and you're pitching, most founders are very oriented around their business, but you have to be that larger than life version of yourself when you're pitching to those producers and come with the energy, come with the passion. We were wearing all neon outfits and jumping up and down about our product to get their attention. And so I think just putting your best foot forward in terms of your passion when you're doing those casting calls, as well as looking at the opportunity and for any angel investing or fundraising, I think it's really important to, again, look at your investors perspectives. We were looking at every shark and what they had invested in, what questions they had asked, we watched almost every single episode of Shark Tank before we walked on that stage. And so we knew we wanted to align with Mark, he had a lot of investments and entertainment properties, and other complimentary marketing things and digital things that he was doing that we really wanted to be involved with. And, we knew that we would fit right in in terms of being a millennial product that could flow right into programs that he was doing with his entertainment properties and things like that.
Aimy Steadman 16:16
So just trying to find investors that already have a portfolio that could be enhanced right away by you coming on board is I think the easiest way to get those early seed money beyond friends and family, like, because you can provide that instant value for them in addition to obviously, you want to make the money through their investment.
Scott Case 16:38
Yeah, I think you're spot on on a few different levels. One is understanding your audience. But you brought up something that I think very few, I shouldn't say few, I run into regularly founders who don't do their homework or they don't go and dig. You said you watched every episode, you unpacked each one of their portfolios, what are the kinds of things they invest in, what's going to resonate, you were on a TV show, it's got to be entertaining. There's a set of work that you have to do to really understand your audience and who you're talking to. And I think it's just so important to put an emphasis on that as just part of the work that we have to do. And I run into a lot of founders like, well, I can't raise money, and then I hear their pitch and it's a rambling eight minute diatribe that I can barely understand. That's not going to get you where you want to go. So it's important piece of the puzzle. And in your case, there's a lot of public information so that gave you another advantage because it's all there, it's not like you had to guess.
Scott Case 17:40
Alright, so I want to move on because you've talked a lot in the description of your business and how you got where you are as a relatively straightforward thing. There's a bunch of people hanging around, we're going to use the idea of we're going to upgrade crappy box wine into great box beverages for people and we're going to sell them at festivals. You probably said it more eloquently than that, but that's why I'm not pitching your company and you are. That said, you made a decision to layer into it a sort of conscious capitalism, I think you became a B Corp and you didn't lead with that, you didn't talk about it as if, hey we're the leading organic blah, blah, blah, or we're doing it in this way. So I'm curious, where did that enter into the dynamic for you? And sort of how did you get there and where are you now with both the brand and the product as it relates to having a more mission orientation?
Aimy Steadman 18:44
Well, I think my business partners have their own story. But I think it really does start with our founding team. I mean, my parents moved here with their young daughter in the hopes of pursuing opportunities of entrepreneurship in the US. And then 16 years later, she's on TV, getting an investment from Mark Cuban, I just feel like I've won the lottery in terms of my life, like, even starting an alcohol company as a woman would be impossible when I was born in the Middle East. And so, for me, I think it's definitely that, I call it a combination of immigrant hustle and survivor's guilt that drives me but, it's been a long journey. It hasn't been all success. So there's been a lot of ups and downs, we've almost gone out of business three to five times. But in the past three years, we've been doubling year over year in sales, we're actually the number one selling single serve wine product in US convenience now. And as the team grows, my business partners and I really wanted to infuse a lot of these business practice ethics that just come from stuff that we were making decisions about personally and really encoded the business and so that's where B Corp came in. Where we were thinking, What's a model that's out there that we can adopt that actually really baked this in so everybody from our investors, to our team, to our board, to our customers knows what we're about from a business perspective?
Aimy Steadman 20:13
And so, my story, obviously, I'm very concerned about the climate crisis, being from the Middle East. Ever since I was a young person, I guess just because I've been in the Middle East and Texas, and so I've always been around the oil and gas industry, and it just keeps getting hotter every year. I really have been worried about it since I was a teenager and trying to think about how I can combat that in my business. Anybody that's a maker of stuff, it's environmentally impactful, right? You're creating things that are using plastic, that are being shipped all over the country, using carbon, fossil fuels. And so there's no amount of me personally not driving or going vegetarian, that's going to make up for something of that scale. And then naturally, as a feminist, as an immigrant, and now an American citizen, who values democracy and freedom, I'm also extremely passionate about social justice issues and making sure that opportunity is equitable for everybody. And so you look at my industry in alcohol, it's very much so a middle aged or it's a older white male club, and so how can we be the difference in our industry, bring that innovative thinking that we brought to the product in terms of making it taste good, making the brand experience really different, but how can we push our whole industry forward by making an example of a new and next generation business model b Corp or getting certified like that, and then also aligning with other companies in our industry to try and actually make change, because I feel like that's our best opportunity of just people that go to work every day. And it's not trying to recycle more at home, it's, hey, how can I take the extra day, a week or a month to connect with other people in my industry to change our whole industry for the better on these areas? So I'm happy to talk more about what we've done there from B Corp to some of the things that we've done with Naturally Austin and other initiatives.
Scott Case 22:15
I know you may have a product with you that you can show. But I think that your point about codifying the principles and the values of your business into the actual structure of the business itself is really an important consideration. It's one thing to have them written down, and we've talked here a lot about if you want to maintain a culture, you have to start by the founding team writing down what they care about, and sort of baked that into the dialogue. But it's a whole nother thing to align all your stakeholders around those values, so the B Corp is a is a powerful tool. And I'm on the board of a B Corp myself, called Network for Good, and it was the same idea. We spun it out of a nonprofit so we had a bit of a legacy there, but the goal was to codify some of the core principles in a way that allowed everybody, even when we took on new capital to say, look, you have to participate in this way, otherwise, this isn't a fit.
Scott Case 23:17
So you talked about two big buckets, you talked about social justice and you talked about climate change or sustainability. Having seen your packaging and things, it seems like you've invested a lot of energy in trying to design your product to minimize its footprint. Can you talk a little bit about that and either what the costs or what the benefits were to do that? Because oftentimes people says it's too expensive to tackle those problems, when my observation is that if you actually apply some design thinking, you can often figure out ways to reduce your costs, but you have to actually take the steps. So could you talk a little bit about that piece of it? And then maybe we'll come on to social justice side, too. But tell us a little bit about that sustainability part?
Aimy Steadman 24:04
Right. So I actually saw a question in the chat, like, what is the most important cause to me if I had to pick one cause? And you have to use that kind of thinking when you're designing a product as well. Like, what are you going to prioritize when you're making decisions on a product. And so for us and for me personally, the climate crisis is the most time sensitive crisis that we're facing at the moment. We literally have 10 years or less to dramatically reduce the amount of carbon that's out there and in our world. And so that's the one that we've really been optimizing for, for example, waste or recyclability, since we have landfill room for many, many years. That personally was what I prioritized for. So when we were considering packaging formats, obviously, the box wine format has often touted itself as being the most carbon efficient, but what does that mean from an actual supply chain perspective? It means I can fit more product onto a truck. So it's cheaper for me, like you said, I don't have to send as many trucks around the country because of this efficient packaging. And so that helps me save on freight and helps me get more of a margin to my wholesaler partners, my retailer partners versus my other competitors that are in other packaging formats.
Aimy Steadman 25:28
It also helps to be different. Right now in the beverage industry, we're facing a crazy aluminum shortage due to the pandemic, and cans, and all of the different things that have been happening with dynamics in the industry. And so us being in tetrapack, it's a great boon to us from an environmental perspective and impact perspective. But we also don't have to compete with every single other company for cans now, we have our own available scalable resource and tetrick cartons. And so, that was sort of a benefit that came along with that.
Aimy Steadman 26:04
And I would just say for your company and what you're trying to align for, whether it's waste, water use, energy, you know, for us, it's carbon in that world, and that's one of my challenges for founders that I speak with, or other people that I meet with in the industry is like, just pick two or three things that you do want to track? Research how you're doing on it, benchmark it and track it, have a goal for it. I think most people don't even have that. So it's a great place to start.
Scott Case 26:49
For your business, are you publishing either your sustainability objectives or the key metrics that you are tracking? And if so, how often are you doing that? How are you doing that? It's one thing to talk about these things, it's a whole nother thing to be out there sharing. So how are you handling that as a business?
Aimy Steadman 27:13
Yeah, absolutely. So the things that we are tracking right now are our carbon impact. We have a amount of dollars that we're able to donate to nonprofits that's allocated within our marketing budgets and events sponsorships, and things like that, that we're tracking. We're also tracking things like what percentage of our leadership team are from marginalized groups or women, and other kinds of internal metrics like that. We're actually doing a public crowdfunding raise right now, and so our company is very transparent with everything from our financials to sort of our investor updates and things like that. And so, having just completed this huge benchmark assessment as part of the B Corp application process, we're currently in a certification process, we haven't actually gotten it yet. And so, we intend once that's public to announce that along with our certification.
Aimy Steadman 28:11
One thing that we did get done last year was something called a plastic neutral certification. And so, again, as a maker of stuff, there's parts of my product that are made with plastic that I can't avoid, because it needs to be waterproof, right. And so we've actually taken the weight of all of the plastic that we're putting into the world at Future/Proof, and added that up and worked with a program to remove that same weight or greater of plastic out of nature, from waterways and things like that. So you've heard of carbon offsets, there's now things like waste and plastic offsets available as well. So more things to think about there.
Scott Case 28:50
That's cool. So we'll ask you for the crowdfunding pages, is the crowdfunding still open?
Aimy Steadman 28:56
Yeah, it's still open, we actually reached our goal of a million dollars, which is really exciting. I'll put it in the chat for everybody to check out. But we still have about another $400,000 I believe left in the round if anyone is interested, it'll likely be open for only another 45 days or so. So please check this out if that's of interest to you.
Scott Case 29:21
That's great. And thank you for posting it.
Scott Case 29:25
I think one of the things that comes up from a business, whether it's sustainability or social justice, is getting comfortable with the idea that it's imperfect, your point is a good one, hey, we use plastic in our product, we haven't figured out a way to solve for that yet, so we're doing the best we can in an alternative way.
Scott Case 29:50
How much of a conversation did you and your team have about stepping out on some of these things? I mentioned at the top here that you're not wearing your sustainability or your sort of social justice as part of your marketing and your brand presentation out front? It's a part of who you are and what you're doing. But is there a tension there or is it been just very natural for all of you?
Aimy Steadman 30:20
Well, we are a sales oriented organization. And so selling party punch is our top priority by every means. I think the way that we can as an operations team, take that burden off of our sales team, take that burden off of our customers. I mean, you talked about how we don't really talk about it that much. I mean, for me, I'm in the alcohol beverage industry, I want good vibes for my customers, I don't want them stressed about climate crisis or about social equity issues, when they're enjoying my product, I want them to relax and have fun. And so I think that all founders should look at what can I do in my business to take the burden of how stressful and crazy our world is right now off of my customers and off of my community by the work that we can do in our organization.
Aimy Steadman 31:13
And so there is some conflict in terms of, Okay, if I want to use a material that's more environmentally friendly, that happens to be more expensive, potentially, than another solution, and I have to go back and prove that to my team and show them the ROI over time, and make the business case for it. And I've had to do that a few times, and I don't win every single one, but the fact that I'm doing it, and we're leading the change as much as we can, and being the change that we want to see is what's important. I think employees and investors and other stakeholders are looking for hope and are looking for purpose and are looking to get aligned with a really cool company that also makes the world a better place and not have to take that on in their free time. They can do that at work and feel fulfilled in that area of their life. I think that's very motivating.
Scott Case 32:12
Thank you. And I think the tension that's there is a natural one, and it's okay. I think just being real about it, and to your point, hey, we sell party punch, right, that's what we do. And making sure that everybody understands that so that that's part of who you are. But it's also not exclusive. Right, you can do other things.
Scott Case 32:33
A couple of quick questions here, we have about five minutes left. One is your crowdfunding experience? Why did you choose to do a crowdfunding campaign versus other types of capital raising? What has your experience been? And basically what stage are you at from a funding standpoint? The specific question was around somebody who's, Andrei created a pre seed round with crowdfunding and is thinking about doing their seed round in it. So kind of where are you at and what made you choose that mechanism versus lots of other ways you could have had access to capital?
Aimy Steadman 33:06
So I mean, any consumer brand, I think, should very seriously look at crowdfunding. Because you look at trying to raise money, you want that smart money, right, and bringing in perhaps a celebrity investor or an investor that can bring optimizations to your supply chain or other benefits, right. But as a consumer brand, there's really no better investor than your actual customers. And most of my customers, I don't want to assume are accredited investors. And so crowdfunding actually allows the opportunity to sort of democratize the opportunity of investing in a startup. I'm not saying everybody should spend their life savings on it, because it's a very risky investment. Startups are a risky type of investment. But I think it's really interesting with all the legislation changes that have been made recently, it's very exciting. It's almost like 20 years ago when we're first able to trade stocks ourselves for the first time or whatever, but now with these startups, it's like the the investment opportunity has just been created for people to create really great wealth, crazy amounts of growth in this high startup high growth category. And that's never been available before.
Aimy Steadman 34:18
So if you don't know, as of March, you can actually raise up to $5 million now through crowdfunding from anybody with $100 in a credit card can do it through the platform. And the admin from the founders perspective and COO perspective is a lot different than it was just two or three years ago on your cap table, it can all be listed under one entity. Makes things a lot more simple from the paperwork perspective. And so that's the sort of why consider a fundraising piece or crowdfunding piece.
Aimy Steadman 34:51
The practicality of actually running a campaign. My company's now on Shark Tank, we have hundreds of thousands of customers all over the country already, we're not a pre seed company. And so, I would say most of the companies that are on there are in that earlier stage. And so our evaluation was actually a challenge for a lot of the investors that are on that platform, because they're more used to seeing those startup valuation. So I wouldn't be scared of it just because your pre seed. The challenge is going to be how do you get that momentum on your campaign to actually get the investments rolling in? Just like any fundraising campaign, we were pitching people offline, during the crowdfunding campaign at the same time. We had our pro rata investors invest in the campaign, as well as an angel group that activated on our campaign right when it launched, so we got some major momentum that helped our campaign get in the spotlight. Then we funder, our partner for the campaign, noticed that we were getting a lot of investment very quickly and so they put some more of their resources behind it, helped us reach our goal.
Aimy Steadman 36:00
I would just say, it's not like there's nothing to it, you can just post up there and raise a million like that. But it definitely has been the easiest fundraising that I've ever done. We've raised almost, I think, over $13 million now, pretty much all from angel investors. One by one coffee shop meetings over the past 10 years. And so this raise was by far the easiest experience I've ever had. And we definitely recommend it to founders to check out the opportunity now.
Scott Case 36:30
I think one of the things just going back to your Shark Tank example, do your homework, right? The most successful crowdfunding campaigns are not launched with the first person putting their $100 in and hoping for the best. You craft a campaign like you would any other campaign, and it includes you said, pitching people offline, seeding the platform in that way, getting some momentum behind it. You have to be thoughtful about running it from start to finish to get where you want to go.
Scott Case 37:03
A couple of speed round questions for you think 30 second answers. When you look at your business model, do you consider yourself direct to consumer, are you a b2b play, b2b2c, where do you fit on that frame? Then you're a little constrained because of the nature of your market, but can you talk a little bit about that?
Aimy Steadman 37:19
Yeah, I mean, legally, we're b2b, we're not legally allowed to sell to consumers. But that being said, we're a brand owner. And so of course, we think about marketing to the consumer channel all the time.
Scott Case 37:31
Okay, what about private label or co branding? Have you considered doing, let's just say, for example, you know, BeatBox by /Founders Focus, I think that'd be a great brand, I'm sure it'd be highly successful for you. I'm sure you could find other partners that might be better. But have you considered that or consider private labeling the product?
Aimy Steadman 37:52
We're focused on building BeatBox as a brand, and so that's not really congruent with what we're trying to do. But in terms of like an influencer box or a partnership box and doing something with an artist or something like that, yes and there's actually things that are already in the works that we're excited to announce later this year on that.
Scott Case 38:11
Yeah, I'm a major influencer in your categories. Afterwards, I'm confident that I might be able to help you sell a case or two more.
Aimy Steadman 38:20
Founders love BeatBox, so I don't doubt it.
Scott Case 38:23
There you go. One last one. Have you considered from a brand standpoint, meshing with your music? You talked about music and the passion and music festivals, is that sort of the kind of collaboration that you would naturally lean towards?
Aimy Steadman 38:45
Absolutely. I mean, my dream is for this to be the Red Bull of alcohol industry. Red Bulls got sports events and their own record label. And building out the whole lifestyle brand to its full potential is, of course, our dream. That being said, we have to be very laser focused as a startup, so right now we're just focused on we're only in 4% of all the stores we can be in and just the 30 states that were distributed in today. So our mission for the next two years is to get BeatBox in as many of those doors as possible and build the brand out so that everybody knows where to find it and everything else. But yes, we have a website, BeatBoxBeverages.com and a store locator if you're looking for it. But yeah, big, big plans for the brands for the rest of our lives.
Scott Case 39:36
Awesome. All right. Well, we're at time, Aimy, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. It's a great conversation, took a lot of notes and tidbits out of it. So thank you very much for being here.
Scott Case 39:45
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Founders Focus. What did you think? You got any feedback for us? Got a topic that you'd like us to discuss, or maybe a future co host? We'd love to hear from you. Just hit me up on LinkedIn at T Scott Case and join us at foundersfocus.com to stay up to date with the latest episodes, and join us live every week at our Founders Focus sessions. Hope to see you there.