Stairway to CEO

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“My dad always likes to say some people work with their brain and some work with their hands. So for me, it wasn't school. It was really getting in the workforce and understanding how to navigate within a company, what culture looks like, and how to just build products and build businesses has been a real interest for me.”

“But for me, it was I couldn't sell someone else's product. It needed to be mine. So that's kind of like the beginning of realizing I wanted to do something on my own, but really, truly mine.”

“We really covered all parts of the brands that we worked with... It was everything, A to Z of understanding the brand, the consumer, and how to mesh those two together. And I think that really gave us an advantage coming out of the gate.”

“I couldn't believe that cereal was one of these categories, and granted, this is now probably three years ago, but one of these categories that had no innovation. It was still literally every cereal I had as a kid, which is crazy.”

“It took us two years of product development, hundreds and thousands of pounds of crappy cereal that we did not like until we got to the product that we truly, really loved.”

“Eventually we got to someone and we kind of gave the parameters of here are the ingredients we want to work with. This is what we want it to taste like, the experience, the shape, all these different things to help narrow down what we wanted. And then the next part of that step was now that we found someone that could create the product or test to create it, how do we find the right facility?”

“Before we launched, we started having conversations with retailers. And for them, they were so excited to have something that allowed the consumer that left cereal to come back and eat cereal again.”

“Taking people along the ride makes them feel really invested in your brand.”

“It's practice not makes perfect, but practice makes you pretty good. So you learn what to expect that investors are going to ask you or to be prepared for those questions. It helps you also fine tune your strategy.”

“‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast.’"

“I reach out to almost all my customer service requests personally, because I think it's so important that they hear from a Founder. I really want to help resolve those issues and I want to make sure that everyone loves the product as much as we do.”

“it's tough. There's a ton of rejection. There's a ton of doubt. Then you have the investors that tell you like, "Oh, I don't know if it's going to happen." And then you prove them wrong. And that's really fun.”

“If you really think you've found a solution to a real, existing problem, don't let anybody tell you otherwise.”

“Building your own and molding your own destiny is really a beautiful, liberating thing.”

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“When you are thinking about coming up with that revolutionary solution, it's always good to not take anything for granted and not have any false reality, but really understand the industry from the inside.”

“We truly believe that 10 years from now, five years from now, everyone will have a hand sanitizer and nothing to do with a pandemic. It has nothing to do with fear. It just makes your life easier.”

“We did not want to only disrupt the category, but also the way this product was sold and marketed. So we said instead of going the easy way, which is we're going to go to pharmacies and supermarkets, we said this is a lifestyle product and we're going to be the first hand sanitizer to be sold in all fashion and beauty retailers in the US.”

“I think we live in a society, especially millennials and Gen Z, that we like good vibes, and selling through fear is not a long term strategy.”

“We're going to create a product that is going to help you stay healthy on the go and that it's going to make you live to the fullest.”

“We wanted to create a bottle that's like an icon, something that you are really proud to use. And many people said it like "I never thought I would be excited about hand sanitizer or thought I would get more compliments for my hand sanitizer than for my bag.’"

“We've been able to create a product that people buy in bundles either for themselves as a collection or they buy it as a birthday gift or like for parties or as a wedding gift. So our current AOV is about $60. So that's six times the unit price. So people on average buy, in our eCommerce, six units.”

“I think the best part of Touchland is seeing the share-ability component that the brand has been able to create.”

“That's the moment that it changed. We moved here to the US. We launched a Kickstarter campaign that was fully funded in twenty four hours. Then we launched eCommerce, and it exploded.”

“I'm a very stubborn person and I never give up. Never. Especially as I truly believed that this was going to be like the way Apple changed the phone industry or the music industry. I really believed that this was going to be something that would change people's lives.”

“When I listen to my team talk about Touchland, I get so proud because this was my vision initially. And to see people that are sharing with the same passion my vision, I feel like that's something to be very proud of for any Founder.”

“I hire not on resumes, I hire on values.”

“I think many people can learn. I prefer to invest in some people that I really like as humans rather than someone that has an amazing resume, but I feel like that maybe the character or the personality is not there.”

“Again, no great growth comes without obstacles.”

“Operationally it was a very challenging year, especially growing so fast. But again, that's why I think it's really good that you select investors that you're not going to have to be fighting because you already have a lot of things going on in your business.”

“I always say, CEO is not first Chief Executive Officer, it is Chief Energy Officer. You are the booster of energy for your team.”

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“You can be in a space and have a good idea, but ideas are worthless. It's about the execution of it.”

“I was empowered to recognize that start ups are started by anyone, and it's actually being ‘inexperienced’ that can be like a competitive advantage.”

“If I was going to go start my own company, I wanted it to be a kind of a consumer brand or experience of some kind.”

"Pay attention to what you pay attention to."

“I believe in the idea of ‘founder market fit’. Most startups fail. Right? And so to have a chance at success, you want to focus on things that play to your strengths.”

“I think that creating a brand or a startup is like producing a movie in terms of bringing the pieces and the team and different talent together to create something.”

“The way to think about CBD is as a compound no more interesting than caffeine, just a commoditized functional ingredient that will serve alongside other functional ingredients such as adaptogens, things like magnesium and nootropics, at the base of an emerge of the next big category in the beverage and supplement and even food industry focused on relaxation.”

“It's not like vitamin C, it's like caffeine. And caffeine is about the feeling. And so you want to build the brand not around the ingredient, but around the feeling.”

“So I think the first thing to do as an entrepreneur is just like break things down into their components. The first principle is thinking, basically. Like go ask why a lot.”

“I think in entrepreneurship your market matters a lot.”

“I think in business, you're either creating a category or you're going into an existing category and trying to capture market share. And those are like two very different things. I think recognizing what you're doing is very important.”

“And so the business plan of Recess has been to navigate this period of regulatory uncertainty to arrive at the other side is like the category leading brand best positioned to scale.”

“There's just no question in my mind that this category that's developing over the coming years is going to be a massive category. And I think Recess is very well positioned to lead it.”

“I think the most important thing in marketing is your brand voice. Because once your brand has to exist digitally, you need to be able to engage with your customers and community every single day, whether that's through Instagram or through email or podcasts.”

“I think another secret to entrepreneurship is identifying undervalued talent and bringing together the people that can help you actually execute.”

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“I think what it means to be an entrepreneur is to be someone who pays so much attention to their environment that they recognize when the status quo isn't good enough for people who are being affected.”

“There's always a reason behind why someone is gritty and why they're resilient. And I think if you feel the pain of your user, you really understand where they are coming from.”

“As a Founder, outreach has to be a major skill set of yours. And that could be reaching out to customers. It could be reaching out to the venture capitalists and angel investors that you need to work with or even recruiting new talent.”

“First responders are primarily relying on paper maps and radios to contain some of the biggest wildfire, floods, hurricanes, tornado incidents that we've ever seen.”

“You can't overwhelm someone with information that isn't relevant when what they need is to respond.”

“I would know whether or not I chose something to be kind of safe and comfortable for me, or knowing that I did everything I could to protect the lives and livelihoods of the communities that are so affected by wildfires and other disasters.”

“We're sending them to these fires with World War II technology. And we can and we have to do better than that.”

“The government is the largest buyer of goods and services in the world. And so some of my earlier investors, I think when they started to hear about the work that we were doing, I think a lot of them got pretty excited.”

“I think there's a big difference for us between operating tactically versus operating strategically.”

“If you're not willing to get out there and do something imperfectly, then you don't stand a chance at creating the thing and having the impact that you want to have.”

“You don't lose when you get knocked down. You lose when you stop standing up.”

“I think one of the most important things about achieving those larger goals have to do with being able to break it down and set my mile markers that we can see that we can immediately achieve.”

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“My dad always talks about this idea that really it's like staying with it until you succeed. It's about having the grit and the will and the determination to succeed and basically surviving to thrive. Survive until you thrive.”

“I think we get blindsided every day by these beautiful, amazing stories of companies selling for billions of dollars that are creating so much amazing impact and not enough attention gets put on the journey.”

“Those missions were the inspiration to wanting to create a business that could improve health and hygiene, give back to this mission and cause, try to create a brand in oral care that made people smile and had people actually think twice and brush twice.”

“So what we wanted to do is really take the ethos of natural, but infuse it with the performance of the big brands.”

“We want to build this world around oral wellness. And so in our toothpaste, we have three antioxidant vitamins, vitamin A, C and E, which are great for your gums, great for saliva production, bacteria regulation, really more about the mouth versus the teeth.”

“So it's kind of like this science meets wellness approach and that's what we call a toothpaste.”

“Understanding who is the right investor is not an easy thing to figure out, especially not only just your stage, but your focus and your company.”

“You have a vision. And the more clear your vision can be, the easier it is to manage and operate around that. But for us as passion and purpose-led entrepreneurs, roadblocks are inevitable, challenges are inevitable.”

“We are out of control passionate about toothpaste and the smile and trying to grow this brand that we so truly believe deserves to exist and become a leader.”

“I think success is a very relative measure.”

“You're putting your life, your reputation, you're being behind a brand. And so you want it to be the best in whatever that means.”

“I think a big thing for me as a small team with a lot to do is really about time management.”

“If you think around true product market fit, it'll help increase your chances for success.”

• How Alix got the language bug early on and was able to travel abroad in exchange programs while in middle school and high school
• How her time at Dartmouth went and how she realized that entering the world of finance was not actually what she wanted to do
• Why serious reproductive health issues in her mid-twenties created a huge shift in her perspective on what being a woman in business looked like and what it could look like
• How she started to formulate her idea of addressing the party and drinking culture to make it something more unifying and positive for everyone
• How fundraising for Bev has gone and what advice Alix has for entrepreneurs who are fundraising
• What challenges can occur when you’re a new small company and then how the challenges change with growth and how they are continually conquering them at Bev
• How Alix has grown as a leader and how she works hard to keep a balance between life and work while leading a team and growing Bev to continued success

To Find Out More:
https://drinkbev.com/

Quotes:

“If I want to really go build something and do something, I need to figure out my path there that doesn't necessarily have to mean being the boss the whole way through. You start small.”

“I had a brand and an ethos before I had a product... Sort of a message I wanted to put out and a dream I had about a different way of interacting and caring about each other.”

“I think part of me wanted to build something that could say, hey, there's a way that we can do this that's unifying, that's approachable and that's really positive.”

“Having that sort of unapologetic brand and point of view... You can't be everything to everyone, but you can be a lot to someone. And that's what I hope that we can be.”

“I think the part that's been hardest about hiring is that as the company scales and grows, not everyone scales with it.”

“If you have someone that kind of claims to know how to do exactly what you're asking them to do, especially in the early stages, that could be a red flag to me. There has to be humility around what we're doing because it hasn't been done in this way.”

“Fundraising is grueling. And I think people don't teach you how to do it. It's a skill in its own right.”

“You have to create a sense of urgency while staying true to who you are and true to what the business is doing and how you're performing, and there are tricks of the trade-in doing that.”

“You have to remember that your investment is just a deal passing someone's desk. And so how do you make that pop off the desk?”

“I try to start my meetings nowadays where it's like, OK, what stage do you do? What's your investment thesis? What's your process look like in terms of timeline? What's your check size? Do you have an ownership threshold? Like getting all of those things out fast, furiously and early, I think is really important.”

“You can be doing great and have 300K in your bank account when literally two days ago you had three million dollars because you had to buy all this product. And I think it's a common misconception that a company that's doing well is always OK. Because that's not the case.”

“The problems don't get easier, they get different.”

“You have to be the foundation for other people. And so you really need to learn how to motivate and pick yourself up. And resilience is so important.”

“If you're in early stages, just keep going. And I know it sounds so silly and simple, but I think founders often fail because they give up and there is a way to build something that you want to build and that you're proud of. And you really just have to keep going.”

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“Continue putting one foot in front of the next and the customers will meet you there if you have something special.”

“The consumer really is the strongest advocate you can have.”

“I guess that's really kind of the takeaway is you're never really washed up.”

“Because I'm looking at these macros for how they perform in the body.”

“We're looking at the right kind of fat paired with whole food to make this cultured medium which became plant yogurt.”

“It doesn't happen overnight. It takes time…”

“I think that there are more and more people who are feeling better longer and want to keep it that way. And they've made themselves students of what works for them.”

“If you're not there for yourself, you really can't be there for anyone else.”

“I do think people want what they want when they want it. And I do think the consumer, our consumer certainly, they're not going to settle.”

“I've had so many failures and so many false starts, and it's about just cut yourself a break and lighten up a little bit. You're doing your best. And just go forward.”

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“Through life you go through things like that, and as long as you look at it to sort of bring out the positive, it's always going to teach you something good. There's always going to be something that you take out of it to develop yourself.”

“We were able to do something very, very foreign to us, but it kind of taught us that as long as we work hard at it, we have the right team, the right support, the right hard workers, we can do it.”

“I love getting opinions from people that are close to me, but also the more opinions, the more complicated your decision becomes.”

“I think not getting too much sort of cloudiness in your thoughts and just like still staying true to what you're thinking and what your gut tells you.”

“That's one of the beautiful things about a business is like if it feels right, do it. You're the one that's going to be doing all the work. So make sure you just sign off on it yourself and just hit the ground running as fast as you can.”

“It was like this feeling of like this is going to be different. This is going to be new. And this is going to be something that is going to be big.”

“Once we were able to inject the perfect version, being our Eternity Rose, into the florals...that lifted that restriction on geography for me. And I was able to continue to try and grow as fast as we could. So that was a big thing.”

“I think development everywhere is what keeps me going. It keeps me really sort of on my toes. Like, what can we keep doing? How can we continue to grow?”

“We started to introduce these new product categories to where we educated customers on where else you can utilize florals within your space.”

“You can plan for demand and you can buy inventory, but you also have to make sure that you have enough people that can package and design and so on. And then also customer service. As we grow, all the sides of the business grow and it's important for people to remember all those other parts of the business as well.”

“I think it's very important for couples out there that are looking to get into business together to make sure from the beginning that you have that alignment and understanding.”

“You want to move quickly. So a lot of people might just be like, "Hey, we'll figure it out as we go," but then as you go and those things become pain problems, it can also negatively impact the business, but more so even the personal relationship.”

“We need to have that work/personal life balance, which is very, very important for sure. And I always recommend that.”

“I think team building and really understanding who those people are is super important.”

“It's something that I'd say is not just to hope to get to the goal and then look back at the journey. Also embrace it as you go through the journey.”

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“Even with the things that have been the most challenging, if you wait long enough, something beautiful will be born from it. Something good happens.”

“Learning as much as I could about every piece of that puzzle was only going to benefit what I was going to do in my own world. And so I think that was probably the biggest takeaway.”

“If you're starting something new, a thousand percent know why you're there and what you want to do, so that when it does come time to speak up, you can stand confident that you are standing on something strong.”

“I realized that I could do something sort of bigger and larger than myself. So I set out to start to reimagine makeup applications for people like me who have a physical limitation.”

“I've learned over the years that sharing is what connects you to people and it's so helpful.”

“We need to be thinking about larger groups. We need to be thinking about community.”

"Think about the needs of the greatest group and include those who have the greatest need and in the process, you will end up creating a better product or process for the whole."

“I believed what I was doing. I felt strongly that I had the right product and I had the right story and then I had nothing to lose by sharing it.”

“If you feel like you have something to offer, you're doing yourself a disservice, you're doing somebody else a disservice. Give them the opportunity to say yes or no. You got nothing to lose. You really don't.”

“I will never regret asking. I will never regret trying. But I certainly know I will regret it if I don't. And so I'm happy to deal with the sadness or the frustration or the anger of whatever comes if it doesn't work out my way. I'm not willing to spend the rest of my life wondering what if.”

“Life's always going to hand you change ups. And then it's just about taking a step back and figuring out how you pivot with it.”

“If you hit a roadblock and you're not sure how to deal, talk to people who do.”

“Everything we do will have that thoughtful moment, whether it's this revolutionary way to make the application easier or just little thoughtful moments that just make it more pleasurable to use.”

“If you are passionate, if you want to do it, get out there. Know that it is not easy and that is OK.”

“There are days where you may want to hide under the table. Don't let anybody tell you you can't. Just remember to get back out from under the table eventually and move forward.”

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“And so it was really understanding that we have this massive fertility information gap that is fueled by celebrity pregnancies not telling us the dynamics of their specific journeys and just this broader kind of cultural moment that creates kind of this difference between expectations and realities.”

“I think really holding yourself accountable to being intentional around how you were spending your time and what you were prioritizing, I think that's one of the hardest things about an early stage company or really any role.”

“As I look at just every kind of threshold that we've had as a company, you build the muscle to really look at those challenges differently. And you're kind of threshold of what you even view as a challenge just continues to increase.”

“So I think the role of a CEO is to get a C minus, hopefully not an F, but a C minus in a lot of different things, not let any balls drop and then try to hire experts that can do that job 10x better than you would ever dream of doing it and being able to have a really collaborative relationship with those folks to get it to the next level.”

“I really think just the team that you bring on and hire will continue along with the broader strategy to define success.”

“As a Founder/CEO, you're looking at your company as a product. And you really need to transition your mindset to really thinking about all of the dynamics of your company and where it exists in the broader ecosystem as defining your success.”

“I love criticism honestly. I just thrive on people poking holes in different ideas. And I think when you can really dive in and have exciting arguments, you're building a better and better company.”

“We were one of the first research reports that came out around how Coronavirus was impacting fertility. And what we found is that nearly a third of respondents were delaying their family planning decisions because of COVID.”

“I think diving back to that concept of taking a first step, making that list... That's really, I think, the core essence of entrepreneurship.”

“So I had the idea. But I knew that I wanted a Co-Founder. And I think that that's a really important distinction to make…”