Future/Proof Founder on Growth of Alcoholic Beverages

at future Proof Beetbox Beverages. Their companies based in Austin, Texas, but we find Amy on the phone in Pittsburgh on this Tuesday. Amy, great to have you here with us. How are you I'm doing great, Thanks for having me, Caroline, Paul, how are y'all doing? Okay? Doing okay? Um? I want to talk to you about, you know, your business and

the impact of the virus. But before we do that, can we take a step back and just talk to us a little bit about the origins because you and your partners actually met at the University of Texas Business School, Is that right? And this is where you came up

with your company? Absolutely? Uh, you know, at the time I was in my mid twenties, we were seeing boxed wine at every party, every tailgate, river float trip, but no one really loved the wine that were they were drinking, and the brands did not appeal to the millennial generation. So my business partners, Justin Brad, Jason and Dan came up with the idea to make boxed wine less boring.

So they recruited me to joined the team, and we sought to create a brand that would resonate with millennials and be centered around music, which is the center of our socialized at the time. So us Beatbox Beverages was born our first product line. All right, so talk to us about your product lines here. What are some of the products that are kind of driving your growth? Are reseeing the most uptake from your consumers? Yeah, So Beatbox Saverages is a product that we launched the first time

back in two thousand thirteen. So we first launched it as a boxed wine and then as we grew with the company and we're on Shark Tank in two thousand fourteen. Uh, we really found that it was resonating with millennials in terms of the eco friendly, portable, great flavors, and so

we've been really growing with that brand. Uh. This past year, our company has actually transitioned from Beatbox Beverages to future Proof brands, and we're piloting to new brands and fast growing categories and alcohol as well, corkless and alternative packaging wine and brizzy in the Seltzer space. All Right, wait, bait, Okay, we're going way too fast. You gotta go back to Shark Tank, because I mean, we all know that brand.

We well, I you know, every once in a while, I go down a rabbit hole and I watched a couple of you know, one after another, because it's just fascinating to see to me entrepreneurs, you know, pitching their business to you know, this panel of individuals who've got money to spend and who understand what it takes to

make a good business. What was that experience like, because you actually got Mark Cuban too, I think pitching about a million dollars or so, absolutely, which was one of the biggest deals on the show of all time back then. But um, you know, we we started the company very bare bones. You know, we made it ourselves, distributed ourselves.

We were doing you know, probably six to nine hours of in store samplings the weekend, and we would always get that common you should be on Sharp Tink, you should be on Shark Pink when people saw the products. If that's something you can just go do, right. But fortunately in Austin we have south By Southwest and the Sharp Pink producers came to do casting there, so we got to pitch then and then ended up filming that summer of two thousand fourteen and we're part of the

season six. So um, it's definitely a surreal experience and you know, I still can't really believe that it happened. But you know, one thing that people always ask me about getting on the show, I said, hey, it's a TV show. You got to give them great TV. So bring the energy and passion for your product and you know, hopefully good things happen. Well I agree with that, and Mark Cuban knows certainly how to you know, kind of become you know, entertaining and a little bit of a spectacle.

I mean, he's really kind of fascinating to to listen, whether he's in an interview or other setting. But you know, what did Mark Cubans and allment it wasn't just about money, was it. No. So Mark has actually been incredibly helpful. Um. You know, after he made a million dollar investment on the show, he came in and met with us. You know, he's over there in Dallas that we were in Austin, so we got together in person several times. He's also signed beatboxes for us in a liquor store for hours.

We've posted events together on Rita and Austin during uh, you know St. Patrick's Day, and he's gone above and beyond and provided things like inventory financing and put his brother Jeff Cuban on our board. So it's been incredible to work with Mark and you know, dreams come true as a young entrepreneurs to be able to learn from

the best. So Amy talked to us about the trends that you've seen um during the pandemic in terms of customer buying and and uh, whether or not those trends were you have they changed as we've gotten from March to today. Yeah, when all this started, we were nervous,

just as everybody was. That are imry distributions and channels such as grocery, liquor store and convenience stores and what you did see was all of the dollars being spends on alcohol shifting from restaurants and bars into those channels. And so we've actually been experiencing record sales once every month of the pandemic, and that's been able to, you know, fortunately turn it around and raise money for Small Business Relief Fund and a c l U and other groups

as well. So it's been the silver lining of all that. So amy. When I walk into a liquor store these days, I'm just overwhelmed by the number of products, you know, really competing for shelf space. It's just so many new products. It's not just beer, wine, and and spirits. There's everything hard seltzer and I guess that's kind of the some of the newer products. How do you get mind share market share in such a crowded market. What's your marketing strategy?

Absolutely so, I mean, what you're seeing is the results of huge trans and consumer drain. Right. Millennials are shifting away from traditional beer to wine and flavored items like Beatbox, and the bigger brands are scrambling trying to find things that are going to work. But what they're missing is that key authenticity that millennials and Gen z are also looking for you know, the big brands will try and slap a new label on an outdated idea, trying to

make it cool to these demographics. But you know, with our brand, we sought to create the most authentic experience possible, which is you know, really connecting with our listeners and constantly, whether it's flavor development, packaging, designs, events, we choose the sponsors. You know, we use social media, brand ambassadors and other listening tools to stay extremely connected to our consumers. And I think that's really what's made us stand out among

all of those different new entrants, like you've mentioned. Okay, one thing I want to ask you because your background is really fascinating to me. Um. First of all, it's a woman who's got two male business partners and you know, creating a company. I'm curious about that experience. I'm also experience. It's you're a first generation US citizen that you know, you moved here from Syria when you were about ten

years old. So I'm just curious about, you know, being an immigrant in this country creating a company and what the experience has been for you. Yeah. So my parents had corporate jobs when we lived in the Middle East. My dad's from the UK and my mom's from Syria, and they actually quit their jobs when I was ten years old to pursue entrepreneurship in this country. And so we came over and I watched them grow their businesses

through high school and college. It was a vending machine business with those bubbles and stuff, the animals and things like that, and so that was their business. And then when it came time for me to go to business school and start my company, I was incredibly flattered that, you know, my business partners decided they were not going to start a next generation alcohol beverage company without including

a female founder and having diversity on their ownership. So I really appreciated them recruiting to me to join the team. And um, you know, certainly being a female founder in that alcohol beverage industry is at its rocky moments. I mean, I'm often mistaken for, you know, a promotional model. When I'm saying no, I'm actually the owner of the company,

people you know have a reaction. But my reaction to that is, you know, the more that I can be on things like this and show up the panels and be mentors to other female entrepreneurs that you know, we can make a change in our generation and you know the next group of female founders and there have been many many new women founders of alcohol beverages and alcohol

beverage companies recently. Um, you know, if I see that as a great change, and I hope that we can continue to be the change that we want to see in this industry and encourage more diversity of ownership as well. Well, it's super grateful to be an American citizen. It's a wonderful place to be. I know, we have our issues, but this has been an incredible country. Well it's great

to hear that. And and you know, it's interesting, you know, because I do think it sounds like whether it's diversity and inclusion or sustainability, these are things that are important to you guys. And also the brand absolutely. I also wanted to include my stories being featured in a book called Immigrant Hustle, which I love the name for that, So that's coming out later this year, Um, if anybody

is interested in learning more about my story. But you know, on that note mentioned, we definitely want to be this next generation and alcohol beverage company. So that includes the responsible business model we wanted to be more inclusive and

regenerative for the planet. So you know, my role as chief operating officer, I take sustainability very seriously in our company, and we're actually working on and becoming a b corpse this year so that we can be fully transparent with all of our efforts that we've been kind of doing behind the scenes and now really baked into our business model for future growth. Amy, how are you guys funding your growth? It seems like you talked about the sales,

very strong sales growth. How are you funding that? Yeah, so you know, consumer brands are expensive to get growing, So we've done several fundraising grounds were actually, you know, after Shark Tank, we had two based fundraising rounds with lots of private investors that came into supported are so grateful, and we're actually partnering with wet funder to be able to annow anybody that's a fan of Beatbox or future Proof to become part of the brand, and that's going

to be announced very soon. So if anyone's interested in that, it's Beatbox Beverages dot com to sign up for the newsletter and get that announcement once it's public, and I gotta ask you go ahead, no, please finish. I was gonna say it such a unique opportunity because you know, most people can't just invest in a startup. You know, these crowdfunding platforms that are kind of becoming the next generation of fundraising, really cool opportunity that democratize who can

be part of these fast growing companies. Yeah, we're seeing more and more of that. I think it's really interesting. So it's also happening in real estate where you know, the average investor right can't get involved, but there are ways now where you can, you know, be part of a group in terms of being much more involved in in some of kind of what normally is for institutional investors. Amy, what's next for you guys? I mean, we are of launching We're launching a new flavor of Beatbox this month,

Peach Punch. So we're really excited about that. It seems like my most favorite delicious road trip snacks, peach rings. And we're continuing to innovate in this industry. You know, we've got two brands of Brizzian Corklift, which you know twenty is a very hard year to launch innovation of the sale, so we're very excited about expanding those brands next year, as we can do things like events and samplings and other ways to introduce some new products to customers again