Music. All right, welcome to our podcast. We're thrilled to showcase the stories of innovative beverage creators. I'm your host, Justin Nobe, and today we're joined by Corey Wood, co-founder of Elixir Kombucha, a rapidly growing kombucha brand hailing from Louisville, Kentucky. Corey, alongside his wife, Danielle, both healthcare professionals, embarked on their kombucha journey in 2013. Their mission began with a heartfelt cause to aid a cousin struggling with gut health issues.
The remarkable relief their homebrew kombucha brought to his symptoms ignited their passion and solidified their vision for Elixir Kombucha. Join us as we explore their journey from homebrew enthusiasts to thriving entrepreneurs and how Elixir Kombucha is making its mark in the world of health-conscious beverages. Corey, welcome to the show, man. Excited to be here. Thanks, Justin. Yeah, no, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. I know you're a busy guy building an empire, kombucha empire.
So appreciate you taking the time to join us. Can we, I'm going to crack one open. I'm going to go with my gut. Maybe with the pineapple ginger, but, and thank you for the samples. These are, I mean, the cans are beautiful. It's kind of like got a matte feel for those at home. Very, very cool packaging. We sprung for the matte finish. Thank you. We're really happy with how they look. Pay a couple extra cents a can for the matte, but we think it feels nice in the hand.
It looks good when you're taking shots of the product too. Do you recommend a shake? A quick shake? I wouldn't. It's carbonated. You can tump it, as they say, tump it. Yeah, you could turn it upside down and then right side up if you like. With a lot of kombuchas, you'll see a lot of sediment at the bottom of the bottle.
There's not much in ours um we don't do a ton of filtering but just a little bit of light filtering to keep the keep that sediment from from being in there but um but yeah it's it's it's not quite crystal clear because it is a raw uh unpasteurized kombucha but um yeah just okay don't give it a vigorous shake think of it like a soda you know yeah yeah yeah all right too much so so tell me about like bring me the start i know you guys kicked off in 2013 home brewing and then it took a few years.
And I think your aunt gave you that homebrew kombucha kit. If I did my homework correctly. You did, man. Yeah, you're well studied on Elixir. I appreciate it. Yeah, so my wife and co-founder, Danielle and I, we've been together forever.
Uh almost 20 years now going on 20 years or you know met in high school um we both had a fascination for health and you know medicine um uh not not a fascination for taking medicine but just you know the health uh health care kind of space um and uh you just took your first step what do you think i did it's fantastic i gotta ask very good yeah it's really good I'm glad you like it. Yeah. Pineapple ginger. That one is that one in our lavender lemonade fight for first place.
So thank you so much. Appreciate it. Credit to Danielle. She she's the product development, you know, the wizard behind the recipes. So I'll tell her you said so. I want to get into that later. Yeah, let's do it. So, yeah, going back, we've been together almost 20 years. Fascination with health and nutrition and, you know, kind of healthy lifestyles. And so her and I both attended University of Louisville here and here in Louisville, Kentucky. Kentucky.
She went the exercise physiology route. I went into nursing. So I was an ICU nurse for 11 years, you know, took some travel assignments. We were really kind of building out our plan for the future based on travel nursing gigs and places we wanted to live.
So, you know, we lived in a couple of places in the lower 48 and we're just kind of building our bucket list and, Then in 2013, like you mentioned, my aunt who homebrews kombucha down in Knoxville, she's also a hoop instructor and a yoga instructor. So she's like the quintessential kombucha consumer slash homebrewer. She was brewing this stuff in her kitchen. And every time we go down and visit them, she, you know, let us try her latest homebrew.
And eventually, you know, I became interested in doing it myself just kind of as a hobby at home. Um, and she gifted us with the kombucha culture, which we can get into, you know, what that is later on, if you'd like, uh, gifted us with the culture, you know, brought it back home, started home brewing.
We heard that it was good for, um, you know, what at the time was considered, you know, like digestive, uh, health or, uh, you know, um, could help with folks who struggle with, you know, gut problems in general. The gut health research was really like early on. We didn't, you know, know much about the gut microbiome at the time or the importance of diversity in the gut. But we started homebrewing and like you mentioned, my cousin, serious gut health issues.
We figured, hey, let's brew this stuff and maybe Lewis will benefit from it. So, we, you know, gave most of our homebrew to him. And, you know, this is over 10 years ago. We didn't really know what we were doing. And so, it didn't taste very great at the time, but it really helped his symptoms. And And that was, you know, that was really what fueled our passion for continuing this little homebrew project was seeing the benefits in my cousin.
And we thought, hey, you know, there's something special here. So we really didn't think of it as a business for the first couple of years. It was just a fun thing we did at home that Louis saw benefit from. And then, you know, friends and family started inquiring about it. You know, we'd have friends over and they'd see our little homebrew on the kitchen counter with a weird mushroom looking thing floating on the surface of it. And most of them were really off put by the looks of it, but.
Then we throw it into a bottle, put some blueberries and some pomegranates, maybe a little ginger in it and kind of make it a more palatable beverage. And before you knew it, friends and family kind of started drinking our homebrew. And that just led to a business opportunity kind of falling into our laps in late 2015.
Um so that's when we decided uh uh you know even without any business background or education to um offer louisville a local kombucha uh called elixir cool yeah very cool yeah the 2015 that was like a small uh like a smoothie shop around town or or yeah they did cold press juices They had five locations. The long story short is my sister was at the juice bar. They had kombucha on the menu, but they didn't have any in stock.
She asked about it. They kind of were complaining about the consistency of their supplier at the time. And he just, you know, kind of offhandedly mentioned that her brother has a pretty decent homebrew and, um, well, he encouraged her to have me bring a bottle in. And so I ripped a label off of a GT's bottle, uh, which if anybody knows the kombucha industry, they know GT's is the, they're the, they're the top dog in the industry. Um, probably 60% market share at this point, um, for them.
So I ripped one of their labels off, uh, put some of our homebrew blueberry, Blueberry, pomegranate, kombucha down inside the bottle, put a post-it note with my name and number on it and brought it into the juice bar. Didn't really think much of it and just kind of went back to life. Then a couple of days later, the owner of the juice bar called and said, hey, we tried your home brew. This stuff is great. We are looking for a kombucha supplier. We'd love to buy local.
If you all make this on a commercial scale, we'll definitely carry it. Uh, and that was all we, but ignorance is bliss sometimes. Like this is, you know, over seven years ago and we didn't know how long it would take to, you know, not only perfect the craft in a commercial setting, but build a business around it too. So ignorantly, you know, uh, we just jumped right in and figured it out. Danielle quit her job, went into, uh, doing this, you know, full time.
I, I kind of hung back for a little while and, um, I'm now full time with Elixir.
Um okay all in left my career as a nurse but uh but yeah we just we jumped right in and kind of built it from there just you know one retail account after another couple farmers markets here and there and um you know seven years later things are things are really really starting to take off now i don't think we expected it to take so long but you know um it's it's a niche product uh it's starting to make its way into the mainstream and people are kind of realizing the importance of gut health.
Now we have this sober curious component to it too. So it did take a little while for kombucha to kind of hit that cultural zeitgeist and really kind of start to float, like, you know, fuel the industry growth. And we're really starting to see that now. Super cool. I love that story because it's kind of, it's truly authentic in that you guys were doing this as like a passion projects on the side had no business.
It was never a thought and all of a sudden you're like yeah why not let's just jump and you just jump in um. And you go with the flow and then that leads to, did you get a, uh, you started sharing a commercial kitchen in 2016. That's when you guys said, I'm all in start the business. Yeah. There's something to this. Exactly. Yeah. Kitchen incubator. Uh, we, you know, pretty quickly hit capacity. We were on the path to, you know, uh, expanding, um, in 2019.
And, uh, we're kind of gearing up for that. Um, and then the pandemic hit and, uh, you know, business kind of took a downturn because at the time we had, you know, most of our retail partners in the area were bars, restaurants, coffee shops, cafes, um, breakfast spots, not a whole lot of grocery at the time. Um, and so we learned a lot through that. Um, and, um, but that definitely kind of put the pump, the brakes on the expansion plans.
Luckily, you know, I, you know, as a nurse that, you know, I was still had one foot in the nursing industry. So it was able to like, you know, kind of, uh, step back as, you know, there was less business coming in the door and kind of focus on, you know, at the time just, you know, know, being there for my ICU, um. Uh, and kind of work working, you know, through the pandemic, all the challenges associated with being, uh, in, in the thick of it. Uh, and, um, and yeah, it's come, yeah.
Coming out of the, kind of the pandemic phase, um, things really took off, you know, 2022 was a huge year for us and that's when we really hit an inflection point and we've been building momentum ever since.
Super cool. So yeah, it hasn't been linear. it's not a hockey stick you know yeah see a lot of cpg companies and they you know they go national you know go in national hockey stick growth all of that it's it's most companies it's not linear like that it's it's very much like um you know peaks and valleys right yeah yeah i mean i think there's a whole like the media will have you believe that every you're a failure this is something i'm super passionate about
because my first business i had started right out of college And I was like year seven, year eight. And I was like, man, I must be a failure because I haven't, I haven't raised money. I haven't, you know, at year eight, um, I haven't sold the business yet. I didn't have this massive exit. Like, and that's all you hear about is these like overnight successes in quotes, you know, for those listening. And I, I don't, they're unicorns, right? They, they, they barely exist.
Exist um you know a lot of people look at cpg companies they're like oh my gosh like liquid death right everyone's talking about liquid death right now yeah it's come to mind and they're doing a great job right now kudos to them but they've been at it for a while now you know um, tito's another oh my gosh suddenly tito's appears on the scene and they're everywhere.
No they were at it for like 15 years before absolutely yeah for sure for sure seven years is brand new yeah there you go yeah we're still in startup phase yeah like every day is day one and just keep going um that's right man persistence you know persistence is i think one of the biggest you know traits that you definitely need mm-hmm stubbornness kind of comes along with that too at times but yeah yeah luckily we we still have as much passion for
producing this product as we did on day one still to this day because as our business grows in our community of customers grow we keep getting these testimonials about whether it's the gut health aspect and people's you know People finding value in consuming a product like Elixir from a gut health perspective, or whether it's folks that are sober or moderating their alcohol consumption. You can see Elixir as a great option to kind of maintain their goals and sobriety.
Uh those that just like you know hits us right in the feels and just as yeah you know every time we get one of those emails or comments on a post or um direct messages it's just it continues to fuel that passion that we originally uh you know kind of had back when we were homebrewers that's awesome that's what it's all about and i just poured poured it out so you can see the color beautiful really nice thank you nice color appreciate it yeah
when you get into the lab or sorry when you you get into the raspberry limeade um they're down at the end we added hibiscus to that one too and it's just such a beautiful ruby red color it looks awesome in a glass that's awesome.
Definitely gonna try this later i do want to photograph these before i try them all so that's why i have not yet um i can send you another round too if you just blaze through them i need some more i got thanks man um all right so and and so danielle was in that whole time while you were were able to to do that and come take a step back while pandemic hit you guys and everybody in the.
She's the flavorist maybe uh yeah she's coming up with the flavors and how do you guys handle that like why pineapple ginger how are you making it is it it's real juice right that's um yeah it is we juice all of our own ginger in-house cold press um okay yeah on this you know actually it's funny because danielle was uh juicing another round of ginger yesterday and her uh her cold press juicer was it was struggling along we put a lot of ginger through that thing uh it's
about time time to upgrade um but yeah it is still very much uh although we've seen a lot of efficiencies um i mentioned 2022 um hit an inflection point whole foods midwest sales just kind of went crazy we switched to cans our price point dropped a little bit we came more competitive on the shelf, more portable, you know, much like the craft beer industry, there's kind of a shift toward cans of kombucha now. Yeah, for sure.
And, and, you know, whole food sales kind of went through the roof and category manager visited our, our facility in 22 and shared some data with us showing that we were outselling all of the other local base kombucha in our region. And in fact, We were kind of topping some of the national SKUs as well. So take that, Kavita. Congratulations. Yeah. Thank you. And that's, you know, mostly word of mouth.
Like we've got a little bit of an online following and everything, but it's not like a ton of marketing dollars went behind, went behind promos and buy one, get ones and all of that. It was just very much organic growth and friends and family members kind of sharing how much they enjoy elixir with with their network and just kind of uh, You know, that's the most powerful form of marketing, right? Absolutely. And it takes a little while to kind of get there. And we haven't figured out the driving
early trial piece. That's still admittedly kind of a mystery to us. We do know that once people crack a can open and realize how delicious our product is, that they generally become repeat customers. But it's still kind of a mystery to us how we capture that customer for the first time. But I don't know where I was going with that.
I mean i think you already said yeah well you were saying like word of mouth i think word of mouth is king and it could always will be you know um our our agency we have a big belief in building community around your brand and so like if you can do that you have a moat of insulation you know against competition but though if you can create other you know raving fans you call them brand evangelists but you know those are the people who
are bringing them out like just like you you're you and danielle are probably the most passionate people about the brand period ever you know full stop there of course because you're the founders and i'm sure your team your your core team you know shares that passion as well but you know if you can find other fans and bring them into the fold and like now they're bringing you know cans of this to parties right Right.
And like, especially now, dry January or whatever, whatever their reason is, they can bring these and now it stirs up a conversation. A, you know, they're cool. They're bringing this new item to the fold for their friends. But then, you know, they're they're seeding all of it for you. And I think if you can do that, you know, that's when you start to get leverage over all the ad spend that you are doing.
Right. Or or tastings in the market. Right. People are like, oh, I know you guys like and they bring friends over to your booth or. Or, you know, it starts to, everything starts to unfold faster. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And admittedly, we haven't figured that formula out just yet, but it's kind of been organically happening as a result of maybe just staying true to producing as delicious and approachable of a kombucha as we possibly can.
And, um, and yeah, so you, you asked about the flavor profiles and, you know, Daniel's role as, uh, as, uh, head of product development, you know, um, so the three cans, three out of the four cans that you see, uh, that you have there, pineapple, ginger, lavender, lemonade, blueberry, pomegranate, those are all.
Recipes that we created uh in 2013 you know 20 between 2013 and 2015 and at home they just kind of okay sometimes it was just like oh what's in the fridge you know uh or oh which berries do we need to go through um because they're probably going to go bad in the next couple days and it was very much just like pop up in the fridge and what inspires us uh kind of thing um and so that's where those three recipes came from and it's become more intentional more formulaic as we uh,
you know, produce in a commercial setting. And because we were at capacity at our kitchen incubator, although we were doing little small batch, um, recipes that were, we bring to the farmer's market and would get really, really good feedback on it. That's a great testing ground for, for you. Um, cause we don't have a tap room, uh, yet. Um, that wasn't a good testing ground for new flavors.
So we had, we've kind of got a list of, of, of, um, of flavor profiles that that we've that she has found success with over the years, but we just haven't because of the capacity issue hadn't didn't have an ability to really see those through and to bring them into a format that could be distributed. And so now that we're in a new space, which happened last year, we 2022 those, you know, sales kind of took off, Whole Foods went really well, they started to green light more locations.
And we leveraged all of that momentum to for our seed seed round, uh, and a, uh, and we moved into a new facility for that, uh, has completely. Transformed, you know, um, how we make the product, um, and certainly the efficiencies. So now we're kind of in a new space where we can start to release some of these flavors that have been, you know, we've been itching to put out, honestly, I think the best is yet to come.
Um, she's just full of, full of ideas. And, um, and so now we're, we're really excited to be in a space where we can we can start to put more you know more products out uh into the world yeah i saw you guys had the limited release harvest cider this past was it fall i'm assuming yeah yeah that one is uh yes it's a it's a fan favorite uh and yeah once september rolls around and you know you got all your your pumpkin beers coming out and pumpkin spice this
and that um everybody's looking for that seasonal that seasonal flavor and harvest cider is apple pear and mulling spices and yeah Yeah, it goes over really well. It's nice in a cocktail as well. We're in the land of bourbon here in Kentucky, and that one happens to pair really well with bourbon. So yeah, we really love the kind of limited release stuff, and we're looking forward to...
You know to offering more of that as we grow is do you find that your community like your biggest fans are they asking for new flavors or is that an internal push to to come up with new flavors or are distributors or retail partners asking for new flavors or how does you know um as our core consumers um there they are they kind of have their favorite skews and they kind of stick to them for as far as we can tell okay um that's why we we keep four core flavors year round,
the only one that you don't have up there that's part of our core is a grapefruit hibiscus and orange peel um yeah and uh we'll have to send you some of that too because that's great in a uh and a paloma um we've been we've been messing with non-alcohol cocktails for you know um.
Last two years and we found that most of our skus work well well with some in a spirit um in a nice cocktail and so the grapefruit works really well in a paloma and we actually have a local non-alcoholic tequila out of naked distillery is what they're called and we've just this recipe is just phenomenal um but um our a lot of our core consumers they do they kind of have their favorite skews they stick to them um i think we maybe it's people like new new stuff.
Right. Like, uh, and we live in a world of hyper novelty, like for better or worse, um, people are looking for the next new thing, the next, um, you know, exciting innovation. Um, and so we do feel in order to keep up with that demand for, um, for, for novelty that we will, and for us, it's like, it's a way to, to kind of flex our creative, um, muscle and and Danielle really leans in into that.
And so, um, she, uh, she's got, like I said, has, has recipes ready to go, um, putting them on the calendar, uh, and, and so, but, but yeah, I think that also helps bring more, uh, consumers into the category as well. Like, um.
The more kind of the more variety you have and the more you can try and uh provide something for for um you know more more consumers i think we can bring more people into kombucha that are either hesitant or just don't really know what's going on with kombucha like some people struggle with even saying the word kombucha so and then there's you know unfortunately there are a lot of people have had bad experiences with kombucha whether it's you know some
weird homebrew that they're you know they've uh had and it just didn't taste great or a lot of kombucha on the market tastes really kind of sour and vinegary um so we you know we do kind of run into this uh challenge sometimes of like uh dispelling preconceived notions about kombucha and uh you know trying to that's interesting it goes back to that point about um trying to drive early trial um it is a challenge but i think as we release
new flavors we'll bring more people into the fold so um and And if we want to grow Elixir, we've got to bring, we have to reach more consumers. So I think we can leverage our creativity with new SKUs in order to do that. Yeah, I'm sure you could really develop a nice, like a limited release schedule throughout the year, each year, where you can have that and then like push that out to your newsletter subscribers and say, hey, like limited time only, get it now.
Now, I don't know how much of your business is DTC versus retail at this point, but I'm sure retail is still the largest component. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that. It's like 85-15. Okay. Yeah. It's significantly skewed toward distribution and retail.
But like you said, we do have what's called a monthly bootch box that you can go on the website subscribe rather than your doorstep once a month customize your flavors we recently switched from squarespace to shopify and there's shopify is just so much um oh yeah for sure just so many so many more so much more functionality and uh customization options and so now people can go in and you know change up their flavors and we're we have a plan for you know making that a more robust.
Bust subscription where it's, you know, access to early access to flavors early, you know, special releases only for subscribers, those sorts of things that kind of help build that community around around this product. So, yeah, I think that's I mean, even with the 15 percent DTC fans out there, I would imagine that strategy is just would be huge if you can sustain it to have.
A reason to sign up for the newsletter number one get people excited talking number two and then trial like what's the best flavor right like there should be like a a component at the end to say like hey share what your best flavor was feedback feedback loop to get that back um to drive decisions to see like what then becomes the next retail flavor for kombucha um so how did you guys come up with a name just to take a step back yeah um honestly it was kind of low-hanging fruit,
we launched in uh we llc'd in 20 december 2015 and in the in the maybe 30 days leading up to doing that we were we had a bunch of ideas on on the board up on the board and we kept coming back Back to elixir, if you read about kombucha, this word continues to pop up. Kombucha has been brewed for over 2,000 years. It was originally known as the tea of immortality or immortal health elixir or elixir of life. And this word can continue to pop up. And the word elixir itself means a substance
that prolongs life. life. And now fast forward to what we know today about the gut microbiome and the importance of diversity in the gut microbiome and the importance of gut health and how it plays a role in not just digestion and nutrient absorption, but your mental health is directly linked to your gut health through the brain axis. They call it the second brain, right? The second brain, exactly. Some people say that. Yeah, for sure. Um, your immune system is largely, um.
Uh your immune system talks to the gut the bacteria in the gut it sends signals to your immune system and so and now we there's even studies that have shown a correlation, to um healthy aging the more diverse your gut microbiome is the more um it correlates with longevity and um and so for us at the time it was just like hey this word continues to pop up it's a cool word it's symmetrical it looks really nice um on you know on a label, And it has this really mystical kind of, um.
Uh, feeling about it. And so that's kind of at the originally why we chose the word. Um, and then now, you know, a couple of years later as gut health research, um, becomes more robust and there's more data that backs up fermented foods. Um, uh, it, it really kind of validates, uh, that, that word for us. Um, so. Well, I think it's cool cuz you, you and Danielle, correct me if I believe both of you had this tie into healthcare at the start of this, right?
The, the beginning of the journey, you're both in healthcare. So I, yeah, I like that too. I feel like it ties into your story as founders as well. Not just the product. Yeah, that's cool. I would love to, you know, admittedly we, we, um, because we've spent so much effort effort and attention on product, um, we are now in retrospect, realizing like. We have, haven't really fully built out what is the brand?
What is, what is Elixir? Um, outside of, you know, what's in the can, like building the emotional component, like around it and time and really like distilling the story down, um, you know, husband and wife team of healthcare background with healthcare background, you know, that works locally. Locally, you know, people in Louisville, Louisville is such a bi-local city. And originally, you know, that was kind of our thought was, hey,
Louisville doesn't have a local kombucha. Let's let's let's offer one. And our community really resonated with that story of the husband and wife's local business, you know. Oh, sure. Leaving health care to, you know, to try and make a larger impact with this gut health product. product. I don't know how that story scales. I'm not sure if it scales because we have aspirations. We're, you know, rolling out more Whole Foods locations where more distributors
are onboarding us. We're in talks with Kroger right now and Publix. And so, as we grow, does that story scale or do we need to start to tell a story that resonates beyond just that local, you know, couple, you know, building of a small business?
So, admittedly, like, yeah i for better or worse i tend to overshare be more transparent than uh than i maybe should but uh we we're still like haven't fully built that brand story in a way that we feel like is scalable um so um yeah yeah it's more common than you you think you'd think um. And I, it's interesting. I've been on both sides of the aisle and now we help brands do this for, you know, for themselves.
I think it's hard to do as founders. And sometimes it takes like an outside party to help you put the story together. And so that's, you know, my first company I started, it was, we didn't do it for five, the first five years. And it was, we had an intern come in and he was like, Hey guys, like let's, and he was, he was a design intern.
Turn he was at bu boston university and he was like hey you know i can let's let's work on this and that was the push we needed to get it done and it was a big investment um and in really time to do that but i think it's the best investment you can make but but even now like for you guys i think it speaks to the authenticity of what is the brand today and brand is you know at some at, at a big level you know brand is what people think of you when they they see
your your product it on the shelf it's the immediate thoughts and you can artificially tell that and and try to. Guide people to thinking certain things but also they're they're still always going to think what they believe the brand is right so there's there's two pieces that come together um but i think i think it's great you know the the word elixir is fantastic the the logo um you know it it's good Good. It's really good for sure.
And I think like the whole experience, I mean, I'm chugging this right now. I can't stop drinking it. So, you know, the product is phenomenal. Thank you. Thank you. It's really great. Have taught like, is it hard being a husband-wife team starting this? How do you guys navigate that? I'm curious. We're better at times than others. You know, overall, like, I don't, I don't really have a great, I feel like I'm still, people ask us this a lot.
And, um, and I wish I had like some, just like, I wish I could just drop some wisdom on people when they ask, like, how do you make it work?
How do you guys do it yeah and there i don't think we've really like uncovered any like nuggets of wisdom that could be applied um broadly but um you know we have been together you know over half of our lives uh we've we've been together and um you know a series of strange and uh you know in retrospect, fortunate events led us to being in the same high school when, um, you know, we didn't start at the same high school.
We just kind of ended up halfway through. I ended up leaving my high school and ended up at hers. That's a story for another time. Uh, we might need something stronger than kombucha to have that story. Um, but you know, good fortune kind of led us to each other. Um, and, and yeah, I don't know if I, this might get a little little philosophical, but I, I'm not sure if, you know, I believe the idea of soulmates, but, um. We're as close to that as, as you could get, uh, I think.
And, you know, so I don't know that that's necessarily, um, uh, you know, able to be applied across all husband and wife teams or whatever, but, um, man, like we, we just, we love doing this and we continue to see how it impacts people in a positive way and that keeps us moving forward and you know we through adversity you know getting through each challenge um without uh it continue you know like blowing up in our face and. Uh, yeah, getting through challenges really brings us closer together.
So every challenge we get through, um, we're just that much more solidified and yeah, sorry, I don't have any great wisdom. It's just, uh, it's just, I mean, obviously we love doing it and yeah. Yep. No, it's, it's great, uh, to see that. I think, you know, a lot of people say, Oh, I could never do that. And obviously it's working for you guys.
And that's, that's wonderful to see, um you know there must i think at the heart of it every team needs a lot of trust and communication and that obviously works with a um uh a marriage right and if you got that as a strong foundation, i'm sure that carries right into the team and yeah so that's great uh what i guess off of that like Like do you, when there is an argument, right? Like, cause you, I'm sure you don't agree on everything. How do you guys settle, settle, settle that?
Um, is it like whoever conversation? Yeah. You know, like number, like, Hey, I'm like a 10 on this. It has to. Uh, yeah. So I've heard an interesting piece of advice, um, that kind of ties into this. Um, and we've tried to incorporate it into our lives recently. Um, yeah.
Uh you know different levels of so if like if our goal is to be 100 as a couple um there are certain days where like i can only bring so much to the table or she can only bring so much to the table and we will talk about that like you know what today is a you know i'm at 60 today i need you know or i'm i'm at 20 today i need you to really like help me out like be my 80. Because Cause we got to, if we're not a hundred percent, like, uh, we're going to fall behind.
So, um, we kind of started to incorporate that and that's definitely been helpful. Um, that might be a little piece of practical advice for folks, but, but yeah, arguments do come up debate. Uh, uh, I think debate is crucial. Like if you're not arguing, um, you're probably not doing anything different or new or, um, or, or interesting, like that's part of it. Um, so I think there's a great point. Yeah.
There's a quote, uh, that I like, I forget who said this, but all progress relies on the unreasonable person. Um, like you've got to, sometimes you have to take that unreasonable. Uh, I mean, you look at really famous, like Elon, you know, out there, like he there, there's a, he's a divisive character. Um, a lot of people would see him as unreasonable, but, but look at, uh, the impact that, you you know, him and his teams are making, um, for human across humanity.
So, um, so yeah, I think, uh, conversation, it really just comes back to conversation and in an ideal world when there's two opposing opinions through conversation, you'd like to, uh, imagine that, uh, there could be, um.
You know some place where you you end up that uh where you can a decision can be made and you can move forward uh ideally you know um aligned oftentimes that doesn't happen um sometimes it does have to come down to um you know as we grow and our our roles in the company become less like an overlapping venn diagram and more kind of like domains of of authority that kind of helps too so we're starting to kind of establish those bright lines between um you know what
she's great at and and and uh the value that she brings and then same same thing for me so as we grow and we kind of like our venn diagrams kind of separate a little bit into our little domains then that helps because then there's certain things that were like the decision is on her and certain things the decision is is you know kind of in my domain so we're not perfect at it though Like inevitably there's the lines are kind of blurred sometimes.
And then it really just comes down to conversation. Cool. Very cool. So I guess I know we're coming up on time. Do you have any, I mean, we've mentioned the whole industry as a whole. Where do you see kombucha going in the next five, 10 years? You see it taking over? Is it part of the NA movement that's happening within kombucha?
The you know spirits and beer and wine is it completely separate does it where do you see that going and then do you see it trending is it is it trending upwards downwards sideways yeah. I'm bullish on kombucha i'm obviously biased yeah but i do think that you know these two consumer uh trends that are only skewing upward um you know gut health is becoming more of a focus focus in food and Bev.
Um, and the more the, uh, you know, I love to nerd out on the science of it and give it a health aspect. And the more evidence we have for, uh, fermented foods, uh, probiotics, um, you know, products like kombucha, there was a study that came out recently that showed, um, that they tested kombucha against other non-caloric beverages like sparkling waters or, or zero calorie teas. Um, and in the context of, uh, a meal, kombucha was the only one to lower that post meal blood sugar.
So, you know, yeah. So we're, we're, we're starting to really put some hard evidence on the importance of, of gut health and the, and how kombucha ties into that. So that's one consumer trend that I think really is just, it's going to continue to grow. And then on the, you mentioned the NA wave, like alcohol moderation is, is booming.
Like there's a renaissance in beverage right now around sobriety or sober, you know, there are some people who are strictly sober and, you know, although we don't like. Preach abstinence in any way, we do think that's right for some folks, but, but the, the, the NA NA movement is really fueled by people who are casual drinkers, just looking to moderate their alcohol consumption. Simple as that. I fall into that category myself.
And so kombucha kind of being at the intersection of both of these consumer waves, I think will continue to fuel the industry.
I think we'll see, we'll see growth. We'll probably see some consolidation at some point we have, you know, investment and acquisitions coming in from the outside into kombucha and i think we're going to start to see you know within the industry um some consolidation some of the bigger brands kind of gobbling up some of the smaller ones that are you know uh making uh you know edging them out in in markets like you know we're kind of starting to do here in in louisville
and kind of the midwest uh region although we probably are not a blip on gt's radar or health aid or covito or um or brew doctor any of these you know 10 players the more we grow and the more um the more.
Uh kind of shelf space or market share we kind of take away from them i think that's going to become a problem that uh will only be solved through acquisitions so um i think that will probably start to happen we're also seeing a broadening of gut health too we've got some new players coming into the market that are you know they're gut health beverages but they're not kombuchas so you've got like prebiotic sodas and and kind of some other um non-fermented
gut gut, but still kind of gut health beverages. I think kombucha will start to see some players exploring that space as well. In fact, we're already starting to see it. Okay. And yeah, so I'm really bullish on it. I think that, and given the history of kombucha being a product that's been consumed by humans for over 2000 years, I think that's really going to play to our benefit.
It's not just a, some novel functional, you know, beverage that's just recently hit the scene and kind of become a fad. I think there's longevity there. So, um, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and it's great. I don't, I, I would, I would place my bet on you, you guys as well. Um, having now drank the entire can, there is no acidity. It's great. I mean, it's, it is not, it's so super smooth.
Um it it's not overly sweet it's kind of like the perfect amount of everything and it flies down very very good appreciate it yeah um i gotta get a button gotta get it on the subscription, i'll hook you up yeah i got you the uh what was it um and i guess 60 seconds so last 60 second uh okay the show we're gonna hit like everyone answers these quick questions if you if you don't know it's okay you can just say it next next i'll be honest yeah yeah what what's
the most impactful or your favorite book that you've read recently. Recently um i would say recently good to great okay good to great jim collins yeah fantastic book yeah that's a practical takeaways um yeah every founder should read good to great for sure it's hands down it's a great book um how do you stay organized day to day you've got a million things going on i live on our calendar and my crm um okay yeah so So our director of operations, Patrick, he's a true generalist.
I call him a generalist because he really is. He's a mechanical engineer by trade. Didn't really find fulfillment in that industry. And now he's become really fascinated with startups. He's an entrepreneur himself. And we scooped him up. And he's been building systems for us. He helped get our expansion. expansion, um, you know, he, he sped up our, our expansion timeline, like significantly because he understands, you know, machinery and, and, uh, and all the rest.
But, uh, he also built us a production tracking software, inventory tracking, and, uh, that also ties into a CRM.
And, uh, because I'm really more focused on sales now, um, I live by my CRM and, uh, and my Google calendar so those are two tools that um that without that i would just be totally scattered and a mess what uh i'm with you on that what what crm are you using can you divulge that or yeah he he built it and he built a no code yeah and no code um a no code software called coda okay yeah um it's phenomenal and it's it doesn't have a tons of a ton of bells and whistles but it It is...
It's it's it's great for our purposes i've you know i've dabbled with hubspot and a few others um and although they do have some more bells and whistles like this is a simple um no code tool that uh is is really it's it's perfect for what we need at this point so that's great that's impressive very cool yeah if people out there are are interested and want to reach out um you can can you know share our website the contact form goes to my phone and
my founder's phone and if they want an intro like um to you know i can do a screen share and show people our crm because it's it's really robust and it it um you know he could customize it to pretty much anybody's uh needs so that's that's business business number two is launching right now this is business yeah exactly.
Um it's it's 24 a month 24 bucks a month that's it i mean come on these other crms like i was just just crazy like a company at our stage can't afford a sales force you know that sort of thing so yeah how how do you and maybe you and danielle but she's not here so how do you guys how do you maintain balance as founders um is is there balance i guess you can even say maybe maybe you yeah there's balance I think if Danielle was sitting next to me she'd tell me that I could work on that but,
yeah I tend to you know, i can't it's hard for me to like turn it off sometimes um you know uh but i think you kind of have to have that about you to um to really make something take off so um and admit and like it's not because i feel some um like it was really an intrinsic motivator for me like i just i love doing it and it's it for that reason like i tend to check emails like right before turning do not not disturbed off, uh.
On my phone at night or, um, you know, so anyways, she could probably, she would probably say I could work on that work, work life balance a little bit more, but overall I think we do a really good job of, um, you know, there are certain things that are like, um, that are, uh, like non-negotiable things that we do together.
Um, one being exercising uh you know we you know that's uh not only for physical health but uh it's a mental health uh thing too like i think we'd both be a total mess if we didn't have our exercise routine. Um you know for if people care uh we generally do hits you know we can get a lot of work done um both in strength and cardio and you know 20-25 minutes you know four or five days a week um it it does wonders. Like I would probably need a therapist if I didn't have my exercise routine.
So, um, now probably still, you know, could benefit from talking to somebody occasionally too, if I'm being honest, but, um, you know, most people could like, I don't, yeah. So, so that's huge. And then when, when the, when the weather is decent, like right now it's nine degrees, uh, in Louisville and not great for hiking at the moment, but, um, but most of the, the, uh, throughout the year, we, we love getting out in nature. Um, that's, uh, I think it's, again, it's a physical thing.
I think it's a mental health thing. It's a spiritual thing. Like there's something about being out on a hiking trail, like, uh, in the middle of, you know, middle of nowhere, uh, that does something special. Um, and we do that together. We bring our little three-legged pit bull.
She's actually at my office door right now, sniffing under the door um uh so uh we yeah take our pit bull and and go hiking i think that that really helps us maintain some balance as well i hear you on that there's something about i'm i'm doing i'm with you on the hits for sure and uh you have to work i think it's like the best best mental clarity and you feel great and then just just being out in nature something about it
no yeah that's that's awesome well hey man that that's all we had for the show today i appreciate Appreciate all the time. Thank you so much for being with us. And I wish you all the best to you and the whole Elixir team. Thank you. Likewise. Awesome, man.