0:07

Hey there and welcome to another where

0:09

we rewatch the most innovative and

0:11

intriguing pitches from Shark Tank. I'm Jory

0:13

and I'm joined by the ambitious,

0:15

the adventurous and the admirable Ariel. Welcome

0:17

back. It's time to get the

0:20

party started. Are you a big sweet

0:22

tea fan, Ariel? I love sweet

0:24

tea. Oh, I love that. Well, I

0:26

certainly am too. And today's product

0:28

promises to be the best you've ever

0:30

had. Will they be able to

0:33

convince the sharks that they need a

0:35

taste? will their $10 million valuation

0:37

prove steep. Grab your cuppa and gather

0:39

around. We'll dive in after this break.

0:44

We all know trends, right?

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0:49

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for free. Today

1:17

in the tank is y 'all sweet tea And

1:19

y 'all sweet tea is brought to us by

1:21

Darian Brandon who are asking for five hundred

1:23

thousand dollars for five percent in their business, which

1:25

is a 10, yes, $10

1:28

million valuation. Now

1:30

y 'all Sweet Sweet Tea

1:32

is trying to bring Sweet Tea

1:34

to everyone because it is

1:36

a Sweet Tea brand that has

1:38

Sweet Tea, unsweet Tea and flavored

1:40

tea. And what sets this

1:42

Tea brand apart is that it

1:44

focuses on social media influencers, specifically

1:46

Southern grandmothers. So you know if

1:49

a Southern grandma is saying

1:51

the sweet Tea is good, it

1:53

better be good. So it's about

1:55

a three -year old business. They

1:57

haven't raised any money, so the

1:59

founders own. 100% of their of their

2:01

business. But thinking about our

2:03

pitch, our founder, and our product, product.

2:05

Ariel, tell me what you think

2:07

of y 'all, of y'all's Let's start

2:09

with the start with the positive. Oh.

2:12

Okay. It ties into like the southern

2:14

and stuff. I love that they

2:16

had one of their grandmothers come

2:18

out and just be that be that ambassador

2:20

I could see her very much

2:22

her very so being like the figurehead. The The personality.

2:25

like the visual representation or mascot of

2:27

this brand. I think would actually

2:29

be a really smart play for

2:31

them. smart The long pause

2:33

is alarming. alarming. I think it's great

2:35

that they don't have any investors. They're

2:37

fully just like ready to go.

2:39

They're like, hey, this is like backed

2:41

by go. I think this

2:43

is 100% Brandon basically

2:45

found a way

2:47

to rebrand rebrand Black

2:50

Tea. Yeah. and make it it into a

2:52

massive consumer play, which I really

2:54

just wanna underscore it it is so

2:56

misleading to label something then tea and

2:58

then say, add the consumer has to

3:00

add in the actual sweetness, we just

3:02

add in flavor. They literally just

3:04

found a way to take black tea

3:06

and call it something else. And

3:09

anytime that a product starts off with

3:11

a bad brand promise like that,

3:13

that is misleading, I fundamentally have a

3:15

problem with their business. with their I

3:17

don't know if you've ever drank this,

3:19

but you can get. this, but you can get

3:21

which is super sweet which is a can,

3:23

in like a big can can the grocery

3:25

store. And to me, I felt like

3:27

this was just that in that in a...

3:29

colored bag that said y 'all on it. I

3:31

I was like, like, it even different? At least

3:33

with Lipton, you just add water. You don't

3:35

even have to add your own sugar. even

3:38

I got so confused when they were I got

3:40

about the assembly, were if you will, because it's

3:42

if you will, because it's you add sugar

3:44

to, sugar and then then it all

3:46

to water, and then you get their

3:48

their which requires an additional element outside

3:50

of your product to work, work, which

3:52

makes it issue. Kool -Aid doesn't do

3:54

that. that. Yeah. Like all the the other drink

3:56

mixes don't do that. Why are are we

3:58

adding an extra That's not necessary

4:00

and also misleading. Do you know how many

4:02

people are gonna go to the grocery

4:05

store to the I think that's all you need,

4:07

but it's not all you need, but is a

4:09

failed brand just waiting to happen And then

4:11

then they're going to get negative reviews

4:13

because people aren't going to realize you

4:15

need your own sugar and it's going

4:17

to be a mess. it's going to be a mess. Okay.

4:20

I mean, maybe it's a great product

4:22

too. I will say I will say I tried

4:24

it. So maybe there's something special about

4:26

their that are that they are the sharks All

4:28

of the it said that it was tasty,

4:30

but I do kind of also see

4:32

your point because many different people are

4:34

going to use many different sweeteners because

4:37

now you've basically unstandardized your flavor, right?

4:39

Because does this taste the same same with sugar

4:41

versus like stebia or different or different sweeteners raw? Like

4:43

I'm sure that sure a all has a

4:45

very different profile. So now your product

4:47

tastes different to everyone and there's

4:49

no way to kind of have that

4:52

common ground of kind of have that common sales

4:54

do tell a slightly different story story

4:56

though because I mean, they they their

4:58

total sales are $10 .3 million. million dollars.

5:00

is buying this. this. Someone is listening

5:02

to those to those southern they are buying

5:05

in the are buying not reading the labels

5:07

is what's happening. happening maybe it's actually

5:09

not as much of an issue of

5:11

think, right? we think right mean, they

5:13

are are it for seven dollars so ten .3

5:15

million in sales. They're selling

5:17

a lot of these units. a lot

5:19

of these They've got pretty good

5:21

margins, got Because their cost to

5:23

make is about $2 .6. two point six

5:26

dollars So what gets interesting is when they

5:28

when they start to talk

5:30

about those margins and how much

5:32

profit they're making. get a little get

5:34

a little insight into their

5:36

marketing strategy. And by marketing

5:38

strategy, I mean I mean they're running

5:40

Facebook ads, which just felt like

5:42

a slap in the face to

5:44

all marketers everywhere, calling just Facebook

5:46

ads just Facebook ads marketing. out that they. out

5:48

that they. have broken even on

5:50

this year's margins and they've

5:52

made what, $3 million to date.

5:54

date. spending a spending a lot

5:57

of profit on their potential

5:59

ad revenue. And I was curious

6:01

on your take of being like

6:03

our only marketing strategy was Facebook ads

6:05

and we broke even and they

6:07

did not see a bump in sales

6:09

like break that down for me. I

6:12

know, so Facebook ads are interesting. So there's

6:14

a lot of different ways so can like

6:16

set up your campaigns and like what goals

6:18

you wanna optimize against, right? So basically it's

6:20

very easy to say, hey, I wanna go

6:22

on Facebook and I want you Facebook and

6:24

your algorithm to push out my ad to

6:26

as many people as possible. So those are

6:28

like reach -based campaigns. Then there are campaigns that

6:30

are more focused on, hey, there I want

6:32

you to show my ads to a bunch

6:34

of people, but only people that are gonna

6:36

go down a certain conversion path or I

6:38

want them to end up on my website

6:40

or I want them to at least this

6:42

in their cart so you can get very

6:44

specific and tell Facebook specifically like what is

6:46

the action that you want them to take?

6:49

My hunch is they saw Facebook has

6:51

a massive audience. They saw that it

6:53

was much more affordable compared to other

6:55

digital channels that may be more specialized

6:57

or have a higher quality type of

6:59

audience. So quality to me, that signals more

7:01

so that it is an ineffective channel

7:03

for them to actually lead to conversion.

7:06

This is one where I wish the

7:08

sharks asked what is your cost for

7:10

acquisition because I bet you the cost

7:12

of inventory that they're getting on Facebook

7:14

versus like actual conversions or purchases of

7:16

the product, I think would be a...

7:18

very stark story to tell. So there's

7:20

nothing wrong with necessarily putting money in

7:23

the cheaper inventory buys, especially when you're

7:25

a newer business, but I'd argue with

7:27

10 million in sales to date. They

7:29

already kind of know who their audience

7:31

is. They should be running retargeting and

7:33

remarketing campaigns and efforts and understanding beyond

7:35

just Facebook where their buyers are spending

7:37

their time to continually reach them with

7:40

messaging or when you have new products

7:42

coming out. So to me, it signals

7:44

that maybe perhaps their strategy of Facebook

7:46

isn't necessarily working for them, I think

7:48

for very vanity artificial. metrics. Sure,

7:50

it probably looks great, but that signals

7:52

to me that they probably need

7:54

to look at other methods of distribution,

7:56

or at least thinking about how

7:58

they are reaching new. customers

8:00

versus like customers that have

8:02

already purchased in the past

8:04

before. before. Okay, so say just been

8:06

hired as a for

8:09

Yell Sweetie and you see that Facebook isn't

8:11

you see that Facebook isn't working. okay,

8:13

What's your next step to be like,

8:15

be a know this channel might be

8:17

a bust? So I do you go

8:19

next? ways. Again, because a few few ways. Again,

8:21

because this company has been around for

8:23

three years at this point, know, I would would

8:25

go and like, where is most of our

8:27

traffic coming from on the website? Where are

8:29

they coming from originally? Are they doing

8:32

Google searches? Are Are they coming from PR? searches?

8:34

where are those main where are those main which

8:36

someone is at least interested in my product?

8:38

at Then I would try to see, in

8:40

what distribution channels I sense then? Should we

8:42

be running ads on Google search if we

8:44

know that folks are going to be

8:46

searching for this more often than not? So

8:48

I'd start there with the data around. to

8:50

be actually for people to your product.

8:52

Then I would take a look at with

8:54

purchases or any what actually tracks understanding, your

8:56

who's actually purchasing this? What does that

8:58

persona look like? Is it and and looking looking

9:01

to just do their monthly grocery shopping

9:03

and they're just adding this onto

9:05

the list? Or is it someone who

9:07

lives in a college dorm dorm that's buy

9:09

this for me and my my roommate's because

9:11

the way that you target and speak

9:13

to those audiences are going to be

9:15

very different. going to be would kind of

9:17

take an audit of the current customers

9:20

audit of the is their use case for What

9:22

it because it tastes good? Is it because

9:24

it's easy? Is it because it's better

9:26

than anything else pricing wise on the market? Lean Lean

9:28

into that messaging. Make sure it's prevalent

9:30

in your content. So So a little bit

9:32

of a content refresh. You're not just running

9:34

the same not ads all the time with

9:37

very tailored messaging. with Make sure that those

9:39

ads show up in the places where

9:41

those audiences are spending their time. And I

9:43

bet you they would probably have a

9:45

lot more success with their conversion rates and

9:47

being able to get a more to get a

9:49

more defective cost per acquired customer. So really it comes

9:51

down to understanding your persona persona the

9:53

distribution channel that's going to resonate

9:56

with them as well as the messaging.

9:58

with them as well as the messaging. you've

10:00

been in business for three years, I would

10:02

expect that company to have some kind

10:04

of line of sight of like, here's how

10:06

many repeat purchases happen, or if it's

10:08

certain types of year, like what seasonality we

10:10

see, I know for newer businesses is

10:12

harder to kind of know those insights, but

10:14

after three years in, you should probably

10:16

have a line of sight. You should have

10:18

some insights. What did you think about

10:20

the branding? I have to ask because that's

10:22

something that Lori specifically said she loved,

10:24

and it's very colorful. It says, y 'all

10:26

in big capital letters across the bags of

10:28

tea, but I was curious. like, are

10:30

you the marketers? was this a hit

10:32

or a miss? For some reason, it

10:34

reminded me of like the hot dog.

10:36

ballpark franks. Yeah, a little bit. I

10:38

think it's typography that reminded me of

10:40

that a little bit. Yeah, the lettering

10:42

for sure, Yeah. You know, but I

10:44

think it's fun. It's bright. I love

10:46

that it uses, you know, some Southern

10:48

slang to like reinforce that like Southern

10:50

feel like sweet tea. Maybe I'm old

10:53

school and I just believe that there

10:55

is still some power of just having

10:57

an old grandmother on the cover of

10:59

like packaging. I don't know. I I

11:01

just, I loved grandma. like a personality,

11:03

whether or not she was actually their

11:05

grandma or someone hired, like there's just

11:07

that authority that kind of comes with,

11:09

yeah, I'm buying something that's pre -packaged,

11:11

but that's deep southern grandma, like has

11:13

her stamp of approval on this, which

11:15

is like comforting that doesn't feel as

11:17

mass produced even though it is. Like

11:19

I think there's something to be said

11:21

there still for having a personified brand

11:23

a little bit. Yeah, I feel like

11:25

it also goes back to their brand

11:27

story, right? Like they mentioned their childhood

11:29

friends always arguing about whose grandma or

11:31

mom has the best sweet tea recipe.

11:33

then if you have, like grandma used

11:35

to make, is such an easy tagline

11:37

in terms of like sweet tea, Yeah.

11:39

I think you could play with that

11:41

and be really creative and still like

11:43

fresh and new with that type of

11:46

persona -based marketing. I like it. Have a

11:48

grandma sweet tea be her name. Grandma

11:51

grandma Grandma sweet. Groups of the

11:53

sweet tea. Shark Tank Response,

11:55

Bit Mixed, Get it, like you

11:57

mix your sweet tea. Anyway,

11:59

Mark. went out, out, so so did

12:01

Barbara. I I think it's because early

12:03

on see that Roshan is really that So is really

12:05

interested. for offers And ,000 for 10 %

12:07

in the business. that And I think

12:09

the sharks actually think that he's the

12:11

best strategic partner for this product of

12:13

this type of brand. I feel so

12:15

I feel like that's where you get

12:18

the rest of the sharks either

12:20

going out or trying to team up

12:22

with Rashaun. You see this

12:24

sort of back and forth of back and

12:26

Kevin are sort of battling each other sort

12:28

of try to get a to try with

12:30

a better So we get like with

12:32

offers we get like these dual will give you

12:34

$500 ,000 for 10 I if it's

12:36

just me, but I'll do a

12:39

deal with either Kevin or either

12:41

at 15 % for $500 ,000 if you

12:43

you want to do a joint

12:45

deal. And And I think Mr. Wonderful

12:47

thought he had this in the

12:49

bag based on like how he

12:51

was talking, he was but But

12:54

after some discussion between the founders,

12:56

they accept they and Rashaan's offer

12:58

of $500 ,000 for $500,000 for 15%

13:00

felt like a very fun

13:03

and new new Tank team up.

13:05

I kind of felt a

13:07

little bit Rashaan might

13:09

be the new Mark Cuban it it

13:11

comes to Lori team -up deals they

13:13

they seem to like click really

13:15

well in like go in quickly

13:17

to business together. So be be interesting

13:19

to see now that Mark Cuban

13:22

is is the show, show who Lori's like new Biffel

13:24

becomes. Yeah, Biffel. Yeah. Do you Do you remember

13:26

that term? Best for life. life. Yes. I I

13:28

know Daniel wasn't on this episode,

13:30

but I feel like he would feel

13:32

know. have been them, cause shark see this

13:34

doing so well see like doing so well in

13:36

any other or any other ED grocery chain or

13:38

like even Walgreens for for go drinks.

13:40

I chain could definitely see this see this

13:42

like yeah the founders had talked about about

13:44

want to get into those big

13:46

box stores and we're like in the

13:48

initial talks with talks So it definitely

13:50

seems like something that's going to

13:52

be on like something that's to least. on their

13:54

roadmap But I'm not going to

13:56

buy it because I fundamentally am against the

13:58

fact that it is just black teeth. being marketed as

14:01

sweet tea. You will not

14:03

be adding sugar to a

14:05

sweet tea near you. No,

14:07

it needs to come free

14:09

sugar, please, if you're going

14:11

to say it's sweetened. Fair

14:13

enough. I don't know. I

14:15

feel like I'm kind of

14:17

on the fence with this

14:19

one. Although I often find

14:21

sweet tea too sweet, so

14:23

actually I'm probably not going

14:25

to buy it. But maybe

14:27

that's who this is for.

14:29

It's a customized your own

14:31

tea at that point, because

14:33

all the other options are

14:35

to syrupby or two. Yeah,

14:37

but I am also very

14:40

skeptical of online powders that

14:42

you buy. And I'm curious

14:44

about how they've powdered their

14:46

black tea because then you

14:48

get issues with lead. all

14:50

other things. I wish we

14:52

knew like where they source

14:54

their tea, nutritional facts. Just

14:56

put non-toxic on the container.

14:58

Don't worry, our chemical engineers

15:00

came up with this. No,

15:02

I'm really skeptical of this

15:04

type of consumable good, even

15:06

if it is tasty. So

15:08

I'm probably again, not the

15:10

ideal consumer for something like

15:12

this. Womp, womp. I make

15:14

my own convucia. I'm not

15:16

buying their sweet tea. You

15:18

know, their powdered sweet drinks.

15:20

Anyway. Your convucia tastes better.

15:22

It's amazing. You know, you

15:24

gotta get that nice scobee.

15:27

But y'all sweet tea is

15:29

very much still around. They

15:31

did seal that shark tank

15:33

deal. So we'll have to

15:35

see what comes of this

15:37

tea. But no news on

15:39

if they got like a

15:41

shark tank bump or not,

15:43

but with a team like

15:45

Lori and Rashan behind you.

15:47

I bet they're gonna be

15:49

a swing and a swing

15:51

and a hit. Keep an

15:53

eye out for y'all. Yeah.

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