Brewbound Pitch Slam 14: Finals - SUNBOY

Speaker 1 [00:24] All right. Up next, we have Yair Tygiel from Sunboy. He is the founder of Sunboy. Come on up.

Yair Tygiel [00:32] See. What an absolute honor to be chosen as a finalist among this incredible group of beverage entrepreneurs. I'm Yair, the founder of Sunboy, uh, the world's first ready to drink spiked coconut water. It's simply hydrating coconut water, real fruit juices, all-natural, vegan, gluten-free, no added sugar, 5% alcohol. Um, We think consumers buy from people, not brands. Over the past 8 years, my co-founder Luke and I kind of accidentally established ourselves as New York's fun loving coconut experts. We got our start serving fresh coconuts from bikes at illegal dance parties on the, on the Brooklyn Bridge. Then we went on to create a machine that adds custom branding to the outside husk of coconuts. Uh, this was turning them into handheld billboards, drinkable handheld billboards. We worked with clients like Bacardi or Ciroc to serve these custom branded coconuts at music festivals and parties nationwide. What we'd see is that just about everyone has the same positive emotional connection to coconuts that we do. They remind people of vacations or their tropical home countries, they're social, people connect over them, and they're amazing conversation starters, all the reasons Luke and I started serving them in the first place. Sun Boy is those same coconut cocktails, canned and ready to drink. We launched with three varieties, all made with the fruits named on the label passion fruit, pineapple, and tangerine. Passion fruit, our top seller, the most sessionable, pineapple, our answer to the pina colada, but lighter, and tangerine, thought of as the coconut mimosa, it's our brunch option. We've all heard the enormous growth in the better for you beverages, and that's exactly what Sunboy is. Coconut water gives us a unique edge. We're not allowed to make any explicit health claims, but we don't need to. Consumers understand that coconut water is hydrating, that it's healthy, it's what they reach for when they're feeling hungover. I hear our customers so often when I'm in the market doing sampling, oh, so I'm getting hydrated while I'm drinking? We don't have to say it, people already think it. We launched Sunboy in New York a year ago, and we're now in more than 100 chains and independents throughout the city. We're really proud that Whole Foods was one of our very first accounts, which we won because we were out there pounding the pavement, telling our coconut stories, and sharing samples with buyers at the store level. We hand sold in outside the set and quickly became one of the top 40 best selling alcoholic beverages in key stores. Because of our success in Whole Foods, we now have the attention of Kroger, Publix, and Target. They're the kind of big retailers we're targeting as we expand out of New York and into more chain friendly states like Florida, Georgia, and Ohio. Choosing retail targets is easy for us. One of our off-premise cheats is to target accounts that already sell a lot of coconut water. We know our customers are there, and it's easy for us to sell a 4 pack of Sun Boy for $10.99 dollars when consumers are used to paying $6 for a single bottle of coconut water in the same store, and the distributors love. See that we're growing the pie. We're not shuffling beer drinkers around. We're attracting actually non-traditional beer drinkers into the, into the fold, and it's a merchandizing opportunity. If a buyer can't make space for us in the beer fridge, we turn to the produce section, and we create these really powerful displays alongside the coconuts, the pineapples, and the tangerines. Um, the sales push is backed up with a, a marketing pull. We created the Anti-Hustle Coconut Club, which you're now all members of. We give people titles like Director of hot tub strategy or wet leisure attendant, and we want to bring people in, connect and share the fun. It's about building a community through the emotional connection people have with coconuts and the coconut lifestyle. We're already getting glowing press that hits on all of our USPs, hydrating boozy natural. The press has generated excellent opportunities for outreach and funding as we thoughtfully and strategically expand in key states. At Sunboy, from our inception, we value our team members above all. The current round of, sorry, the current round of funding will allow us to hire boots on the ground in each of our new territories. And the big news for us this year is that Vitacoco and Captain Morgan are jumping on the bandwagon with their own spirit-based spiked coconut water in 23. We say, bring it on. They're set to spend millions of dollars driving new consumers to a category we created, spiked coconut water. As always, our team will be waiting to pour samples for these new fans in supermarket aisles with a higher quality, better tasting drink. Thank you.

Speaker 1 [04:45] Well done. Thank you. Um, if you can slide over the camera, thank you very much. Um, Ryan, you know, in terms of, uh, Sunboy as being a better for you brand, you can't explicitly say that, but as you're, uh, mentioned, it's sort of an implicit kind of conversation. Um, are consumers, do you think there's a big opportunity for a better for you beverage alcohol brand?

Speaker 3 [05:05] I think there is. I mean, we've already seen with, with hard seltzer and Spirits RTDs that if they're not looking for healthier, they're looking for things that lack bad things, um. So I think it's smart you've got something that you can't and don't say anything, but you let them believe what they already believe. Um, I think it's interesting. I also think the term coconut lifestyle is a fun, a fun phrase.

Speaker 1 [05:24] Thanks. Yeah, I definitely want to hear more about those, uh, illegal dance parties on the Brooklyn Bridge. It sounds pretty cool actually. Um, Jess, uh, you know, you you talked about Sun Boys sort of opening up an opportunity to get more people interested in beverage and alcohol. What do you see is that, uh, what do you think about that strategy?

Speaker 4 [05:40] I mean, yeah, we don't wanna just keep taking, you know, from our current consumers. So, so anytime you can bring new people into the space is, is key. I mean, that's what you built your entire, uh, you know. Well, a big part of your company is, is bringing new consumers into this space, so we, we definitely appreciate it. Um, quick question for you, so production, where do you guys produce and, and how is it produced? Yes,

Yair Tygiel [05:59] so we have a Coman in upstate New York. We're local to New York. Um, it's been a great process with them and we actually have explored a second comman just to keep up with production. So it's been, it's been good. We do not produce ourselves, but we do source all the ingredients ourselves.

Speaker 1 [06:15] Uh, Jamie, you know, in terms of trial strategy, you talked about, you know, being in those supermarket aisles, being in those Whole Foods aisles. Um, trial is really important for a product like this for a lot of different products, but, you know, what did you hear about in terms of trial strategy that, uh, you appreciated or think needs to be, uh, evaluated?

Speaker 5 [06:31] I love how grassroots it is. I mean, you guys seem to be in the right places where your consumer is, um, and getting the product out there. um, I think that's the right approach. Um, the more that you can get liquid to lips and people to try it, I think is gonna be the best thing for you. Um, I think the one question I have or provocation for you is, um, coconut water is very polarizing, so how do you intend to talk to people who maybe have a visceral response to coconut water that's not positive? Um, what's your, what's your pitch or your answer to that? It's a

Yair Tygiel [07:02] fantastic question. Uh, yeah, I mean, Vitacoco did a lot of service for us, spreading the word of, of coconut water. They also did a lot of disservice in the sense that it's not delicious. Coconut water in my, in my world, uh, we source really thoughtfully it's neutral, it's sweet, but it's not too sweet, um, and I think it's all about getting people who have that connotation re-educated and so we, as, as you can tell, we're obsessive samplers like we, we do an insane amount of outreach to, uh, customers and I think it's about trial when people come to us and say I don't like coconut water, we say, have you tried ours? Like I think you'll like it, um. But yeah, it's, you're right, there's, it introduced a lot of people to coconut water and it also turned a lot of people off. And it's like the same conversation people were having yesterday about cider, where what they were having 10 years ago is not what they're having today. So. It's an opportunity.

Speaker 1 [07:52] Yeah. And Rich, last word, um, you know, in terms of a vibe, it feels like Sunvoy definitely has a vibe. Um, how do you spread that vibe or what did you hear about in the presentation about, you know, sort of getting that vibe out to the consumer, getting them really interested in, in being part of that community, that Sunvoy community?

Speaker 6 [08:07] Yeah, I, I think they're already doing that with a ton of outreach because there's gonna be some education needed with like a new RTD. Um, it's fun, the branding, it's all like integrated together. It all makes sense with the name. I guess I do have one question though, uh, you live in a city that has four seasons like I do so with the branding Sun Boy and like the bright vibrant colors like. Like, um, and you're a young company, so you might not just have this data, but like how do you guys perform in the winter, like January and

Yair Tygiel [08:35] seasonality is a real thing. Uh, it moves. People love it. Our, our core fans buy it, so we, we do not have trouble like moving quite a bit in, in our current accounts. A lot of new accounts say come back to me in the spring. So I have our, our sales team is out. And they're getting commitments for April, May, um, and New York summer is short. I mean, it's intense, but it's short, uh, which is why, uh, it's so important to us to go to warmer climes. It's why Florida is such a big part of our, our expansion strategy and also, um, states like Georgia where we have already a network of people going back and forth from, from New York so.

Speaker 1 [09:12] Yeah, definitely getting that Miami Vice vibe in Manhattan kind of thing. So yeah, nicely done.

Speaker 4 [09:17] Florida. Florida is a chain. So what are you guys doing to, you know, lock in some of these chains before you go down there or is it a total play you

Yair Tygiel [09:25] wanna go? It's it's a total chain. We've done a lot of trade shows in the past few months, and we've gotten a ton of interest from, uh, Publix and Target, and, uh, we're working on Whole Foods also down there. And so yeah, that is, that is 100% our play. We don't really want to go in and focus on independence until we have the anchor chains.

Speaker 1 [09:43] Smart. All right, good stuff. Well done. Thank you. Thank you.