Sierra Thomas - Carving a Different Path in Hemp Beverages

On this episode, we’re joined by Sierra Thomas, Founder and CEO of Tropink - the Hawaiian-inspired, functional beverage brand made with real tropical fruit, vitamin D, broad spectrum hemp (no THC), and a little bit of carbonation.

Sierra spent a decade in media and music before going alcohol-free in 2010. She’s bootstrapped Tropink thus far, scaling into premier retail locations across her home state of Oregon. 

We dive into Sierra’s formulation journey, why she chose broad-spectrum hemp over isolate, and how she navigates compliance and food safety. She unpacks packaging choices (and a sustainability miss she fixed), go-to-market strategy, and retail tactics that actually move cases. We also get into upcoming SKUs, fundraising strategy, and the trends she’s watching.

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Episode Highlights:

🧪 From bench-top trials to co-packed, tunnel-pasteurized runs
🌿 Broad-spectrum hemp vs. isolate and how dosing/COAs build trust
🧂Alternative sweeteners
🎨 Brand identity that “feels like a sunset” and why it matters on shelf
♻️ Shrink sleeves vs. digitally printed cans: a sustainability pivot
📣 Turning the Super Bowl into a rebrand launchpad
🛒 Oregon-first saturation, menus, and placements that fit the audience
📈 Velocity levers & independent retailers
🧭 New SKUs, no-THC stance, bootstrapping, and the NA wave ahead

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Table of Contents:

00:30:03 – Origin story
05:38:11 – R&D, formulation
11:48:19 – Hemp extract: broad spectrum vs isolate
15:36:14 – Sweeteners
17:27:07 – Brand identity and packaging design
23:03:18 – A packaging learning lesson
25:48:06 – Leveraging the Super Bowl for a rebrand launch
27:42:25 – Go-to-market
30:44:06 – Retail tactics
36:25:20 – New SKUs around the corner
40:01:01 – Hemp THC?
41:01:04 – Fundraising (or not)
42:07:10 – Trends Sierra is watching

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Links:

Tropink - https://tropinkdrink.com/
Follow Sierra Thomas on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-collins-4a200216/
Follow me on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-martin-steinberg/ 

For help with CPG production design - packaging and label design, product renders, POS assets, retail media assets, quick-turn sales and marketing assets and all the other work that bogs down creative teams - check out KitPrint.

Transcript

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today we're speaking with Sierra Thomas founder of Trupink Hawaiian inspired non alcoholic functional hemp infused beverage brand with no THC which I think is interesting these days so maybe here just for first off listeners that aren't all that familiar with tripping maybe just give us kind of quick lay of the land in terms of the origin story why behind the brand more products you guys offer and maybe just a few places people get their hands on them and then we'll go from there perfect well tropink it's a premium non alcoholic functional beverage I try to position always as functional and tropical cause the functional ingredients spoiler alert with the new ones coming out might not have CBD or vitamin d in them so that's the lane I've always been in the reason or why behind why I created the brand was back in 2010 I was working in the music and ad industry super fast paced super celebratory concerts events entertaining you name it and I was very very good at drinking Pro excelled at it I should have won awards but sadly I decided that I needed to retire a bit early so um that's the year 2010 when I went alcohol free and started my journey into sobriety and kind of rediscovering who I was without the booze and back in 2010 like a lot of listeners probably can relate back to there weren't a lot of options out there it was a really crappy mocktail packed with tons of sugar fake ingredients probably more calories than I would have had in a cocktail so scratch that or it just didn't feel inclusive cause when I'd be out with clients inevitably they would ask why aren't you drinking are you pregnant like what's going on so for me early on in sobriety that was a real need cause I love entertaining I love restaurants I love art I love live music and so trying to find a way to take all the things that I love but feel a part of and celebratory inclusive and at the same time kind of cool too and edgy so that's why I created Trap Pink when it originally launched it was launched under the brand Pink Cloud Beverages and then I did a rebrand um after Super Bowl last year but it was all to support my challenge only child Taurus how can I fix the things in my world and that was being calm at events having these functional things that my body needed and craved and CBD or broad spectrum hemp was a huge part of my journey early on in sobriety still is and as you mentioned Adam native Oregonian so unlike the sun out there today it's not usually like this so I need the extra D3 Cliff note version I totally understand that for sure I remember being up in there in those days I think when I was up I think my sophomore year of undergrad there I think it had been I think it was even for the Portland area I think it was like the rainiest winter of the past 10 years so sophomore year was definitely pretty good I'm sorry and then summer comes and you're like oh my gosh this is why I moved to one of the best places in the country in the summertime exactly so you know but yeah the winters and even sometimes end of fall brutal yeah totally and I want to make sure I answered all your questions so tell me if I missed something yeah and then maybe just few places people can get their hands on them today yeah so launched with two functional beverages actually well I have open cans here one is a lilacoi lounge chair so lilacoi lounge chair is a swell of real tropical fruit Liliko'i is passion fruit grown in Hawaii so it's yellow on the outside tart tangy and then I compliment it with pink guava and that's where you'll get the more luxurious mouth feel and a little bit more of the sweetness to it it was developed off of another challenge of mine shocker but I loved a POG when I lived in Hawaii loved it couldn't get enough of it what what kid doesn't do so my thing was I was never a huge fan of orange so I was removing the orange and I wanted a clean healthier version so that's how the fruit profiles were developed and brainstormed in my head as to kind of transport me back to those moments and then I always use a swirl of real fruit juice cause real fruit juice or purees just taste so much better challenging to make an R&D but taste is the most important for me and then the functional ingredients you nailed it earlier I have 30 mg broad spectrum hemp per can I also have my daily dose of d three's the Sunshine vitamin and then the other one that I launched at the same time was my pining for Paradise so that one is very light pineapple up front intentionally then super heavy with yuzu'cause I love yuzu and then it ends with lime something familiar for new buyers and shoppers out there the other thing is same functional ingredients but I've always been really intentional about having low carbonation when I quit drinking a lot of the times when I didn't want those high calorie mocktails I would lean to like Seltzer waters and not to be TMI but you just feel bloated like belchy all the things that you don't want when you're out entertaining so the low carbonation is very intentional in the drink as well as a swell of real tropical fruit and then I'll share later not now but I'm launching two new ones this year I'll give a quick tease one will be Coco Paradiso and I'll have two new functional ingredients that I haven't had in my beverages before and then the other one's gonna be a lychee mojito those two functional ingredients I'm super excited about'cause I've been using them in my personal life in the past year and I've noticed huge differences and plus there's a lot of research coming out with females right now around one of them and I can share more later on I'm sure when we get into it perfect well yeah usually takes quite a while to kind of dial things in find a formula process that works I guess without giving away any trade secrets kind of what were some of those key variables that you were playing around with or kind of key tweaks you made along the way between say like the first version you made to the final version when you say this is right I'm ready to bring this to market and god I mean I couldn't even count there's so many like embarrassing R&D to me is always an evolving process it's also based on consumer fan feedback in the earlier days I am not a food scientist so for me it was a lot of like mixing mocktails or alcohol free cocktails in my house sharing them with friends and family usually they'd add booze but until I found ones that I really enjoyed there were a lot of really awful ones really awful like the original the Pineapple Yuzu lime that wasn't supposed to be that curation it was actually supposed to be let me test my memory it was supposed to be lime key lime ginger and lemongrass and I had to be like Hail Mary I can't do this because so many different iterations of it and it still was tasting medicinal to me almost like a pine saw so the Pineapple Yuzu Lime was actually an accident with the Yuzu can share that story it'd be a whole another podcast but a very pleasant accident but for me it was a lot of mixing at home back in 2010 to when I launched nearly three years ago there were so many different variations the things that I've Learned along the way in R&D I can't even begin to go into I am very fortunate we have as organs known for its microbreweries per capital we have the most I think still and my friends in the beer industry have been such amazing advocates it's not made the same way cause I'm pasteurizing unless they have an a they should be tunnel pasteurizing more pasteurizing but they have been a pivotal part of my journey I joke around with my daughter it was like take your kid to work day all over again I'd go help on tunnel pasteurize pack boxes check pH checks bricks I wanted to learn everything micros macros like all the things you have to be careful with food safety and that's something that's constantly evolving for me every day um the two new ones that I launched I had to do a lot of different stability testing cause one hadn't been used in RTDs before so for efficacy stability then you factor in real fruits now I get why people use concentrates a they're cheaper B it's so much easier to produce but call me the stubborn Taurus I refuse to let go of the swell of real fruit cause to me it's all about the taste and mouth feel but that comes with challenges you have different crops or lots of fruit juices that change based on season environment all out of my control where they're coming from yuzu is coming from Asia so it's very perishable comes frozen so then freight's involved with that and then you have tariffs also as well so there's always these constant changes along the way and figuring out how different processes such as tunnel pasteurizing can affect flavor in fruits and that was something that I Learned fairly early on one of my mentors was like hey before you even like produce any size production run once you nail it do it like you know your own lab in the back and like just get glass bottles carbonate them boil them get it up to the time and temp that you need and see how it affects the fruits and if I wouldn't have taken that step many times it would be a very different launch so yeah just learning a ton of stuff and I'm always wanting feedback so Adam I'll send you some and like the more feedback the better in certain instances position trepinka is kind of like a functional non alcoholic version of spindrift and from what I know about spin drift you you touch on it briefly but they're that manufacturing process is somewhat unique and challenging in that you have to like squeeze real fruit through I think they like using equipment that wasn't you know really initially meant for that versus yeah using the more typical concentrates or the fruit essence like Lacroix like yeah do you use a similar process to spin drift some of it so like what's how did you figure out that process actually work I guess yeah so love Spindrift huge fan drink their product all the time and when I relate myself to Spindrift it's cause I think very highly of them but also because of the real fruit like you hit on and also low carbonation spindrift isn't like packed with high carbonation levels like a LA Croix and I love that um I would assume that we use very very similar processing they're gonna have to pasteurize their product so there's gonna be a prescription time and temperature just to make it shelf stable and safe one of the things that I Learned early on in food safety kind of brings us way back like my childhood high school days dating myself with Odwalla when they had a huge recall with you know real fruit not pasteurizing so there's different ways to do it you can do tunnel pasteurizer which basically Lame's term put it through a dishwasher and it's heating it up slowly you can do H t s t or flash where it goes in hot into the can so it's pasteurized before it goes in they're different types I use tunnel just cause I'm very particular about micros and macros and things entering the can before so I want to be extra safe it's a double step for me even though they're low pH um as far as squeezing real fruit juice they're not sitting there squeezing real fruit juice but there are larger machines that help accomplish that and it depends on the type of product fruit so there's different filters that you can use there's centrifuge which is lame term would be a huge food processor so sometimes I will use that for example with my pink guava cause guava has a lot of ascorbic acid but not all of it to help with production yield but then still incorporate some of it without using that so you still have the mouth feel but there's so much equipment expensive equipment out there and different ways to go about it but as far as processing yep we're still gonna have low carbonation and we're still gonna like have that kill step for safety measures so similar yeah I'm pretty sure you put a big focus on using broad spectrum hemp backstrap versus you know I built a company in the regulated THC space in California in the past so fairly familiar with this space and I'm curious like what kind of R&D experimentation did you do and like what are the results so results show that kind of LED you to commit to this broad spectrum and I guess for those that aren't familiar is part of the answer with the differences between the two and kind of the entourage effect and maybe give us a quick crash course is part of the answer I mean there's hundreds of cannabinoids out there and there's many providers that have CBD whether it's isolate broad spectrum full spectrum I'm always big on they're not all created equally and so for me in the beginning anything with R&D since I'm not outsourcing it and I'm doing it myself it just takes a really long time like the two new ones I mean I've been talking about working on for 2+ years so when it came to using broad spectrum hemp I chose that one versus isolate or full spectrum for two reasons and this is my personal opinion so for islet they're stripping everything out except for CBD and so for me I felt like for me to metabolize it and get that effect that I was searching for I needed a much much higher amount so say like when I first started taking like tinctures and maybe I was starting off with like 25 mg a day like I might need on upwards of 50+ to like have the same kind of reaction within my body and then there's broad spectrum so broad broad spectrum very similar to full spectrum however no THC so the reason why I chose broad spectrum is because they use more of the terpene terpenes more of the plant the flower it creates that entourage effect more solid in my opinion than an isolate also it has no THC and so for me being in sobriety and journey that resonated with me also a lot of people can't have anything because they're getting drug tested or they work for the government so there's certain limitations and also where you can enter stores and retail and then full spectrum just take broad spectrum same same limited small amounts of THC like I'll be it very small cause it has to go along with the farm bills but with full spectrum I didn't use it because two reasons 1 it had trace amounts of THC in it and 2 quite frankly out of like the many that I tried and there were a lot in R&D it just always tasted really hempy and bitter and I couldn't really find one that worked so I narrowed it down um to three different providers and I would recommend any of these three providers to anyone in the RTD space and it came down to efficacy so dosage you have to make sure cause CBD is oil so it has to be soluble and work within a beverage otherwise there's no effect and it's pointless water oil also you have to worry or I had to worry about can liners that's a big part of it not to eat it out but there's certain can liners that you can and cannot use because of scalping I had to consider the provider of the can so like working with companies like ball to get their testing and all their research ahead of time and then also just having the efficacy as far as dosage that once it's inside your beverage it will live up to what you claim after pasteurization after mixing after blending so I actually dose a little bit higher based on knowing that there could account for some scalping and then I do third party lab test after every single run which leads me to another factor I I didn't want a partner that wasn't providing COAS or third party testing I don't want metals I don't want pesticides I don't want all the crap in your body that no one else wants or doesn't know they're putting in their body and then I'm trying to think oh and taste like I didn't want it affecting the real fruit juices and affecting the flavor and taste so that was like number one tied with efficacy yeah I think you guys used like a blend of allulose and did you experiment like a variety of different options was the winner the superior one okay many reasons I hate stevia personal preference I think there's a aftertaste I like my body literally has an adverse reaction to it and there are so many beverages and founders that have it in their product and I love their branding I love their flavors but I can't even try it cause I can taste it right away so that was personal yeah barbitol you can research that one not great for you I'm aware I'm aware yeah so that was out from the get go um I experimented with honey in the earlier on days and the reason why I didn't go with that higher calorie count also honey can crystallize so as far as production you're dealing with a lot more steps involved and then um for the reason why I chose and it's very very light I don't like sweet beverages so this is like very lightly sweetened I chose monk fruit and allulose blend for it being a clean option for not metabolizing the same way and monk fruit on its own can sometimes be a little bitter and so the combination when pairing the two it didn't leave that bitter aftertaste and then allulose for those that don't know is derived from like figs raisins maple and so it has a really nice mouth feel as well that lent itself to the recipe and batches that I was doing but like I said really small amounts the next two one doesn't have any sweetener at all in it it's just all the fruit and then the other one based on the fruits so I shared them earlier the Lychee Mojito actually uses brown sugar because just that caramelized type taste with it so those will hover about 50 calories versus my current two at 20 but those were the reasons yeah clean taste and yeah yeah thinking back to those early days of building at least the the V1 of the brand identity packaging design which I know you said started out as pink cloud what were kind of the key variables that were top of mind for you and how did your Hawaii influence play a part in that I played a part in everything I love the branding and marketing this is like where I get excited almost as much as what's in the can'cause that much time and thought went into it very fortunate um my buddy has a design company shout out for Joel Brandon if you guys need design all these wonders not only a good friend but very talented we go way back from our days in the music industry he actually did my wedding invitations like he knows about my sober journey so it just felt like the perfect person to align with um and also he knows how crazy I am about marketing and branding so he knew all the iterations that were coming and he still jumped on board haha it was a fun project for many reasons one at the time I don't believe he did any CPG products primarily like footwear and lifestyle and so it was a challenge for him but an exciting one and my main focus is I was very very concerned always like that North Star leading me in the right way so pink cloud beverages I'll just briefly go on the reason why when it launched and the transition but pink Cloud beverages is kind of my unicorn name and what I mean by that is pink cloud is a term in sobriety it's after a couple months when you come out of detox if you will and you have these moments of elation euphoria you feel on top of the world and so those feelings also were the feelings that myself my husband who drinks friends and family that drink feel when you're on vacation like it's those moments where you can breathe and it's just like you just can like let it all exhale and for me personally in my family those moments are best found on white sanded beaches with teal waters that's just my passion and my love and so pink cloud for the sobriety terms and then also for transporting you to that tropical state of mind where you look off into the sunrise or sunset and you see just those pink beautiful coral like ombre ish looking clouds fast forward to the rebrand of Trop Pink which no one tells you how hard a rebrand is if all your rebranding is the name and you wanna keep everything else the same because you have to think of so many different elements so many yeah so many I mean it's I think it's harder than just like starting from scratch so part of me was like oh god what was I doing so I rebranded for a couple reasons number one inclusivity this is a drink for everyone it's not just for people in sobriety like me or sober curious shoot my husband uses it for a mixer for a healthier version entertaining so multi purpose drink my entire thing was taking people and transporting them to that tropical place those moments of elation and euphoria just like an early on sobriety for me and so my North Star was always being transporting people to that beach and so you can see a little bit as far as the can some of the inspiration from the beginning were those sunsets the bright colors but also knowing consumers you have three seconds or less when it's on the shelf so something that was eye catching and popped and stood out that you knew exactly the flavors if you ever have seen lilikoi or passion fruit cut in half it's not attractive to look at and using the flowers but then just being straightforward what it is and I always try to start with something that might be new to a consumer so might be familiar with purple passion fruit but not maybe liliko'i and then guava something that's more commonly used in their everyday life whether consuming sense you name it and then same thing here and then always calling out the functional ingredients the benefits and what that is also I gave Joel another challenge I mean I should show you the iteration of design and can artwork it kept just like narrowing back less and less to what we had on it which was fun I have it earlier one somewhere but um also I'm a huge Andy Warhol fan I believe he is all about escapism as well and so I fit felt like it was a natural fit so you'll see the fruits intentionally like pixelated and very like pop art just like Andy Warhol's and that's something that will continue throughout is the bright colors making you feel like you're in a tropical place and then that pixelated fruit with the function up top so that was a mouthful but branding is huge for me we set our whole entire brand guidelines based off three target personas we named those personas we knew what influencers they followed what shopping patterns they had what lifestyle activities where they were at in their point of life and that altered throughout time too I mean it still stayed very relatively close but once we started having you know solid sales and getting into different locations and tracking velocity we really had a strong identity of who that target fan was and so they became our North Star sticking to those branding moments but what would they connect to what would they want so that's kind of the branding and how it all developed but man easily a year easily yeah it's always a long journey and always typically take twice as long as you think I think it's how to yeah that felt that you remember being especially kind of contentious internally or ones that required a lot of debate or is everything seemed pretty aligned no I mean I think that's part of being an entrepreneur or business owner it's always how you pivot and overcome those every one of those situation there's a lesson to be Learned I'll give you one on just like ignorance is the new founder my like ugh if I could go back in time this is what I would do so my very first run I was like it been working on it for a very long time my husband's like people aren't gonna notice a percentage difference of the fruit just launch it tastes great and I was like I notice the percentage so finally I launched on my 40th birthday that was my deadline for the Good Food Mercantile that was in Portland it was gonna be there I was gonna launch and that was my hard deadline no matter what so I had you know back fill everything as far as timelines to get everything done in a timely manner and biggest kind of timeline at the time was cans you know you have to order cans in advance I had to make sure I had the right liners all that stuff so total ignorance on my part I'm just shopping by cost cause you know cost of goods want to have good margins and I went with shrink sleeve and actually I'll show you my old school can so this is back on those pink cloud beverages but you can tell not much has changed I went with shrink sleeve because I'm a texture person in senses smell texture I loved the feel of matte versus gloss loved it so I was like okay so for those that don't know shrink sleeve is where they apply it I don't know if you can see it with a thin plastic sleeve that goes over it no one tells you that in order to recycle those you have to peel off the sleeve before you recycle them part of trappings DNA is giving back to the environment right being stewards for our earth I have a daughter we love paddle boarding we love the beach my husband loves camping we love outdoors I want this place to be better than when I left it which isn't realistic so trying to keep it as close as we can and after doing my first run someone was like talking to me about digitally printed cans I was like you know it was relatively new I think back then too and as soon as I knew like it was a higher premium the printers were still in like kind of I think beta testing here in Oregon at least so I had to like do freight across the country but I was like I have to switch this doesn't align and I was horrified to the point where anytime I was at an event and you know be telling about the product they'd be asking questions like oh make sure to take this off and recycle otherwise it won't recycle and they looked at me like I was crazy and I was like and make sure all the other cans so that's my biggest like regret early on ignorance didn't know any different and also quite frankly sometimes I had challenges earlier on with that run because the cans when you heat them up and then when they get cold you know shrinkage and stuff like that sometimes the sleeves wouldn't be as adhesive so that was a whole another problem in itself yeah yeah big brands using it and I'm like oh my gosh like you're not bootstrapped you have all the funding to like make the shift and you're not but that's another conversation so you I you leveraged the Super Bowl I think for like it was just pure fun a huge Taylor Swift fan Sabrina Carpenter love music there was a lot of like attention around Taylor at the time and her now fiance and so using things from lyrics and stuff to tease the announcement both with retailers months before making sure to stay tuned on social and press releases afterwards is when we're gonna like debut and announce it I will say it's funny cause rebrands are hard um cause it's also like mourning of one name and the rebirth of another and so you have all these mixed emotions like am I making the right decision and I'll never forget when one of my like buyers was like I like this new name so much better and I was like oh did you not like the name before it's like calling your baby ugly and then it also I had to do a lot of education too with the name like Tra Pink you know you look at it some people might say Tra pink some people might say Tra pink so there was a lot of education and having fun with it on how to pronounce tropink um always telling people to check out what it means on Urban Dictionary spoiler alert but it was just a smoother transition than I ever anticipated and I think yeah and I I really do think a lot of that was we were only changing the name so like at the end of the day everything else was the same and I had one person that was at an event they do these huge Portland night markets here in Portland which is kind of fun local makers are packed you're seeing thousands of people by the end of the three days I have no voice and one of the ladies came up she's like oh my god I love tropical I've been drinking it since you launched and I was like oh yeah back when it was and she was like oh pink Cloud she's like oh I just noticed tropical now and I was like oh my gosh and it was it was quick I'm the one sometimes that slips still but yeah it was just a lot easier than I would have thought from a go to market and retail standpoint tell me about how you were thinking about that was a hard one some other earlier on mistakes so pricing strategy was you want to be competitive in the space when I launched in Oregon there's a ton of amazing like non alcoholic beverage founders here and at that time there weren't but there were a lot of beverage founders that were doing CBD beverages much more saturated in our market than any other state in my opinion cause I feel like Portland was one of the ogs Denver pretty close second so that was good and bad the bad was you have to be competitive like you said with pricing so you have to be competitive enough earlier on so people are willing to make you know a shift and try sample your product but then also my ingredients compared to most were more premium meaning real fruit more production involved higher dosages at the time of CBD so that was really hard making sure to stay competitive but also get what we were putting into the beverages and so we intentionally selected more high end grocery stores using ones here in Oregon would be like a New Seasons Market 21 locations Zupan's three but they're known for curating like amazing products higher end market of choice who's really all about like local founders and sharing those stories and what makes Oregon so amazing and so really starting off we're like the Elephants Delicatessen where you go and you get these great like to go or meals to take home that are prepared fish tacos are amazing if you're ever in the area but really targeting places that our target persona those three that we identified were shopping and and then also thinking lifestyle so for me personally when I quit drinking it was super hard to go out to like music venues or really nice restaurants cause I didn't have any options so that was a personal mission of mine is to get into those venues get into those dive bars I still like going to dive bars I just don't drink anymore also getting into like the Vineyard so like your friend that's the DD has a really nice curated option and then the kind of surprise kicker for me was I did a test with a boutique hotel and was like oh my god we're moving through so much product and it's such a high premium and so that kind of clicked and I was like oh yeah that was always hard for me traveling too so then we started focusing on that channel as well so thinking of like the Hawthorns of the world the woodlarks so very boutiquey Hotel Lusha things to that nature that supported that persona's lifestyle so a lot of like grocery on prem and then lifestyle events is big for us so doing like wellness retreats or sound bath or like you know for example Soho here in Portland does like sound bath up at the pool so things like that like places that transport you back to kind of the mission and online I said and online never wanna forget that one totally there's kind of a pervasive cancel culture in CPG meaning once you get kicked off a shelf for lack of velocity it's really hard to get a second chance from a really kind of tactical standpoint what are the core tools you found to be the most impactful in terms of really driving velocity at the I think kind of where you're at yeah I'll I'll start off by saying that I have different opinions than a lot of people in this um a lot of founders not all of them will be like scale scale scale get in as many doors as possible and I'm like say no if it doesn't make sense there have been like amazing partners in California that most people would probably die to get into however you have to say no cause if you can't support them to drive the velocity in store that's when you get cancelled and so my philosophy has always been to saturate my market I'm in so they have the best service the best pull through the best velocity and then strategically scale into the other areas and so things that worked for me on the storefront level we'll just use private grocery stores for example is demos like most founders hate them I love them because it's a unpaid focus group you get feedback from so many people walking through whether can design taste flavor smell you name it every person that walks by whether they love it don't like it I want feedback and I actually like when they have those people they're like oh you know it's good but it's not you know my favorite I'm like why so garnering as much information because in R&D and as you you know kind of finalize and change and adapt with recipe formulation it's very helpful but also once I try it they usually love it and so that's pull through in sales so demos is huge in the beginning I was just doing demos at locations that hit kind of like the target hot zip codes from our online sales and I think if I would have done that differently I would have done the ones that didn't have like high consumer purchasing online to introduce them to that when I made that pivot we saw like velocity in those increased significantly and then we paired those with special pricing so whether you do a price reduction or like buy two get a certain percentage off and I do those seasonally and I also do them based around events or things like Labor Day or where people like back to school certain events that are big triggers for people to wanna have options and then like you think the regular like Sober October Dry January stuff like that also I've been fortunate with some of our partners actually creating marketing pieces for me so they've done full blown videos like market of choice or like Zupan's created shelf tags and like I gotta be a part of that process with my brand guidelines and it just feels like a true partnership or New Seasons might have it in a flyer with their tropical sale so it's all about just thinking outside the box and how to activate their shoppers and enhance their experience so demos specials and really events are big for me because I can hit a lot of people and I can have signage that drive them back to those locations and then the map feature online too yeah at what points do you feel ready to open up a new door I think I'm always ready to open up new doors as long as it's a good fit and so good fit for me means yeah OK yeah I'm here to help drive sales for you you're here to help showcase and be a billboard for my product your audience aligns with mine so a lot of the times I'm finding that my wellness more focused cleaner ingredient type persona isn't shopping at say a convenience store so that convenience store might have 120 locations in Oregon but their Target's not right so I mean it just depends a lot of factors go into it is there a plan to to start engaging that they can really expand the brand's presence more immediate territories you feel like you can really have a big for the foreseeable future or how are you how are you thinking about that probably the latter so I've been in conversations with distribution for god over a year and a half yeah could jump in at any time there's two reasons why I haven't one is always you have to look at your costs and you know you have to look at your account list and be willing to hand that over cause they're gonna take you know 30% margin and then you have to look at what your time is valued at so I always said by year four I'll move into distribution so we're getting there I also wanted to have a portfolio with more than two drinks the reason why no distribution yet is cause I wanna have that direct line of communication with buyers consumers it's very important to me in the beginning era of the brand and then also quite frankly with the two CBD there are challenges you know with FDA and what stores will take in CBD and what won't so like still you can't get into like a Whole Foods or a Kroger's or Safeway the other two launch with the creatine magnesium blends those doors open but I still would stay to the roadmap of saturating this market and slowly expanding into those key markets I've identified and probably hand select distribution companies in those markets based on team based on values based on portfolio a lot of other factors versus a larger one right up front yeah yeah you just kind of touch on a little bit it sounds like maybe creatine magnesium what you're playing around with spoiler yeah you work on these new skills and yeah what what can you tell me about about yeah so I can tell you all cause I already told you all this closing let's say yeah it's all good it's gonna come out on shelves next month anyways oh nice so very excited the two new ones are the Lychee Mojito that I talked about Coco Paradiso I'm doing a creatine magnesium blend and like with CBD and vitamin d trying to help in my personal journey with like anxiety and seasonal like sad and not getting enough sunlight here those were the solutions creatine and magnesium oh my gosh like if I could scream to have everyone take creatine especially females that aren't already I would I had this total stereotype of creatine as like gym bros getting swole getting like all bulked in the gym loading up you probably can relate being you know previous football player but it's so much more than that creatine is like one of the safest gross like approved functional ingredient out there importantly for females we don't create it as much in our bodies as males so it's even more important for us I'm embarrassed to say but I was always like an athlete soccer's like running hood to coast things that nature I had never done weightlifting until last year when I started very humbling also at this age I need to but how to have that muscle mass and keep it as I age and recovery creatine has been amazing in that aspect not to get too personal but there's been so many studies around creatine and cognitive performance yep lately so I have my mom one of my best friends love her dearly has early onset dementia some cognitive damage and the studies that they are finding with creatine for dementia for alzheimer's for cognitive performance is unbelievable like so for me it was it started off as like something personal like it's helping me in my everyday life and like I'm thinking clearer and quicker but like now to have it like so personally impact someone in my like sphere it's amazing cause like the other two helped people in my like you know non drinking sphere and they're like thank you now I feel inclusive and now this kind of enters a new era of Sierra's personal challenges and what are those solutions but yeah so it's it's been exciting I still went back and forth this pilot run will have creatine magnesium key light in it I also will do a follow up run with creatine monohydrate on its own there's pros and cons to both creatine monohydrate's been studied more depending on your partner more soluble in RTD especially with lower pH like mine however the creatine magnesium I think it's like the next generation of creatine it's getting two for one and it's just it just makes your body incorporate it kind of like broad spectrum hemp like metabolize it affects to me stronger but not a lot of studies still on it yeah that makes sense that's exciting I'm definitely keep my eyes keep my eyes out for those yeah and the flavors are like my favorite I always get like stuck on them they sound amazing yeah yeah but Coco Paradiso everyone's like what is that cause most people know lychee or litchi but Coco Paradiso literally came from we went two years ago our family went to the British Virgin Islands I love I well I used to really love cocktails but I still love an a cocktail now and they had one called a painkiller and if you ever had one you know you know it's like heavy coconut cream and like orange and pineapple and island spices so this is a riff off that cause I don't want it to be super calorific so it's coconut water for hydration we have pineapple we all know I don't like orange I talked about it earlier so there's another little citrus for a playoff in there and then just the warm island spices it's delightful amazing oh yeah I'm definitely gonna get my hands on one of those when they're available the hemp THC beverage category is definitely getting a lot of attention these days are you at at are you at all considering launching a HTC line or not at all on the radar and I guess kind of yeah why or why not yeah you know the answer I wouldn't say never never however like it's not authentic it's not part of my journey in sobriety I will say also a big reason on the strategic like founder side is there's so much different compliance and legal around it it's still in the infant infancy stages whether you're using craft hemp delta 9 THCV there's so many different options out there I would be more inclined to say Wanna purchase these recipes and you can white label it and add it so if anyone wants to grab but for me personally I wouldn't launch it in my portfolio but I'm always up to monetize something yeah totally that's actually a really good good approach I like that from what I know I think you've been bootstrapped up until this point is fundraising on the horizon at all do you plan to continue to sell fund the business what's what's the current thought process there and has it changed at all since the beginning yeah I mean I think this is a challenge every founder has there's silver linings on both sides yeah bootstrapping completely up until now it gives me complete control I can pivot when I need to pivot I don't have to make concessions where I don't feel like I want to make concessions however to scale quickly and to say if you're going to launch with Kroger Sprouts and your wherever Costco you're doing a huge large production run that would make more sense I don't necessarily want that Bill right out of the gate yeah so I have been actively presenting and talking to different investors and groups so when that time comes I'm already ready and I know what the positive things were what some of the hurdles were I'm not fundraising now cause there's no immediate need but as you know like it takes money and financing and long term that's probably down the road from now sure I think that's a that's a pragmatic approach to it I think trends in the broader CPG space that you're just particularly excited about or things you can kind of keep in your eye on well something that I'm like really excited well I mean Creatine's fun right now cause I'm in it um and I feel like there's few brands right now out there that are doing it into RTD or the ones I've had I'm like oh don't really like the taste so there's room for improvement one that I love going back to like my life and things changing so proteins big for me I'm trying to have more protein in my diet so it's really fun seeing what types of ideas and innovations are coming out whether it's protein popcorn or whether it's you know protein chocolates or I mean you name it so that one has been really exciting to watch and just quite frankly try all of them and see which ones you know have the best efficacy and taste obviously so that's been a fun one I love watching the THC realm as well I love watching the craft hemp so like thcv there's some fun brands out there that a lot of my friends like that have kind of I guess R&D styles to me except with adding that one that's a great one out of California can social I've always not only looked up to their products they have an unspiked version which I do consume great marketing I love it kind of like the pioneers in the industry but then you have you know other ones like in Arizona like Magic Cactus that you know are are coming up so those are fun ones to watch yeah I mean I just love anything na is fascinating to me or anything functional totally yeah I'm on the same page there yeah so sharing is let me know follow along with you and then best place for people to follow along with the brand these days yeah I would say probably most active right now is Instagram so handles at trop pink drink online trop pink drink dot com we're getting up there on TikTok I'm learning I'm challenging myself so stay tuned for that and then LinkedIn you can follow the brand tropink or myself Sierra Thomas connect anyway YouTube you name it we're out there perfect awesome Sierra appreciate the time this has been great super informative thanks Alrighty you limit it to a little bit last question for you any brands what's a what's the best place for people to just kind of the core core products in the lineup today thinking way back to those early days of formulation I think I read somewhere that you kind of like to maybe on the infusion side of things hemp isolate which I and monk fruit and like why did you feel like that blend ultimately decision points along that journey the relaunch to trying to optimize for thinking about your your pricing strategy I've heard you talk about um the independent grocery level good fit means they're a partner like it's a partnership like or are you really gonna be focused on that makes a lot of sense