Morgan Zanotti - Act Two After A $200 Million Exit to Kraft

On this episode, we're joined by Morgan Zanotti, Founder and CEO of Waay - the sparkling protein water brand with 10 grams of protein, zero sugar, and 45 calories a can.

Morgan co-founded Primal Kitchen, which she helped grow from a kitchen to roughly $50 million in revenue before a $200 million exit to Kraft Heinz.

We get into the origin of Waay, starting with the clear whey protein isolate that made Morgan wonder why no one had put it in a sparkling water. Morgan walks through the rapid launch timeline, the rollout across Whole Foods, Sprouts, and a Target protein end cap, where a sparkling protein belongs on shelf, and why the brand took off on Amazon and TikTok Shop faster than she expected.

We also talk about the importance of reaching profitability ASAP in order to maintain ownership, what five years inside Kraft Heinz taught her, and what strategics and PE really look for in a brand.

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Episode Highlights:

💡 The clear whey protein "aha" moment behind Waay
💪 Why the protein message finally tells women to eat more
🥤 10 grams of protein, zero sugar, 45 calories
🔁 Why a second-time founder gets back in the ring
📊 Chasing a $40 billion TAM instead of a niche
🛒 Landing a Whole Foods national yes with blank silver cans
⏱️ Three months to build a brand from scratch
🏁 Riding Target's protein end cap, and the risk
📦 Why beverage blew up on Amazon and TikTok Shop
💰 Staying profitable to keep ownership
🏢 Five years inside Kraft Heinz after the exit
🔭 The brands and trends she's watching now

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Table of Contents:

00:00 – Intro
00:49 – The origin story: a millennial mom and clear whey protein
01:40 – How the message to women shifted to protein
03:06 – Why a second-time founder jumps back in
04:55 – True innovation and a $40 billion TAM
06:40 – How GLP-1 reshaped the category
08:13 – Selling Whole Foods national with silver cans and a trademark
10:43 – Three months to build a brand, find a co-packer, and nail the taste
14:09 – The protein arms race and a "support, not solution" position
14:55 – Sprouts, Target, and the end cap bet
16:31 – Where a sparkling protein sits on shelf
17:57 – Why beverage took off on Amazon and TikTok Shop
19:11 – Staying profitable to keep ownership
21:28 – Her cap table approach vs Primal Kitchen
22:30 – Five years inside Kraft Heinz and "keep being you"
24:40 – What acquirers actually look for
27:21 – Reading an exit, and why she loves Good Culture
29:56 – Brands and trends she's watching

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Links:

Waay – https://drinkwaay.com/
Follow Morgan on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/morgan-buehler-zanotti-31989620/
Waay on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/drinkwaay/posts/?feedView=all
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 https://www.kitprint.co/.

Shout out to my friends over at Glimpse, the go-to partner for automating retail-related back-office operations and unlocking margin trapped in invalid fees and manual processes.

Are you in the market for a new flexible packaging partner? Check out HD Packaging. Third-generation, family-owned and built for the needs of category leaders like Newman’s Own and A Dozen Cousins. Faster launches, lower costs, and no artwork fees. 

Transcript

0:02

today we're speaking with Morgan Zanotti founder and CEO of way sparkling protein water brand with 10 grams of protein zero sugar Morgan cofounded Primal Kitchen think back in 2014 or so and the cofounders bootstrapped it from zero to I think 50 million or so in three years before eventually exiting to craft for around 200 million or so so now she's back in the arena building brand number two a lot of great experience and super excited to dive into it um Morgan just first off for the the listeners that maybe not as familiar with way Love to start off just getting a quick lay of the land just in terms of kind of the the origin story the why behind the brand and core products in the lineup and then we'll go from there sure yeah thank you for having me um way so god I'm just a millennial mom of three boys trying to get my hundred grams of protein a day and finding that you know like many other moms we're like lucky if we're eating two meals a day so I you know had it all the chomps in the purse and the whole thing and one day I was drinking a sparkling water and I had Learned about Clearway Protein isolate and I was like how does this ingredient exist and I didn't know about it I like personally and professionally have like lived and breathed this industry for 20 years how does this ingredient exist I didn't know about it and can't someone just take this and put it in my sparkling water and like let's just call it a day like I I would like to be not just you know buying expensive kind of dirty sock tasting like expensive pee pee water more or less like I feel like you know there's just more these beverages could be doing for us so big believer in protein especially for women I think as women if I look at even back to my mom I'm 42 my whole life right I've watched the message to women and it's been very like okay ladies calories are the problem we're doing 100 like limit your calories and then it was like you know what it's fat no fat and then they were like actually it's the carbs you gotta cut the carbs and then they were like you know what we're not eating at all we need you to just intermittent fast now if you could just cut the food all together that'd be great and then protein came around and it's like the first time in my life where the message to women has been like hey we want you to be eating more of something it's clinically proven it's probably the most clinically studied food group in the world right like there's nothing that has more data behind it than protein and hey by the way you don't have to like walk around restricting food all day and you're gonna feel better and be stronger so I'm just like really here for the protein movement for the women I think it's just important from a health perspective and also just empowering from a mindset with food perspective so here we are we've got whey taste kind of like a Poppy meets a spin drift but with 10 grams of sugar in it or 10 grams of protein no sugar zero sugar 10 grams of protein so that's way awesome that's great when we chatted a few weeks back yeah you I think you mentioned to me that you'd spent a year and a half trying to talk yourself out of launching a beverage brand and that you know I think you said like only someone someone insane would launch a beverage company knowing what you know um I think like CPG so interesting now like I you know we launched from a kitchen in 2,015 so 11 years ago it was a totally different world there was no TikTok we we executed an influencer playbook very early on before there was such thing as an influencer almost because Mark was like an OG influencer my partner on the business so we had all these like friends who launched paleo blogs and Instagram accounts that we just started sending free product to every quarter and that was like there literally wasn't a term called influencer then right like we were super early on that movement and it paid off I think that's how we built the brand um and we had a great differentiated product I think you know if I step back and look at how I ended up here I've met enough second time founders in the last 8 9 months people who have had like huge exits who don't need to work again who are like back in the ring building like and I've realized like for so for a while I was judging myself like what's wrong with you like you must be like psycho why would you do this it's knowing what you it's so hard right so like knowing what you know why would you do it and then and then I met enough other people that are also doing hard things that have already had major success in this industry and it's like we're just diseased humans you know we're just like sick in the head and there's nothing more fun than building like it's horrible but it's also so fun so you know it is what it is like yup I'm not meant like for a boring like like I value like adventure and freedom so it suits my personality well it is definitely not for the faint of heart I would actually recommend you don't do it to anyone listening like I don't I think this is a good idea for me or anybody else but here we are and I think it comes down to like do you have something you're really like passionate about that you think you could you think you have a unique position in the marketplace so when we launched when I started working on the product two years ago there was like no other clear sparkling protein in the market um and now there's like 50 brands that have launched in the last year but it was true innovation and I think true innovation is like fairly hard to come by these days like everything's kind of been cleaned up we've seen like you know 20 years ago you you could just be organic and that would be enough like Annie like look at these brands like Organic Valley Annie's like it was enough to just be organic and then it was like okay you know now it has to be better for you and now I don't even think it's enough to just be better for you I think that's just like the expectation like yeah you know you need to now do something for me so we're in we're just kind of seeing the industry evolve and I think beverage is super challenging because it's super competitive it's hard to stand out on shelf there's a million different brands but it's also like a massive Tam like the total addressable markets like you know mayonnaise might be 2 billion and sparkling water might be 40 billion right so you're talking about you don't need a huge percent of the consumption to flow into your business in order to have like high revenue so I think you could have a really great idea in a 200 million dollar category and find yourself up against a pretty hard wall when you realize like okay maybe only there's only 13% of shoppers who want a better for you version of this so I was excited about the Big Tam personally and I was excited about the innovation and doing something that like hasn't been done yeah totally which obviously speaking to the choir at this point but like how did that I don't know category level like factor into the decision to actually launch this beverage in terms of the GLP1 stuff if at all I think like I think we're at the tip of the iceberg on Chiopi 1 like I think we aren't I think we talk about it so much and we're still not talking about it enough like I don't think we can really see I mean I read an article recently that was like airlines are realizing more profit because the bodies in the seats weigh less and the fuel is now taking less fuel to fly the bodies from point a to point B so like the downstream effects of this are just like it's like unbelievable every area of the of the world it touches right it's kind of crazy so um yeah so I think that's interesting but yeah so I I don't know I think people I think GOP one if it's done nothing else besides you know whatever reduce everybody's appetite it has brought this mass awareness to like what we're putting in our bodies and the emphasis seems to be around protein and fiber which is basically protein and vegetables which is kind of like the basis of the Paleo diet and what we should really be eating anyway so you know I think there's that but I think protein if you're not eating like a steak and a burger and eggs and whatever like has existed largely in just thick powdery milky creamy shakes that are sold to gym bros so I'm kind of like protein but make it casual and fun and put it in a can and like this doesn't need to be so serious totally no I think it was like locally last April I think it was you know you didn't even know if you want to launch the brand yet and you know you obviously know Whole Foods very well know the space very well I'm sure that's part of them trusting you but they came back and said yeah we'll take it nationwide in October and I think at that point you had no brand no no command no packages on basically just just the idea maybe the formulation and and the trademark I think for just some of those other you know especially first time founders that are in that similar stage maybe they didn't get a commitment from the retailer but they're in that early stages and they have some sort of timeline they're trying to launch pretty quickly you know pulling together the co man the brand the packaging design all the stuff in a pretty short timeline three kids under seven at the same time yeah I'm on the hunt for a co founder so if you know anyone send them my way cause I'm like drowning over here no seriously I am actually though but I uh yeah it was crazy I like took a can actually that I'm drinking an R&D sample like I'm launching two new flavors in the fall so I'm like drinking a whole can of it to get the experience first just like tasting but I took these silver cans for those who can't see these like plain silver cans with no packaging on it to Whole Foods they all the retailers review like each category at a certain like one month period so you have you know a set time of year when that buyer for your category is looking at new items so you submit like it's very formal you like submit your Powerpoint presentation you have a broker who requests a meeting you send samples if they want them and then like three or four months later they make their decisions on what they're bringing in and you don't roll onto shelf for six to nine to sometimes 12 months after that it's a long process but I had an idea and I registered trademark for the name way and I was like let's just see what Whole Foods thinks so I took it to Whole Foods I I will say I'm in like a bit of a unique situation I have a relationship with Whole Foods I've been selling to them for 12 years they were a huge partner of ours at Primal Kitchens um David Lafferty over there I've known for a long time he's like a great friend and I love him I was I was like David can you get me a meeting with the buyer and I would love to like meet with you and show you this new thing I'm working on so I went and met with them no one else had presented Clear Protein last year to them so I was like the only they hadn't we were early right like a year ago with Whole Foods saying yes like there wasn't really anything in market and that's what's crazy like there was nothing in market a year ago hardly okay we present it and they then they called a month later and they were like we'll take it nationwide in October and then I had like three months to like do the branding find a co man reformulate everything it was very stressful I spent an entire girls trip in Mexico like going back and forth with graphic designers trying to get the package design figured out so yeah it was stressful for sure yeah it's all stressful was it hard to find a co packer or is that not that hard it wasn't that hard cause I had the right people on my team who like knew where to go but I think if you didn't have someone who like knows beverage commands inside and out it would be challenging um yeah totally so yeah from a brand identity packaging design standpoint what were said as you were working at the brand identity and kind of the visual identity and all that kind of stuff I mean I just knew I wanted to sell like fun protein to women so I just was like kind of hitting that we had like a version of the package design and I was like uh it's like looking to like sports and then I was like I need like a Jane Fonda logo and then that's how we like found the font for Wayne and then it kind of like brought the whole personality to life on the can from a formulation standpoint no obviously don't want to give giving away too many trade secrets but in terms of like the different kind of factors actually get the product where it is today where you know you said it's a summer routine of like you said a spin drift and and a Poppy which with 10 grams of protein was cause I was like ugh it doesn't like taste good enough and I'm not gonna launch it if I don't like love it so then I'd go back to the drawing board and then I would be like ugh do I really want to do this beverage thing and I'd be distracted with like you know my EIR program was summited and then I you know it was just kind of like on to the next thing I don't know the last 40 years was yuppie focus on what you can cut out and now it's finally like protein is anything take more of like like I said I just feel like dieting has been just the messaging to women has just been so awful and it is like I look I'm just like 100 and I'm I'm five feet tall right I'm super short so like five pounds makes it is noticeable on me and I feel like every one of my girlfriends not every one of them I live in Southern California so there's a lot of just like naturally super skinny beautiful women here but like it seems a lot of my friends are like have been trying to lose 5 to 10 pounds for like 30 years right so like imagine how much mental energy goes to just like trying to lose five to 10 pounds then you get into like you have three kids you get into like the postpartum phase and we the way what we've been sending out I think is just really like restrictive and awful and not healthy and not something from a place of like true health which is like you know enjoying my mental health right like enjoying my life and not letting like some you know elusive body goal like derail me and also like feeling good you know like I don't know like yeah so I just think protein solves a lot of that for us it's like it's very important like recovering from surgery it's very important if you're pregnant it's very important if you're aging it's very important if you're perimenopausal or menopausal it's very important if you're trying to like you know reduce hunger hormone signals the whole day that you start your day with a lot of protein and all these things so we know these things um yeah how do you think about in terms of like I seems like you know the natural progression is some brands that are gonna start just saying hey trying to differentiate on the sales okay this all the other competitors have 25 grams of protein ours has 27 okay then the next one comes up it has 28 grams of protein I think there's been a lot of brands like if you look at cloud popcorn or Wild Chips or chomps that have just like taken a more of like a eat your real food and if you need a little like bump we're here for you right like it tastes good it's very sessionable it's very snackable we're not trying to be your like protein solution we're trying to be your like support person you know what I mean so I think that's kind of more of the position we're taking in the marketplace in that April to nationwide pretty quickly then sprouts I think in January Target following that generally seem like it's been a pretty aggressive expansion from a retail standpoint what's been have you been finding has been the biggest impact in terms of really driving those velocity numbers at some of those first key retailers I think look it was like a known risk to go to target this early but we got an opportunity to be on like a protein front race track end cap for like you know it's a multi month long through the summer end cap so you're not gonna repeat that opportunity next year it's not just like oh do you go into the target set this year do you go in next year it's like Target's leaning in on clear protein do you want to be one of the brands that's leaning in with them now or do you want to wait so the verdict's still out on if that was a good decision or not but like most of the time Whole Foods is really partnered with us on like building the brand and they've been an amazing partner and and they're approaching the category like different right they're kind of like we picked our horse we're betting on way and like you know we're gonna help you kind of build the brand and I think target is more like wanting to be really early on the trend and they're leaning into with this end cap but they've rolled out a ton of different brands so you know they're kind of gonna let us all duke it out and see who the winners are is what I think is happening but yeah for me I think it's more just about like do you have the right like buyer relationships and retail partnerships and is it versus just like chasing doors for the sake of chasing doors I don't need any more distribution right now like I think we're good so there's that but yeah in terms of where you want it to sit versus does it sit in the sparkling water section like you know the functional beverage section is it in like the supplement section where like the protein powders are or multiple of those and yeah what where does it sit in where do you work yeah we're in the functional beverage set in all of the stores so Whole Foods but the difference is the functional beverage set is different at target than it is at Whole Foods for instance so like Whole Foods functional beverage has like shelf stable RTD proteins like organ and Owen and slate milk and it also has energy and it has like high Owen trip so it's kind of this mish mash and then sprouts has a lot of the similar maybe type of brands more like RTD protein etcetera functional beverage at target RTD protein that's like over 20 grams is actually somewhere else it's in like OK set so at target it's more like shelf stable coconut water tripping high oh like the vitamin waters it's all kind of like a random OK that's interesting so their cutoff was like anything above 20 grams of protein goes in a different I mean section yeah the retailers are trying to figure out where this goes it's an interesting price and that it could probably live in four different places in the grocery store yeah it could live next to liquor it could live in soda it could live in protein and it could live in functional beverage so yeah that's yeah that's super interesting and Amazon and TikTok and all those e commerce so we're on Amazon we just launched on TikTok Shop or we are launching like as soon but we're on we've been on Amazon since like October November that has actually taken off like I was shocked like I just didn't I didn't expect beverage to be so heavily shopped online and I think I I then I heard someone say like liquid debt I remember a few years ago they're like number one and most profitable account was Amazon like Americans don't like carrying like a case of something to their car and then to their doorsteps or into their fridge so it's like I think people do maybe over index on beverage delivery if you're buying like 12 packs yeah yeah that's interesting that's a good point and I wanted to carry it I never thought about that you mentioned about like jury's still out was getting in target that early like you know the right call or not like for for other brands especially with just all your experience in general that are in their first say 1,000 2,000 doors probably some like natural channel or independence they're evaluating when to make that jump to more conventional like what signal should they be looking for that tells them they're ready velocity just like it just cost so much money to go into every new retailer so just don't go until you have like really strong velocity in the accounts you're in talking about like for a second um 95% of the business at exit assuming I got that right for other founders that are trying to maintain ownership and control while scaling to you know nine figures especially today and maybe it's a little bit different than when you guys started you know 2015 in terms of it's just more expensive and what not to to win in the market today but yeah what should what should their playbook look like if they want to maintain as much ownership as possible then if you want to maintain as much ownership as possible you need to just get profitable from like as soon as humanly possible like that's the only way you're maintaining as much ownership as possible so I feel like CPG has become like a billionaire's game like you're like it just feels like you either need to go raise pre revenue at some crazy valuation like David Bar Goodles or groons or whatever and then you've got $80 million and you better figure it out cause you raised $80 million or you need to like crap buy and get profitable as soon as possible I didn't do the Gruns David protein I mean it would that would have been great but you know I I was I didn't do that I think that can also bite you in the ass more often than not you raise it too high of evaluation then you're doing down rounds and everybody just is over it and you end up folding the company so I'm scrappy like I'm not like and I'm I'm learning how to manage like fundraising and having investors and that's something like that is a mental that's something that's hard for me because I think I went in everybody has this like maintain ownership and you don't want investors but like some of these brands would never have exited if they didn't have like amazing strategic investors backing them right so I think investors are amazing like I have had amazing support from people who are on my cap table who are like let me help make introductions for your next round let me have you talked to this person have you thought about this like so the whole experience for me has been much more pleasant than I thought it was gonna be but I think you gotta be picky about like who you take money from but in the end of the day like I would give up yeah I I'm not like super hyper focused on maintaining all equity I'm just like can I keep the business capitalized and you know do I am I working with like nice people yeah I mean you mentioned the cap table so you're taking a bit of a a different approach than Primal Kitchen and raising more capital here or trying to do to give it to like friends and family and no I do not have the risk tolerance of Mark and there's no way I'm taking out a nine million dollar line of credit that I have a personal guarantee on and I Mark didn't really have any business doing that either when we were at primal but he's been an entrepreneur his whole life you know I got to like reap the benefits of entrepreneurship with him but it wasn't like a full it wasn't like my house wasn't on the line right like that's a different level of stress and anxiety that like I just certainly could not handle at 42 with three kids under the age of seven so I've raised money um and we'll continue to I'm I'm actually raising again right now so I raised money last summer before we launched and I'm raising again I'll probably yeah I'll raise a little bit now and then hopefully get to like a bigger number of revenue and I can bring on like an institutional partner sure what's the what is the the team look right now are you like three other people full time besides me and then I'm in some contractors so I think after that acquisition you stayed at craft for like four years which seems pretty long compared to the average and I'm still at craft I'm still at craft you are still at craft oh wow I didn't know that okay no I mean I'm not full time but when I'm in advisory role but yeah I did stay and run the day to day for five years after we sold very rare yeah it's very rare like what I guess what did you learn about operating inside a company like that size like the size of a craft hinds that you're now applying at way that you didn't know pre craft pre acquisition when you're building Primal Kitchen like what did I learn being there yeah I guess any learnings that you've kind of gleaned from being in such a bigger big organization that you're kind of applying you do professionalize the way you like look at the business a bit like in the 0 to 50 million dollar pre exit you're like you're like so emotionally tied to your business it's not even like it's like an extension of your identity it's just such a different like ride versus you've exited and now you need to like you know be a professional right like yeah and this is a business and like all those things I think I was really fortunate the boss that I had when we were acquired Steve Cornell he was amazing and I remember we had a review and he was like what do you think you need to work on and I was like I think I need to like learn how to actually like like put pivot tables together and like analyze the sales data and he was like the fuck are you talking about he's like that's crazy like that's what analysts do like and I was like okay I think I could be more professional like I'm a hugger I can't really put a Powerpoint deck together I like swear in business meetings and he was like he was like no you need to keep being exactly you like so I just feel very lucky to have been surrounded by people who are like keep being you and not trying to make me something I'm not and that's you know what I hope I could do for people who work for me and what I think everyone should be striving for if nothing else is just like at least showing up authentically as yourself yeah if you've done that you've done more than what most people are doing so yeah where I think you're evaluating acquisitions for craft and in the health and wellness space anything that you've Learned about what some of these acquiring these emerging brands and is there anything that you've kind of seen can consistently miss well I think it's just like two different skill sets right like I'm not the person to like run the you know price elasticity test and know exactly what's gonna happen and be able to forecast and all this stuff like it's a bit of an art and a science like I feel like you know entrepreneurial businesses are very like art it's more like intuitive it's more of an art and you have a pulse on your business because it's like an extension of yourself right and then you get into more of a corporate bigger environment it just becomes more of a science so it's like you know the forecast is happening earlier the forecast is more important it's not almost as important as what you do in revenue just that you hit your forecast like they'd almost rather have you do less in revenue and hit your forecast than do more in revenue and not hit your forecast so it's just a different and then it's a lot of like like fighting for resources which you know the resources are constrained as an entrepreneur as well but you at least can make quick decisions I think in a big organization it's a lot of like justifying people needs justifying marketing needs it's just a lot of resource management whereas that resource management in an entrepreneurial organization happens like just ongoing it isn't like a big pre planned you know discussion it's just happening in real time or maybe lucky enough to be in a position where you guys were with Primal Kitchen where they're seriously exploring an exit have some interest from one serious party or maybe a few just looking back now and you've gone through that full process what what should founders kind of be keeping top of mind as they're going through this exit evaluation process yeah I mean I think the days of like oh we're a hockey stick growth but we're losing $20 million a year are kind of like over so I think there is just and it has been over for a while right like I think there's just a lot more emphasis on just unit economics and the viability of the business long term I mean we had 2 million of EBIT on 50 million of revenue when we sold so we weren't you know rolling in cash by any means but we were at least like fiscally responsible because what's gonna happen when you go to sell your businesses some team of analysts is gonna look at your business and say like where are the synergies how can we make this more profitable and where is the growth gonna come from so you just need to be able to present a business that shows that there are either synergies or growth opportunities that warrant the purchase price more or less yeah I mean it's pretty simple at the end of the day so when we sold to craft we had never done a dollar through the register at Whole Foods or sorry at Costco Walmart or target so we had just a ton of distribution white space available in terms of what these strategics or you know these bigger growth equity PE type groups are the things that are most important to them in terms of what they're looking for in an acquisition that maybe you know I mean I think it's like they're so varied in their theses is so and it's all so dependent on like so many variables at play I think like the truth is you just it's like it's just like marriage like it's like finding a person who you want each other equally at the right time in both of your lives so like you might meet a PE fund that's like we're not interested but the truth is like they don't have any dry powder left and they're in the middle of raising their next fund or like you know or there's certain funds that have a very strict thesis going in we write one million dollar checks we only write at valuations of 10 to 12 million dollars you know we want we don't want to be anybody we have it has to be pre revenue or seed or there's people who are like we deploy a minimum of $150 million we want a business that has a founder owner and doesn't have a lot of P around the table other P and we're gonna do a structured buyout and own 60 70% of the business I think there's just so many different options out there it's all hard and it's about like finding the right people for where you're at when we were talking about your experience at summit you were talking about how you had mentioned that um you had hoped that that that they would buy good culture that especially got you excited about I mean I think like everybody wants to buy good culture right like I don't think there's any like big magic there but or big any big secret right I think looking at that business there's like a great manufacturing cottage cheese is hard to do there's not a lot of manufacturers in the United States so there's a little bit of a mode around the product I think they created like a great cultural they kind of like created cottage cheese to be quite honest like nobody was talking about cottage cheese and they like had a bunch of stuff go viral on TikTok and kind of like turned cottage cheese into the new cauliflower although cauliflower bleeped and died a long time ago but so I just love the brand I love Jessie I think the founders over there is amazing and for for what the thesis was at summit they were big enough there aren't a lot of like businesses who haven't it transacted that are big enough and could support an EBITDA multiple right like most businesses if they are big they don't they can't support an EBITDA multiple or you know so anyway it was a good fit for a brand like for a business for a P firm that wants to buy a big company that needs for sure yeah that totally makes sense yeah last question for you Morgan outside of the clear protein beverage space you obviously know CPG very well any particular brands in general or just categories that you're kind of oh there's a lot of interesting stuff out there companies trends I don't know I mean the seed oil movements really funny because we like kicked it off in 2,015 and I feel like it's having its moment now so I think what's going on there is fun I like uh that smash company that I buy their jelly now like I think kind of innovated in a super just kind of sleepy category so that's fun that's a great brand it's really good brand smash is fun yeah I should be I like sunny I don't know if you know Sunny Snacks but they're like a yeah yeah yeah I like them I like that product yeah my wife buys those through um what's it called Imperfect Produce Misfits here and there yeah yeah um a lot of cool stuff well yeah Morgan this has been awesome um what's the what's the best place for people to follow along with everything that you're working on and then what's the best place these days for people to follow along with the way brand as well yeah you can go buy whey at target uh Whole Foods or sprouts um and I we're at Drink Whey w a a y on Instagram and TikTok and then I'm just Morgan Zanotti on social media I don't have it on my phone but I log in every once in a while and check it they post for my account but yeah perfect thanks Adam Awesome appreciate the time this has been awesome I think that's the pub great in some of the M&A role to a certain extent some of these bigger operators kind of what what have you felt like you've Learned a lot of founders and operators may not actually know what was it about that good culture opportunity from a launch standpoint you sold way into Whole Foods walk me through kind of what those that could do carbonated protein beverages we've already moved to a new command since then the key variables that were top of mind for you variables you were playing around with I think part of the reason I didn't launch for so long the message for women the has been super restrictive I mean I think the protein arms race is maybe good way to put it where I think you went from local Whole Foods tests in where does the brand sit and is there a difference are you thinking about d to C and the Primal Kitchen experience for just circling back to the procurement stuff I mean I think like you've definitely been in