Vital Energy™ Guys

This blog has moved

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:20:00 +0000

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It's official. We are coming to a store near you...

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:45:00 +0000

So this is going to be quick because I have another meeting to go to in a little bit. Of course.

We are officially 1 year old as a company.
We have gone through hell and high water to get here and now year 2 is really going to test us as a team. We have spent the last few weeks pushing our new flavor Raspberry Apple, and getting ready for another meeting with the distributor. We met with them yesterday.

The new label and flavor have proven to be a great success. People like the label, the flavor, we had a record month in sales and even just launched a NCAA bracket contest on facebook with cash and drink prizes! We owe it to all of you for helping get us to this point (ham moment).

Regarding the distributor we smashed the presentation. They loved our story, our product and our ideas. As of 9am this morning we are officially part of the Wright Wisner distribution network!

Could we have asked for a better birthday present? It is such a weird feeling to know that we are going into the next level of operation as a company and expanding to 14 counties. We have one shot at this and are going to have to work even harder this year.

I will be posting another blog in a few days that kind of reflects more on the past year. But, for now, lets savor the flavor of Vital Energy and all of its goodness.

Ohhhhhhhhh, time to run around for a minute.
-Jake

musically inclined

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:59:00 +0000

We sponsored our first non-guerilla style events this weekend. First was the Ugly Disco where we set up a sampling table. Jake rocked an afro and put on some dance moves before the psychedelic citizens arrived. Disco Fevers ran high and most people needed a non-alcoholic refreshment to go along with their fun. By midnight beer had taken over as the drink of choice, so we packed up and got ready for an early brunch at the Next Door Bar and Grill.

Lesson Learned – buy a very large waterproof Vital Energy banner for all future events.

We were a Gold Sponsor of the Sweet Dreams Brunch hosted by The Cupcake Dreamery for The Hillside organization. Brunch was held at the Next Door Bar and Grill; the food was delicious, and the cupcakes were orgasmic (props on the warm cinnamon bun mini cupcakes!).

Nota from NBC's Sing Off performed at the brunch and wooed all the ladies.

Tonight we will officially welcome our first employee to the company, Patrick Henderson. WOHOOO! This is a big step for us and we look forward to gearing up for the spring and summer!

-Mike

PS. Check out the Vital Super Snowman we built after the Nor'eastern Blizzard that forced us to take a day off

Dropped a bomb on em.

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:58:00 +0000

We released our third flavor Apple Raspberry this week. All night Saturday was dedicated to unpacking and problem after problem. The truck showed up 3 hours late, our pallet jack was to big for the lift gate to unload at our house, the warehouse closed an hour after the delivery, and we had to break down 14 pallets (1428 cases) by hand from truck to house to stacking.

Otherwise it went pretty well.

We have hit almost all of our stores with the new flavor and are waiting to see the response. Next week is getting new stores and preparing for another distribution meeting (#4). They haven't said no, and they are still inviting us back. Its still completely up in the air though.

In other news we finally hit 500 fans on facebook! The 1000th fan will get a case of each flavor! So get your friends to join up. :P

The Ugly Disco is this Saturday and we will be there sampling for the first few hours.

On Sunday is the Cupcake Dreamery's Sweet Dreams Sunday Brunch which will feature some give aways and delicious catered food. Vital Energy will be in all the gift baskets!

To emphasize my point: Starting at 1:00 in.

Enjoy,

-J

That Patrick character

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:30:00 +0000

So it is now official!!!!! Scott has made his first blog and I am now doing the same. I gotta start by introducing myself to the Vital community. My name is Patrick Henderson and this is my story.

I have known Mike, Scott and Jake starting as early as 1^st grade. We grew up with each other until our parting days from Pittsford Sutherland High School. (I did not shed any tears, I promise) Since then I have attended St. Bonaventure University and have graduated with a degree in marketing. I have recently reconnected with Mike, Scott, and Jake. (Still the same knuckleheads I knew in highschool) I have joined the vital team and we are ready and excited to introduce our product to the community throughout the spring and summer months.

So you still may have the question of who is this Patrick character and how is he going to be tied to the beverage that I love so much? Well here is my answer. As a former energy drink and coffee consumer, I have switched my drink of choice to Vital. We have introduced a completely new segment to the energy drink market and I have made it my personal duty to expose this segment to you. Be ready because Vital is coming to you. Until next time remember that a Vital will fix u right up.

P.S. Sorry Scott but the sandman thing does not do it for me either.

Where is April 15th?

noreply@blogger.com (Scott) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 01:27:00 +0000

As stated by one Michael Joseph, I’ve been very elusive when it comes to writing blogs. Let’s just say that writing is not my cup of tea… or coffee for that matter. That’s why I drink Vital Energy and focus on the accounting aspects of the business.

Since the first of the year things have become very hectic. Busy season at the accounting firm began as soon as I could get over the New Years Eve festivities. I have been busy performing audits as well as doing taxes for our clients. Although this can be very tedious, it is really good practice and I am gaining a lot of experience working for the accounting firm. These experiences help me to correctly maintain the financial aspects of Enertia.

This past month has marked, yet, another milestone in Enertia’s history (besides my first blog). We filed our first tax return. This return proved to be an interesting one and took a lot of time and effort to make certain that everything was entered correctly. The accounting firm has multiple level reviews which eliminates the chance of errors on a tax return. But, it is much more nerve-racking filing your own tax return because you do not have as many eyes looking over your work and you want to make sure everything that needs to be entered, has been entered. Next, will be our personal tax returns, which may prove to be just as interesting.

Always remember that “A Vital-a-day keeps the Sandman away.” (Jake and Mike in no way endorse this quote...)

- Scott

We're now Bi...weekly blogging

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:54:00 +0000

For starters, we've agreed on a schedule to blog regularly. We'll be blogging roughly every Monday and Thursday and you'll now hear from all of us, including the elusive Scott and Patrick.

We made the news at a local campus a couple weeks ago when someone placed our stickers in a bathroom. This was almost certainly in there since last October, so we hope people enjoyed what they read!Jake mentioned we had a meeting with a distributor in the area. We had Adam Podlesh, a 4th round draft pick veteran punter from the Jacksonville Jaguars join us for the meeting. He'll be helping us out with marketing and promotional events throughout the spring and summer - Major Beverage Season kiddos.

So a little about our new label and flavor (coming to a store near you NEXT WEEK...sorry for the delay). Raspberry apple is by far my favorite Vital Energy flavor and I can't wait to pound a few cases down.

Our new label has been up and running on our website for the better part of 3 weeks. We felt we needed a new label to more clearly get across just how much caffeine it contains, as well as the abundance of B Vitamins, and lower sugar to help prevent a caffeine crash. We also had to make sure our label didn't 'look like a generic Vitamin Water product'.

The background of our new label looks like a texture from far away, but in reality it has almost 7 single spaced pages of text large enough so you can read it when you're holding the bottle. It should provide some long and intense reading sessions when you are bored in class or waiting for your boyfriend/girlfriend to meet you for lunch. Every other line on the background says that Vital Energy has as much caffeine as 2 cups of coffee or 2 energy drinks (red bulls). We made them nice and vibrant so that they smack your brain from the cooler door.

We've decided to keep our muscle man bottle at least for the time being because we know people recognize it at this point. Let us know what you think of our label, muscle man, etc...Patrick left us this weekend to go see his girlfriend in West Virginia. Which reminds me, I better start prepping for Valentine's Day, something tells me it's coming soon!

Until next time...
-Mikey J...heyyy

On a Superbowl Roll

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:47:00 +0000

Great Sunday today and always keeping busy.

It is amazing when I stop and think about how far we have come from almost a year ago. Having almost no knowledge of the industry other than the things we read in the paper and on the bottle to now talking with distributors and starting to host events and bringing on our first full time employee.

The blog has been an easy and effective way for us not only to communicate with all of you but act as a record of everything that has happened so far. While most of it was painfully annoying and frustrating at the time, a lot of them are just funny to see our reasoning and naivety of some of our choices.

We finally got our 2nd product run completed with the new label and the new flavor (Raspberry Apple). That has caused a series of headaches, which we have come to expect but we made it and just need to deal with the lovely blizzard in Pittsburgh.

We just had our 3rd meeting with a distributor and it went as well as it could with a 4th meeting being set up. I guess I would look at it kind of like a 4th round job interview.

There are a few events coming up this month which should be a lot of fun... namely the Ugly Disco on the 27th, a sampling at Hegedorns in Webster, and hopefully the 24 Teddy Dance at St. John Fisher!

On a side note was thoroughly entertained by the 2nd half of the superbowl. Ballsy move to start it off with an on side kick... and it worked. HA!

Favorite ads:
Snickers
Doritos
Budlight

-J

Welcome back and all of that

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:57:00 +0000

So its been about a month and we are back after holidays, the flu, travel and being fat idiots with all the holiday food.

The past month has been almost exclusively trying to get our new label design finished and making sure our new order is on track. Looks like we should be having a new flavor joining us mid February with its new ink.

Right now we are overhauling our business plan and getting ready to meet with a distributor and start planning for the spring and summer.

We have decided to focus ourselves in the Rochester as we approach our 1 year anniversary and really try to secure the area before we continue any further expansion outside of the ROC.

If you haven't come to see us at a sampling its an easy way to get to know us and enjoy some delicious beverage!

Whooha

-J

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:33:00 +0000

We are in the final stretches of Holiday season and for me it is a triple threat with Xmas, my birday and then new years. During this time we are also trying to get a new label redesign and gear up for our next order.

This next year is going to really determine the state of this company. I don't mean that as a bad thing, but year 2 is where some expansion happens and really begins to test our ability to adapt to things going very wrong and very right. It should be interesting.

We have been sampling like madmen and its really starting to pay off around the area. The past month saw us at the mall every weekend for 8 hours stints to meet and greet as many holiday shoppers as possible. The next one will be all the new gym goers trying to shed off those holiday pounds. So look for us at your neighborhood gyms and other indoor athletic facilities during January!

Something I noticed with the sampling is I feel like we are doing some arts and crafts projects whenever we set up. We have our little easel and poster board, a pretty table cloth, a video for the table, a nice polo, a cooler of cold drinks and a mountain of Dixie cups sporting daisies and lady bugs; neither of which seem aware of the fact that old man frost is chillin' outside.

It always brings a smile to my face when I catch myself tripping over my words trying to explain this sweet sweet new beverage to people for the unteen thousandth time and forgetting if I told this person all of the important information yet.

I get to see people light up over the new local start up, love the tangerine, hate the tangerine, pick apart any detail imaginable, ask about low calorie, if we are getting new flavors, are we in wegmans/tops, drop names and locations we should contact and just as quickly disappear back to what they were doing.

Mike just got back from a brief trip in Florida. Scottie is keeping us from going bankrupt while still juggling his other job. The new guy Pat is working his butt off, and I am signing off on this post... unfortunately I have work to do.

So for now good morning world. If I don't see you again, good afternoon and goodnight.

-J

Picture Blog: Dirty faces, Sparkling clutch

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:54:00 +0000

A few weeks ago we had a minor setback. The speedy delivery mobile (RX7) couldn't deliver any more cases without a new clutch. Being a startup, we like to save money were we can, so Scott and I gathered some tools and about 30hours of time and got to work...

This note is mainly pictures. Long story short, we had to put the car up on blocks and remove the transmission and drive shaft just to get to the clutch! Those chimney cleaner good looking guys are me and Scottie.

The job was not easy, luckily the car ran great after we finished!

No drinks were harmed in the production of this blog
-Mike

PS. The circular thing with gear teeth around it is called the flywheel. The engine is connected to the flywheel, the flywheel is connected to the clutch, and the clutch is connected to the transmission, which drives the wheels! (in case you're interested :) ). If you look hard on the second to last picture you can see the turbo to the top right of the flywheel.

Athlete tested, Santa approved

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 18:23:00 +0000

So its snowing up here, FINALLY. I love the winter and don't want to hear any complaints, you can move to Florida. I am so pumped about some snowboarding and flying around like a baboon on the mountain. Since we are talking about that, we just landed a sale at Bristol a few days ago! So now you can feel refreshed, hydrated and mentally perky all day long while you fly down the bunny hill indiscriminately crushing those in your way (we are not held liable for any damages). We are pursuing the other mountains as well so you won't be limited to where you can get Vital Energy on the slopes.

We have been talking to a few local companies to get some cross promotions going including a clothing line and a local skiing/snowboarding company. We are having to really branch out during the winter due to slower cold drink sales. Most people don't want to be enjoying an ice cold Vital Energy while they are pumping gas in -20 degree winds... doesn't work that well. Although you can serve up a hot tangerine Vital Energy with a slice of orange in a mug and see how that goes.

With winter break coming up our big sellers are going to be out of commission for a few weeks. I am referring to colleges of course. To compensate we have been focusing hard on gyms and indoor athletics. We are still sampling at any store where space is available for us to do so and people are starting to recognize us... its kind of a nice feeling. Definitely makes sales easier and when we are sampling people are more open to talking with us about it.

On sampling, we killed it at Marketplace Mall. We set up 2 tables, one near the food court and one near Santa's photo booth where there is high traffic. We sampled hundreds of people and talked to even more... we couldn't have asked for better promotion. After a while I decided I needed to get a photo with Santa and see if he enjoyed our beverage.

I guess christmas came early for Santa!

-J

Pour the Holiday Spirit all over your face

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:13:00 +0000

First things First, it's almost Thanksgiving...WOOOHOO.

Now that we have that taken care of, let's get on with some business. About a week ago we provided drinks for a 10k held at FLCC in Canandaigua. I won't bore you with too many details, but I will share one story. After the race, a runner came over to our table. While gasping for air, he grabs one of our drinks and says he thought our drink was water before the race and poured it over his head. I guess it got in his eyes. Who pours an orange drink on their face!? He had good spirits though and drank the Vital Energy the second time around. This taught us our lesson of the week - always have a video camera at the Vital Energy booth because this needed to be on youtube.

Last Friday we co-sponsored a fashion show with another start-up called FanShoes. The show was great, the models were fabulous, the shoes were hot, and the band rocked the house (The Blackened Blues). We sampled Vital energy to the fashion show guests and made our presence known. We had some help from a friend named Chrissy, who put a nice touch on our display, took amazing pictures, and helped us out big time!Our big sale of the week was to SUNY Brockport's Union Square! We are now available next to the Red Bull, check out the pictures below!

Jake and I also made a visit to our High School alma mater, Pittsford Sutherland, and spoke to students about our experiences starting Vital Energy. We brought over 100 cold drinks to pass out to students, but unfortunately we weren't allowed to hand them out because of the caffeine content. It was pretty cool being back there and the students were amazing.This week is officially the beginning of the Holiday Season :) I'm craving me some Turkey, Stuffing, and Mashed Potatoes! Hope everyone has a wonderful thanksgiving filled with Vital Energy and Holiday Spirit.

Happy T-Giving
-Mike

Giving Thanks and Taking Names

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:40:00 +0000

I have been eating Thanksgiving dinner for the past few days and am now more excited than ever for the real one coming up. It will be nice to sit on my butt and not do anything work related for a few days. By the end of this week I will have worked 14 days in a row. Whoooooo!

So between Monday and Tuesday of this week we have moved over a pallet out (102 cases) which is $$$ in the bank. Holla. Our big new store is SUNY Brockport and we are doing a sampling on the 19th from 11-2pm.

We have started up a Vlog (Video Blog) with FANSHOES as an avenue to talk to people about what it is to start up a new business and cover different topics related to that. It also will allow us to talk about some of the benefits (and drawbacks) of being located in upstate and western NY. We are hoping over time to become an authority as we navigate this whole process ourselves.
The first episode should be posted this week with the 2nd one shot today and hopefully edited by this weekend. The goal is to shoot the video every Wednesday, so follow along, send us any questions or even drop by during our shoot.

Shout out to Sutherland HS. We are giving a speech to them on Friday. We are also hosting our first big event on Friday at the German House in Village Gate. Our FIFA fashion show with FANSHOES goes from 6-10pm with afterparty at the Keg (bar under the german house, go figure).

We also met with a distributor again today and it is looking good for us! They said to come back around Feb. 2010 and we should be ready to sit down with them for a more serious talk about distribution. They like what we are doing and how we are doing it. Cause we doin it and doin it and doin it well. Ughhhhhh.

So check out our first Vlog and remember a lemon or lime with your Vital Energy.

-J

PS: Did you talk to at least 5 people today about Vital Energy? Or ask at least 1 store if they carry it?

Power Play

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 07:26:00 +0000

So using some tips we learned last week, we managed to move almost 2 pallets this week. For those of you keeping score at home, that is a lot. We have about 10 new displays set up and in the process also grabbed some new stores. Our total after we drop some product off on Monday looks to be creeping up to 80!

Samplings have become our new secret weapon. This week we had 3 different samplings at 3 different locations on 3 different days (yea its alliteration but with numbers). These really help us out because it gives us a chance to educate people about what the product is and who we are. With so many choices out there it is getting ever more difficult to stand out from the crowd. The response usually is pretty positive and it makes the store owners happy because it is publicity for them and helps move product which is good for both parties. We are planning to use this weekly.

On other news, FANSHOES (www.myfanshoes.com) and Vital Energy are continuing their partnership and are starting our own weekly vlog. We want it to be another avenue for people to get to know us as well as interact with us more personally. The general topics covered are going to be about starting up a local business and what is involved with that along the way. We are also going to talk about what is going on and upcoming with us and any new projects we may want to discuss. We are also hoping to eventually get guest appearances by local business people.

Crash course in video here we come.

Other than that, we are speaking at a DECA event on Tuesday, Sutherland HS on the 20th and co-sponsoring the FIFA fashion show with FANSHOES on the 20th. Join the facebook page and feel free to ask us any questions you might have.

Don't forget to ask stores for it by name, Vital Energy.

Til then, try VE Acai Blueberry with a slice of lime/lemon and Tangerine with a slice of Orange.

-J

Meeting Mr. X

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:31:00 +0000

We started Vital Energy knowing next to nothing about the beverage industry. Recently we've met a beverage industry veteran, let's call him Mr. X. On our first meeting, Mr. X grilled us for a few hours and made sure we really wanted to move forward in this business. Since then, he's helped us fix some of our mistakes and given us some priceless advice.

On Friday, Jake, Mr. X, and I drove down to Buffalo to check out our locations and show X how we've been making our sales to stores. We are currently in a 7 Eleven on N. French Rd in Buffalo, and have sold around 4 cases to them over the last couple of weeks. The store owner really likes us, but wouldn't let us put a sign on the door because most companies pay to put advertisements on their door windows.

X walked us through making a 'better' sale to the 7 Eleven. After talking with the owner and making a few moves, we left the store having set up a display of 10 cases smack in the front of the store. We also were allowed to put a sign up on the front door, 3 signs up on the cooler doors, and position our product right next to Monster on the shelves! Check out the display below :)Going along with the display theme, after we received positive reviews from sampling Vital Energy to St John Fisher students, we were picked up by the Cyber Cafe on campus. They gave us our own shelf below Red Bull and Amped, and even let us put up a large sign to inform students about our product.On the promotional front, we demoed Vital Energy at Hegadorn's grocery store in Webster and put it on sale for the day. Customer's loved our drink and bought over 6 cases in a few hours. We even met the store owner, who bought some for his daughter. He showed us an article that just came out yesterday on the health benefits of Caffeine. It was written by a well known doctor in Florida who states that Caffeine is extremely beneficial before workouts, and it even has beneficial effects on Alzheimer's disease and heart health!!It's been a great week overall! Mr. X has taught us a lot and we've been learning how to make displays and maximize our Point Of Sale advertising (POS).

Drink Drink Drink
-Mike

Talking about handouts and Fanshoes.

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:20:00 +0000

Had a great week. We gave our first public speech to business students at Mercy HS and got great feedback! Considering we didn't know what to expect it went swimmingly. We were even asked to speak to student DECA leaders at a DECA event in early November.

Thank you Mary the business teacher and Courtney our student liaison for allowing us that opportunity. And thanks to all the students. (we're waiting to see the picture with the first class...so we can post it up!)

We have added enough stores to break the 70 store barrier and are planning to talk with distributors again soon. I have also began reaching out to the local mountains in the area. Bristol, Swaine, Hunt Hallow... etc. So hopefully in the coming winter you will be able to get that hydrating charge that you need while shredding the mountain after you did a double backflip from a helicoptor to land in epic white powdery back country. Ugh!

St John Fisher should be carrying Vital Energy very soon. We sampled our drink during lunch at the Cyber Cafe on campus, as did a few other companies. Students had to fill out comment cards so that the Fisher staff could see if they cared for our drink. Students overwhelmingly gave us positive reviews! Here is a pic from our setup. We had the video of our tangerine flavor being made playing and had our newspaper articles on our table.
Other big news is a local company has been talking with us and wants us to help out at a FIFA fashion show they have planned coming up next month. They design shoes with custom prints for the fans of different teams. The shoes are great and allow you to show your team pride from head to toe, literally. Might have to get some custom vital energy kicks to go with our swanky polos! Check them out FANSHOES.

Sidenote: If you are in a store and want vital energy to be carried there, ask someone about it or why they don't carry it. If enough people ask, stores start to listen!

Til then, drink it all in.
-J

Fall into winter

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:25:00 +0000

We lost our warehouse. Although it was not what we wanted, it is after all how business goes sometimes. Our warehouse guy received a large cash investment to buy new equipment for his water bottling company, so our storage is getting overhauled into a water processing facility. On that note though, we wish him continued success.

To compensate, Mike Scottie and I spent a lovely Saturday renting a truck, transporting the final pallets to our homes and breaking them down in fashion. Every nook and cranny is filled with our beverage now to our parents dismay. That is why we love them after all! Side note: where did the word cranny come from? Or nook for that matter? Anyway...

The warehousing issue is something we have come to expect with starting up a company. You can't predict much, everything is open to interpretation and there is always wiggle room. No matter how much you plan something it can always backfire and misstep along the way so you just have to be flexible and want it to work.

We have officially crossed the 60 store mark and are looking at ordering some counter top fridges. The reason for the fridges is to help us bypass other companies contracts and create our own cooler space. A few stores have stated specifically that they would take us on if we provided the coolers. As it just so happens, we met a cooler guy through a random encounter at a Starbucks after a meeting. Booya networking!

Some last minute notes.

-We are thinking about changing the name of our product for when we launch the new label. This will help focus our product and the message we are sending to our audience.

-I am trying to set up a meeting with an editor to try and write a monthly column on starting and running a business.

-We are giving talks to a few different high schools in the area in the next few weeks and are having to prepare our first public speech!

Drink it all in,

-J

BTW: nook is of 14th century Scottish origin and is an interior angle formed by 2 walls. cranny is 15th century English/French origin and is a small break or slit; crevice

It's been 10 days!

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 04:10:00 +0000

It's been 10 days since we last blogged. Things have been moving pretty fast over here. Jake and I are both still taking care of distribution, but he's now taking care of most of our office duties (appointments and emails), while I'm devoting more of my time to sales.

This week we were interviewed for the Brighton Pittsford Post, and I took part in the August 15th edition of the Insider magazine's 20 questions section. We took the Post picture at Jake's house, and the magazine picture was taken in my office.

We've also been discussing our next production run. One obvious change that will be made is the introduction of our third flavor, Raspberry Apple, which I am really excited about! Another alteration we will be making is a label redesign. Since we are a pure start-up company, we designed our label ourselves...and there are a few things we'd like to improve!

When we designed the label, we wanted to emphasize that we are an energy drink with as much energy and caffeine as those sugary caffeinated energy drinks, so we listed 150mg of caffeine on the label thinking people would understand that this is an energy drink. Unfortunately we could have written this in German because many consumers have no idea what that means in terms of energy! (it's equivalent to a 16oz MONSTER, two 8oz red bulls, or 2 cups of coffee). At the moment we are relying on our point of sale door stickers and word of mouth marketing to get this message relayed to customers. Our next label design will get this message across more efficiently.

Here is a sample of a window sign we have used. We used to have crushed energy drinks at the bottom, but we've come to realize that negative advertising is probably not the best way to go. Sometimes we do put an energy drink comparison on our signs so people can see that we have some serious energy!
Currently we are discussing the changes we will make to the label. It's very likely it will be a much more aggressive label that emphasizes just how much energy Vital Energy provides.

If you have comments you'd like us to consider for our new design, leave us some feedback! We'd love to hear from youuu!

Thanks and drink on
-mike

PS. I don't like to make these blogs too long, so tomorrow I'll blog about our warehousing dilemma and how we solved it! We'd like to blog about most issues that arise so that in the future when Vital Energy is kicking butt people can look back and see how we started :)

Promoting with the bus

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:15:00 +0000

It's been hectic over here. We've received lots of phone calls from people who saw our article and news interview last week. Some stores called and wanted our product, some people wanted to congratulate us, and lots of people wanted to sell us stuff!

Unfortunately we aren't looking to purchase other peoples products...sorry! We have a long way to go to make this successful, but we appreciate the support from everyone :)

On Saturday we promoted at an international Ultimate Frisbee tournament at Ellison Park and went to the Sutherland Homecoming football game against Rush Henrietta. We borrowed Scottie's bang bus and loaded it up with hundreds of bottles of Vital Energy.

The Frisbee tournament was awesome. I made an announcement on a loud speaker to all the teams and told them who we were and that we had free drinks for them to try out. We handed out cold drinks to each of the 12 teams and we hope it helped them compete!

At the Sutherland football game we each loaded up backpacks full of cold beverages and handed them out to all the students we could find. Some people refused it because they didn't know it was free. Eventually people realized what we were doing and started yelling to us to throw them a free drink up in the stands!

Here are some pictures from our sample fest at the High School football game. I'm going to put up a blog tomorrow or Saturday and let you all know how our sales are going! We've also had some cool meetings I'll tell you about later.

Check out our new poster (we've placed this at most stores we are selling in)
-Mike

First publication in the paper, put a Benjamin on that!

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 02:16:00 +0000

Article in the D&C.

Just a quick update in case you missed it on our facebook, twitter and personal pages. We have officially had our first story published and landed new stores in Buffalo! Our grip on the northeast is growing.

We are going to be in Buffalo for another day, have to follow up with a distributor we talked to last week, and have an important meeting Thursday morning.

On a fun note, got a new car and managed to hit a deer carcass and blow out a tire in under 24 hours. Hopefully I dumped enough karma to last me through the winter. :D

Here's to moving forward.

-Jake

First article and sales in Buffalo...

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:40:00 +0000

First things first, we interviewed with the Democrat and Chronicle earlier this week and it looks like we may be in the paper tomorrow! We took a picture of the three of us in my basement with around 3 pallets of drinks around us. To put this in perspective, we have a total of 26 pallets in Rochester at the moment. I figured it'd be a good time to write a blog and welcome some new readers (hopefully!).

I also thought it would be nice to re-post a video of our first production run we completed last month.

Jake and I are road tripping to Buffalo tonight and will be spending the next few days making new sales there. On Sunday we drove 60 cases to our friend's house near the University at Buffalo, and are using it as a 'Buffalo basement warehouse'. We have a lot of friends and family in Buffalo and thought it would be a perfect place to expand to. We'd like to be available in more places in Rochester, however Coke, Pepsi, and Rochester area distributors control what goes in most of the stores, unelss we can get our hands on some mini coolers! (we're working on this one :)...)

Our sales have been ok in Rochester, some stores are selling out, while others are moving slow. Judging from the positive reviews of customers, we feel this is more a function of our drink not being well known than anything else.

Let's see, before I leave for Buffalo in a few minutes, what have we learned this week? We've hit some bumps, experimenting with different marketing techniques. Our main bump occurred because we put fliers up and handed out poster stickers at a college campus. We were completely unaware that you had to have wall fliers approved by the public safety office at the campus. Of course we wrote a formal apology and will rethink our methods for next time.

It's tough to market on a shoe string budget, but we're pressing forward. We've seen positive results in terms of website traffic and store sales in the areas we have hit with some kick a$ guerrilla marketing (or so we think haha).

Right on,
-Mike

First promotions and my car accident...

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:48:00 +0000

Last week we started promoting Vital Energy at two locations (RIT and Clawson's across from Fairport HS).

Jake and I found an old red wagon at my house. We loaded up Scottie's Saab to the brim with drinks, ice, coolers, and of course our old school wagon. As a side note, my car is currently at the collision shop because I was hit in a parking lot pulling into a spot during our first day of sales 3 weeks ago! (Jake found the accident hilarious, I can't say I was as amused).
Jake rolled the squeaky red wagon slowly down a long sidewalk at RIT and we set up shop at the Infinity Quad to hand out free samples. Some people hesitated to accept the drink because they thought we'd have some strings attached to the handout. But we didn't of course.

Students loved the stuff and everyone was surprised it had as much of a caffeine kick as a MONSTER, but without the carbonation and with much better flavor. For a 10 minute span after classes ended I was pulling drinks out of the coolers non stop and putting them on display so people could take them because they were snatching them so fast. Meanwhile, Jake became a pro at saying:

"It's an energy water with as much caffeine as a monster. We're available at Paradiso Pizza and Lucci's. We're from Rochester and went to RIT. ENJOY!"

Or something along those lines. Later that night, Scottie and I went back to RIT and hung flyers in every hallway of every building on campus. It took us around 5 hours and I think we walked around 15 miles doing it, and that's not hyperbole.

A few days later we visited Clawson's in the afternoon so we could sample Vital Energy to some local High School students/athletes. High School students were much less hesitant about trying the samples, and a few of them went back to school and brought their friends back to try some. It seemed like half the students liked our Tangerine flavor, while the other half loved the Acai Blueberry.

We also ran into a Coke sales woman who didn't realize we had caffeine in our drink. She assumed it was a Vitaminwater knock off, which it is NOT. The sales woman said she hated energy drinks because they were carbonated and tasted bad, and actually said she loved our drink and thought it was great we started up on our own.

This is getting quite long, so I'll let Jake blog about our first interview with a Democrat & Chronicle reporter.

Seeya next time
-Mike

Piggyback Jack... Jake

noreply@blogger.com (Jake) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:24:00 +0000

Piggybacking on the previous blog sesh, we are definitely having to adjust our game plan. Constantly. The first week was almost no sales, a car accident :D (nothing major but quite funny), and a general sense of failure.

We have learned that the home town advantage is really important to play up as well as focusing on the fact that we are an energy water instead of a standard "energy drink." We are getting better at the sales game and are slowly working out from our home area.

The first goal was to get into local stores so people could actually buy our beverage. Now that we are crossing that bridge, the next one is getting people to the stores and website to actually buy our drink. We have a few different things planned and will be starting that up this weekend as Mike mentioned.

The biggest barriers we have and are still facing is exactly what we have been told by those with experience in the industry... we have no background in the beverage world and we constantly need funding. I quote "If you don't feel a general sense of panic and urgency you are doing something wrong." Check on that one. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way being negative just keeping it real... yo. Holla. I digress.

Luckily in the next few weeks we have some big meetings, are setting up a board of advisers and getting our PR campagin in order. I have also started getting in contact with some bars for the winter season. That way you can avoid the cold outdoors with some tangy and delicious treats!

It is also good to hear that people are whispering about our company in the area. I am running into people who have heard about it or talked with someone we do not directly know, which is always refreshing.

See you next time Vital Vixens... and Vikings? hmmm need something catchy.
-Jake

In stores at last!

michael.joseph@enertiabev.com (Mike) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:33:00 +0000

After 6 months of hard work, we have finally launched and are on sale around Rochester, NY, as well as online. Prices on our website are somewhat steeper than we had wanted, but liquid weighs a lot and isn't cheap to ship.

Selling to stores has been a learning experience. Both in becoming salesmen, and learning the intricacies of the beverage industry. Unfortunately you can't just create a drink and expect a store to purchase it from you. Some stores sell their cooler space to companies, others have exclusive contracts with major brands or distributors (like Coke or Pepsi....boo), and some stores are owned by corporations that require you to sell to the corporation instead of an individual store, as well as pay a shelf space fee for each store the corporation owns.

It'd be nice to have major dollars and a sales force to be nationally distributed quickly, but no such luck here! We're going at it the old fashioned way.

Our first few days of sales, we struck out at 95% of stores for various reasons. We came up with a new game plan that landed us in 10 stores the following day! We've found luck selling to mom and pop deli's, pizza shops, and non corporate gas stations and convenience stores. It's difficult to tell which convenience stores are corporately owned, and which are independent, so we've had to literally go to each store and meet the owners bright and early in the morning.

We're trying to focus on stores near college campuses, hospitals, and high schools because these are the main demographic for energy drinks (we consider ourselves an energy water, and a direct competitor of energy drinks in general).

We experimented with promoting Vital Energy at RIT and UofR this past weekend, but we quickly realized that Labor Day weekend is not a very busy weekend. It seems like everyone decided to BBQ with their families. At any rate, it was another learning experience, and next weekend we'll nail it.

This coming weekend we'll officially begin our marketing and promotional campaign (guerrilla style of course). We'll be at RIT campus on Saturday, and near the Pittsford Village Thursday or Friday, so come find us if you want a free sample!

Here are some more pictures of our first shipment, and Vital Energy in some coolers!

Drink on...
-Mike