Jeff Popkin: CEO of Ghost Tequila

Episode 500

In this episode, Jeff Popkin, CEO of Ghost Tequila, shares the story behind the unique brand, the process of infusing ghost pepper into tequila, the target market and pricing, and the role of celebrities in branding. Jeff also shares his experience working on a smaller brand and the challenges of building a tequila company. He provides advice for launching a new brand, emphasizing the importance of having the right people, a solid plan, and a passion for what you are doing. So many lessons. So much inspiration. Listen now on this episode of #TheKaraGoldinShow.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be you just want to make sure you will get knocked down but just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go Let’s go. Hi, everyone. It’s Kara Goldin from the Kara Goldin show and I am super excited to have my next guest. Here we have Chef Popkin, who, frankly, is kind of a legend, if you have not heard of Jeff Popkin and, and I should say, if you are not in the beverage industry, I’m telling you right now he is a legend in the beverage industry, and so excited to have him here. He is the CEO today of ghost tequila, he has set amazing precedence along the way and helping to build many companies. Jeff, he and I met when he was at vita, Coco, but he is a veteran from Red Bull and Coors and Jaeger Meister incredible brands that Jeff has been instrumental and helping to build out those brands. He is not the founder, he is a senior executive who comes in and really helps do work alongside the founders typically, or comes in to be the CEO and helping to build these brands. So, so much wisdom, I’m sure we are going to hear from Jeff but definitely definitely was excited to see him jumping into the ghost tequila company. I hadn’t actually tried gos tequila prior but Jeff definitely being attached to this brand had be very curious about it. And I do love tequila for sure. So I love the ghost pepper essence, which unlike other peppers, really has kind of a unique taste to it. So if you haven’t tried it, we’re gonna have all the info in the show notes at the end. But I very, very excited to have you here, Jeff. Kara,

Jeff Popkin 2:29
it’s so good to see you. Again. It’s been too long. And I really, really appreciate you having me on. It’s great to reconnect with you. And I’m looking forward to this. I’m very excited. Super

Kara Goldin 2:40
excited. So tell us the story behind the ghost tequila brand.

Jeff Popkin 2:46
So ghost tequila, you know, the one of the tag lines that’s with the brand when I before I got here and stays with the brand is born in a bar, not a boardroom. And then I kind of added our movie set, you know, since there’s so many celebrity tequilas out there. So truly is something that was born in a bar, the founder of this brand. And you’re right, I’m not the founder, you know, I’m not courageous enough, I don’t think to do that to actually find something and go all in and do what a founder does. So I have complete and total respect for Chris Moran, who’s the founder of the brand co founder, together with David Gordon, co founder of ghosts tequila. And it’s really you know, just taking the all the all the idea of how do you make a spicy tequila, and what goes into a spicy tequila because there’s so much struggling at the bartender level with muddling with doing all kinds of things and fusing to do spicy drinks. And spicy as you know, is quite the sensation. It has been for some time now. But it’s really starting to apex in 2023 2024 and is projected to continue growth. But yeah, so he started, he started working in a bar in he was bartender in Boston Market, he started working hard on doing all kinds of infused tequilas, and he landed on the ghost pepper, because the ghost pepper has this way of providing this spice that’s very neutral so it comes through and almost like a spicy sensation. And so we’ve trademark that is perfectly spicy, totally unique, completely different than any other spicy that’s out there, in in the spirits business, because all the other spices have a tendency to be what’s kind of a simple spice where the spice just takes over the drink. So like jalapeno spice, for example, would be a simple spice that just makes the drink tastes like a jalapeno instead of like ghost where it allows the flavor of the cocktail to shine through and ghost just pokes through with the spicy sensation. So it’s really quite, you know, quite a unique liquid which is why I joined the team and started recruiting all everyone I know and have worked with in my career to come in here and help scale this sprint. So

Kara Goldin 4:50
the ghost pepper I’m very familiar with it, but how do you infuse that then into the tequila just in terms of the process?

Jeff Popkin 4:58
Yeah, so we take we start with a 100% agave, so that’s no it’s 100% high quality, lowland and Highland, but coffee, you know, we look for GAVI of that 35 to 36, or above Brix range, which is the sweetness level of natural, natural Agave sugars that go in. And post distillation. So after that tequila is made, we haven’t beautiful Blanco tequila, they’re really smooth, little sweet on the nose. And then post distillation, we use an all natural blend of ghost peppers that we put in the tequila as we bottle it at the distillery. So those tequila you couldn’t make those tequila in a bar if you tried, you know, you couldn’t take ghost peppers and try to engineer it in the bar. And that’s the beautiful thing about ghost is every taste is the same. You know, it’s it’s engineered for scale, really. So the bartender doesn’t have to muddle you put goes tequila, for the perfectly spicy, you know, I like to try to get one on any menu that really showcase what perfectly spicy means. I’m trying to get two drinks on the menu, one and a traditional Margarita type flavor mango watermelon, whatever the margarita flavor, and the other like a non traditional tequila drink like a Espresso Martini. Ghost and an Espresso Martini is killer. Because you get the sweetness, you get the coffee, the chocolate, and then you get this little spicy sensation that pokes through. And that to me is like the perfect platform. It’s like really a platform of perfectly spicy. That’s

Kara Goldin 6:25
awesome. So how does this obviously there’s different levels of tequila is the front in terms of a price range? Like who is the target market for this?

Jeff Popkin 6:36
Well, we’ve worked hard. So you know, we like to say that it’s kind of that Margarita drinkers still the number one cocktail in the US as a margarita. Number two is a ranch water. So it’s still along that you know, I would say 5050 Maybe leaning female with the margarita consumption. So we’re targeting that just to get the brand out and then as we get consumers and that’s what we’re using to recruit consumers on drink menus. We are really a we’re 65% on premise today. A true on premise brand. And the idea is when consumers discover us in a bar met you know Mexican food bar or any kind of like Moxie, you and I were talking a little bit about Moxie great upscale Canadian Sports Bar. They discovered their the CES on the menu and they think goes tequila and goes to killing somebody. Don’t forget, you know, there’s so many other tequilas classes, it will cost the zoo, Fletcher zoo, like so many that just kind of start to blend together. Coast tequila stands out and shines through and has what I call that natural brand swagger of you don’t forget it. So when they see it on a menu, they go straight to an off premise package store and they buy goes tequila and they take it home, they make a margarita, you can mix anything with it. So that’s the beauty of kind of the liquid that’s behind goes tequila were priced at $30 price to consumer. And that’s right in the sweet spot. Even with some of the economic headwinds that we experienced in the back half of 23. We’ve seen that it really hasn’t slowed down what goes tequilas doing when we get on a menu care whether it’s right now I think we have the mango Margarita mock season where we’re going in Applebee’s as we speak, and on the border. Those are when we get on the menu, people sample us and they go straight to the stores and bias. So we’re truly using the on premise to scale the offerings as we roll this out.

Kara Goldin 8:21
So obviously, you’ve worked on some amazing brands, some of them older brands like right before this you were at Jagermeister but you’ve worked at Vita Coco as they were growing and not public yet. And all of all of the the heyday of building that brand, I know that they went on the menus of many bars as well. And we’re more of a mixer, but you’re sort of doing the opposite where you’re the actual tequila with the mixer, right? You’re you’re coming in? I mean, have you done I guess Jaeger Maestro was probably the closest to this. Except, obviously, they were much bigger. It was more of a turnaround kind of situation, I guess. But also really different from like, the beer experience that you’ve had to, but still dealing with a lot of distributors and kind of the way to market. But how is this? How is this different for you? And frankly, like, what was so exciting about it to when when you got the phone call to come in and really helped to build us? Yeah,

Jeff Popkin 9:32
it was. To me, I discovered it before I got the phone call. And it’s kind of like it happened, um, work. I also worked with a brand called Fevertree, which is a mixer out of the UK out of London. And that happened when I was at Jagermeister. And it’s kind of funny how fate just kind of happens, but I was doing a podcast for Bev net. And I was talking about Jagermeister I just got the agar Meister and I just had a fever tree ginger ale, and I love ginger ale. It’s one of my So, I had they were started talking about man, it was a brand that I just had. It’s ginger ale and it’s the most ginger forward, you know, liquid I’ve ever had. It makes all these other ginger ales tastes like Sprite and Fevertree. You somehow got that and they called Spencer Stewart, who was the same recruiter that put me into Jagermeister. And I got a board seat at Fevertree. And that was like, while I was at Jagermeister, we saw I flew over there met those guys great guys. And I’m still today, still continuing to work with Fevertree on their board, I go over to London for four or five times a year to do that. And it’s it’s a similar thing of something with beverage brands. I’ve been very fortunate in my career at fall, I find these brands that you can fall in love with Fevertree is one of those Jagermeister was one of those Spencer Stewart called me about Jaeger Meister. And I’ve always been a fan of Jagermeister. And Josh Swan called me about ghosts. So the Jaeger, the Jagermeister journey was a great journey, we did the joint venture with Terra mana tequila at the very end of Jaeger Meister. And I would say that really kind of got me on the tequila train of men, I saw what what Tara Monnet did, which is a great liquid, the rock was the engine behind that liquid, we signed that deal right before COVID. And set records launching in 2122. And watching that, it just kind of made me want to have, you know, as you mentioned, and I’ve been around for a while and made me want to have another journey and compare it more to the Vita Coco journey than I do the Jagermeister journey of taking a brand and scaling it and building a team that all shares in the upside of success of you know, what happens in building that brand. So I wanted to put together I wanted to find a brand that had its proof of concept, you know, of what worked, meaning every brand, every entrepreneur struggles I believe with, you know, you get this idea, and you want to bring it to market, but you really need to know how the consumer is going to react to your proposition. So you can then understand what it takes to scale it. Because it’s always going to be a little different probably for most entrepreneurs, me not being one of them. But for most of knowing how fickle consumer behaviors can be, you really don’t know what you have in your brand and to get it out live in the market. And you see people and you see people react to it. You see people like who is my consumer, and what did they do? And why are they drinking? And how do I. So I wanted to find a brand that had its proof of concept that knew who its consumer was, and wanted to scale. And that’s where I can best add value is bringing in talent, creating the strategies, the commercial strategies, the marketing strategies to scale the brand. And that’s what I found in ghosts. So I found ghost, and Josh wand at Bev force, who I’ve known for a really long time. He called me up after I discovered ghosts, much like the fever tree stuff. So it’s just kind of like another another one of those things where I really started kicking the tires. And ghosts liquid is magic. It’s just magic. There’s nothing like it in the market. So I thought, okay, so we have something here that unique, it’s totally unique. Who’s going to drink this? How are they going to drink it? So I started going deep on it. And the thing I discovered is it was having a lot of success without any marketing. I mean, without really doing any marketing, just bootstrap type stuff, getting on menus, and it started in Boston. And getting on menus doing well on menus, people go to the package stores that buy it. So really the proposition was get behind this brand, build out some marketing content and tell the story of ghost and scale this brand. And so it would to me it was much more simple, simple than looking at all the celebrity brands that are out there and don’t really have a point of difference. That to me, would be a significant, you know, challenge in the sea of tequilas. Because really the celebrity is your differentiator. And for the consumer, I think the liquid has to be the differentiator of what does liquid say to you? And how do you drink it? And speak to you that way? And for us, the liquid is the hero, the celebrity, if you will? Yeah,

Kara Goldin 14:05
definitely. I think you brought up a really good point. I’ve had more entrepreneurs come to me and talk to me about should I get a celebrity involved in the product? And you’ve obviously worked with many over the years. But I’m so curious, like, where do you see that today? Because I feel more than ever, you know, you’ve got co founders One of them’s the celebrity sometimes they have a role inside of the company to we’ve seen that for years, I guess with different brands, but what’s your feeling on on that knowing that that’s kind of your competition out there? I mean, how do you cut through and obviously focusing on the actual product, which is what you’re doing but I’m curious what your thoughts are on on bringing in that celebrity and for a new brand that you know is not as known when do you do that dude, do it

Jeff Popkin 15:01
Yeah It’s Kara it’s a tough one. You know to me, like a Vita Coco we use celebrities a lot Redbull we use celebrities a lot. And in both cases, we always looked at making sure that it was an authentic connection and it was a it was a they truly use the product and they aren’t just mouthpieces and they aren’t just, you know, trying to help you be help you sell your product. In a body cocoa that’s something Mike Qurban was always you know, very passionate about because coconut water was was before it was really a thing it was kind of a tough sell because it was a yoga mom soccer mom type drink men weren’t drinking it. And we were trying to get CSD distributors like Dr. Pepper Snapple group now KDP trying to get them to sell the brand. And they would say, wow, this stuff, you know, you know, I don’t know, it didn’t taste good to me, I don’t like it. This is a drink Diet Coke or a drink, whatever. So there was always people kind of patting us on top of the head and saying, Yeah, that’s a cute little brand, but it’s not for me, you know, and so those are the things that as you overcome those celebrities are a good way to get that mainstream attention of hey, look, Rihanna is drinking Vita Coco or, you know, we used to athletes, Vita, Coco, who, who, like Larry Fitzgerald, football player, Marshawn Lynch, these guys actually drank Vita, Coco, and they were helping make the brand more masculine, so guys would drink it. I think these brands that are that are allowing celebrities to become the face of the brand is a little bit of a slippery slope, in a sense that, you know, if it’s not authentic, it’s very much got a sharp edge to it, that could be a negative at some point in time, if even if it’s authentic, but the celebrity doesn’t have the reach to really be able to be an engine for the brand. And engine meaning trends, you know, having consumers go into stores looking for the brand, then that can be difficult. I think, as an ambassador, in this case, where celebrities can be involved, or they can just create awareness, and kind of integrate the brand into their life, that’s super powerful, especially with social media today where people are showcasing, you know, every part of their life. Authentic and powerful. If that can, that can be the way if it’s just a mouthpiece deal, it doesn’t work, you know, it just doesn’t work in terms of land grab, it may work in the short term, and you might get some hits. But in the long term, the brand, the soul of the brand is exposed at some point. And you know, it would indicate that it doesn’t work. So it’s, I have nothing against celebrity. But to me, your liquids got to stand tall and your brand proposition to the consumer has got to stand tall people aren’t going to drink you. Even if you have the greatest celebrity on the face of the planet if the liquid doesn’t hold up.

Kara Goldin 17:36
Yeah, definitely. Is this the smallest brand you’ve actually worked on? And? Yeah,

Jeff Popkin 17:43
I was just thinking, or when I joined. Yeah, it is the smallest brand I’ve worked on.

Kara Goldin 17:51
That’s exciting. Super, super exciting. So what’s the most difficult part of building a tequila company?

Jeff Popkin 17:58
Well, I mean, it is a long game. So as you know, this is like the you know, in the decision process, there are no shortcuts to glory here. You know, it’s the long game of the right paths. And we’re building the brand on the on premise. And so many brands say, Oh, we’re an on premise brand. Yet when you look at it, most of them are 80% off premise and 20% on premise. So we’re committed to the long term of we’re not looking to you know, open up Walmart and all the off premise package stores to get the big chunk volume. We’re still out there getting on menus, having consumer discovery, and connecting the dots we are focused though on on premise national accounts like Brinker Darden Applebee’s, um, you know Applebee’s, and these guys on the border, because it is an accelerant to how we scale the brand. So we’re trying to get these on premise menus. So as consumers can discover us, and we can kind of build the consumer base one at a time through acquiring and in restaurants. Once we get markets like right now we’re booming in Texas and Florida. You know, thankfully, the number two and three tequila states were booming in those markets. So we’re picking up national accounts like Applebee’s franchisee in Texas, and Northern California, we picked up on the border nationally, which is a big one. So those those have been maxing out. I think I mentioned those have been big for us. And we’re actually we’re smaller than anything I’ve worked on. But you know, we’re we’re gonna do 50 that were last year we did just under 50,009 liter cases this year, which we should be at least 75. This year as fast as we’re growing. We hired a Chief Marketing Officer in October last year, Chris petty, who I worked with a Jaeger Meister. I got him from Jim Beam at Jaeger Meister and he was able to break his arm to get him to come over here and he is just a genius. He is so good. The best marketer I’ve worked with so a brand like goes tequila with the natural brands swagger that it has with a genius like Chris petty putting his you know, brand whisper to the ghost tequila. This brands never had really good content going through the veins of ghost. So I’m excited to see where it takes us.

Kara Goldin 20:04
I had the founder of, of ranch water on a few months ago, and she was talking about how, how the southwest and the West overall I mean, shows like Yellowstone for example. For some reason there’s this big connection with the southwest. You live in Texas. I grew up in Arizona. I love that I think that there is a there’s definitely a need. Today for consumers, they, they love these drinks they tequila has definitely continued to grow. But how do you stay with the trends, I guess, and stay relevant and appealing to existing customers, but also go out and get these new customers? I guess? I don’t know. Like the the spice definitely is something that makes the product unique. But how do you continue to grow in in ways that maybe you haven’t gotten to yet? Obviously, you’re getting into getting on more menus, I mean, is that the trick really is getting on more menus and getting more brand awareness? Like, how can you get that?

Jeff Popkin 21:16
Yes, it is? That’s a great question. And I like that, you know, it is for where we are in this point in time. But it’s different all across the, you know, our lifecycle for ghosts, tequila is different everywhere. So like on the East Coast, in Florida, and in Massachusetts, South Carolina would say, we’re ready for the off premise. So then you got to come up with news and innovation and things that make ghosts more than a one trick pony of things ghosts can do. So we we’ve developed a rep asociado, which is a beautiful repas auto age tequila. So you take Blonko and you aged three to nine months in that range. And it takes on some wood flavor. And so it’s basically like a rye whiskey our our Reparata, which we just launched in January, it tastes a little bit like a rye whiskey, but with agave notes. So it’s more of a sipper than the bloco is but for a premium ranch water, which is the number two cocktail in the US today. I mean, here in Texas man, it used to be Tito’s and soda, every bar you go into, yeah, 75% of the women are drinking Tito’s and soda, and 25% of the men are drinking it. And so it’s like a zero low calorie, nice little cocktail. Now we’re doing that with our representative as the plan will do that ranch premium ranch water, a little bit of Topo, Chico or even a little bit of you know, some kind of a CSD or a hint, you know, throw a splash a hint in there, I’m sure that would work. Excellent. So that would be what we’re doing with the reposado. But that gets us also some additional space in the off premise. Because today this is one of the things that’s different. I’ve had this conversation with a lot of people in spirits business, you know, Tito beverage, started Tito’s tequila and did couch surfing forever and ever thought to get he was just one SKU like a 750 of Tito’s, you know, eventually brought one leader and but one flavor, one SKU and he stayed to it. People say oh, you need innovation. You gotta come with flavored, you know, flavored vodka, because everybody’s doing flavors, you got it. And he’d stayed, you know, to that one thing. And he did an amazing job. I say to that times have changed news and this dynamic industry and dynamic consumer. Look at how dynamic that consumer space has gotten. It’s incredible. It’s just incredible. So you have to have news and you to have that news, you got to have innovation. So you got to have an innovation process and an innovation engine that can crank out things that you see as consumer trends evolve, that you can land your innovation right at the right time. And that’s some honestly Fevertree does a terrific job, with their flavor innovation of how they get looking at mixology as a mixer brand, how they land their innovation right ahead of right on time for consumer trends. They had a pink grapefruit that came out two summers ago as a diploma and tequila that just was did an awesome great stuff. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 24:06
they have amazing products.

Jeff Popkin 24:08
I mean, to me, it’s about consumer news in this dynamic, you know, space of in I wish I could have got our marketing in a little earlier, because I think we’re a little bit behind, you know, in terms of the air cover, but man, the content I see coming up already is excellent. We just did. We’re doing a little Valentine’s Day thing that we just kicked off right now of getting ghosted. The theme is getting ghosted. I

Kara Goldin 24:32
love it. So, yeah, that’s gonna, that’s gonna be a lot of fun. So, so best advice, knowing what you know, today, you’ve been involved with some incredible brands obviously goes to Keela is, you know, just on its way to huge success. I know. But what what would be the biggest advice you would give to somebody who’s thinking about launching a new brand And I, you touched on some of this, but like team obviously is so important marketing is so important things that you think are just absolutely critical beyond the actual product to growing a company, what would you say are? You know, I don’t know, top five top couple, however you want to answer that.

Jeff Popkin 25:20
I know, I know this. I know number one on the list is you got to have the right people. And to me, and I’ve always had a recipe of what I look for in people have always spent like the first 15 minutes of interviews, like just trying to get to know who the person is. And once I get the person to a natural state where they’re not in interview mode, where they didn’t do the greatest things in the world, on every question, you know, how people get, you know, when you’re interviewing, and I’m told by our European friends, it’s kind of a US thing. You know, like, it’s hard to have a really candid interview, because everybody comes into the interview ready to tell what how amazing they are. So you spend, I spend as long as it takes to get them comfortable with no nerves or anything and just start talking to people just talking, and then start getting into like, what really makes them run? Like, what are the things that you know, make them run, and I look for people that have competitive history that like to compete, because I say being in the beverage business, it’s like being a professional athlete and not having to be athletic. Because you got a scoreboard you have you build a team, and you’re trying to help your teammates win the brand. And so I’m always looking for people that compete in some way. It could be a chess club, it could be athletics, it could be whatever, just naturally competitive. And then I look for people who have heart for the brand that you’re selling. You know, in other words, if they when someone hasn’t done their research on a brand, even if I’m in love with if we’ve been talking for an hour and us to get to the point where I’m like, So tell me, what do you think of goes tequila? And they say, Well, I have no much I don’t, why don’t you tell me about it. That’s kind of a bummer. You know, it’s kind of like you want someone who can really connect to the brand and understand really, you know, personally use the brand, be able to give testimonials, be able to overcome two three objections from someone you’re selling the brand to be able to sit next to somebody on an airplane, just infectious, like enthusiasm for the brand, because it matters because it does. It’s not all rainbows and lollipops. You know, you get a lot of setbacks, you get a lot of real challenging circumstances that if you don’t have that passion for the brand, it’s easy to duck and roll. It’s okay. Well, it’s not for everybody see, like, you know, instead of fighting for the brand at every, at every option, and I think that is like, so critical. And it’s hard to find, you know, because you got to, if you don’t spend that time up front in the interview, you don’t really, you know, a lot of people are really good salespeople, and they can convince you they love the brand when they really haven’t even tasted the brand. And so you got to really go deep on that, especially for leadership positions, which I would put as a higher importance because they’re the ones that have to look in the eye and are basically committing their their lives to to the journey. But so once you get the people part right, then you got to get the plan part right and set up people to be successful. And that’s where it starts to compete. And I think back to the Vita Coco days, we had so many in this way that reminds me so much it goes to Vita Coco, of, you know, the mental image of people patting the brand on top of the head and saying it’s a cute little brand. You know, Vita, Coco coconut water, it’s going to be cute. Good. Good luck, man. It’s going to be nice. I’m sure you’ll do fine. You know, those kinds of things. You probably heard some of that. I definitely have. Yeah, yeah. And that just inspires me more. You know, that just makes me think, you know, how are they not seeing this? What I see. And then it was that way, if it populates that way a little bit. It goes like, how big can a spicy tequila be? It’s like, well, let me tell you. Chipotle has a spicy scent. I mean, there’s a spicy variant in every consumer packaged goods, business, whether it’s fast food, whether it’s grocery, I mean, Asian food, Mexican food, you name it, it’s been around forever. And spicy is a big part of it. And what I love about ghost and while it’s like, it’s not a simple spice, it’s like a really complicated spice that pokes through without overpowering the flavor of what it’s in. And that’s kind of the spice that unique, you know, so that’s where goes to me, there’s nothing like it, you know? And when someone Pat’s it on the head and says, That’s a cute little brand, you know, maybe, I don’t know, you know, it’s too, it’s not for me, it’s like, okay, okay, you’ll see, you’ll see. Yeah. But you want to have people that can fight for that and people that it’s like, part of one of my lines in interviews, like if you want to work at a big company, and you want to just have Do your thing where your process and your work, and you’re not really noticed that much because your job may not be each rep I’m sure jobs important, but there’s so many people doing similar things to you’re doing. It’s hard to break through and it’s hard to stand out. And it really doesn’t. It’s not like every day somebody’s calling you saying How’d your day go? So you’re not really in the spotlight. If you want to work on this spotlight in an entrepreneurial journey, it’s like everyone on the team is conscious of what everyone else on the team is doing. And trying to help one another out to where it truly is being like being on a sports team, like watching the Superbowl last night. I mean, it’s like being a part of the Kansas City Chiefs. You know, what Travis Kelce is doing, you know, what Patrick mahomes is doing, you know, what every player on the field is doing. And you can’t get that kind of experience in a big company. It’s very difficult to with all due respect, it’s you I’m sure you can if you’re on a project team that’s critical to the, you know, an acquisition or I mean, you can get similar, but in entrepreneurial experience, there’s nothing like it in terms of how, how would a thrilling journey it can be? Yeah,

Kara Goldin 30:42
no, absolutely. It’s, it’s, it’s such a big difference. And then obviously, having a great product and doing, you know, continuing to get that story out there of how it’s different. You know, you’re definitely educating a lot of people about the product, but also getting it out there in terms of taste, getting people to, you know, lips to mouth and getting them to really enjoy it and experience it. So it’s very, very exciting. I’m excited for you. For sure, because it’s, you know, definitely a little bit smaller brand than what I’ve seen you do before but I know it’s they’ve hit a homerun getting you involved. So it’s very exciting.

Jeff Popkin 31:27
And you care. That’s really kind of you to say the in it. Listen, I I’m so excited to be here and be with you and reconnect. It’s it’s been a it’s been a thrill. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 31:37
definitely. Well, thank you again. And thanks, everybody for joining us. Today. We’ll have all the info for both tequila and Jeff Popkin in the show notes, but appreciate you and your wisdom. Jeff. Thanks again.

Jeff Popkin 31:50
Here. Thanks for the opportunity. And thank you.

Kara Goldin 31:53
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book undaunted, where I share more about my journey including founding and building hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and good bye for now.

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