Discover how Carbliss achieved 27,000 percent growth in three years
When Adam Kroener, Carbliss President and Co-founder, and his wife were on a keto diet looking for a flavorful cocktail with no sugar or carbohydrates, they were both disappointed by the seltzers on offer. After experimenting with vodka, sparkling water and natural extracts, Carbliss began to emerge.
Adam outlines the initial inception: “When we first tried seltzers they had a good nutrition panel, but not much flavor. Over the next few months as I began making vodka lemonades that didn’t have carbs or sugar, we discovered that consumers drinking a lot of these seltzers didn’t enjoy the taste either and drank them to avoid feeling guilty about the nutritional aspects of conventional drinks. That’s when we realized there could really be a market for this.”
Adam goes on to explain the product range the company offers today. “We have two product lines: flavors and cocktails. The cocktails include Moscow mule, mojitos, palomas, and margaritas. They are all zero carbohydrates, zero sugar, and only 100 calories with five percent ABV. We find having a range with simple flavors benefits the consumer, because for example, if you don’t like black cherry, you’re probably not going to like black cherry and lime. So, maintaining a range with singular flavors ensures there’s something for everyone.”
Having a fantastic range of products is only part of the recipe for the phenomenal revenue growth Carbliss has experienced over the last three years. Reflecting on the achievement of 27,000 percent growth, Adam elaborates on the company’s approach. “While that figure is amazing, it’s fun to realize we have only sold to 15 percent of the US population. We have a backyard-to-backyard approach. Many businesses launch a product in the beverage space in a wide and shallow way, trying to create a broad reach. This approach can often lose its traction after about six months or so because the engagement was shallow. We do the opposite; we roll out in a narrow and deep way making sure that we maximize community engagement. So, we’ll focus on smaller regions and make sure we have local representatives, to become really ingrained in local communities. This almost requires the consumer to keep thinking about us because we are active in these spaces. Then once we feel like we have cemented our presence in an area we will expand to the surrounding geographical locations.”
Adam believes this strategy is part of what gives Carbliss the edge over its much maturer, more established competition. “In the US there is a very big ready to drink (RTD) company that’s owned by a very prominent family in the industry, they are the biggest in the US and to my knowledge we are the only business to have beaten them in terms of sales in an individual state. From a data perspective if we exist in a state, then they are not the leader, they lead everywhere else, but not in the states in which we operate.”
Productive partnerships
Adam circles back to reiterate the importance of the company’s approach to competing with more established brands. “Alongside our narrow and deep rollout strategy, we have the best supply and distribution partners in the industry. Working with partners like Red Boot Beverage has helped transform our business. They were the first manufacturers to really help us scale. It’s become a bit of a cliché, and I really believe a rising tide lifts all boats. If I can help our partners win, and make more money, then they’ll fight for me when we encounter challenges, and vice versa. With Red Boot Beverage for example, we are now doing over 25 times the product we initially produced with them only three years ago. Because of our approach to working together and the trust we have with each other, this partnership still operates on a handshake agreement.
“I view business to business relationships like a marriage,” Adam explains. “If there are multiple reasons why we came together to do business, why would I leave
that relationship to save ten cents on a case of product. It would make no sense; you wouldn’t leave your wife because you met someone slightly smarter. We are careful not to negatively impact these relationships. If we need to introduce a new supplier to ensure some redundancy, we make sure the business with our existing partner is protected first. This approach also means being honest with each other. If we encounter a problem, we are very honest about what we need from that partner to move forward. We know our partners will deliver, so if we encounter a problem, we communicate openly and work to improve the areas that need it. You can’t ask for more than that.”
Adam goes on: “A good example of how this relationship works for both of us occurred last year, when we needed to increase production. I offered an extra dollar on each case, and his response was ‘that’s brilliant’, and on the condition that it goes to the people making it, not to the business’. A lot of companies would have just put that towards the bottom line, but we were able to give bonuses and merch to the whole team of people working on the plant floor.
“I’d like to give a special thanks to many of our current partners. At the very beginning we needed a way to formulate our product for scale from what we were making in our home kitchen. Sovereign Flavors has been there from inception and now leads us through innovation. Sovereign has grown with us and continues to be a vital part of our business process to bring current and new products to market.
“Every product created uses natural colors that are provided by Sensient Colors. It has taken a lot of learning to utilize these properly in markets and it’s been sensational to have partners that are prepared to grow with us and be an advocate for natural color in this space.
“We had many partnerships that we started with that worked well (Sovereign and Sensient on the supply side are the only two remaining) and there are a few that started with us early on that helped us scale well. One is Red Boot Beverage, which was proof for us that we could find great partners in the manufacturing space. The other is Norka. We had changed chipboard suppliers two times already and it was challenging every time. Norka took a bet on us, and it has worked out well for both family-owned brands.
“Recently, we needed more redundancy in our supply chain for our inner box packaging and are happy to have added Green Bay Packaging, another local board supplier that is able to ensure we can scale nationally over the coming years.”
Proven approach
Carbliss has a similar approach to its own staff. “My favorite statistic about the business,” Adam explains, “is that over this period of growth, once we have decided we want somebody on board, no one has quit.” This has a lot to do with how the company maintains its internal as well as its external relationships. “We try to treat our people like contributing adults, which sounds trivial and often these situations are over corporatized with too many rules. We have adult conversations, if a mistake is made, then we sit down and have a conversation about how it came about and what we need to do going forward. Ninety-nine times out of 100 mistakes are made because people didn’t realize something and so an adult conversation can rectify it without it blowing out of proportion.”
As with any huge milestone, achieving these astonishing growth figures has not always been plain sailing. Adam outlines how the company has overcome some of these challenges. “While our growth has been fairly organic, our banking partner, The Bank of America has really helped us. We were in a position where we could have grown more if we had enough money, but I didn’t want to fundraise from venture capital,” he concludes. “Their partnership has meant we have been able to continue our proven approach as we continue rolling out to more new areas.”