2022 Reflection

Hey everyone!

First and foremost I just wanted to wish a happy new year to all our loyal people out there. We appreciate you coming on this journey with us so, so much. I know I say it a lot, but just wanted to remind you all that we value your feedback and put it to use. One of the great things about an employee-run small business is that we all see, read, and make changes based on customer feedback, and we do it quickly. As we gear up for another year, it feels important to remind everyone of that.

Feedback has really shaped this company. Many of you will recall that we launched it with a hypothesis that people would appreciate their daily dose of apple cider vinegar in small, concentrated doses. We launched with both our single shots and our 16oz multi-serves, which totally bombed. We talked to customers who would walk right past our big bottles and buy our much more expensive shots of the same product. What we kept hearing was convenience, convenience, convenience. So we went with that.

As our audience and selling channels have grown, the feedback has gotten louder, and sometimes meaner. I think at first people understood that we were just a little organic business that they had discovered and were more understanding. Now that we're on Amazon and in big retailers like CVS, people can be harsh. Being on the receiving end of customer service has been a great reminder to be gracious and understanding as a consumer. But nevertheless, we understand. People spend their hard-earned money on our products and have certain expectations, and we constantly strive to meet them.

I've also learned that you can't make everybody happy. One person's trash is another's treasure, as they say. But it has been interesting to see some people proclaim a product as a life-changing elixir from the heavens, and have others bash it as a disgusting, ineffective waste of money. We've learned to integrate both responses, by striving to make changes to address the negative reviews without compromising the attributes leading to the positive ones.

For example, people love that our products are certified organic. It demonstrates a level of transparency and trust that our customers value. But it also means that we can't use certain ingredients that give competitors the occasional edge. Our drink mixes are made of real fruit powders and ingredients, so they don't mix as well as the powders out there that are basically just bags of chemicals. Competitors in the energy shot space use sucralose to sweeten theirs, giving it that artificial sweetness that some people love. But it has highly dubious health properties, and I'd rather shut our business down than put it in our shots. The list goes on.

So, let us know what you love and hate. Every company needs a reason to exist, and we have ours, but they are meaningless without you. Our DM's are open, my email is on every bottle, I've even texted with some ecomm subscribers.

Hope you all have an amazing start to your year, and thanks again.

Ethan