Halfday Ice Tea (Part 1) - How a Dorm Room Idea Disrupted Iced Tea

Ramon Vela (00:02.629)
Welcome back everyone. This is going to be a great show. have an amazing guest. Please welcome Mike Lombardo, who is co-founder and CEO of Half Day Ice Tea. Welcome to the show.

Mike (00:32.322)
Hey, what's going on, Ramon? Thanks for having me.

Ramon Vela (00:34.437)
Well, I appreciate your time and I know you're building a business. so I really, I'm just so appreciative of you taking a little bit of time speaking to me and our listeners about the brand, about what you're doing, about, you know, life in general. But, but really I love to introduce these brands to our listeners. And I'm sure a lot of people know who you guys are.

I knew who you were before I even tasted it. So I've seen you on social media and whatnot. So I'm excited about this. but I wanted to give our listeners sort of the insight story a little bit about the brand. but before we begin, I love to start off my conversations around a question of gratitude. And just for anyone out there who's new to listening, I like to ask this question for a couple of reasons. One is, well, maybe multiple reasons.

One is it's a great way to start a conversation about the journey of a brand because there's so much to be grateful for. There's so many people along the way that help you. And I think this is a great way to start off, but it's also a great tool. Gratitude, whether you journal, whether you pray, whether you meditate like I do, whatever it is, it's a great way to relieve stress and anxiety. And I know there's a lot of people feeling that right now with the economy, with geopolitical wars, with politics, whatever it is.

You know, we're all feeling it a little bit. So this is a great tool and I highly recommend it. The other reason is I want you out there listening to know that there's real people behind these companies that we feature on the show. It's so easy to see a brand, a product online, on the shelf and just sort of think like, oh, it's just another large conglomerate and just a business, what not. But there are real people who believe sweat and tear.

over bringing a product to market. And I want you to know that because they care so much about the quality, about their customers. And I just want you to get to know someone and, you know, I'm sort of humanizing this whole process here and I want you to get to know who we're speaking to. So with that said, Mike, if you don't mind, share a moment or a memory when someone did something for you that just made you feel grateful because it meant that they believed in you, your vision or your potential.

Mike (02:51.81)
Yeah, for sure. So Ramon, mean, grateful to be here. think, you know, we started this company so long ago. It's been such a journey. And when I think back to some of the moments that were super impactful for us, there's a handful of them. You know, I could speak for Kayvon and say that, you know, he's grateful for, you know, our original meeting with this retail buyer who

We reached out to on LinkedIn. This was kind of during COVID and we didn't really know anybody. And we kind of had this idea of a better for you, AST, and we had the brand and like, we had these bench top samples and we reached out on LinkedIn and this buyer. and we didn't expect this, but she took the meeting and she loved the concept so much, that she gave us our first retailer award ever without having ever tried samples. Cause we didn't have any. So very glad she didn't ask for samples. We only had a bench top formula and we were given a very short window to get

Ramon Vela (03:38.235)
Okay.

Mike (03:44.178)
the product there in time for the resets. But that is something where I'm like, I don't know if we'd be here today if she hadn't taken that meeting and gotten us off the ground and gotten us our initial, you know, store award. And so that's when I know speaking for Kayvon that that's one that like, he landed that meeting and super grateful for that. And I want to speak to one other if you don't mind, I don't know how many of these I should share. Okay, great. Yeah, so

Ramon Vela (03:46.224)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (04:05.125)
Sure, yeah, please do. No, no, yeah.

Mike (04:09.836)
There, it's kind of two things. So we started this whole journey in college and I graduated a while ago at this point, but the original concept started while I was in college and our university, I think really believing in us. We went to Rowan University in South Jersey and they were...

I would say beyond pivotal in our ability to take this thing from an idea and get it off the ground. They let us use it for class projects going into my senior year. I had all these marketing like capstone courses and there were like, I had to do like a marketing plan class and we had to create a mock marketing plan. And I would just go to every professor in every class and I would just ask if I could use this real company I was trying to build. So I didn't have to basically do that work twice. And they were all really generous in that and

Ramon Vela (04:35.653)
you

Ramon Vela (04:52.347)
Yeah.

Mike (04:56.374)
let us use this thing. And because they saw how much we were working on it for school projects, they encouraged us to do this, this new venture competition where we basically got up there like shark tank style and pitched. And there was like judges and everything and we won first place. So that was like a really pivotal moment, think, like getting that initial check to be able to kick the company off. So the professors then went on to, some of them invested directly. We did the school's incubator program. They connected us with people that could help us.

with the formulation work in the early days. So it was really a couple of very impactful things, I think, for Kevan and I in those early days that helped us to get this thing off the ground. And we're definitely very grateful for that.

Ramon Vela (05:37.079)
yeah, man. Well, you know, it really turns out that when you look back, you know, a lot of people look at the life of an entrepreneur on social media and whatnot, and they just think it's it's, you know, it's just like this one individual or two individuals kind of against the world.

And, you know, sometimes it is, but the reality is that, know, entrepreneurs are not islands. There's a lot of people who along the way, even people indirect, you know, like loved ones and families and family members and brothers and sisters and whatever, like everyone, like there's a lot of people that kind of help you along the way. And your examples really go to the heart of the question because that buyer, that first example you gave, that buyer,

She didn't have the samples, she didn't try it, but what she was investing in, what she was really counting on was your guy's passion, your love for what you're doing, your idea, but really the passion around what you're doing. mean, she took a huge gamble, you know what mean?

Mike (06:37.964)
She did. Yeah, she made a joke about it later. She's like, my co-workers thought I was crazy for bringing in a product without tasting it, but I just knew it would taste good. And when she finally had it, she was like, I knew it. But what a gamble for sure on her part.

Ramon Vela (06:48.785)
Yeah, yeah, and so that really, I mean, that actually speaks volumes to about you and Kayvon. Because she was invested at that point, she was investing in you guys. That's a gamble she was taking. She was betting on you guys. And, and then you guys came through and now you guys are where you where you are right now. So that really is amazing. That really is when you think about it. So thanks for sharing that.

Mike (07:16.556)
Yeah, of course. Thank you, man.

Ramon Vela (07:18.565)
Yeah, and I just want to also say is that we were also just as a quick note, we were also going to have Kayvon here and he's unfortunately not able to make it. Kayvon is your co-founder.

And unfortunately, he's not here. We just kind of referred to him right now. He's one of the co-founders. He wanted to be here. But what we're going to do is, and this is by the time you're seeing this, everyone, there's not going to be an issue here, but we're going to add it on at the end of this interview. We'll add on a little portion that we're going to do with him. So hear his side of the story as well. So let's start off, kind of take it from where you guys.

from where you guys were. Oh, and by the way, that university, I that's what, I almost feel like that's what universities should be doing, right? Like they should be encouraged. Like if you're in that particular situation, you're already doing it, that's what they should be doing. But I know a lot of universities may not do that. So it's really, know, kudos to them to seeing your passion and saying like, hey, you know, we're gonna support you. And by the way, you're gonna include it in your schoolwork and all that. So it's pretty cool.

Mike (08:28.034)
Yeah, we're really fortunate with the timing of everything too. They had just kicked off this entrepreneurship program that had cash invested into it to basically invest and give grant money to startups that were...

coming out of the school. So it was really great timing for us too. And that program has grown so much too since we graduated. So I think we'll continue to see like really cool companies and founders coming out of the university there. But we were definitely on the earlier side of that program. And it's really great to see how they continue to foster that sort of ecosystem and environment of entrepreneurship. They're very passionate about it. And yeah, it's really cool.

Ramon Vela (09:04.817)
Yeah. That's fantastic. And shout out to them. And so, you you guys have been at it now since at least what, 2018? Is that?

Mike (09:17.238)
Yeah, technically the original version of the company was July of 2017. We had this idea and I'm sure we'll get into all that, but you know, wasn't a real business for several years, but it was, we originally had this whole concept in July of 2017.

Ramon Vela (09:35.025)
Mm-hmm. um, pitch us the, so imagine that we're in that Whole Foods meeting or that is it Whole Foods, right? It was Whole Foods. Imagine, oh, go ahead.

Mike (09:46.998)
I was going say actually this first retailer was a store called Giant and it's at a PA.

Ramon Vela (09:52.274)
Oh, giant. Okay. Yeah. So, um, so imagine it is, uh, giant and we are the woman that came on, was able to book a meeting with, you don't have to go through every little thing, but in essence, walk us through what that initial concept was that you guys described to her.

Mike (10:14.606)
Yeah, we, so we started off with sort of like, if you look at the ICT category as a whole, you know, it's an $8 billion category or so.

And it's kind of stagnant in the sense that the last innovation that we had seen kind of came from brands that launched, the average age of the biggest players in the space is almost 50 years old. And so it's been a really long time since there's been any innovation in the category. As we dug in, you know, the data showed that it showed comparable.

sort of trajectories as carbonated soft drinks, where like, it was kind of stagnant or flat in terms of the growth to the category because consumers were kind of over the sugar and the junk that was in those products. they're starting to, and basically these other, you know, functional soda brands started to show up in the space and consumers were gravitating toward them because of how they like serve that need that those consumers have. And we saw the same thing happening in iced tea. And, and I think it's important to note that this all happened really organically for

us. So we were making iced tea. This isn't how we walked through the pitch, but we kind of did. we were making iced tea in Kayvon's kitchen, mixing prebiotics in, and we kind of had this gut feeling that there was nothing really speaking to us as millennial and Gen Z consumers. And so it was kind of this comparison to what we saw in carbonated soft drinks. And we kind of made this argument that the iced tea category is prime for the taking. It needs to be shaken up. It needs to be disrupted by a young new brand.

brand that serves the modern consumer what they want. And we're here to create that. And so that was sort of the initial pitch. And what we've created and what we presented to her was that we basically were creating a better for you iced tea that it's made with prebiotics for gut health, and it only has three to five grams of sugar per can. And the big important part of this is that it has the same classic taste of iced tea that we knew and loved growing up.

Ramon Vela (12:17.457)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (12:17.582)
And so that was sort of what we wanted to tackle. And I think that that was what they really resonated with. This concept was one that excited them. And to clarify on the time, and this was around 2021 as well. So it took years for us to get this kind of refined as sort of a side project in college and then post college. And eventually to that pitch that I sort of described to you here.

Ramon Vela (12:44.753)
Yeah, and you know, it feels like it was a little bit ahead of its time. I mean, I know that there were some probiotics coming out around that time. You know, I think by that time I was already interviewing Ollipop. Yeah, I think it was 2020 or 2021 when I first interviewed Ollipop. It might have been 2019, but it still fairly early. And most people didn't know what that market was going to be like, right? Because now you have

Mike (13:08.045)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (13:14.457)
Ollipop, but then now you have others like Poppy and others like that. So now we know, ooh, a, this gut health is a big market. It's a, it's a growing trend. You've got bars, you've got powders, you've got all sorts of companies now. That's what they're focused on. Probiotics, gut health, fiber, whatever it is. But this whole trend has really taken off now. You guys didn't, it wasn't, it was.

It was an opportunity back then, but it wasn't a fully formed market yet, or it wasn't really where it is today. So in some ways you guys were sort of gambling as well.

Mike (13:52.706)
Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. Like I think when we initially started it, we didn't actually realize what we had, which is I think one of the interesting things about this journey for us. So I mentioned going all the way back to 2017, Kayvon was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 2015. And so, and he was 18 at the time. And so he was young and he was just sort of looking for ways after. me backpedal a little bit. Like if we talk about Kayvon's story, like he, when he was diagnosed, it was really bad. He was hospitalized for three months. He lost 80 pounds.

We kind of share a lot of that story on our website and everything. And so what he ended up doing when he got out of the hospital was looking for ingredients and foods and just natural ways that he could improve his microbiome health. And he started mixing. One of the things he discovered was prebiotics and he liked probiotics and all that. Kombuchas were, you know, on the come up at that time around 2015, 2016 and

Ramon Vela (14:22.865)
Hmm.

Mike (14:46.112)
he had discovered prebiotics and started mixing them into the tea that he was making every day. So it was hot tea, he would have it multiple times a day, and he would put prebiotic ingredients in there to just sort of help work that into his routine. And I think that's what's interesting about it is like, we were kind of doing this and we didn't realize what we had. And then one summer, you I never thought anything of it for those years that he was doing this. And then one summer he shared this iced tea version with me. And I actually think about it, like I almost didn't try

And I think about that a lot. Like, wow, where would I be? He asked me to try it and I said, no. was like, I only want, like the only tea I liked was like sugary iced teas. Like I, you know, I didn't want whatever he had been making and this like healthy iced tea. And he convinced me to taste it. And I was like, this is really good. And we kind of initially took that concept and thought maybe we could.

Ramon Vela (15:17.169)
you

Mike (15:38.986)
set up like a glorified lemonade stand, like at a farmer's market where we're just making iced tea and serving it to customers. And the actual purpose, my intent at the time was I was going into my senior year of college.

And I thought maybe this would make a good resume builder as like a quote unquote internship because I hadn't had one. And I was like the idea of doing something on our own, I think would look really good on a resume. And so that eventually snowballed into, we never ended up doing the farmer's market approach. We ended up working on like, how do we bottle this and sell it on store shelves? And so that was like kind of this like natural thing that happened and these prebiotics, we didn't even realize I think what we had.

Ramon Vela (15:55.654)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (16:19.31)
When we were doing that the market wasn't big for it We weren't even really talking about the fact that there were prebiotics in this product at the time We were sort of just brewing tea and putting these ingredients in it and the focus at the time was just It's a better for you iced tea and it isn't the same product back then that we have today But it was like the original concept like the prototype basically and we were

Ramon Vela (16:39.281)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mike (16:42.19)
This is all, you know, prior to half day. And this is all from like 2017, 18, all the way up until COVID where we eventually realized that this prebiotic trend was here to stay and we were already doing it. And we were like, what are we doing? Like we need to completely reposition how we're thinking about this and start from scratch. And that was what became half day.

Ramon Vela (17:01.519)
Wow. you know, the pre and the probiotic markets, I think back like even when I was growing up was very niche market. It was just more like very health.

enthusiast sort of market. like, you you either found it sometimes in markets and big markets, but most of the time you'd have to go to these smaller shops. It's like mom and pop, you know, natural food stores or whatever. It was a very niche sort of arena. It was there, but it wasn't growing. And then something happened in the cultural, in culture in our...

Mike (17:16.461)
Mm-hmm.

Ramon Vela (17:37.871)
popular culture that kind of just changed the game a little bit. And now of course it's, you you see companies with large valuations like Poppy being sold and all sorts of other stuff. And then of course, Ollie Pop is now huge compared to like when we first interviewed them back then. But you know, there's a, it's really interesting. I love how, I love how to see how that, how that works. You know, like you start off something and...

You don't really know how it's going to happen. You don't really know, like you said, what you have. And then it kind of still balls into something. I love that. In terms of like your milestones, obviously there's a bunch of milestones as you're growing the company. What were some of the mile, those early milestones for you? Like in terms of, I know we talked about the getting into that retailer, but was there any significant changes or innovations that you made?

around the product that kind of pushed it forward. And one thing I was thinking of is that I covered another beverage ban and she had told me that moving from bottle to can really just like opened up new doors. Obviously like from a shipping standpoint and storage standpoint. Was there anything like that for you guys where you might have changed something, a recipe, the packaging or I don't know, get into particular?

Mike (18:54.8)
yeah, I love this question. Because it's kind of actually when we get to I'm sure it'll come up like sort of any advice for other entrepreneurs or challenges or things we've learned. I always talk about this like we are on our sixth iteration of the brand and our sixth iteration of the liquid since the beginning. And maybe I'm skipping some minor incremental changes to but like we

Yeah, we, the original version of this started in 2017 with, know, there was a lot of sugar in it. We were sweetening it with honey at the time across all flavors. There was, there was strange flavors. Like they were great. I loved them, but they weren't like mainstream flavors. Um, we had like mango and ginger and grapefruit and, um, and, this wasn't half day at the time. So we also changed the name so I could try to walk through, I think some of those important learnings along the way. So, so the original concept.

Ramon Vela (19:41.553)
Thank

Mike (19:47.606)
started with what K-Bond had been brewing. And it was like this prebiotic tea that's good for gut health.

that we sort of realized like, how can we take this and make like a fun and refreshing product and really shake up this like stale category along the way. And every step of that was like every iteration just got a little bit better. So the original liquid was probably like say 15 grams of sugar or so. And it was in a plastic bottle that went through a process called high pressure processing HPP. So it's like what juice companies were doing. And we were doing it that way at the time.

Ramon Vela (20:19.278)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (20:21.388)
because we thought that, and it probably is accurate, we thought that it created a really nice flavor profile, very fresh flavor, because the original, original product was also cold brewed. So we had like all these attributes. were like, we're honey sweetened. We only have a few ingredients. We're cold brewed. There's never any heat applied to the product. It's very fresh. Like all these things that I think.

eventually narrowed down. But man, that was the original version in this, in this HPP plastic bottle. We, at one point, I'm forever grateful for this. We were connected by someone to a designer who ended up helping us iterate on the original packaging, which made it, you know, it was a big step change there. was like the original packaging was great. A student helped us do it. was, it's what got us to stores. And then we learned that branding matters and how, you know, shelf appeal and how it, how it shows up.

Ramon Vela (21:09.073)
Thank

Mike (21:11.344)
really mattered. And so we made it like a little bit of a change there where we updated the packaging. We started calling out some of the gut healthy benefits at that time. And we hadn't been doing that in the beginning because I think we thought that that market was a little bit more niche and we were like, people just want something that tastes good, which is accurate. But I think we weren't.

You know, people want something that tastes good, but like, they don't mind knowing that there's prebiotics in there, but we, for some reason, weren't communicating that. So, so that was like, sort of, that was the first versions of this product. And then, we did another version where we switched everything over to a can, and we went shelf stable and it was a 16 ounce can. And it was still, we started using Stevia at that point to sweeten it.

Ramon Vela (21:36.379)
Yeah.

Mike (21:56.622)
and reduce the sugar from about 15 grams to we were in like the three to five range like we are now. So you see it starting to take shape into what half day is, but it was sparkling. I don't know why. I think we just were like, this sounds really good. We made like a mango hibiscus flavor, ginger lime. We had one we called cherry spritz and it was like, there were these 16 ounce cans of like a sparkling tea that we started to use different prebiotics in at the time as well. And it was getting closer.

Ramon Vela (22:02.03)
Yeah.

Mike (22:24.526)
And then that was all throughout COVID when we had this sort of like aha moment of like why are we not just taking the top flavors of iced tea?

looking at the data, understanding which ones the consumers are buying and recreating those to the best of our ability so that we're just fitting right into people's routines already. They're not having to like, you know, it's not like something that they haven't tasted before. And we were like, we got to get rid of sparkling. Thankfully, we almost stuck with it actually going into half day. And then we were like, this doesn't make sense. Like iced tea is a still beverage. Let's really, really lean into this iced tea messaging. Target the top selling flavors.

Ramon Vela (22:49.457)
you

Mike (23:02.094)
as our initial three. So we launched with a lemon, peach, and a green tea with honey and ginseng.

which at the time were, and I believe still are, like the top selling flavors of iced tea. And that was from free data that we found on the internet. And we were like, this sounds close enough. Like we can get this off the ground here. And we just started formulating those. And then there was also the change to the product, sorry, to the branding where we were in those big cans. We realized that the 12 ounce can was kind of the right format for this. You know, the modern consumer.

think gone are the days of like the super size me like let me get as much as I can and it's more like what's the right portion the right serving size and then there was also like

there were business benefits. like unit economics, we were shifting to, this is all around COVID. So everything was shifting to direct to consumer and the 16 ounce can format didn't really, it wasn't, you know, I don't think it worked super well in the direct to consumer format as well because it was just more expensive. It was heavier to ship and all that. And so,

Again, all these like step changes and maybe I'm kind of dragging on with this but I just think it's so fascinating there's there's there's so many changes that may were made along the way and I think that I'm always like I always think about like just don't be afraid to make those changes eventually if you keep digging you're gonna you know, you're gonna strike gold eventually so you just gotta you gotta keep looking and not being afraid to to iterate and refine the concept

Ramon Vela (24:10.329)
No, that's great.

Ramon Vela (24:29.963)
yeah, I I see this over and over again in the founder stories in the interviews that I do. And it's really interesting in that some of these changes and I know you're kind of rattling them off, but I mean, I'm sure that with each one of these changes, you saw some improvement or some difference or some change hopefully moving forward. But sometimes these changes could just be really like catapult you like just all of a sudden, like, wow, like look at our skills, our sales are.

spiking a little bit because of this change and whatnot. I hear it over and over again. I remember I covered a cookie company not that long ago and they, she told me that they were actually thinking about closing the business because it just the velocity wasn't enough. think they couldn't feel like they couldn't seem like they were making, they were making enough forward progress. And they just thought, know what, maybe this is, you know, we can't budge this.

wall of growth. know, everything we've tried just can't do it. And so they were, she told me that she was already thinking about like, no, maybe I'll go work for one of these large conglomerates or whatnot around CPG. And they said that they made one change where they made, they turned the cookies into like smaller cookies and then changed the packaging. And that just, that was it. That one little change.

blew up and now they're everywhere and they've grown and they pushed through the growth wall again. But it's just amazing how these little changes can make sometimes. I mean, they feel little. Maybe to the founder, it's not because you guys are changing this baby that you guys have created. And I'm sure there's some affection for maybe the original can or the original labels or whatever it might be.

Mike (26:18.7)
Yeah, think that's a great example of like, yeah, you just have to keep iterating and you can't be afraid to kind of make changes when it's needed because you want to, you got to keep growing these things. I also think, I'm sorry, I just lost my train of thought there. Maybe cut that part. Yeah.

Ramon Vela (26:34.907)
Well, mean, what you just said is pretty good though. mean, is one of those lessons. mean, what other lessons could you think of? Because this is what stops a lot of people is that they fall in love with the original branding or they fall in love with the original name. Like there's a brand called Open Water and I love this brand. were like the first aluminum

water bottle and aluminum can before Liquid Death and all these others. They were the first, but the name of the company was, I'm gonna get this wrong. I don't even remember, but it was like Goose Feathers or something. I don't even know why they came up with that name, but she said that was their original name was something really weird and different. And of course they loved it for whatever reason, but it wasn't gonna.

Mike (27:16.878)
Something crazy. Yeah. Yeah

Ramon Vela (27:29.777)
It wasn't just, it wasn't gonna be a mass market product until they changed it to open water. And so that's a much different thing. But you know what mean? People fall in love with their creations. And what you just said right now, I think is really, really important. What other lessons have you learned around that?

Mike (27:47.564)
Wow, man, there's so many. let me think through this. Okay, I got one for you that I think this is super important and really hard to stick to. So.

So we learned that you have to focus on like your own category or your niche or niche. I always say that wrong, I think. But you got to focus on that. And it's super easy to get distracted by like shiny objects and what else is happening. And I think that was sort of why that journey of those, all those iterations was like super important to us. Like I mentioned like that version of it that was sparkling. Like at the time, I remember the conversation around it. We were like, well, all these sparkling drinks are getting really big. People love sparkling. People love bubbles.

Maybe we should just do this, but with sparkling. And I am almost 100 % certain it would not have hit the same because it creates for our category, it creates a little bit of confusion. It's like, why, why is this, is this a tea? Is it a soda? Is there sparkling water? Like there's bubbles now. So I'm not sure what it is, but when you just eliminate one of those attributes and it's just still, and it, you know, it's a still product and it's a tea, then it's very clear what you are. And like, that's your lane and you're sticking to it rather than trying to be all things to all people.

So I think that was a super important part of this process too. When you go through that process, yeah, you kind of have no choice but to like just keep digging deeper and deeper and like honing in more and more on like what it is, on what it is that you do that's special.

And for us, was like, it was like right in front of us the whole time, but it was like, we're making this iced tea. Like, let's just make iced tea and follow iced teas form factor and, you know, flavor profiles and just do it really, really well with these better for you ingredients. And I feel like in hindsight, it's like super obvious, but going through it at the time, especially as like a couple of like college kids at the time, we hadn't had that real world experience. We just sort of had this vision and,

Ramon Vela (29:41.265)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (29:44.214)
And we were like, we're going to follow it. But we weren't really sure where it was taking us yet, you know?

Ramon Vela (29:48.783)
Yeah. Well, and also there's all sorts of opportunities and all things that pop up and you start to see other products and you think, maybe we can incorporate some of that what we think makes them successful and whatnot. there's a lot of stuff like that. How about any lessons learned in terms of the brand awareness?

Getting into retailers is one thing. Well actually a couple things. Was there any lessons you learned in terms of your decision to do retail or to do DTC or to do other channels?

Mike (30:31.874)
Yeah, I think for us, always say that we never really caught that wave of D to C. We were working on this concept during COVID and we launched what is now Half Day in May of 2021. So.

We kind of missed like that shift in consumer behavior where they like shifted things online and then you kind of you acquire those customers, a lot of them, you know, the subscription model keeps them around. And so you have this like baseline of business. We didn't really have that happen. So we always sort of had this like retail first approach. And if you look at the beverage category, like retail is kind of where where it's at. That's what gets, you know, a brand to the scale that it needs to be at to succeed. So for us, it was like pretty intentional that we weren't going to focus too much

on DTC. It's there for consumers as far as availability goes. If they want to be able to purchase it, they should be able to at least order it on our website. But we don't focus there as much.

In the early days, we did try when we launched in May of 2021, we kind of tried, but it was right around the time iOS 14 came out. So there's all these external forces. kind of working against it actually. So we kind of missed the COVID wave. Shopping behaviors are returning back to retail. then customer acquisition from performance marketing kind of changes and shifts. so we were like, we know retail. That's where we were spending all of our time for the years with the previous version of the brand.

Ramon Vela (31:40.528)
Hmm.

Mike (32:04.112)
in local stores just sampling and demoing and speaking to customers and we were literally delivering the product ourselves at that time. when we launched the half day version of the product and I think we just made a pretty intentional decision to stay focused on retail and try to win in that channel.

Ramon Vela (32:21.681)
And so that also begs the question then of like the brand awareness. when you, you know, this is like a double edged sword or maybe that's not the right analogy, but when you get into retail, you both leave sort of like the...

the promotion, not the promotion side, you kind of, there's a certain amount of your, the ownership is now on the retailer side in terms of like putting it in some place where people are going to see it, you know, building a bit of awareness and things like that. But then also it's really about, you know, it's really then on your responsibility too, to once you get on the retail shelf to help the retailer.

get those products off the shelf, right? It's like, it's like both, it's kind of like you lose control a little bit by putting it there, but at the same time, you have to take a lot of responsibility to get it off the shelf. It's kind of a weird situation, but how did you guys do that part of it? Like getting it off the shelf? What did you guys do to build that, that awareness?

Mike (33:09.836)
Yeah.

Mike (33:27.182)
So I always thought about it, like, I always think about it, I was taught this early on by a good friend, but it's like, at this stage, there's like three things that really matter. It's organic social, it's influencer gifting, and it's field execution. Those are like the areas that I focus on. And the reason for that is, and the most important one for us is field execution. Like we have to crush it there. Because if you think about like, a consumer shopping behavior, like they're not...

They're not really aware of us yet. They're shopping in retail for their normal, you know, grocery list, right? If they don't bump their cart into our product.

how they're not thinking about it prior to going to the store. we really came on and I knew like we could get out there and hustle in stores. So we would build displays, work on getting secondary placements, getting the product from the dry shelf into the cooler. Like those sort of field execution things were really important for driving awareness in the sense of like just being available in stores. People see it, they try it, they tell their friends, if you have a good, good product, good brand, you know, good liquid, like people will repeat by they'll tell people about it. you

If it's positioned well, they'll tell people about it. And everybody can sort of understand what you're building and get behind it after that initial trial. retail demos, product samplings, events, early on it was all that kind of stuff. Just how do we get cans in hands? I actually remember one of the challenges early on, I had done a pretty rough job of forecasting at one point and I kind of produced a lot more inventory than I needed. And I looked at K-Von and I was like, hey man, we like...

Ramon Vela (34:52.593)
Thank

Mike (35:01.26)
We put a lot of cash in inventory. We have no choice but to go sell it. And so we just rolled up our sleeves and we got into stores and we just started making sure we got all the placements we needed to increase sales. And it's like, as they say, like sales cures all on it. And we worked ourselves out of that little bit of a bind at that point. And that was, you know, very early on, but so that's, that's the field execution component. I think, you know, now we think a lot about like, how do we scale things like social content, you know, finding like fun viral moments that'll like,

drive awareness and hopefully build a brand that people want to hear more from. I think that's a big project of mine currently is like, do we continue to scale our social content? So that's fun and engaging and works itself into, you know, your sort of daily routine with like how you're consuming content as a consumer. So there's that piece of it. And then, then influencer gifting, know,

In early stage startups, there's not a lot of cash to go around. So you can't like do like out of home or big campaigns or commercials or pay celebrities. So we just would find influencers and start building relationships with them and gift them product. You know, if they got excited about it, we kept in touch and we would continue to send them, you know, new product launches and, you know, send them some swag, you know, whatever we could do to like keep building that relationship and, and they're sharing, know, and they have their, their, their audience and their region. And these are like authentic relationships. And so that's

another way that we thought about scaling it from a marketing brand awareness standpoint.

Ramon Vela (36:26.769)
And by the way, the forecasting, what you just said reminded me of that my interview with Ryan Bartlett from True Classics, because he said that they had a problem just like you did. But it almost toppled them because they forecasted wrong and all of this. And it was just a terrible thing. he now says that forecasting is probably the most important part of the business. So you're not alone, right? You're not alone.

Mike (36:54.338)
Dude, it's, I'm glad I'm not alone. Yeah, that's why podcasts like this are so helpful, man. You hear those stories and you're like, wow, okay, so I'm not the only one who had to deal with that. Yeah, forecasting is a tough one and it's an important one. You don't wanna underproduce, you don't wanna overproduce, so it's something that we take a look at probably weekly at this point, if not more.

Ramon Vela (37:04.197)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (37:17.657)
Yeah, so the website is let me just bring it up here It is drink half day.com drink half day.com. I actually have let's see I actually just for the people who will eventually watch the video. I have a couple of products here I just want to say this one's lemon tea This one is peach tea And this one is green tea now

mike in cable were more than gracious enough to send us some products

I tried, there was more flavors in this, so just want to quickly say, so I brought this in and I always open it up and I asked my family to kind of taste it with me as well. And it was really, really hard to keep this product like, cause we had to reschedule a couple of times. So it's been a few weeks. It was really hard to keep this in the house because everyone was just drinking it like water was just like down in it. And I really kept telling them, can't, I need to save some of that stuff for it. Cause we're to be doing the recording.

But it was hard because it's really good. People really enjoyed it. As a matter of fact, I have a lot of products that people send me products that I love to taste them. I love to try them, whether it's skincare and other stuff too. But I always ask my family to kind of like, you know, help me with this because maybe I'm biased. I don't know. But like my daughter, she's a teenager and she is a perfect example. Like she doesn't hold back, right? Like she tastes something and she's like,

Mike (38:28.046)
you

Ramon Vela (38:53.071)
I don't care how functional it is or how good it is. It doesn't taste good. Like, like I'm willing to eat something or try something, even if it doesn't taste good, if I know it's like good for me. But for her, it's all about taste. It's all about, it taste good? And she will tell me like, I don't care what that, what it says. It just doesn't taste good. I can't eat it. But she loved half day and they were drinking it. So I just wanted to, to, mention that. And I think you might've sent me a mango one too, which I don't have anymore, but it was so good.

So, oh, it's not mango. There was another flavor you sent me that I don't remember which one it was, but there was another.

Mike (39:23.438)
So we don't have a mango yet, but maybe one day. It might have been raspberry. So that's one of our core flavors. We also have a half and half that's like an Arnold Palmer. So it's really tasty, lemonade, nice tea. And then we have a sweet tea as well.

Ramon Vela (39:32.23)
Maybe.

Ramon Vela (39:42.725)
Yeah, you sent me a couple of more that I don't remember which ones they were, but they're gone now, unfortunately. But no, these are great. So I'm actually going to...

Open up my, this one is the peach tea. So there it goes. And I'm gonna enjoy it as we finish this interview. So walk us through a little bit. So the website is called drinkhalfday.com. Drinkhalfday.com. Half day of course is halfday.com. The two words half and day.com. Drinkhalfday.com is a website.

Mike (40:01.23)
There we go.

Ramon Vela (40:24.353)
Walk us a little bit through what they're going to find. So someone's listening to this. They really like your backstory. And by the way, by the time you're listening, people are listening to this, I'm going to also have cave-ons, a little bit of cave-on side of the story. So I want to make room for that. And I think it's going to make a great combination of both you and him and both your inputs. But I want people to now know a little bit more about

and this thing that you guys have worked so hard for, this thing that you have iterated on, that you've changed, that you've kept pushing, that you've put your blood, sweat, and tears over. I want to know what it's like. And again, I just want to tell people, when you go to the website, it's an amazing website. It's very colorful. It's clear. It looks delicious. But I just want to, as a personal testimonial, these taste delicious. So believe me, this is something you definitely need to try.

But tell us more, Mike, on the product. I know that we've talked a little bit about it, but feel free to talk like high level overview on ingredients and things like that, just to make sure any call outs that you want to leave us with. And then where, if someone loves what they've heard so far, where do they start the journey? Is there any particular flavor that you want them to try? Is there a starter pack, anything like that?

Mike (41:48.674)
Yeah, I think these are all great questions and I'm happy to dive in. So I'll work backwards from the flavors. So peaches are best seller. So I always recommend people start there if they like peach as a flavor. Our best selling variety pack, which I think is always a great way to get a feel for the brand is we call it the classic variety pack and that has peach, lemon and green tea with honey in there. But that was the original one that we launched with the core three. If you want to try more

multiple, you know, a couple more flavors. also have one that has raspberry in there and we call that the fan favorites pack and that's our top fourth that we've ever, you know, when we launched in order. So that adds raspberry. So I think those are great ways to try it. You know, in terms of if you're not one to buy it online, we are available nationally in Whole Foods, Sprouts, in certain regions of Kroger and Albertsons. Banners will be able to find us. So definitely in

most markets where people would want to able to grab it at retail. Yeah, I think...

If we talk about ingredients, actually think this is important because the prebiotic component of the brand and K-Bond may touch on this when you chat with them, Ramon, but the prebiotic thing was it was so important to us from our story perspective. And when we were updating the branding more recently to what you see today, the we also updated the formula to have three different prebiotics in there. And I think I think that's something that it's important to continue iterating on and improving as we go. And as you know, there's

more information about prebiotics or as we just learn more from feedback from our customers.

Mike (43:31.066)
I think I'm really proud of that. always wanted to have three prebiotic sources because Kayvon will say this, but it's not even so much about the amount of fiber prebiotics, but it's about the diversity. And so I just feel like three is like that magic number where you can get three different sources. And so you have just a better impact on the gut microbiome overall. And early on, we actually, we tried to launch with three and it couldn't happen because we were so small and it was kind of coming off of COVID when we were launching. So there was supply

Ramon Vela (43:41.872)
Hmm.

Mike (44:00.88)
And we just didn't have the buying power or the ability to get three. And so at that point we launched the original version of half day with just one source. We use the one that K-Von used, which is an organic agave inulin, which is a really great prebiotic fiber. And that was how we launched. But when we got to a scale where we were big enough to be able to have the buying power to get what we need from these suppliers and going into a rebrand, it just felt like the perfect time. So that's something I'm really

excited about and Kvon is really, really excited about is the ability to deliver more varying prebiotics to consumers. And it's also, we've wrapped it up in something that we're calling the Good Day Blend. name just came to me, but I was like, how do we play on the name Half Day? And then I was like, well, it's a good day if it's a half day. And we just kind of ran with that. But I think this Good Day Prebiotic Blend is important because it allows us to continue to update and improve within that blend, like what we're offering to consumers.

Ramon Vela (44:36.689)
Hmm.

Mike (44:58.988)
So, and they'll see a little bit about that on the website. They'll also see a picture of me during our photo shoot where I have an insane beard and it got longer after that too. So I think I'm glad I trimmed it for now. But yeah, so that's a fun picture. Yeah, so I think that's something I wanted to touch on. think one other thing that's really exciting for me is, you know, we're all stoked over here to be launching this tropical flavor that's coming out in Whole Foods nationally. So Whole Foods was...

Ramon Vela (45:06.459)
the

Ramon Vela (45:12.783)
Hehehe.

Mike (45:28.942)
You know, they're a huge customer for us. They're big supporters of our mission and what we're doing and K-Bond's story. you know, they'll be carrying all of our flavors by this fall. They'll be carrying four packs. But really excitingly in the near term here is they're launching our tropical tea that's a limited edition flavor with them that launches in early June with Whole Foods nationally. So that'll be really fun. I think people will really like that one.

Ramon Vela (45:57.445)
Wow. And I just wanted to comment on what you said about the Good Day prebiotic blend. There is a doctor that I follow, I can never pronounce his name, but he wrote a book called Fiber Fueled. And in it he talks about, well, he talks a lot about how...

You know, there is an abundance of protein and every product has protein, is not protein is not bad for you. Obviously it's great for you, but there's a lot of protein around. He says what most people actually need is fiber in their diet. Most people are fiber deficient is the reason why we have people have a lot of stomach issues and things like that. Anyhow, the point is that he, he, he actually said the same thing. He says that it's not so much about it's it's actually more important to have a variety of fiber.

And he always recommends that, you know, like every day, just try and choose many different fiber, you know, forms of fiber that you can. and it's kind of easy when you started realizing what has fiber and what doesn't, but having something like yours, your drink in there, and having that variety of fiber, I think it's really huge, hugely important. That's probably be more for like the, the more nerdy people like myself who, read about all this stuff, but, that is pretty cool that you guys have that.

Mike (47:07.054)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (47:13.774)
It's important stuff. it's actually funny you say that though. I think that that's sort of the benefit of this format of beverage is that, know, iced tea is a refreshment beverage just by the nature of the category and how people consume it. And so I think it's a really great way to deliver these ingredients in a format where

people that aren't necessarily nerding out over the fiber and nutritional impact, they're still able to get the benefit of prebiotics and fiber and they're not even necessarily aware, right? Like it just, tastes great. We've done our best to match the flavor they would expect from a classic iced tea. And so we always try to lead, you know, I think our story, I always talk a lot about gut health and prebiotics, but I think we really try to lead flavor first, low sugar, like kind of the broader reaching messaging where consumers can really wrap their head around.

Ramon Vela (47:39.067)
Hmm.

Ramon Vela (47:45.391)
Yeah.

Mike (48:03.438)
Because everybody understands that less sugar is better. And everybody understands that great tasting means they're going to keep drinking it.

Ramon Vela (48:07.151)
Yeah.

Yeah. And quite frankly, to me, that's the best, right? Like you have, you find a product that tastes really good and it tastes incredibly refreshing. I mean, just leave it in the fridge for a little while. That's my thing. I like to drink it cold. I don't really like ice cubes or anything, but I leave it in the fridge a little bit. And then once you drink it, whether it's a hot day or it's actually a warm day right now, but it's just refreshing and it tastes really good. And it's very light and,

It's just so easy to drink. But the good news is that while you're drinking this, you're also getting some pretty good nutritional value out of that. Also on the website. So you also have this sort of comparison charge around calories and sugar and probiotics, prebiotics, fiber and brewed with organic tea, et cetera, and versus the others. And so you've got a lot of really great, you've got quotes from people who reviews. And of course your picture there with the great beard.

Yeah, and let's see. I mean, you've got a ton of stuff here, so that's amazing. And then of course you have shop on Amazon where you can buy online. Yeah, this is great, man. Like I said, I love the website. It's so colorful, so bright. I love these colors on the website. And of course the cans are very enticing as well. Yeah, I mean, to me, this is like one of those perfect type of products where...

Mike (49:10.393)
Hahaha

Ramon Vela (49:37.073)
You don't have to buy it for the nutritional value. You can buy it just for the taste, but you're also getting this really cool stuff. But if you do, if you are someone like me who kind of reads the back of the labels and looks at the nutrition value and sees how much sugar there is, and if there's fiber in there and so forth, if you're like me, then you're going to be happy about this too. Are you going to find something you like in there as well? So thanks Mike for sharing that. And thanks for letting us know about the whole foods.

I want to be respectful every time. of course, I'm going to add on some more from Kayvon. Anything you want to leave us with would be fantastic. But I'm also, I do have one last question. Like beyond this next flavor, where is the company going? Like from your perspective, from a vision perspective, where is the company going? Is it going to stay in the beverage? Is it going to find new formats, form, know, form factors, all that kind of stuff?

Mike (50:31.746)
Yeah, I love this question because I think about it a lot. think growth for us is going to come from products and flavors and packaging formats that really meet the consumer needs and taste profiles where they're at. So multipacks for us are something like we're at the point now where we've driven a lot of trial. People want to be able to bulk purchase. So there's a lot of growth in that.

And then I think the other thing, this is what I get really excited about is new flavors that aren't necessarily like the classic flavors of iced tea. So maybe it's not one you'd normally expect like a traditional sweet tea or Arnold Palmer, but something a little bit more.

unique, like the tropical tea that we're launching that like, it's not something that you necessarily would think about as an iced tea, because you maybe haven't totally heard of it before, but it works really well in the iced tea format. So I always think about like, we have these classic flavors that we're replicating, but what is the future of classic flavors for iced tea? What is the future consumer going to look back on and be like, that's the one I grew up drinking. I love tropical tea and it's as, you know, as, as inherently like sort of baked into

tea drinking, ice tea drinking culture as a lemon tea or a peach tea. So I think about that a lot. Like how can we set ourselves up with innovation for the future of that? And then I also think about adjacent categories to ice tea, like lemonades and fruit punches. I think those would be really interesting to get into as well. So we'll see that we got some time. We got some work to do, but I think that's where the future's headed.

Ramon Vela (51:57.84)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (52:04.591)
Well, man, I really enjoyed this conversation and there's so much to talk to you about. mean, there's so many, like as a host, I have to figure out what is, how many topics we can cover. Cause even though it's an hour, it goes by very fast. And then on top of that, I want to make sure to add cave on in there, but there's just so many avenues, but thank you. You gave us a really good sort of primer on your

Mike (52:21.795)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (52:33.155)
origin story or backstory. We're going to learn more from K-1 as well on that. You know, also a little bit of the inside baseball about the, the, how you guys are operating this and the challenges and then also the, the iterations, the, the successes, the mistakes and so forth. So I really appreciate that. I have to say like every, every introduction that I've had about the brand.

has always been really positive. Before I did this interview and before I even tasted the product, everything I saw online, every media post, even from you guys, know, posts from you guys, everything has just been so positive. And I read comments a lot from posts that you guys do or from comments from online. And it's always been really positive. People really love the brand. People have a, it has a good...

like just a lot of goodwill, I think in the marketplace in terms of just what you guys are doing and how you guys are doing it. So kudos to you on that. And I can't wait to just see how much farther you guys go and see this whole vision and thing in the future.

Mike (53:41.39)
Thank you, Ramon. think, love to hear that. I think we've, you know, this started from a very real place with what Kayvon deals with. And when we were thinking about how we built the brand, like we always want to bake into the brand, this sort of glass half full mentality because Kayvon had that approach. He could have taken this, this disease that he was diagnosed with and, you know, could have threw up his hands, but instead he...

He kind of doubled down and was like, I'm going to make something really interesting and tasty that can help people. And I think that that sort of mentality is one that we, I hope we continue to deliver. We try to bring that to the marketplace and just, you know, keep things positive and forward looking and optimistic all the time.

Ramon Vela (54:20.943)
Yeah, well, it shows. definitely shows. So thank you for that. And thank you so much for the product and everyone out there. You definitely really have to go try this. I'm having a peach right now. This is amazing. I think the raspberry is the one that I tasted that I really liked as well. I tend to like those type of flavors, but the lemon tea, the green tea, they're all great because I've tried them all and they're all really refreshing. And the good news is from a nutritional standpoint, you'll be impressed by that too. And I love the whole.

Mike (54:32.183)
Thank you.

Ramon Vela (54:49.115)
fiber and prebiotics, that's my thing. Not so much the protein, although I love protein. I just think that more people need fiber in their diet. So definitely go try that, even if for that too. So thank you so much, Mike. This has been fantastic. I appreciate your time and I look forward to chatting also with Kayvon. So thanks again, man.

Mike (54:57.91)
I agree.

Mike (55:07.842)
Yeah, thank you. We appreciate you having us. Thanks for having me.

Ramon Vela (55:11.333)
And everyone out there you we have just had Mike Lombardo who is co-founder and CEO of Drink Half Day or I'm sorry half day. That's the website half day and The half day iced tea is the company drink half day comm is the website We're gonna have that link as well as other links that they might have from like Instagram and some of their socials on our podcast description Which you could find on Amazon? I'm Spotify Apple

I get, I, I talk all day and so you have to forgive me because some days I say things that I don't even know. so on Apple and Spotify and pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts, just type in the story of a brand show and you should be able to find it. It's everywhere. So thank you for that as well for your support. and then the last thing I say is, or what I always say is stay safe, stay sane, stay healthy. And in this case,

Mike (55:44.224)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (56:09.345)
One way of staying healthy and one way of having a great drink and a refreshing drink is going to check out, checking out drinkhalfday.com, check out their beverages, find them, you'll enjoy them, you'll love them as much as I did and you'll be telling your friends about it. So go try that. And then beyond all of that, let's do ourselves a favor. The world is going a little crazy right now. The economy, politics, geopolitical wars, all sorts of stuff since the pandemic has just been nonstop.

Let's do ourselves a favor and remember that everyone is going through something. And if we can just be a little kinder to each other, I know we can make this human experience a better one. Beyond that, thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to another episode of the story of a brand.