WYNK - Educating Consumers One Sip at a Time

Ramon Vela (00:00)
Welcome back everyone. Today is going to be a great show. Thanks for joining us. I have with me Angus Rittenberg, who is co-founder and CEO of Wink. Welcome to the show.

Angus Rittenburg (00:23)
Thank you, Ramon. I've listened to several of your interviews, always find them to be extremely insightful. So thankful to be here and look forward to it.

Ramon Vela (00:33)
What great I appreciate your time. I know you're busy So ⁓ I really truly appreciate you making a little time for for me and for my audience and in helping us get to know you a little bit and getting to know week now I always like to start off my interviews with a question of gratitude and I do this for a couple of reasons just for anyone out there who's new to listening I'm a big believer in gratitude. I have created a meditation around it

and has been really helpful during some very difficult moments in my life. And I like to promote it. I just think it's a great, free, easy tool that you could use whenever you're feeling anxious or stressed out. And it's just really helpful. And so, one, I like to promote it. But two, I also feel that it's very easy for consumers nowadays, especially with just so many options for consumers.

It's so easy for consumers to see a product on the market, on the shelf, online, and just simply think, you know, it's just some faceless corporation. They don't really think about who's behind it. And what I like to do in this interview is I really like to bring it down to a very human level, person to person, and really help the listener get to know not only the brand, but also, and getting to know the brand through your eyes, but also get to know the brand and who you are, Angus, as a person.

And one great way of doing that is by knowing what you're grateful for. So if you don't mind, can you 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?

Angus Rittenburg (02:05)
Sure.

You know, one thing that comes to mind is a really early mentor of mine. So in 2010, I was in my first semester of college studying engineering, and I wanted to do an internship to gain some experience. And I had a couple options. One was working in the Alberta oil sands, very common for engineers studying in Canada. It's known to pay a lot of money. But the opportunities to learn are somewhat limited.

Another option I had was to work for a very, very small startup doing electric bikes in Vancouver. And I had decided to go to the oil sands favoring the money. But the founder of that small startup called me, you know, after I emailed him and told him I'm going to pass up this opportunity. And he said, forget going to the oil sands, come here. And he said, I can't offer you more money. You know, I can pay you just enough to buy food and pay rent. But what I will do is teach you as much as I possibly can in four months.

And he also sold me on sort of a vision for electric bikes. So, you know, two valuable lessons I learned and carry with me all the time are one, the value of education and two, the value of believing your own vision. What he, what he told me at that time was that, you know, he's doing this company. He thinks I should, I should help because it says it's obvious to him that in the future electric bikes will be the main mode of transportation in every city. At that time electric.

Bikes were very limited. And the interesting thing to me with him was that at that time he had a very small shop. had a five person team, but he was so sold on his own vision. Outsider looking in, it was so not obvious that he was right. He had a very scrappy operation. There were hand building parts, but he said, this is going to be huge. And I want my company to have a part in building it. I did a four month internship. He taught me.

We were up 24 hours at a time working together. He made good on his promise to teach me as much as he could. Taught me how to design. He taught me how to build electrical, mechanical, software engineering. I learned an incredible amount, which was priceless. You couldn't put a value on it. But what I also saw, and I continue to see over time, is that he was so right in his vision. He created a new ⁓ category, really, in the US and in Canada. Electric bikes are everywhere now.

⁓ You go to any city, you see him everywhere. That was so non-obvious at the time. He believed in it so strongly. And over the years, he's built a really strong business from very, very humble beginnings. I was fortunate to see the humble beginnings, but he only believed strongly in a vision and he just kept working, chipping away at it. There were financial issues, all kinds of problems that he overcame. I carry that with me because with Wink and starting this business,

Ramon Vela (04:18)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (04:43)
I believe so strongly in THC beverages as an obvious future. It's not clear when they'll be as mainstream as alcohol, but it's clear they deserve to be at some point. We started in a very small shop filling cans with beans instead of liquid to make them look like real products. And the business has grown a lot and the category has grown a lot over the past five years, but it's because we believe in this vision and just keep building. ⁓ I learned, I gained a lot of confidence in doing so.

from him. So he was a hugely impactful figure in my career. Taught me to forego money in favor of education in some cases. And he really changed the trajectory of my career. And I don't think Wink would exist had I not been as motivated as I was by him.

Ramon Vela (05:19)
Thank

Wow, that's a great story. yeah, you know, it's one of those things where you just can't buy those priceless experiences, you know, like they're there. I had something not exactly like that, but I had a really great experience in one of my first jobs. Something that I'll just never forget and something that became like a template to...

Like how you want to see your, whatever you're doing, you know, work and, and, and it almost spoils it for you because when you meet a founder like that or someone who has this vision, it's like, you feel like this, this is the way it should be. Like this, should be like every company. I don't know if you work for other companies afterwards, you almost disappointed because you're like, you're not in that same environment. Like you may get more money or you may get, you know, it may be a bigger company, but there's something about,

Angus Rittenburg (06:16)
Yep.

Ramon Vela (06:22)
the culture of a company like that where you have someone who's driven not just by, mean, driven by wanting to change the world in some way. ⁓

Angus Rittenburg (06:32)
think

that the challenge in these startups is there's such a big disparity between the present and that vision you have for the company. It's not always glamorous. In the beginning, it's very scrappy. And I think for many, it's hard to see how you get from A to B, but I always have this lesson that he taught me and other case that I can look at with his company where he was in the same position, built a whole category, was completely right.

And so I have this example to follow. I think in the, in the times when the company felt so scrappy, it just didn't seem possible that it could work. I could always fall back on that and know that he, he, got through it, ⁓ because he believed in his vision and just kept solving problem after problem. And that's what we've been doing for, for five years with Blaine.

Ramon Vela (07:20)
And, know, with something like with the electric bikes and so forth, I mean, I think, you know, I'm just trying to get in his head a little bit. Obviously it's, you know, there's so many different factors, you know, like there's ⁓ the population within the city. There's obviously the gas, you know, like the price of oil, price of gas, sustainability. I mean, there's a lot of factors that go into, I think why.

The cost of vehicles, mean, you we just bought a car not that long ago. Um, and, uh, I mean, it's, it's expensive now to buy a new car or, you know, it's just, it's, it's becoming out of reach for a lot of people. They just can't afford it. Um, there's the last mile, um, concept around, uh, public transportation. I mean, there's just so much that factors factor into going into going into that vision. And I think.

Angus Rittenburg (08:01)
Okay. Okay.

Ramon Vela (08:14)
You know, I think he was fortunate because he saw all these things and he thought, okay, there's only like very few options that people have. You know, we're not going to, we don't have jet packs that we're going to take, you know, fly us around from,

you know, place to place. We need something that's going to, that's going to give us that mobility. And I think, I think that was a great move. and, and like, and in similar, similar to him, I would love to get into your head a little bit.

What was it initially? What was the basic framework or the basic idea in your head as to like why Wink would become what it's become and the category would become because really this category is exploding now. But you know, I think when I was, when I started this, think I told you there was like one company that I remember. I mean, I'm sure there was others, course, like yours, but I didn't really hear a ton of companies out there. And I was just, just.

Angus Rittenburg (08:53)
Okay. Okay.

Ramon Vela (09:13)
This is just eight years ago,

but prior to that, I'm sure there's even more, you know, less people. What was in your head when you were thinking about this?

Angus Rittenburg (09:22)
Sure. So my background is really engineering. I did that internship for electric bikes. I took that knowledge. I worked at Tesla doing battery design, SpaceX, some work on mechanical design for the rockets, Google I was working on manufacturing design. So really all of my backgrounds in tech prior to this.

previous role was at Tesla as a mechanical design engineer. I knew I wanted to start something. I really wanted it to be in tech. So I left Tesla. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was on the search. And I definitely didn't plan to be in cannabis at that time. But looking at a bunch of opportunities, what was interesting to me in the US was you had this sort of CBD market.

There's increased consumer interest in cannabis in general. More and more states creating medical or recreational dispensary programs. THC drive products were largely growing in the US. This was around 2020. What I didn't see much of at all was beverages. And beverages were interesting to me at that time, because you could see them growing in Canada, where

It was, know, THC was federally legal. You could ship across the country. And there's really strong growth in beverage. Didn't, it didn't really exist in the U S at that time. So I was curious why. And what I realized is that, you know, in, 2020 THC federally illegal states were developing their own programs. So what you could do is produce THC derived products in a single state and sell it within that state, but you could not.

ship across state lines. So for many common THC products like gummies and vapes, pre-rolls, those are easy to set up manufacturing on a state by state basis. For beverages, it's very difficult. And at that time, what anybody would have had to do to create a national THC beverage was create a production facility in every state that you wanted to sell.

and get it licensed under the state program, which is impractical. There weren't enough dispensaries to sell in in a single state to justify building an entire facility. So the technology side that interested me and ultimately got me into this business was an idea for a mobile production solution. So what I said was, if we can create a canning system on a tractor trailer, instead of building a facility in every state,

we could partner with existing license holders that had processing facilities in each state and just bring the production technology to make beverages to them. It would give us a, at that time it was really exciting because nobody else could produce drinks in a lot of these states. If we created this tool, we could show up and be the exclusive producer for the state. So my personal interest is really technology. I had a...

you know, a sketch on a napkin of a 53 foot tractor trailer with everything you need to produce beverages. A rough, you know, cost estimate and it seemed very feasible. So that was the original sort of notion. But, you know, I had the design for the system, what we needed was a product to make. And that's when myself and my co-founders, Sean Chih-An and Casey Plarzik started experimenting with THC beverages that were on the market in Canada. And we tried

High dose, none of us were cannabis consumers, we were alcohol consumers, fairly new to THC and found the high dose products to be just far too intense for a new consumer. Tried medium dose and they were okay. And then we tried very low dose THC drinks. So low dose being two and a half milligrams, five milligrams. And that's when sort of another passion in me was sparked because it was too anon.

Ramon Vela (13:11)
you

Angus Rittenburg (13:19)
⁓ cannabis consumers, such a alternative to beer or wine. It was really interesting to me that you could create an adult beverage that gave you an undeniable effect, but didn't give you a hangover. I realized early on that we could do a zero calorie drink, which is extremely unique because with alcohol, you just can't deliver alcohol with zero calories. So there was this opportunity to create

a zero calorie adult beverage as an alcohol alternative that doesn't give you a hangover. It's like nail in the coffin. It's the perfect product. So now we have this technology that solved the production problem, a product that we all really believed in as an alcohol alternative and settling on low dose THC beverages, we came up with the name Wink because it's just playing on this idea that it sells it with a wink of THC, not a lot of THC. So all of these things came together.

Ramon Vela (13:49)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (14:12)
And it really laid a good foundation for, for business. So went to work, built the system, created licensing agreements with processors and, 12 states, 12 different states in the first year, put a team together to travel on this 53 foot tractor trailer from, market to market. And we would produce Wink, and sell it through, through dispensaries really targeted not for cannabis consumers, but alcohol consumers that were.

Ramon Vela (14:29)
Thank you.

Angus Rittenburg (14:39)
looking for an alternative. So it was a somewhat unique placement in dispensaries at that time, because most of the products in there were very high dose. What we were trying to do is get the alcohol consumer to make an extra stop at a dispensary and buy these THC drinks. So that was 2020 to 2021, the early days and the early premise for the business. Things have changed a lot since then, but that's how we got started.

Ramon Vela (15:00)
.

Wow, that's fascinating. That could be like a business case that you learn in school because that's really fascinating your answer to those production problems by creating that trailer. And I'm assuming though that there's some other benefits for that too because as time goes on and you might...

kind of explain this a little bit more to us. As time goes on, my assumption is that as rules and laws have changed, um, and you know, the ability to, to actually have a manufacturing plant or some, you know, something like that, some of that stuff has changed. And in the tractor trailer idea may not be as feasible as it once was. And I don't know, maybe it's still in action, but it feels like that's, that's a small enough investment.

And that, you could, you could take that and then build it upon like, and then actually have a facility in it. So you're not on a lot of money. although I can imagine there's probably some uses for that truck, that trailer as well. It just feels like this isn't the strategy that you've had. It's it's scrappy, you know, like you were talking about your previous mentor. It's a scrappy idea.

but it's an adaptable strategy too. It's like you're just adapting to whatever the rules or the laws were at the time. And it feels like because it's mobile, can adapt, you can continue to adapt it based on how the laws have evolved. Is that correct?

Angus Rittenburg (16:36)
Yep.

It is, yeah. And there's been, I'd say, three major iterations of our production method over time.

You know, days I was traveling on that tractor trailer with our team every week going from market to market. we'd, you know, drive it from Maine to Nevada, thousands of miles of bouncing on the road with all this delicate equipment. I'd show up with the trailer. Everything's broken. We'd be there running to Home Depot, getting spare parts. And that's a time when I'm sitting there thinking, how do we get from here to, you know, nationally recognized?

brand, seems so far off. we, you know, we, like I said, we expanded into, into 12 States. Awareness of the brand increased, sales increased. We ran out of capacity on that first tractor trailer. We just couldn't cover enough ground fast enough to keep everybody in stock. So we built a second one, got a second team and we were running two, two teams, state to state with these very complicated systems.

Ramon Vela (17:14)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (17:39)
And we ran out of capacity on both. And that's when we had to kind of shift into a sort of second iteration of production. We just couldn't keep up. It's too much, too complicated. And so we innovated and we sort of changed the business model. And the way that we changed it is we said, you know, rather than doing all of the beverage production in each state with this tractor trailer, let's put a valve in the can.

and fill all of the cans at our own facility without THC in them. So we can do all the hard part. We can do the blending, the carbonation, the canning, the seaming, all the quality checks. We can do that at home. Ship the product, undosed to each state. And then what I designed was a small dosing system so we could inject THC into the can through the valve in the state we wanted to sell it. And what that did is really simplified the operation because

Just like traditional beverage, could produce huge quantities at home, undosed, take care of all the complexity in one facility. And then in all the individual markets, we just had a very small dosing machine. It was about the size of a desk. And we'd load a case of 24 cans at a time into it. It would just inject like a milliliter of a THC solution through that valve into the can. And that was all that needed to be done in each state. That was sort of the second.

iteration of the production system. And that allowed us to scale sort of the next to the next step. took a lot of the complexity out of the equation. Something interesting happened in late 2022, early 2023. And Minnesota, so there's a, you in the US in 2022, there was hemp-derived THC and marijuana-derived THC.

Ramon Vela (18:59)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (19:27)
The same THC molecule is just derived

from different sources. Hemp is a plant that has lower THC content. Marijuana is the same plant, but higher THC content. The regulations, it's still this way in the US, but marijuana is federally illegal. A lot of states have legalized it. And then hemp is federally legal. What Minnesota did is said, well, if you create products with THC derived from hemp, we're going to...

they created a formal regulatory structure that allowed those products to be sold through alcohol license retail. That was a huge moment for the industry, especially for low dose products, because now rather than producing or dosing the product in each state that we sold, we could instead derive THC from hemp, put it in the beverage at our facility, which is in New York, and ship it, dosed.

to Minnesota and sell it through alcohol licensed retailers. That did a couple things for the industry. One, it allowed THC products to be shipped across state lines, so long as they're derived from hemp. But it also allowed us to put this product, Wink, which is a low dose THC beverage intended for the alcohol consumer in the stores that alcohol consumers are shopping. Rather than trying to, through the powers of marketing, persuade consumers that don't.

Ramon Vela (20:44)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (20:49)
typically buy THC to go to a dispensary. We can now put the product in front of them where they're already shopping. That changed our whole business model. So in 2023, we stopped the state by state production and shifted to making Wink with THC derived from hemp and shipping that to alcohol wholesalers across the country. So where in the beginning, you can only buy Wink in a dispensary. Today,

Ramon Vela (21:16)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (21:17)
You can buy Wink at bars, restaurants, liquor stores, and we're able to produce the product at scale in our own facility.

Ramon Vela (21:25)
So that change in Minnesota has now occurred across the country

Angus Rittenburg (21:30)
Yeah, there's about 20 to 23 states that you can sell through alcohol license retail. And many states are iterating their regulations to allow. So I expect that to expand. you know, states have taken different interpretations, but largely beverages with THC derived from hemp that are 10 milligrams or less can be shipped across state lines.

and sold through alcohol license retail. So that's like the sort of biggest unlock for our original vision was this route to market where these products that were intended for alcohol consumers can finally be sold where alcohol consumers are already shopping.

Ramon Vela (21:57)
Hmm.

Wow. And so I love this, again, this is like a case study that should be studied in college or I love the way that you've adapted and been scrappy in terms of like, here are obstacles in terms of the laws and here's what we're gonna do and here's how we're gonna create an answer to it or a solution. So I love that component of it. But what I love to...

So it's like an interesting technical problem that I think engaged you in many ways because you're an engineer and you like to solve these problems. And I think part of it was that, you know, it was an exciting way to figure out how can we provide a solution around these laws and create this product. But at the end of the day, I'm curious too, what is about Blink and the Hemp solution within it? What is it?

that you felt was like, was there something a much bigger vision around alcohol? Because this is the hard part, right? Because we have always been, we have always been, what's the word I'm looking for? I mean, alcohol has always been around and just practically the dawn of time, right? I'm sure that people figured out that, know, grapes, you know, if left fermented would, you know, would create wine and wheat and all this other stuff.

Angus Rittenburg (23:29)
.

Ramon Vela (23:32)
So it's been around a long time. So what was the vision? What did you see that people were going to change? Cause now it's coming into fruition. mean, you know, a few years ago, could, it still was like, you know, up in the air, some people, but now it's become so much more widely accepted. People are drinking it. people

are drinking less alcohol. see the alcohol stocks going down because people aren't just buying beer as much as they used to.

our drinking habits are changing. But how did you foresee all this? You know what mean? Like, how did you see all this?

Angus Rittenburg (24:08)
Yeah, I think, you know, you can look at charts of daily near daily consumption of alcohol versus cannabis. And cannabis is on this sort of like

exponential growth of daily or near daily consumption. In 2020, when we're looking at this industry is when it first crossed and exceeded alcohol. So in the US on average, consumers were using cannabis products more often than alcohol for the first time. So there's this clear sort of trend you can see in cannabis consumption. It's clearly something that is compelling to people from an effect standpoint. And

The other thing that's sort of been a long standing trend is this sort of better for you movement and beverage. So people have been gravitating towards healthier products, whether it's prebiotic drinks or electrolyte drinks, there's all these sort of new waves of types of beverages that are, you know, easy to categorize as better for you and clearly seeing huge growth. While alcohol has been sort of flattening and recently

beginning to decline. so THC beverages are very interesting because it's hitting both trends. While we can't advertise it as better for you, I think for a lot of consumers, it's clear that alcohol is not good for you. And there's more more research scaring consumers and finding that it is extremely damaging. So to me and my co-founders, it just seemed clear that

When regulations would allow it and assuming there was a cost effective way to produce these products, THC beverages should become very popular. Like I said before, you can deliver this adult beverage for the alcohol occasion without calories. People have been trying to find ways for years to deliver alcohol with no calories. You can't do it. With THC, you can create a product for the occasion.

Ramon Vela (25:59)
you

Angus Rittenburg (26:02)
that has no calories. To me, that was fascinating. It's the first time an adult beverage with an undeniable effect is allowed that doesn't come with calories. yeah, I think in 2020, 2021, the interesting thing was we had a solution to bring these to the market and capture these trends that were really

Ramon Vela (26:18)
Hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (26:29)
We were a little bit ahead of our time. In 2021, it was hard because we were paying a lot of marketing dollars to try and persuade people to go to a dispensary. And it's not a very compelling shopping experience for beverages. And for our target consumer, it was an extra stop. They weren't already going to the dispensary. But we just kept plugging away, creating a path. At that time,

Ramon Vela (26:50)
Hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (26:58)
This wasn't possible unless you could produce with some sort of mobile solution that we created. And I think we showed that high quality products can exist. Consumers want them to exist. We grew sales. Regulations have started to follow and a really good marketplace has developed in the US. today there's hundreds of doing the same. When we started, there might have been two meaningful brands that existed.

Yeah, it's just through watching these trends and finding a unique pathway, that's how you create these opportunities.

Ramon Vela (27:28)
Yeah. Well, I I still, I really commend you for holding that vision because I really feel like it wasn't, there wasn't a clear path. I mean, and there's still a lot of people who, lot of lawmakers who still fight the legalization of marijuana or hemp or any of these. And so it wasn't a clear path. And I think,

I think it makes a lot of sense, but I just feel like it wasn't a clear path back in those days. And so I commend you for holding that vision because it just, wasn't written in the cards right away. There was so much opposition to, go ahead.

Angus Rittenburg (28:02)
I think,

yeah, in so many cases that it just comes down to the product. once you have the product in hand and you experience it, that's when it can make these visions so obvious. So think going back to that electric bike thing, the reason my mentor Justin believed in electric bikes so much is because he had one and he used it.

And it's the fastest way to get across town. It's the cheapest way to get across town. Of course, this is going to be huge. We just need to create, you know, the product so people can experience it with Wink. You know, we had the benefit of not being cannabis consumers, but we were alcohol consumers. And when we tried these low dose THC beverages, it was the same thing. It was obvious. It's the perfect solution for us. think there are, I obviously still believe that there's many people like us that enjoy alcohol, like the alcohol.

you know, seek out alcohol occasions, but are really interested in an alternative. And to us, Wink was the ultimate alternative. And if you can believe in the product like we did, it's so easy to believe in the vision. You just need to get that product to people. And that's what we obviously spent a lot of time doing over the past five years. But you know, as a non-cannabis consumer trying these low dose THC drinks. So

clearly a compelling alternative to alcohol. It's not that it's going to replace alcohol for everyone. It just gives you another product for the same or new occasions. We believed in the product and therefore it was easy to believe in the vision.

Ramon Vela (29:26)
Hmm.

Yeah, and I think, well, like I said, I think you guys, commend you for holding that vision because I think you're right. And I think it goes along with what you said earlier about the better for you trend in beverages. But I think the better for you trend just overall, think we've, especially since the pandemic, people, think health, taking care of yourself, watching your immune system.

trying to be healthier, eating more natural, organic, or just eating better. All of that has to do with what's happening, I think, in your space. people, mean, for instance, for myself, I don't oppose alcohol. I just don't drink it all that much anymore. just, doesn't, like, it leaves, if I drink beer, it leaves me full and bloated.

You know, if I drink too much of a hard liquor, then I'm in my mid 50s. So I just don't bounce back the way I used to. like, you but at the same time though, you still have social occasions where, you know, you want to have something in your hand. It would be nice to have something that, that makes you feel good, but also doesn't really overwhelm you. And I kind of feel that that's the way a lot of ⁓ brands.

a lot of the really good ones, including yours, probably makes you feel, it just makes you feel good. And it gives you the ability to be social and be around other people, have a good time, but also not wake up like, oh my, you know, like I got a headache, you know, like how am gonna go for my run? How am I gonna go for my walk? Because I'm feeling like crap because, you know, my head hurts or whatever. I think that's a lot, that...

Angus Rittenburg (30:50)
Okay.

Ramon Vela (31:10)
that holds a special appeal to certain people. And not just for people who are in their mid-50s like myself, but also people who are in their

Angus Rittenburg (31:19)
Thank

Ramon Vela (31:19)
20s and 30s who really are adopting a healthier lifestyle, who are working out, who are running, whatever. People don't wanna wake up with that hangover. just don't, people wanna have a good time but not have it mess up the rest of your day or whatever. And I think there's a big appeal to that, especially from what you're doing.

⁓ let me make sure that people know what we're talking about, or where we're talking and where they can go. You can go to drink, wink.com and wink is spelled with a Y. it's W Y N K.com drink, wink.com is, is the website that you can go to. And, and so I love this conversation. I, again, I really feel like what you've done and you've, you have.

It sounds like to me, now that I know your story about your mentor and then how you started this with the trailer and everything, I feel like you're doing exactly what your mentor did. I mean, you are figuring, you're not dealing with parts and building an electric bike, but you're figuring out how to make it work within the confines of the laws. And you're being scrappy. You're trying to figure out like, hey, if we have to...

build our mobile manufacturing plan, you know, this is what we're going to do. I don't know. I just think it's, it's, it's very similar, just different things that you're, you're, you're working on versus an electric bike.

Angus Rittenburg (32:37)
Okay. you

Ramon Vela (32:43)
Um, so it's fascinating, but you mentioned also the, um, for the marketers out there and the, and people interested in that, you know, would, uh, you had a lot of challenges too. I think you still probably have a lot of challenges, you know, um, in terms of this category.

I think they're getting better, but at the same time though, there's still a lot of issues with advertisements and things like that. From the growth component of it, what were you guys doing to build that growth of the company from a sales standpoint?

Angus Rittenburg (33:15)
Yeah, the biggest challenge that we've had with Wink, and it remains our biggest challenge, is educating consumers.

The burden that we have is the stigma around cannabis. It's still very alive and well in the US. And a lot of consumers are scared of THC or think it's a bad thing. Many consumers have their gummy story where they took a gummy. It didn't affect them, so they had more and then they were high for three days. ⁓ We hear that all the time and that has...

Ramon Vela (33:45)
All ⁓

Angus Rittenburg (33:50)
That combined with sort of a lifetime of education, telling you to avoid drugs, including cannabis, makes it really hard to get people to try Wink. And what we really have to do is educate consumers that these products are extremely low dose, all forms of Wink. We offer Wink in a variety of doses, but all of them are very low dose. So to give an example,

that's helpful for many. A typical marijuana joint delivers about 150 milligrams of THC. ⁓ Our two and a half milligram, Wink delivers two and a half milligrams of THC. And so, you know, need 60 cans of Wink to be the equivalent of a marijuana joint. These are very, very low, low dose drinks. And that's always where we sort of guide consumers that are

Ramon Vela (34:22)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (34:43)
new to THC products is try the two and a half because the two and a half milligram drink in terms of intensity of effect, it's similar to a beer or a glass of wine. It's not the same effect, but just like beer, one can's not going to have a very, very strong effect. It's very subtle and it's a great entry point. And so, you we always educate consumers to start low and go slow. Try our two and a half, wait an hour.

Ramon Vela (35:05)
Thank you.

Angus Rittenburg (35:08)
see how it affects you. And the beauty of these drinks is you can just like beer or wine, can have multiple to sort of build the experience you want. And then as consumers become more familiar with the Wink products, they can graduate in dose. So we have five milligram cans, and then we have 10 milligram. So once consumers find the right dose for them, they can pick sort of from our library of options to get the effect that they want.

But it's really a challenging problem of educating through marketing. The other issue in the US is, you mentioned it earlier, but advertising is extremely hard for cannabis. So if you're trying to advertise through meta, whether it's Instagram or Facebook, there's very, very strict policies against advertising.

Ramon Vela (35:56)
in the

Angus Rittenburg (36:00)
anything with THC. So it's hard to get these messages through because in a lot of cases you have to sort of obfuscate the message to be compliant. And so there's a lot of room for innovation there as well. How do you advertise on these sort of common platforms that, you know, people are being educated about products in a way that's, you know, compliant with the platform's policies? Extremely challenging. But we've found

Ramon Vela (36:23)
Yeah.

Angus Rittenburg (36:25)
through creative ways to overcome it.

Ramon Vela (36:27)
Yeah, and that's, think that's the biggest challenge. And in terms of like the education part of it, I've just noticed, and you're right. I mean, I think this is not widespread, I think I've noticed that a lot of people, for instance, are open to the products like the, I don't know, the massage oils or the, you know, the roll-ons and things like that. ⁓

that has like CBD and things like that. I think people are beginning to be more open to all of that. And I've seen people in the last couple of years try some of those products. And in my mind, I was just thinking like, wow, I never would have imagined them using that product. I mean, because of what it's inside. But people are, I think, opening up around that. And I can say that with the products that I've tried, some of which, know,

Angus Rittenburg (37:06)
Yep.

you

Ramon Vela (37:15)
It is an elevated experience. feels like you're... It doesn't feel like you're out of control. It feels like you have sort of an elevate... I felt happy. I felt like a little bit of a happiness there and it was a little bit elevated, but it wasn't out of control. And I didn't feel like I was drunk or anything, but I felt like I was elevated. Like I was just feeling really good and...

I was smiling and it was a good feeling and it felt good in a social experience, a setting. for me, like that was the most ⁓ eye-opening aspect of all this is that it felt good. Like you felt something, you know, a lot of non-alcoholic drinks obviously don't have some of things they mimic certain things with spices and so forth, which are great. Like I've had some really good non-alcoholic brands, but I feel like

Angus Rittenburg (37:49)
Wow.

Ramon Vela (38:06)
With this

one, you actually have an opportunity to have some sort of elevated experience and it felt pretty good.

Angus Rittenburg (38:12)
Yeah, I think the profound thing with beverages as a delivery mechanism for THC compared to other edibles like gummies or brownies, some of these other products that people have tried in the past is the onset time is very fast. ⁓ So that the THC in the beverages is nano emulsified.

Ramon Vela (38:26)
.

Angus Rittenburg (38:30)
sort very, very small droplets suspended in the liquid. And it's very easy for your body to absorb in the stomach. And so when you look at like THC concentration in the blood over time, after people consume beverages compared to other edibles, you find that, you know, it hits the bloodstream much faster. And what that means for the consumers, you actually end up with a sort of curve of effect that's similar to alcohol.

Ramon Vela (38:57)
Thank

you.

Angus Rittenburg (38:57)
Consumers typically report beginning to feel something in 10 to 15 minutes, whereas edibles can take hours. So for the alcohol consumer, these low dose THC beverages, it's sort of a familiar experience where you're not waiting for an effect for hours, just like alcohol, you feel it in a half hour or less. And then the sort of wind down is also fairly quick.

Like alcohol, you're not drunk for many, many hours. When you have a drink, you can kind of predict when it's going to start to affect you and when it's going to start to go away. And THC is, well, it's not the same. It's similar. Where that's important for consumers is it gives you, THC beverages give you a way to really control your experience in a way that you're familiar with alcohol. ⁓ So we find that consumers stack the drinks if they want to have a strong effect.

Ramon Vela (39:40)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (39:49)
at a social event, they'll have several over a period of time. And that's, you know, really compelling. If you're trying to fit the alcohol occasion, you want the product that you're proposing to be used in a similar way and THC beverages definitely fit the mold well.

Ramon Vela (40:06)
Yeah, I agree. I love to start talking about specifically about some of the products that we're going to find on the website. Before we do that, what's some of your biggest lessons learned in this whole experience of yours that maybe someone, maybe not in your specific industry, but maybe who's out there and has to be scrappy and has to work around different ⁓ solutions around different laws or whatever it might be. Any lessons learned?

Angus Rittenburg (40:32)
Yeah, I think the one thing that served us very well is investing really heavily in doing the right thing. These startups are very tricky because you have limited budgets and you have a lot of money. You have a lot to invest in to get the business off the ground. It's easy to cut corners, especially with compliance, I think with any business. But right when we started Wink, the first thing that I bought was

all of the lab equipment that the state cannabis labs had to test quality. And that was the first thing we spent money on was making sure that any product that we produced could be tested to the same standards as the states. And that allowed us very early on to, ever since the first version of Wink that we produced, we had all the tools needed to assess quality to an insanely high standard.

And we've carried that through with us, you since starting the business. We've always, we've never cut corners on quality and compliance because we always wanted to be, you know, seen as an industry leader that does things well, whether that's from consumers or from regulators. We've worked very closely with regulators since we started to just try and find a way to create these products, you know, in a

compliant and trustworthy way, regardless of the cost. And that was a very intentional decision for us. And I don't think we'd be here today if we hadn't taken the steps necessary to gain the trust of both consumers and regulators.

Yeah, it's an easy thing to forgo or try and take shortcuts, but it's a priceless investment just to do the right thing and help build the category, not try and find loopholes to jump through.

Ramon Vela (42:16)
Yeah. Well, and I think that that is like worth its weight in gold because I think, you've mentioned it before, but people do have this, when you're talking about education, people do have a hesitancy because of the quality. know, the quality of CBD products, for instance, I don't know if they've gotten better. Perhaps they have. I haven't looked at any in recent times, but I know that it was like a wild west out there.

And I would imagine the same thing with beverages where, you know, you don't know how much, you know, the, how many is the amount of milligrams correct, or, you know, with CBD products, it was really crazy because it just like the quality was all over the place. So I think the quality, I think it's hugely important, especially if you want those returning customers, right? You want them to have a good experience the first time and not have a gummy experience like you're talking about earlier.

Angus Rittenburg (43:08)
Yeah.

Ramon Vela (43:08)
You want them to have a great

experience. And I think that investment that you made in that, and not only just the investment, but just the idea that, want to, quality's got to come first. I think that's been huge, especially in the market that is, you know, is regulated, but at the same time, it's a little wild west out there.

Angus Rittenburg (43:28)
Yeah, I mean every Every single batch of wink that we've ever produced We've tested in our own lab and we've sent to a third-party lab to validate the result so that when we say there's two and a half milligrams in the can There is we we know it both through our own checks and through a third party opinion The other thing that we spent a lot of time

on in the early days of Wink was ensuring the stability. So it's one thing to have 2.5 milligrams of THC in the can when it's made. It's another for it to be the same potency any year, know, through the shelf life of the product. And we had to make very early corrections to the formulation to make it so that the dosage in the can was constant through the entire shelf life. Because there's many ways in which THC can degrade in liquid.

We spent a lot of time very early on making sure all of that was right before we went to market. These are easy things to ignore. Just get the product on the shelf, make sure it tastes good. But we really wanted to make sure the efficacy was there. And consumers got a very repeatable experience and are getting what they pay for.

Ramon Vela (44:34)
I love what you just said and I think it's so important and you said something just a second ago that I just want to replay is and that you said that you're building a category, not just some products because what you just said right now and what you said earlier about that, I think really go hand to hand because you can't, if you are simply going to throw products on the shelf,

And I think we talked about this in our pre-interviews, there's some brands out there who are just like, they're trying to, you know, nothing wrong with it, of course, but they're trying to take advantage of an opportunity in the trends and so forth. So they slap their labels on products that may not make the most sense. And then that leaves the consumer with a bad experience. And I think what you're saying here is that, you know, yes, you want Wink to be the best product out there.

quality wise, efficacy, and I love this thoughtful approach that you have about, know, do you want it to be as effective now as it is three months from now or whatever the shelf life is? I think that's huge. Because it's not just about Wink, it's about the category. And I love that, you know, of course you have to worry about Wink, but I love this idea that about, you you're also thinking about the category. You want the category to survive and continue.

Angus Rittenburg (45:32)
.

Ramon Vela (45:58)
I don't know if you want to go through this. We don't have to, I want to talk about the product, but I will say that if it's okay with you, that you, that this trust and this methodology and this systematic approach and this thoughtfulness to the, ⁓ the manufacturing of it, you've now carried on. You're creating other people's products too. Right. We don't, don't have to name anyone, but I thought it.

Angus Rittenburg (46:18)
Yeah. Now

it's, you know, to your, to your earlier point, we, we have a large

canning facility that we produce Wink in. We produce alcoholic brands and non-alcoholic brands. It's a co-packing. It's a separate business that is co-packing. know, brands that need product produce can come to us and we provide that service of filling their cans for them. We made a very intentional decision years ago to open that up to our competitors. So we actually produce a lot of our quote unquote competitors.

Ramon Vela (46:52)
Thank you.

Angus Rittenburg (46:54)
And the reason we, you know, a of people are confused by that. help your competition? And one of the biggest reasons that we decided to do it is because we have the most experience in the industry producing THC drinks. have all the quality equipment needed to ensure that it's done, done well. And, know, to your point of building the category, one of my biggest concerns early on was, you know, operators that

didn't know what they were doing using co-packers that didn't know what they were doing would put products on the shelf that if an alcohol consumer decided to try the THC beverage category and grab the wrong product would have a bad experience. Either ineffective product, overdosed, you know, giving them a scary experience. All of these things don't help Wink and they don't help the category. So we decided to open up our co-packing to others and the goal there really is to do the best we can to make sure that

all the products in the category are good, whether there are competition or not, with the goal of having a consumer that goes to the THC shelf to try a new product. If they have a good experience, they're likely to come back and will want to try a variety of different products. And we're confident that in the end, they'll love Wink and choose Wink, but they have the right to experience other products as well.

Ramon Vela (48:16)
Yeah. Well, I'm very impressed. We don't have to name names of who you built, who you make for, but I will say that I've tried some of those products and I'm impressed with those products. And so what really impressed me was like, wow, I didn't know you guys were behind it initially. that in this conversation and that experience and that knowledge for me really puts you guys up at a pedestal from my perspective, because I love this idea that you have not only about that, about

building a great product, but also ⁓ helping to create a category. And you guys make great products. mean, based on what I've experienced, you guys make really great products and it's great to know that you're behind it. So let's talk a little bit about what, and by the way, I was gonna say that if I'm out there and I'm building, wanting to build a brand like yours or a brand like Wink,

And then I would definitely contact Angus or his team. Sorry, I just throw a little motion in there. So ⁓ let's see if someone loves this conversation, loves this idea that, you know, loves the scrappiness that you've, you've showed and you've talked about, and really it's a case study. would like this should be studied in some college business course.

Angus Rittenburg (49:13)
Happy to help.

Ramon Vela (49:32)
and likes the idea that, you know, about the manufacturing, the quality, the efficacy and all of that. Where do want them to begin in their journey with Wink?

Angus Rittenburg (49:41)
Yep. So we have three sort of primary doses that you can get Wink, the two and a half milligram, a five milligram and a 10 milligram. We always recommend starting with the two and a half milligram and that's sold at, it's you know, it's a lightly flavored seltzer sort of similar to La Croix or Polar. Very, very lightly flavored, zero calories, zero sugar, all natural flavoring. We offer those in

a lime, mango, cherry and tangerine. And they're sold in a seven and a half ounce can.

Once you try those, many people find that they want more. They want a slightly more intense effect. And we offer the same flavors and the same product in a five milligram dose in 12 ounce cans. So similar to a white claw can.

10 milligrams is for the much more experienced consumer. It has a much stronger effect. I think by the end of this year, it'll be about 50 % of our sales. So there's a lot of demand for these stronger drinks. I prefer five personally, but there's many consumers out there that find that 10 milligram is the right dose. The difference with our 10 milligram drinks is that they're much more flavorful.

So where our two and a half and five milligram are, you know, lightly flavored seltzers, the 10 milligrams are very, very intense flavors, the three versions of lemonade. So we have a base lemonade, a strawberry lemonade, a raspberry lemonade, all zero calories, zero sugar, but much, much more flavorful and vibrant. I think we'll eventually cross those flavors over to the other doses, but.

Ramon Vela (51:08)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (51:21)
for now, the stronger flavorings only with the stronger dose. And then we offer these products. I was in Chicago two weeks ago with our team and we went and did a couple sort of social things together and we were going to bars and restaurants. And it's really exciting because we're starting to see Wink sold at bars and restaurants all over the place. So Wink just happened to be at a variety of bars and restaurants that we went to.

That's a great place to try them. We have a store locator on the site so can find places locally that are selling Wink. And then we sell them in liquor stores and we offer all of our products in four packs, six packs, or 12 pack variety packs. So much like you'd buy beer or other seltzers, they're in the same general formats and

you know, on the shelf right beside high noon or white cloth. ⁓ And to me, that's really exciting. You're starting to see this whole new category of beverage adjacent to, you know, the alcoholic equivalents that people are used to. And it's not only positioned adjacent, it's also priced adjacent. these products are, you know, THC derived seltzers are now offered at almost the same price as

Ramon Vela (52:16)
Hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (52:37)
alcoholic seltzers, ⁓ which is amazing to see how mainstream this category is becoming in many markets.

Ramon Vela (52:39)
Hmm.

Yeah, I love that. just for you, for the audience, you can go to www.drinkwink.com. www.drinkwink.com. Remember, Wink has a Y in it, W-Y-N-K. www.drinkwink.com is the website. And I'm on the website right now and you can go to the navigation area and it's really well organized. You can shop for 2.5 milligrams, 5 milligrams, 10 milligrams.

You can buy gift cards. There's also bundles that you can try. So there's a lot of stuff. And then of course you can also subscribe and save and get some savings and discounts that way. You also have a really great navigation button that basically gives some of your partners. And then there's a search, zip code search there for you, which is pretty cool.

What else would you like them to try? And if you're new to this, would you suggest people going towards the bundles?

Angus Rittenburg (53:42)
Yeah, one thing I'd add on the website, we do a very active blog that's educational. So if you're curious about these products, how they affect you, there's a lot of really good information in our blogs on our website. And then we have a variety of different bundles to choose from online. They're starter bundles that give you products for new consumers that are just trying to achieve beverages for the first time. We put together an assortment of

you ones we think everybody should try. And then we also offer bundles that include, you know, multiple doses and flavors all in, all in one order. online is a great place to start. If you want a convenient way to just get the product shipped to your door and try it, see if you like it, very easy to do online. and then the product's always cheaper to buy in store. It's expensive to ship beverages. so, you know, online is a great way to start. And then, you know, if you're in an area where

Ramon Vela (54:11)
You

Angus Rittenburg (54:35)
our products sold and you like it, you're likely able to find it at half the price at a local store.

Ramon Vela (54:40)
So, if you, and obviously if you can't find it near you, you could order, correct? I mean, you could order on.

Angus Rittenburg (54:47)
Yeah, and then

we do offer a subscription program and you get 20 % off online if you sign up for a subscription. And what the subscription does is just allow you to set up a recurring order. It can be monthly or every two months. It'll automatically fulfill a of our warehouse and ship straight to your door. And that's just for territories that were not sold in local stores.

It's just a way to try and make it more affordable for consumers with a commitment to continue ordering.

Ramon Vela (55:16)
In ⁓ what, in what, currently in terms of the, the geographical sales coverage, is it everywhere in the United States that someone can buy or are there certain areas where they cannot, cannot buy?

Angus Rittenburg (55:29)
Yeah, we sell online to about 40 states and we sell in retail in about 20 states. I think we'll sell in retail in about 23 states by the end of the year, and then we'll continue expanding as local regulations permit. So we have very good coverage between online and in-store, but our hope is, you know, as quickly as possible to get the product available in

in everybody's local stores as soon as we can while remaining compliant with local rules.

Ramon Vela (56:00)
Yeah, this is fascinating. love this conversation that we've had. quite honestly, I think everything you've done and just the story that you've told has been, for me, it has built up my trust in a brand like yours. And so, I can wholeheartedly recommend people to give it a try. What's your social media handles?

Angus Rittenburg (56:22)
DrinkWink, so at at DrinkWink, just the same as the website. And we're on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. Find us all over.

Ramon Vela (56:31)
Yeah. Well, you know, I want to be respectful of your time. You know, we've gone over a little bit of our time, but like I said, this is fascinating. I think this should be a business sort of case study that people read about. And I love how you started this. There's a really wonderful arc in that. is the example of your gratitude of your mentor and what they're, what they're built and what they, what he did and how he built it. I honestly, I.

I was, when you were saying that I was thinking, ⁓ I was thinking like one of my questions should be how did, you know, did you, how did you apply some of what he taught you? And that was a, like, I was thinking about that when you were telling me about your story, but I think you've done a really great job of laying it out because I can see a lot of similarities based on what you've told me and how he operated his business. And I obviously, I'm sure that's why you tell that story, but it's,

is fascinating because you have been scrappy and built and adapted and scaled based on the changing environment. And to me, that's, mean, from a business standpoint, that's really cool what you've done, you know. But from a customer standpoint too, I feel like that engenders a lot of trust, just in terms of the quality, the statements you've made around not just building products, but also building the category.

Angus Rittenburg (57:37)
She. .

Ramon Vela (57:49)
I think that's really important too, from a consumer standpoint, I believe that. So I want to make sure people have a great understanding of why they should do Wink. Is there any last words that you want to, or last statements you want to give? I always say the last words, it feels kind of weird, you're not going off to die or anything like that. So it's not your last word, but your last statement. Do you have anything that you want to leave with the audience?

Angus Rittenburg (58:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

My last will and testament. Yeah, I think that's, you know, what's been really interesting for me is seeing all the ways in which people are using Wink and incorporate it into their lives. We designed it to be a social beverage to be used for the alcoholic Asian. We get so much customer feedback, which I'm also very grateful for. You know, it's amazing.

Ramon Vela (58:18)
Yeah.

Angus Rittenburg (58:41)
you know, starting a brand and seeing people actually take the time to write your notes about what they think about your products. And in a lot of cases, people are taking time to tell us very positive things, which I'm extremely grateful for. It's fascinating seeing how people are using these products and a lot of the ways I didn't expect at all. And so I hear consumers saying, you know, this has been an amazing ⁓

Ramon Vela (58:46)
Mm-hmm.

Angus Rittenburg (59:06)
cure for sleep. THC beverages are extremely effective in helping people sleep through the night. I hear people using them for pain, for anxiety. Alcoholics that have had a hard time getting off alcohol have found these to be extremely helpful. There's stories of people that have terrible illnesses and the pharmaceuticals that they had been

prescribed are less effective than THC is, helping with the side effects of many of the things that they're dealing with. So I think the lesson there is we're very limited in any health claims we can make, and we would never claim Wink to do a lot of these things. What we're finding is consumers are telling us how it's helping them. And despite all the stigma, I think it's worth at least trying.

Because I suspect that you'll find occasions that Wink is really helpful that we may never talk about. And I can tell you for many of our consumers, it's been life changing for them.

Ramon Vela (1:00:08)
Yeah. Well, I love that. I love what you just said. And, ⁓ and then also just throw in too, that, I, I would, you know, anyone who's, you know, in their past forties or whatever, you know, we, you know, there's nothing wrong with alcohol and I'm not saying that alcohol is going away, but I just think that, you know, from myself, I'm trying to adopt a, or I have adopted a more healthier lifestyle and I'm trying to eat better. I'm trying to.

you know, this whole idea of longevity, trying to live a little longer and live healthy as I live, you know, while, while I'm having more time. And this is just one of those areas where I kind of feel like, you know, the alcohol is just a little too strong. Sometimes it's a little too heavy. It's a little, you know, leaves me with a headache the next day. And I would recommend anyone, you know, in their mid forties and fifties, I would recommend.

Angus Rittenburg (1:00:50)
. .

Ramon Vela (1:01:01)
something like this, especially if you want to lower the amount of alcohol you're having, not as you give it up, but lower the amount of alcohol you're having while still having something that allows you to be social. To me, this kind of product is a godsend because it

allows you to have a good time, it allows you to feel little elevated, allows you to be social and people aren't looking at you and saying, hey, why aren't you drinking? This is, I think, really a great

input into a healthy lifestyle and I would highly recommend it. So that's my two cents and I think you're a product worth buying and a brand worth supporting. So thank you for joining us. I really appreciate your time Angus. ⁓

Angus Rittenburg (1:01:42)
Thank you. Appreciate the opportunity.

Ramon Vela (1:01:45)
Yeah, this has been fantastic. And everyone out there, have just had Angus Rittenberg, who is co-founder and CEO of Wink. And Wink is spelled with a Y. So it's W-Y-N-K. And the website is www.winkwink.com. We're going to have that link as well as their social media on our podcast description, which you can find on Apple, Spotify, pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts. Simply type in the story of a brand show and you should be able to find it.

Angus Rittenburg (1:01:46)
Thank

Ramon Vela (1:02:13)
⁓ and, and again, thank you, Angus. think this is fascinating conversation. I learned a lot about, ⁓ about Wink and I truly appreciate, know, you sharing, your gratitude story and everything. So thank you again.

Angus Rittenburg (1:02:26)
Thank you.

Ramon Vela (1:02:27)
Everyone out there, as I always say, stay safe, stay sane, stay healthy. And in this case, I'm actually going to say, now you can't put any health claims to this, but again, from the perspective of if you want to reduce the amount of alcohol while still being able to be social, I think this is a great way to do that. So from this perspective, I'm going to say, yeah, go check it out and then sign up for the newsletter because that's probably the best way to find out what's happening. What new

products, new flavors, new stores. It's always, I'm sure expanding. So go to the website, sign up for the newsletter. It's the best way to keep up to date. Beyond that, everyone, one last thing. We've all been going through a lot of stuff since the pandemic, the economy, the politics, geopolitical wars, whatever it is, let's just do ourselves a favor. Unless I was going to say, you know, let's be kinder to each other, but let's all have a wing together and let's just be kinder to each other. Let's just have a good time.

Angus Rittenburg (1:03:13)
Okay. Okay.

Ramon Vela (1:03:24)
Let's just remember everyone's going through something. Let's just be nicer to each other. And I'm sure if we all had a wink that we would probably be able to do that. And thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to another episode of the story of a brand.