Today we’d like to introduce you to Aimy Steadman.
Aimy, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
We had seen boxed wine at every party, tailgate, and river float trip, but no one loved the wine they were drinking and the brands did not appeal to our generation. My business partners Justin, Brad, Jason, and Dan came up with the idea to make boxed wine less boring. I met Justin in Entrepreneur club during the first semester at McCombs Business School while we were pursuing our MBAs. He recruited me to join the team. At the time I was a DJ on the student radio station KVRX 91.7 FM. Justin, Jason, Dan and myself were the MBAs who always wanted to go to concerts together. Music was at the center of our social lives and so we wanted to create a brand that was all about bringing people together with music. We created many prototypes, tested out different radio type packaging with different designers printing stickers we put on boxes, we emptied out wine bags and filled them with our own concoctions of alcohol, lemonade, and other mixers, and tested the product out a ton! We went to parties, large apartment complex pools, tailgates, etc and got more than 1000 points of feedback on the product and launched the product in stores on March 2013, right before we graduated with our degrees. BeatBox was the world’s first ready-to-drink party punch in a “boxed wine” format.
We graduated and I continued to work on our company while also working a “day job”. Through the University community, we were discovered by Alan Dreeban, one of the owners of RNDC — one of the biggest wine and spirits distributors in the country. He helped us with our packaging and took on our brand for distribution. We were able to partner with H-E-B in the summer of 2014 which gave us great momentum that summer. We pitched our story to Shark Tank in early 2014 and was able to pitch the “Sharks” on the TV show as part of Season 6. Mark Cuban ended up making one of the largest investments in Shark Tank history on the show in us — $1M for 1/3 of our brand new company. I got to quit my day job!
After Shark Tank, we had periods of large growth, retailers and distributors were knocking on our doors for our brand. We also had some growing pains and made many mistakes along the way of growing our business. We realized we needed to launch a smaller version of our product, targeted for convenience and grab-and-go opportunities. In 2016-2017, we launched a 500ML Tetra Pak version of our product, raised a new round of funding and hired on some talented alcohol industry executives to help us take our growth to the next level. We also switched our distribution network from wine and spirits wholesalers to the beer network, so we could better focus on convenience channel and the grab-and-go market, while still maintaining a positive relationship with Alan and RNDC. The growth since taking on this new strategy has been tremendous, with BeatBox selling well in multiple markets, and now gaining more and more traction with regional and national chains.
In 2019, we raised a Series B round of funding to help launch two new product lines: Brizzy Seltzer Cocktails and Corkless Wine. The team and sales continue to grow — we expect to sell 165K cases of BeatBox Party Punch this year and are excited to launch our new product lines as well.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
After Shark Tank, we had many opportunities, from expanding to other states, to launching with chain retailers, but we were very green in the industry in our mid-20s and had a very small team to go and execute with. As a result, we failed to really leverage our wholesaler and retailer partnerships to grow sales at a higher level. While we worked harder than anyone should work, it was an impossible task to try to grow at the rate we wanted to by winning every sale with our small team, instead of with our distributor partners, and one store at a time, instead of focusing on chain retail programs that could win us many points of distribution with one single meeting. Our channel management expertise has increased so much by bringing on veterans from the industry, and our sales show it! The low growth in the years following Shark Tank almost lost our investor’s confidence and would have meant shutting our doors forever. Thankfully, our investors supported us through that time and are now seeing huge growth they were hoping for back then! Coming from online marketing, I was so used to working directly with customers and thought consumer marketing was the most important factor in building a company. In alcohol beverage, you are reliant on your partnerships to reach those customers, so you have to win distribution first.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about BeatBox Beverages, LLC – what should we know?
BeatBox Beverages develops disruptive alcohol brands for the next generation. The leadership team is a collective of millennial founders and industry veterans, which lets our success at developing high-growth next-generation brands and launch them retail.
Pricing:
- BeatBox Party Punch is $3.49-3.99 at retailers
Contact Info:
- Website: beatboxbeverages.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beatboxbeverages/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeatboxBeverages/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/BeatboxBevs
Image Credit:
Photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zes44ryuzed34vh/AADD9Ik9U_GyTjYEw0H3G8GZa?dl=0
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