JW Wiseman
Here's the number one thing I learned from the Kickstarter consultant. Number one thing is your first 24 hours is 80% of the ballgame. So if you get in the first 24 hours 30% to your goal, you have over a 90% chance of success. That's how big the momentum is. The key is getting everybody to do it all in one shot, all on one day.
Chase Clymer
Honest Ecommerce is a weekly podcast where we interview direct-to-consumer brand founders and leaders to find out what it takes to start, grow, and scale an online business today. Honest Ecommerce is proudly produced by Electric Eye, a Shopify Plus partner helping ecommerce brands sell more with strategic design and development. Visit electriceye.io for more information.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Honest Ecommerce. My name is Chase Clymer, and today I'm welcoming to the show JW Wiseman, the founder of Curious Elixirs, booze-free cocktails and wines with adaptogens to help you unwind. JW, welcome to the show.
JW Wiseman
Thrilled to be here, Chase.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. So I kind of spilled the beans on the product there, amazing booze-free craft cocktails and wines. Take me back in time. Where did the idea to start a business in the non-alcoholic space come from?
JW Wiseman
Hopping in the DeLorean with Doc Brown, let's go back to 2012. So I had a crazy night of drinking. I had over 20 drinks in one night, and the next day I thought I'd have a really bad hangover, and I didn't have any hangover. And that was what scared me the most. Being a bar owner here and being in nightlife, you can drink an awful lot and still be highly functional in New York, because you don't necessarily have to drive here. You can use public transit, you can get a rideshare, you can get a cab.
And so that was really what started it, because I still love going out. I love being social. I love restaurants, theater, comedy clubs, all these different places. And it seemed like every time I went out and I wasn't drinking alcohol, there wasn't anything adult. And that's really the light bulb moment. I was sitting in a Mexican restaurant on the Upper West Side with a friend who was sober, and we were both sharing how we felt like we didn't belong in certain social environments.
And so that's really when the spark happened. And I said, “Okay, well, I'm going to start tinkering in my kitchen and see if I can make something.” And the results have been magical since then. A roller coaster is probably the most apt metaphor, it's thrilling and terrifying, and lots of ups and downs along the way.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
JW Wiseman
We didn't really even start officially as a company until three years later, when I was like, okay, this is beyond just making drinks for parties and for friends, this is a way bigger thing than I thought it was. I was literally watching Martha Stewart speak at a conference, and I was kind of like, “I'm not a naturally confident person– should I do this? Should I not?”
And the person interviewing her asked this question, “Was there ever a time when the chips were down and you thought it might not work out?” And she was like, "Nope, never, not once." Which is not me.
But I took that. That really struck me. It struck me deeply. And I was like, I am starting this company, it's happening. I can borrow Martha's confident energy anytime I want. Thank you, Martha. And that's really when it started. That was in 2015, and that's when the company officially started, at that moment.
Chase Clymer
That's amazing. Now, how long did it take from "all right, we're doing this," or in your head you're like, "all right, I'm doing this," to where you had your first iteration of the product?
JW Wiseman
Six months later I had the first iteration of the product, and that's when I really laid the groundwork for the Kickstarter campaign and started going into launch mode. So it was about six months to get the first draft of the product. But I had already been tinkering for years, so it's a little bit of a miscalculation to say six months later we had the product.
It was really like three and a half years of tinkering in my kitchen to figure out what works, what doesn't, what roots are going to be bitter, that's going to give me that bittersweet edge to make it actually adult.
And all that time I was just obsessed with learning about drinks and roots and functional ingredients like adaptogens that now more and more people are starting to understand. But in 2015, when we launched, people had no idea what this stuff was. So that's been the biggest change over the course of the 11 years we've been in business is how much we're able to now talk about the function, because millions more people understand.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. And let's talk about Kickstarter and the first product, or products. Did you go in with just a flagship product, or did you launch with a line of products for the first go-round?
JW Wiseman
So I had the first three plotted out, the first three elixirs, Curious Number One, Curious Number Two, and Curious Number Three, which I have right here, which is like our martini. You can either make it dirty with olives or you can just do it with a lemon twist, and have it either way.
But I started with one product that was finished for the Kickstarter, and that's the one we started bottling: Curious Number One. Then Number Two came six months later, and Number Three came a few months after that. And we've released one new elixir every year for our eleven years, so we have eleven now.
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Chase Clymer
Now, you launched Number One with Kickstarter. Did you launch Two and Three with Kickstarter, or was this now you're launching this to your own audience on your own platform?
JW Wiseman
People who pledged a certain amount got access to the first three flavors, but as they were released. So one came in the first month, then they got to be the first members of the Curious Cocktail Club. And in the Curious Cocktail Club, you get a rotating monthly variety pack. You get three flavors a month. You can choose either four bottles, twelve bottles, or twenty-four bottles in the club, and you get different flavors each month.
So in the Kickstarter, there was only one flavor ready, and they got that for the first few months. Then the second flavor was ready, kind of like the summer of the following year. Then they got the third elixir after that. And cocktail club members get access to the first batch of new flavors first.
Chase Clymer
And now, not to simplify things, but sometimes you do need to really spell it out for some of the early entrepreneurs, or people like me that are super dense, your Curious Club, is it membership, is it subscription? Is that the flagship product for the direct-to-consumer side of the business?
JW Wiseman
Yes, that is the flagship product for the direct-to-consumer business, the Curious Cocktail Club. And that includes our cocktails and our wines. We even have one brew for beer drinkers. But there's other ways to enjoy it too, that's just kind of the best, easiest way to get acquainted with all of the different elixirs that we have. You get one of these little nice cards that has all the different flavors on it, this is our flavor and function card that comes in every box.
So the cocktail club is really the best way to find which flavors are really for you. For some people they love all the flavors, for other people they love two or three of them. Everybody's palate is different, everyone's preferences are different, everyone's experience is different. Like when I taste this, the Curious Number Three, it's giving me memories of drinks in Japan, drinks in Italy, different inspirations from my cocktail and wine journey across the world. So each person is going to find which flavors work best for them, both in terms of how they taste and how they make them feel.
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Chase Clymer
Well, actually, maybe during the Kickstarter, how did you find success with the Kickstarter? Did you take on any sort of outside help to elevate the reach of your Kickstarter? I know that there's a whole world of Kickstarter consultants, agencies per se, or did you guys take that on internally?
JW Wiseman
It was both. We definitely had a lot of help. We asked as many people as we could for advice — people who had done Kickstarters before. In our co-working space, there were a couple of people who had had really massively successful Kickstarters, in cookware and other things. So it was picking their brain. We did also talk to a Kickstarter consultant and had her help, and there were some really incredibly valuable things from that.
Here's the number one thing I learned from the Kickstarter consultant: your first 24 hours is 80% of the ballgame. So if you get, in the first 24 hours, 30% to your goal, you have over a 90% chance of success. That's how big the momentum is. But you have to get to that first third.
And so what does that mean? That means you have to prep your audience — every single person you've done business with, your friends, your family, everyone, acquaintances, everyone that you think might be interested in what you're doing.
Hit them up one week before you launch the Kickstarter and say, "Don't do anything right now, but I need your help. If you can pledge even one dollar when I give you the signal, the bat signal, one week from today — if you can give one dollar right then, immediately — then we have a 90% chance of success." This is the key. The key is getting everybody to do it all in one shot, all on one day, and prepping them beforehand. It's like throwing a good party — you have to get people to RSVP. You have to get them to say, "Yes, I would like to do that with you." And that makes all the difference.
Then, following on the success of that — and again, that's 80% of it right there, making sure that you get everybody in your community to do that one thing at that one singular moment. After that, you go out to every press contact that you have, every single person, and say, "This is a limited-time thing. I would love it if you would consider covering this." And we got a couple of key pieces of press that helped get us beyond our friends-and-family community and into more people who were drinking less for a bunch of different reasons.
And that's the amazing thing about what Curious does — it's not just for people who are sober. It's for people who are cutting back. It's people who are training for a marathon, or they have an allergy, or a thousand different reasons why people are drinking less.
But the biggest group of people that Curious is for is not just people who don't drink at all, it's also people who are just looking to drink less. And that's kind of one of the big "aha" moments for me, was figuring that out by doing some research.
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Chase Clymer
Now, I'm sure there are listeners out there that are like, "JW, that's all well and good, you knew all these press people, that's no wonder you were successful." What would you have to say to those naysayers?
JW Wiseman
There was a time when I knew no one in New York. And I learned this really key thing that you can get to anybody in the world with gentle persistence. If you just ask for five minutes of their time, and you genuinely think that you can help them in some way, and they can help you, that is really key.
And it's kind of like flirting. It's not going to work out every time. The first time you flirt with somebody, they're probably not going to be your husband or your wife. And that's okay. Just the act of being open and honest, and talking to somebody, maybe you're moving a little outside of your comfort zone, it's similar to press.
And the other thing with press today is it's beyond just traditional publications that we've been covered in, like the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. It's Substack. It's Honest Ecommerce. It's podcasts. It's different things like that where you go in with these audiences that are going to be much more likely to be into what you're doing, rather than going for a huge market right out of the gate. Go small first.
The first piece of press that we got was from our friends at Refinery29, a fashion and style blog. And there's lots of fashion girlies that were looking to drink less, and their audience loved it. And a bunch of them ended up backing the Kickstarter. So you can get to anybody, and it's just really important that you ask. This is kind of like, if you don't ask, you don't get. You have to get comfortable with asking.
But it's not just about taking, it's what can you give them? If you're going to reach out to a journalist, you're giving them a story. You're helping them do their work. And if you make a nice story for them, and package it well in your opening email, in your opening phone call, whatever it is, it makes their lives so much easier. Their audiences are hungry and thirsty for stories. So if you help them do their jobs, that's a gift to them and a gift to you.
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Chase Clymer
Absolutely, JW. I always like to use the phrase "lead with value" whenever you're trying to do outreach, or just meet a new person. Just imagine yourself on the receiving end of that, and put yourself into their shoes with whatever it is that they're good at, and just be like, what email would they want to receive? How could you make their day, their job, their life a little bit better? That's going to make your response rates on those things skyrocket.
And also, it's a numbers game, like you said. It's a persistence game. You can't take any of it personally when they don't reply or reply "not interested," because you also have to remember they don't know you from anyone else. They don't owe you anything. Don’t take it personally.
JW Wiseman
A hundred percent.
Chase Clymer
Now, you launch on Kickstarter, that's going well, you get the first couple of elixirs out. What does the first pillar of the business look like? Are you guys launching and going straight direct-to-consumer first? Did you start to explore wholesale? Were there other options, like Amazon? Where were you spending most of your time in those first couple of years to try to get the flywheel started?
JW Wiseman
Great question. So to get the flywheel started, I was an ecommerce marketer by trade. I had been at this company called Thrillist, and we also had a business called Jack Threads, which is kind of like streetwear for dudes, and we were spending a tremendous amount of time and money on Facebook and Instagram and Google.
So we started putting our dollars to work immediately. Most of the Kickstarter money went straight into production, into producing the bottles of Curious themselves. We were making five hundred bottles a week on Main Street in Beacon, New York, in the Hudson Valley. And it went straight into that.
But we also started doing digital marketing, paid digital marketing, and lifecycle marketing, referrals, things of that nature. And putting whatever money we made back into development of the products, and back into more advertising, to start that flywheel.
Chase Clymer
Just to set expectations for people–and this was also almost eight years ago–how much money were you spending a week or a month on Facebook ads?
JW Wiseman
Tiny amounts in the early years. Tiny amounts, hundreds of dollars a week. Now it's thousands and thousands of dollars a day. But the roller coaster ride of how well paid social has done is really volatile. People kind of liken it to Vegas, like you're gambling. And our team is excellent at it, and we've been really focused on ecommerce for our entire history.
We arguably were too late to wholesale, and we're not in big box retail and things like that. Our drinks are in glass bottles, and for a lot of retailers, they prioritize cans. And eventually, will we have products that work for large supermarket chains? Absolutely.
But for right now, we're in specialty groceries, we're in nicer boutique liquor stores, and places, restaurants, hotels, clubs, etc., where the staff deeply cares about ingredients. That's the through line. If they deeply care about ingredients and what's going out in front of their customers, then it's generally a great fit for us. If it's churn and burn and we're all about volume, not a great fit for us.
They have to have kind of an upscale consumer that has a more advanced palate. None of our drinks are too sweet, none of them are basic. All of them have a beginning, middle, and an end to them in terms of how you drink them, and they help you slow down. These are cravable, but they're not chugged drinks. You're not chugging these, you're sipping them.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Looking back these eleven years now, is there any mistake that stands out to you that you made along the way, that you're like, "I wish somebody would go on a podcast with a guy named Chase and talk about it, and then I wouldn't make that mistake"?
JW Wiseman
Yeah, so there's a couple of big ones. The first one that comes to mind, so say, for these bottles, if you're listening, you won't be able to see this, but if you're watching, you'll be able to see, like, here's Curious Number Five. And it's got this nice purple label that goes over the top, right? Each one of these is applied by hand, and that's expensive. When we say these are crafted cocktails and wines, we mean it. There's humans involved making all of these.
And that label over the top, we invested over $70,000 to automate that process of putting that label over those bottles, and we never were able to get it to work properly. And that's something I wish we had leased instead of buying it outright. That would have been something I would have loved to have done, to lease that piece of equipment.
I've learned this a couple of times where we don't really want to own the equipment, the means of production, at least for our stage of business. It's much better to work with high-quality partners who can help you manufacture, and to try out different machinery rather than buying it outright right from the jump. So that's one thing I learned, was try before you buy.
Chase Clymer
Yeah, that's such a good statement there. And it goes to… even I see a lot of businesses will get too much space, like warehouse space, right at the beginning, because they think it's a good deal, or it's not going to happen again, or they get too fancy an office. You really need to be a hawk on your P&L.
And one of my favorite stories about this is Bezos rented the back room of some other business for the longest time, and his desk was a door on top of two other non-desk parts. So if you can do it cheaply, buy used, rent, you need to keep your monthly overhead down, keep your margin, keep cash flow up so you can keep reinvesting in growth. You always got to think about that.
I don't know, I think especially at the beginning, for a lot of startups and entrepreneurs, there's some sort of clout that they're chasing, or some success metric that only they are tied to in their head. It's very much a mindset thing, where it's like, "No, I need the new, nice, shiny thing, or people won't take me seriously." I'll tell you what: money talks, bullshit walks. They don't really care about any of that other stuff. Do you have a successful business? That's what people care about.
Callout
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JW Wiseman
Yeah, so true. It's wrapped up in ego, and people are like, "Well, I raised this money," and "I got this fancy office," and none of that means anything. The business is not about raising money or having an office. The business is about achieving your mission. In our case, it's to transform how we drink socially. And arguably we were the first people to do it.
There's been many others that are doing this along the way now, and that's fantastic, because it takes hundreds of brands, millions of people, to make generational change. And that's what we've been doing.
We're very fortunate that the movement started to be called the sober curious movement, we actually came before that, before that term even existed. And that's been really helpful. When you're doing things right, I feel like there's these serendipitous synchronicities that give you tailwinds, and I've been paying attention to those, and the more you see those, the more I know that I'm right where I'm supposed to be.
Chase Clymer
Absolutely. Now, before we go, you've talked a lot with passion about these amazing products that you and your team are producing over there. If I am curious and I want to check them out, where should I go? What should I do?
JW Wiseman
Best way is to go to curiouselixirs.com and put in code HONESTECOMMERCE when you buy a Curious Cocktail Club membership, and we'll give you a special deal for all of your listeners. That's really the number one thing to do.
And yeah, we're also available in a bunch of restaurants and hotels and things like that, but they probably only have two or three flavors. I think that going to curiouselixirs.com and trying out two or three months in the cocktail club, you're going to get the best deal, and you're going to get to try a ton of stuff, everything from a martini to our sumptuous Syrah.
We have a red wine now, and if you've tried any non-alcoholic red wines, you'll know that pretty much all of them are bad, except for ours. There's like one or two out there that are pretty good.
So what's your favorite thing to drink when you're drinking something adult, Chase?
Chase Clymer
I'm a big fan of a nice IPA.
JW Wiseman
Nice, beer drinker, cool. For us, we have Curious Zero, that's our craft brew. And because there are so many really hoppy beers out there, we decided to do something a little different and go with a barley-forward lager. So it's got more of a Japanese tea kind of roasted barley thing going on. But what it also does is it has maca root, to help with muscle recovery and libido, and lion's mane for your brain, because we all need a brain boost, you know what I mean?
Chase Clymer
Absolutely.
JW Wiseman
Thank you so much for having me on here, Chase. It was really fun talking with you.
Chase Clymer
JW, it was an absolute pleasure. And I'm sure we'll have you back in a year or so to see how the journey's going.
JW Wiseman
Thanks, man.
