Talk by Greg, founder of Odwalla - How to innovate in consumer beverages?

GREG STELTENPOHL, Founder of ODWALLA and ADINA FOR LIFE, came to talk about the consumer beverage industry.

He talked about importance of hiring a strong local sales team to get beverages into the shelves. It's the biggest challenge for beverage startups. He didn't see any impact from social media and still believes in the offline sales/channel strategy. Funding and scale are important for beverage startups. Relationships with Walmart etc. are important but not necessary at the beginning. Odwalla didn't initially have a relationship with Walmart.

Personally, he's interested in developing regional brands and developing innovative beverages with good nutrition ingredients. Odwalla was a Northern Californian brand when it started.

Greg recommended avoiding venture capitalists because he's had misaligned interests with his investors in the past. He had a longer term vision for the Odwalla brand than his investors. He strongly advises entrepreneurs to "professionalize" themselves and build a strong team. He suggested looking into co-op structures for entrepreneurs seeking alternative investment sources. Another source is the supplier network - offering equity to your suppliers or distributors. Finally, he suggested that you can just go more slowly and develop a stronger brand.

Just hiring experiences doesn't always work. Need people who can adapt fast.

Fair Trade is not as big a cost factor compared to Certified Organic ingredients. When he built the Adina brand, he wanted to give a mainstream appeal, a light taste, and use progressive ingredients. Meanwhile, he keeps branding simple (let the monkey talk) than to overly promote all the progressive components.

On packaging, either follow a leader or be so innovative that you build your own image. following a leader is more cost effective.

By the way, Adina has done a great job with social marketing on its site:
http://www.adinaworld.com/# Check out all the twitter feeds, flickr, facebook, and other integrations on Adina's website, even though the founder claims that social media is not a sales influencer.