Face the Fear and Do it Anyway: Pitching Investors, Raising Capital, and Crowdfunding for Your Food Business with Gabrielle Fitzpatrick
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Finding Funding for Your Food Business Brand…
Unfortunately, starting a business isn’t free. It costs money to develop your products, market them, hire a team, and everything else that goes along with it. But what happens if you don’t have the funds when you’re first starting out? You find investors and raise capital!
In this episode, I’m interviewing Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, CEO and founder of Damn Right Cocktails, which produces canned ready-to-drink margaritas. Gabrielle shares how she has perfected her pitch deck to wow investors and also how she’s embraced crowdfunding to raise capital for her business as well.
We also talk about why it’s OK to feel fear when you’re first starting out, as long as you can move through the fear and use it to fuel your drive to grow your business.
Subscribe to the Food Means Business Podcast with Hudson Kitchen founder Djenaba Johnson-Jones to hear the personal stories and “secret ingredients” of abandoning your day job and starting a CPG food business.
In this episode, you’ll learn...
[00:39] How Gabrielle left the corporate world, became interested in making cocktails, and figured out her first steps into the beverage business
[05:04] Gabrielle walks us through the process from idea to actually launching her tequila product, plus how she found a team and investors to help her
[08:20] Where Gabrielle found inspiration for her business name, products, and flavors
[11:25] How she’s been able to get the word out about Damn Right Cocktails, and how she financed the business by raising capital
[16:26] How Gabrielle has been able to move through fear and be described as fearless, plus show she takes care of herself as a business owner
If you want to hear more about how to pitch investors and raise capital for your CPG food business, be sure to tune into this episode:
Links mentioned in this episode…
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About Gabrielle Fitzpatrick:
Gabrielle Fitzpatrick is the CEO and co-founder of Damn Right Cocktails, which produces ready-to-drink margaritas in a can, and uses 100% de agave tequila from Mexico. Her canned cocktails are made in the Amatitán Valley of Jalisco and sourced from a family-owned, woman-led distillery.
Connect with gabrielle fitzpatrick:
Visit the Damn Right Cocktails website (Use code DAMNFREE for free shipping)
Visit Damn Right Cocktails on Instagram
Invest in the Damn Right Cocktails Crowdfunding Campaign
Connect with Gabrielle on LinkedIn
Stay Connected with Djenaba Johnson-Jones:
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[00:00:02] Djenaba You are listening to the Food Means Business podcast, which features the personal stories and secret ingredients behind what it's like to abandon your day job to start a CPG food and beverage business. I'm Djenaba Johnson-Jones, a former marketing executive turned entrepreneur and founder of food business incubator Hudson Kitchen. Join our community of fellow food business owners and subject matter experts to learn and laugh with us as we explore a startup world that's a little more culinary and a lot less corporate these days. Hi, Gaby. Welcome to the Food Means Business Podcast.
[00:00:35] Gabrielle Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat.
[00:00:39] Djenaba Me too. So I'd love for you to start with your story. Tell us about your leap from corporate to entrepreneurship.
[00:00:46] Gabrielle Yes. So I. I'm originally from L.A., and then I went to Boston College for undergrad. While I was at Boston College, I was kind of obsessed with bartending and cocktail making, so I became a bartender. And fast forward, I graduated from Boston College, moved to New York City and went into the corporate world doing events for pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer, AbbVie, those big companies where I was building conferences and just traveling a lot, executing those large operations. It was really fun and very fast paced and I enjoyed it. But, you know, I quickly learned that to climb the ladder, it takes a lot of time. And so, as we all know in that kind of bureaucracy of corporations. But fast forward COVID hit, and I was three years into the corporate world and I got laid off. And so it was my time to think about what I wanted to do for my career. And obviously a lot of us were having a lot of revelations during that time and a lot of hoping for a positive outcome for our family and friends. But it was also my time to kind of revert back to my hobbies of cocktail making and really figuring out how I could turn cocktail making into a hobby. And so at the very seat of it all, I thought, I'm going a bottle or can this margarita sell it. And little I know how complicated it was, but I became obsessed with doing that. And as a lot of us entrepreneurs have the same mentality. It's once you get fixed on something, you can't stop. And so that was sort of my mindset in going into it. And I became obsessed and I couldn't stop.
[00:02:36] Djenaba Let's talk about what you did first. Obviously, you had the recipe that you could start with, right? Yes. Yes. What happened next? Because I have to imagine while you love to make cocktails, you weren't in the beverage business. And so how did you figure out what to do first?
[00:02:51] Gabrielle Yeah. So I knew that I wanted something that was as held forward as possible. I wanted something that was inspired by the female preferences. So I knew that foundation and I understood that I wanted to create something that was organic, natural. And then I guess the next step was finding a formulator. So there's people out there called food scientists and they're awesome. I'm sure you've worked with some of them, and it was one of the most fun parts of the actual formulation was actually building the formulas and then obviously sourcing that tequila down to Mexico. And so we knew that we wanted it to be organic based and 100% agave, which is premium tequila. And so that was kind of our foundation of figuring out the next step. But it was this building of a formula and this small formula, but then also the larger formula of the entire company itself. So it was just step by step and getting in contact with everyone in the industry, as many people as possible that I could get advice from and going from there.
[00:03:58] Djenaba It sounds like you're having a distillery in Mexico. Sounds complicated.
[00:04:03] Gabrielle Oh yes. Yeah. And I don't have my own distillery. I think I would have to be down there to have that or have a lot of money to own one. But a lot of people don't know the legality behind tequila, but it's very similar to champagne in that in order for a tequila to be called tequila, it has to be produced in one region, in the entire world. So same as champagne. So a lot of the people that own distilleries, it's like family owned family run. And that's exactly what my the distillery that I source my tequila from is. But it's definitely a full time job to have your distillery and make sure that it's aligned with the standards of the entity that controls those legal requirements down in Mexico. So is really complicated and I had no idea going into it, but it obviously adds to the beauty of the brand and the company itself.
[00:05:04] Djenaba It's so true. And also, as you mentioned, like you couldn't stop thinking about it. You had to keep going and keep doing it. You had no choice but to keep going. So that's really fantastic. So from idea to actually launching the product, how long did it take you?
[00:05:19] Gabrielle I thought of it in like May, but obviously you have to get your ducks in a row, May of 2020. And then it was just one thing after another. But from the forming of the company in October 2020 to launch in September 2021, so 11 months, almost a year. And I think with tequila or in alcoholic beverages, a lot of licensing and obviously in the height of but it was a lot of restrictions on supply and things like that. So it was probably the worst time to do something like that. But we did it, you know. But yeah, I think it takes a long time to get something off the ground for sure.
[00:05:56] Djenaba I mean, honestly, like 11 months doesn't sound like that, right? Long right in the Times going to pass anyway, so you might as well, like work on something that you love doing, right?
[00:06:06] Gabrielle That's the most fun part of it is building something and seeing it really create. And then one day you're like, crap, It's on the shelf. It's the weirdest thing. And I'm sure you understand. It's just crazy to have something in your mind and then all of a sudden, well, it feels like all of a sudden it's there. It still kind of hits you, right? Every day.
[00:06:28] Djenaba It's definitely worth the time to just see that thing come to fruition. It's amazing.
[00:06:34] Gabrielle Yes. Oh, absolutely. When you have those bumps in the road, you think back at those months of discovery and where, you know, the heart of it all came from.
[00:06:47] Djenaba Yeah, you said we a couple of times. Do you have a team that you work with?
[00:06:51] Gabrielle Yes. So I have a group of people that have been there with me from the beginning, and I have a lot of mentors and supporters. And those people have been my confidants and a lot of those people are my family members, but they don't help out with the business because I think that would be a little bit messy. But, you know, people in the industry that have guided me from the beginning and helped me made decisions and actually bring the product to life.
[00:07:21] Djenaba So tell me, like, how did you find these people? Because yeah, it's been interesting for me being in business and I kind of reached out to people I didn't know and they responded, yes, what they like, what your experience has been.
[00:07:31] Gabrielle Yes. I always say you never know who you're going to meet. And I think that's the beauty of say yes to everything. I mean, there's all these entrepreneur blogs and one thing that's in every single one of them says, say yes to everything in the first year. So I think if you reach out cold to people, 90% are going to not respond. But the ones that do are the ones that actually care and want to listen to you. And so, yes, that is exactly how I have found people to be on my board and invest in. Besides, my family members is just reaching out and asking for advice. And so that's exactly how it happened. And it's crazy, but it is the reality in this kind of startup world.
[00:08:20] Djenaba Yeah, definitely. So can you talk a little bit about the products themselves? Like I know you launch with two flavors. Let's talk about how you came up with those. Yes. And decided on those later.
[00:08:28] Gabrielle Yes. A lot of the inspiration was honestly from the flavor, the food scientist. And she kind of swayed us in the right direction and what we wanted to formulate. But the first flavor is our classic skinny, my margarita, and that is just kind of obviously the classic margarita that we knew we wanted to bring to market. That's 110 calories, all natural ingredients and organic ingredients. And it's really what separates us apart from our competitors is that it's seven ingredients that, you know what they are, right? So it's like tequila, it's carbonated water, it's natural flavorings, organic juice and agave syrup. And so both the flavors of that, that's our lime margarita. And then the strawberry basil is our second flavor. So we just have those two flavors and it's pretty much the same formula except for the flavor, and it's a little bit different. And the juices are different flavors, but there are also the names of them are double of a lime and son of a basil.
[00:09:34] Djenaba So cute.
[00:09:34] Gabrielle Yeah, I really like and I cannot take credit for it. It was the studio that came up with the design, which was a really also super fun process of discovery. They came up with the names, but it really plays into the whole brand name of Damn Right Cocktails was very kind of cheeky but provocative in a way, and super in-your-face. And that's exactly what the brand is. It's super honest and just kind of bold and tough. And that's really what we wanted to emulate for the products.
[00:10:10] Djenaba So how did you come up with the name Damn Right, Cocktails. That's also a fantastic name. So good.
[00:10:15] Gabrielle Well, again, we wanted something that was really kind of bold and tough because our brand is I call it the alternative like tequila brand, because typically when you see tequila brands, it's either the ranch Western influenced vibe.
[00:10:32] Djenaba It's true.
[00:10:33] Gabrielle Or the Beach Babe and you know, Surfer, that kind of vibe, which is great, but it's been done before. And I was so sick of that. I live in New York City and I wanted a very urban kind of tough, bold brand that a modern woman can relate to, because I don't relate to the Western or the beach babe. I relate to the brick, like your background and the city scapes and like, that's exactly what the brand is. So Damn Right was just kind of came about in a brainstorming session and it was just very provocative and super honest. And that's exactly what I want and what I think of as the millennial woman who is myself. So definitely just an inspiration of all the amazing women in my life as well.
[00:11:25] Djenaba So have you been able to get the word out about the product? Like, what are you doing for marketing?
[00:11:29] Gabrielle Yeah, so a lot of the marketing that I'm doing is very grassroots level. It's like a very localized industry. So you start buzz by basically just walking around in the market and honestly doing a lot of in-store tastings and starting to kind of get people to know the brand that way because there's a lot of competition. So putting yourself out there, the way to do it is literally putting yourself out there. And so that's a lot of what we've been doing is in-store tastings and just talking about it local events. When we launched in New York City, I did a bar event and really just connecting with the consumer as much as possible. And again, we're like in various zip codes across the country, but it's super like concentrated. So if we do ads it's in those zip codes where the product is sold, but definitely just grassroots kind of marketing and my budget is not big. So those are the cheapest options, right? Is just word of mouth. And I've been grateful that it's been somewhat successful in that way.
[00:12:37] Djenaba Actually, starting a business costs money. So talk about like how you've been able to finance the business if you have investors, that type of thing.
[00:12:44] Gabrielle Yes. So I do have investors which have mostly been family and friends, which I'm so grateful for, and that is honestly, without that, I wouldn't have been able to fund the business. One thing that I didn't know going into this industry is that it is super capital intensive. I mean, I think any consumer product is super capital intensive because it's like the marketing, the branding and then, you know, the sales are only 30% margin or whatever they are. So in order to compete with the big guys, it's like you have to compete financially as well. And so that's been the biggest struggle in the past year. I've been mainly bootstrapping, so, you know, funding it based off of the sales and like my own capital and then investors here and there. But in terms of like DC funding, I have not received any and I think that's partly due to the market, but also partly due to just the competitiveness of the alcohol industry. And then maybe there is that element of me being a female owner because honestly, that's the hardest thing about being a female owners gaining credibility and having people believe in you. So that bonding piece is probably the hardest part of it all because it is stressful and you have to make sure that you have cash flow to support the business just in case something random happens tomorrow. You don't know. You know, I could get a call from the warehouse and they be like, Oh, three of your pallets are destroyed. You know, I don't know, like, that could happen.
[00:14:21] Djenaba So happens. Yes, yes.
[00:14:22] Gabrielle Yeah. The funding piece like it just around about answers is really hard. It's really, really hard.
[00:14:28] Djenaba So what did you do? Have you created a pitch deck Like walk us through like how you were able to in front of these people.
[00:14:33] Gabrielle Yes. Creating the pitch. Jack was like one of the first things that I did because I knew I needed to raise capital. And there are so many resources out there to help you design the pitch deck or also design it yourself and know what to put in it. Every investor wants something different, so I definitely changed it 500 times and I'm constantly changing it, especially because of like my metrics in my sales change all the time, but started with the pitch deck and just kind of practice, practice, practice. I probably pitched my product 500 times to people and again, it's different every time and people want different things. But I think the best advice is just to know your market and know exactly what the end goal is, because that's what investors care about. They want to know, firstly, like, how are they going to get a return? And then secondly, like they want to know that they can believe in you and you're confident in it as well. So yeah, it is very much an essential part of it, but it's been just designing the deck, pitching and practicing and getting as much advice as possible from those who have done it before.
[00:15:48] Djenaba Right. And I have to imagine, like you pitching 500 times, you've learned a lot along the way. And so, yeah, the tweaks you've made probably have been really good because you'll get some feedback from someone that can kind of inform how you move forward.
[00:15:59] Gabrielle Absolutely. I feel like it's never done. My deck is never done. There's always something, and that's fine. But, you know, you have to understand your audience and know, okay, what do they want? And I've learned that over time, obviously the hard way, because it's just been through practice. But yeah, I've just learned so much. And that's the best part about the experience, right?
[00:16:25] Djenaba For sure. For sure. So let's talk about fear. Like you've been described as fearless. We've read the articles about you, and I'm wondering how you look at fear. Like, I tend to think that it's going to be present sometimes because I think the things that we do are scary, especially when you have never done them before and you kind of just have to keep moving through it. So I'm kind of wondering what you think about that.
[00:16:47] Gabrielle Yeah, I totally relate to that. But fearlessness was driven from my anxiety, basically, because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. You don't know what's going to happen a year from now. And I think that that factor kind of encouraged me to do, especially when COVID happened. We're all in this crazy mindset of what's going to happen. I think that kind of made me realize, like, I need to just do this because otherwise I'm going to regret it and I'm grateful enough to have like a family that supports me and stuff. So there's all these other factors. But my fearlessness was definitely driven by me just wanting to kind of not know the future, right? And that's obviously my mind works. And I mean, it makes sense to me. Yeah, right.
[00:17:42] Djenaba And that's all that's important.
[00:17:44] Gabrielle Yeah, it makes sense to me. And yeah, I definitely noticed myself being a little bit fearful when I make decisions now because I know obviously I've been doing this for a few years now and I knew the consequences and then I had to continue to remind myself like, it's okay, you can do that thing because you know that it's going to end up being okay and you're selling cocktails, so you're not saving the world. Right? And I always remind myself that, you know, I'm not a doctor, and so I can't take myself too seriously sometimes. But definitely it's a practice that I work on all the time.
[00:18:24] Djenaba So tell me about how you take care of yourself. I think as entrepreneurs, we tend to be thinking about our businesses 24/7. Oh, yeah. And I'm wondering, like, what do you do to kind of ensure that you are good to go and you're ready for the day?
[00:18:38] Gabrielle Yeah, well, my mornings are my time of the day for me when I, you know, do my morning routine, work out, get a good breakfast and go on a walk if it's nice out. But I think holy. I always been in therapy and that's the best outlet for me and I'm grateful to actually be able to afford that. But I also think the biggest thing that we don't talk about as entrepreneurs, or just like in America in general, is burnout. And I experienced and still do still experience burnout so often because I just there's always something to be doing. Yeah. And so for me, taking care of myself and recognizing which obviously I haven't been able to recognize it ahead of time in the past, but kind of feeling in my body, oh, I'm about to like, burn out and taking a day off. Because that's also the bright side of being an entrepreneur is that you are on your own schedule. So because people say, Oh, I'm so just, you know, I'm like, No, that's the bad part of it.
[00:19:41] Djenaba I was thinking like for the longest time I was so like had a rigid schedule with entrepreneurship and now I'm like, Oh, I can take this day off. I can go and do this thing cause it doesn't really matter because the work is still going to be there anyway.
[00:19:52] Gabrielle Right?
[00:19:53] Djenaba But it's taken me like eight years to realize.
[00:19:56] Gabrielle See, Exactly. I'm still trying to work through it because we're taught in the US that it's like Monday through Friday, grind, grind, grind, and then the weekends kind of let loose. But like, why can't I work 3 hours on a Sunday, five hour, you know, here and there? And so that's the practice that I'm trying to preach, because as long as you get your work done, you're going to get it done. But exactly the hard part about being an entrepreneur is there's always just so much work and it's on you. You have no other person to help you, right?
[00:20:29] Djenaba Right. It's true. It's true. At Hudson Kitchen, we have what we call a money belt that we bring when people take on new retail partners or like get their paycheck or whatever is going on in the facility. And I'm wondering what you're celebrating.
[00:20:47] Gabrielle There's so much to be excited about because it's margarita season. So I'm like selling a lot. But I think the biggest thing is that, you know, we talked about fundraising and I just launched a crowdfunding campaign and I've been going back and forth about whether or not I wanted to launch it because of, you know, you hear people say, don't do this, don't do that. But I ended up doing it, and I'm so happy that I did because I've already raised 8K on it and so amazing. Every little bit counts. This platform is great. And I, for all the entrepreneurs that are listening to this, do crowdfunding because it is such a great way to get your friends and customers and family involved because it's you can invest as little as $99. And then that way people feel like they're involved in your company and you have automatic customers and you get to raise capital in an easy way. Not that it's easy, but like easy, easier way. So I'm proud of myself for doing that. And I think that this capital that I raise will be able to like really help me kind of fund the market in terms of like in-store tastings and just extra things that I want to get to do. So I'm excited for that.
[00:22:02] Djenaba That's a great congratulations.
[00:22:03] Gabrielle Thank you. Thank you.
[00:22:05] Djenaba So, Gaby, tell us where we can find you and find out all about Damn Right Cocktails and also where we can support you on your crowdfunding journey.
[00:22:13] Gabrielle Yes. So damnrightcocktails.com. Check out the website. We ship it to 33 states, so we sell online. Yes. And I'm really excited about building that. So check it out. And if you use code DAMNFREE at checkout, you get free shipping. And then on Instagram at damnrightcocktails, I'm on LinkedIn and if you want to just say hey hello@damnrightcocktails.com and then my crowdfunding campaign is on netcapital.com but it's all on my website.
[00:22:49] Djenaba That's great. Thank you so much for being here.
[00:22:52] Gabrielle Thank you so much.
[00:22:55] Djenaba The Food Means Business podcast was produced by Hudson Kitchen. It is recorded at the studio at Carney Point and mixed and edited by Wild Home Podcasting. Our theme song is by Damian de Sandys, and I'm your host, Djenaba Johnson-Jones. Follow Hudson Kitchen on Instagram at thehudsonkitchen and to get Food Business Bites right in your inbox, sign up for our newsletter at thehudsonkitchen.com/newsletter. Listen, follow and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. Until next time.