Gary Vee On Marketing, Micro-Quitting & His New CPG Brand

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0:51Hello, friends. I'm Ray Lateef, and you're tuned into Taste Radio, the leading podcast for entrepreneurs, makers, and innovators in the food and beverage industry. Gary Vaynerchuk believes the future of CPG might look a lot more like Pokemon than packaged goods. We met up with Gary at Expo West 2026, where the entrepreneur and marketing powerhouse discussed Very Lucky, his new Better For You gummy brand that pairs the promise of ultra-clean ingredients with collectible stickers from his VFriends character universe. In this conversation, Gary explains how the idea came together, why he's betting big on collectibles as a driver of consumer engagement, how organic social media will power the brand's growth, and why entrepreneurs should embrace, quote, micro-quitting when a strategy or product isn't working.

1:56Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I am supremely honored, or should I say very lucky, to be sitting down with the legend Gary Vaynerchuk, better known as Gary V. Gary, it's so great to see you. Thank you for having me. That was very kind. We're here at Expo West. Your booth is mobbed. You have been talking to people left and right, which is awesome. I mean, this is kind of your thing. I mean, you love talking to people. I do like people. But we're here today to talk about Very Lucky, which is your new brand of Better For You gummies. Yes. So how long has this been in development?

2:25I mean, I started a wine brand seven, eight years ago called Empathy Wines with two partners who were former interns of my agency. CPG, VaynerMedia started to start brands like this. So in some ways, it's been in the works for 15 years. On the other side, VeeFriends, my little world of characters, my Pokemon, my Marvel. When I started it five years ago, I wanted to have a general Mills-like DNA to it. You know, Count Chocula and Flintstones Vitamins. I envisioned a world where my characters would be the front-facing of my CPG products. Also, five, six years ago, my wife Mona, who is my partner in this, has been, like, really pushing for the fact that there needs to be even cleaner products in the marketplace that she was thrilled that there was healthy products going on but every one of them had one or two or three ingredients that weren't clean enough so all three of those energies over the last 15 years combined in very lucky v friends was getting big enough where we could make in a bat take a swing at something in cpg my thesis of collectability the fact that that these come with a collectible sticker pack.

3:47Collectibility interjecting into CPG was also growing as a business thesis. So all of those ingredients led to this meal. So about 15 months ago I said, you know what, it's time. Let's make a better for you fruit snack gummies. Let's put a collectible sticker in it. Let's use our most important character in VeeFriends is called Very, Very, Very, Very Lucky Black Cat. So that's where the name comes from. Gary B is one of the big characters in VeeFriends. So he shows up here. We've got the stickers inside. But most of all, what has blown away all the buyers and doctors that have stopped by is how clean the product is.

4:20And that goes to Dr. Mona Vaynerchuk. She's the pusher there. Cold brew is booming, and functional RTDs are leading the charge. Download From Formulation to Final Sip, a free guide from Vibrant Ingredients and BevNet, where you'll learn how to build scalable, flavor-forward cold brew beverages with protein, L-theanine, and clean caffeine. Grab your copy now at Tasteradio.com slash cold brew. Energy continues to anchor the functional beverage category, but the ingredients powering it are evolving. Stay tuned till the end of this episode for a bonus interview with Biobotanica's Scott Florentino, who explains how the company's high-quality, carefully extracted botanicals, botanicals, including Yerba Mate, are delivering the kind of efficacious energy consumers want, while cognitive ingredients like Lion's Mane continue to gain traction.

5:16You know, getting into CPG is tough. Getting into kids' products is even tougher because at the end of the day, you're really selling to the parents, right? How do you effectively sell to both the parents and the kids who are eventually going to eat these products? Marketing, which is the one thing I'm most confident about. It's what I've done my whole life. And contemporary marketing is live shopping. It's GEO and AEO search result optimization, which means showing up first. If somebody said, what's the cleanest snack for my kids on chat GPT or claw, like showing up. So we'll be good at that.

5:49Live shopping is just something we're incredibly strong at. So I anticipate selling this on TikTok shop on whatnot, on eBay live in a very aggressive way. Cause don't forget it's a collectible, not just a CPG. Very unique to what we're doing. I think in three years here, you'll walk around and be like, wow, Gary was really right about that collectible injection into CPG. Word of mouth, influencer marketing. Again, I'm going to say it nice and slow. And I'm saying this because I'm bragging on my wife. This is the cleanest fruit snack on the market. I'm telling you the nerdiest nerd people that are walking around here, the far, far, far Our extreme health crew that is walking by is completely blown away by the ingredients.

6:29So I actually anticipate 15 to 30 hardcore clean advocates to realize this exists and create content that will be very influential because there is no competitive product yet. And I hope there'll be many, by the way. I want the world to be healthier. So I think we have a very strong go-to-market plan on why this can be differentiated and gain some heat. Social marketing can be expensive. Yes. Sometimes it can be effective just having influencers and folks who are just well-versed in that type of platforms and those type of platforms. But how are you going to approach social media in a way that is cost-effective for VeryLucky?

7:09I hope everyone doesn't get upset with me here, but I'm going to go as humble as I can on this. I believe that many people would say that I'm the godfather of this game. Sure. I'm going to do it because I'm good at it. I know the thumbnails. I know the first three seconds. I know the algorithms. I know what's going on in popular culture. I know the difference between a LinkedIn video and a regular post. I know what's going on on Substack. I know exactly how to create content for Snapchat Spotlight, a place no one's paying attention to. Facebook Classic Blue is huge for this because of the moms I'm looking at.

7:41I have an agency with 3 ,000 people that is spending billions of dollars in media and hundreds of millions of dollars in content creation of how to get organic views in that platform. That would be like asking LeBron James, like, how is he going to do in this new version of a basketball game? This is my great comfort zone. I'm very confident in it. It's disproportionately our biggest strength as an organization and organizations. And, you know, in the same way I built up Empathy Wines that had a substantial exit to Constellation, we're not looking to exit this brand. We're looking for this to be a brand builder for the overall vFriends universe.

8:17But I feel very confident in our ability to make day-to-day organic social content over-index organically in views and then know what to do with paid or with campaign on top of that framework. I ask because a lot of our listeners are going to be saying, hey, you know, this is awesome that Gary's getting into this game, but they want to learn about how you're going about introducing the brand. And I did it a little bit there. And now Now I thank you for the follow up. Let me go even deeper. Friends, the mid funnel, organic social is the whole game right now. Creating more content organically and social and then responding to the content that gets views either in a performance paid environment or as a springboard to an experiential execution, to a TVC, to if you've got dollars, running Amazon Prime video ads from the creative you want.

9:06Using organic social as the starting point, but being on every platform. YouTube shorts for GEO and AEO to show up on Gemini. LinkedIn for B2B behavior like this event is. You know, there's a lot of people here will spend a ton of money to be here for B2B and build a booth, but won't post on LinkedIn when they could be marketing to the people they're trying to reach here every day. Right. Substack, writing longer form content about the great aspects of your business and then being psychotically great at the pictures and videos and animated GIFs on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat. You could not commit more of your time and efforts to social, organic, not paid, organic, creative.

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10:33I don't think I'm speaking out of turn when I say you're the ultimate hype man. You're the ultimate spokesperson. But how involved are you going to be? Is the face of the brand Gary Vee as much as it is the characters that you sell? We prefer for me not to be if we can get away with it because it's more scalable. But what's nice about being a personal brand that has scale and equity and conversion capabilities is if, God forbid, it doesn't go well, I'm not scared to come in and be the firefighter. My preference is that we market this well. We've also got another personal brand of my wife who has a pretty big platform for health and wellness.

11:05And again, it's a really fun product. We're going on two things that are pretty extreme. People talk about healthy products here. Let there be no confusion. Right. I hear you. You know where I'm going. By my wife's standards, 90 % of things are not healthy here. And then on the complete opposite me, I believe that collectibles are about to drive CPG behavior in a way that 99 % of people don't believe here. If we're right about those two things, it will not need me to be in the content. But I am not too proud to not go in and have to save it with my personal brand if I have to because I'm very proud of it.

11:41I may choose to not and do a different product. I may decide, oh, we didn't hit the mark on fruit snacks. That wasn't the right thing to attack. Right. So the thesis of CBG and collectible and clean ingredients is now set in stone for me for the rest of my career. I just might come out with something else if this doesn't have the traction. And I have the humility to be okay with we didn't hit it. This is the hits business. It happens. Not all of Steven Spielberg's movies were the best. You're in the hits business. Not all of Michael Jackson's songs are iconic. I might disagree with you on that one.

12:16By the way, give me stuff on that. Me too. But you know this. On Thriller, you know, me and you might love PYT. Love that song. And that's a classic. Yeah. But there's even songs that I can't name on Thriller that are even below PYT in a world where most people just know a couple of them. Human nature, by the way. Which is absurd. I mean, not albums. I picked the wrong album. Every song's a banger. But I think we all know where I'm going here, which is I'm also okay if our subjective, strategic opinion of trying a better-for-you fruit snack was the wrong one. And we might come back in three years with a cereal or a protein shake or a cupcake.

12:52But the concept is very in my head. extreme clean, extreme collectible is a differentiation to the 75 ,000 products out here. Gary, I'm glad you brought that up because not everything is a hit. And sometimes it can be hard for founders to admit that they made a mistake or they need to start over or they need to quit. I know you're not big on quitting, but what advice would you have for an entrepreneur that's kind of just stuck in the mud with their brand right now and thinking about their next move? I'm obsessed with micro quitting. I'm not pumped about macro quitting. Like you fail at your startup here and you move into your parents' basement and cry for the rest of your life.

13:25Bad. Micro quitting, aka being thoughtful and self-aware and humble enough to be like, wait a minute, this isn't the right product. This isn't the right business. This isn't the right career for me. I'm in love with that level of self-awareness. There's a very fine line between putting not quitting on a pedestal and not being self-aware enough to realize you're in the wrong spot. and so I micro quit all the time. Let me give you a real life example. 15 months ago, I had this idea called podcast with friends where I do a podcast with three random people that I thought were cool in culture. I quit it halfway through the first episode in my brain because I did three or four of them, but I'm like, this isn't it.

14:09It's okay. Well, I mean, I think that's such great advice, which is don't give up completely. Just give up on the small things that aren't getting you to where you need to be. Don't be a quitter, but don't be delusional. that what you're doing is right. And that's a very, very fine tune, but I think of it as macro, micro. In the macro, never give up fighting for happiness and prosperity. In the micro, always be self-aware enough to know when you might not be in the right spot. Well, I'm self-aware enough to know that you have a booth of people who are crazy, who want to see you right now. So Gary, thank you so much for the time.

14:41I really appreciate it. I wish you well. Really excited for the future. We're very lucky and rooting for you guys. Thank you so much. Thank you.

14:50That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcast app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram.

15:25Our handle is BevNetTasteRadio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at tasteradio.com. On behalf of the entire Taste Radio team, thank you for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.

15:52Hey, folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now, I'm honored to be sitting down with Scott Florentino, who is the chief commercial officer of Biobotanica. Scott, it's great to see you. Nice to see you, too. Before we hopped in the mics, you mentioned you were just at Expo West, which is the mother of all trade shows. Anything interesting you see there? Yeah, it was, as always, fantastic. tons of new brands. It's so, like I come out of there like jazz to see all these people that are starting their new brands that, you know, they're really pushing the envelope. You saw a ton of energy drinks. And happily for us, of course, botanical extract still remaining really strong in the beverage sector.

16:34So we continue to go around. I'm still sometimes frustrated that I have to introduce our company to people in the beverage industry, but we focused in different industries for many, many years. But I'm also pleased that sometimes, oh, yeah, sure. Of course, I know Biobotanica. Well, botanical extracts are your wheelhouse. And I feel like it's in line with, or at least your services are in line with, what brands need today. Just for context, tell us a little bit about the history of Biobotanica and how you work with beverage brands. Sure. So we are the nation's oldest family-run botanical extract manufacturer.

17:12Frank D 'Amelio Sr., everyone lovingly called him Sr., started this company in 1972. When he starts, the natural products industry is really at the beginning. And him and what he's built here is just something fantastic. We've been in business for over 50 years. You can't not only survive, but also thrive over those 50 years if you're not putting out a really strong product. And so what we've done over the years is Frank is starting this company because he's a naturalist. He wants to get quality extracts and he can't find anything. So he says, all right, I'm going to create my own extracts. I'm going to do it my own process.

17:50And so quality is the most important thing that we do here. And we've helped so many different companies. The other thing that we always act with is integrity. So quite often, you know, if we're not a fit, we do make recommendations and put them to someone that might be a better fit. But our goal is to get in the beverage sector. If you're looking for a high quality extract, If you're looking for something that you can't find at somewhere else, because a lot of their competitors are filling up warehouses and then selling off stock, we're happy to give you one of our made-to-order extracts. Anywhere between 100 and 150 different botanicals are extracted.

18:27So we've got a wide selection. And hopefully you can, something that we have, like we have a formula that's made that's perfect for you. But if you're looking for a blend or something that we don't have, we'd love to talk to you and see how we can make the thing that you're looking for so that your vision can become a reality. Well, I really am glad that you talked about quality and integrity. I think sometimes both things are lacking, you know, shockingly in our industry, especially when end consumers want the best products. They're educated about products. I mean, perhaps not as much as we are, but, you know, they read ingredient labels like they haven't in the past and they want better flavor.

19:08They want better functionality. And I think Biobotanica and what you're doing in terms of the products that you offer is a benefit, a big benefit to our industry and specifically a category that you touched on, which is energy. Currently, our three big SKUs that people will use in their drinks for energy are green tea, which is a standard, yerba mate, and ginseng. So we see a lot of customers going for those. Our customers, when they're interested in that, we're offering them something that you're guaranteed to get a high quality ingredient. We use a cold extraction process to ensure that you have more of the plant's constituents in the extract as you would find in nature.

19:47I mean, And that's the goal. And that's what Senior created many, many years ago. And we call it the holistic balance. Senior's theory was, you know, don't focus on any one individual constituent because nature knows best. And try to get the most, the way nature has those constituents in your finished extract. And people know these ingredients too. I think that's a really important point as well. You know, you talk about green tea and yerba mate and ginseng. Of course, they're not necessarily household names, but people looking for those ingredients in energy drinks, know what they're all about, can pronounce them, and certainly have a better way of understanding them than they might synthetic ingredients.

20:29We're a diverse company. We also have a brand called Nature's Answer, which is a dietary supplement brand, and that is sold around the globe. I always bring that up to customers because it's really, it helps us understand the industry and what the trends are. So you see trends start in Asia and they start in the dietary supplement space and then they make their way to Europe and then they make their way to the US. Quite often, that's the way these things go. Like mushrooms were heavy, of course, in China for years. But they start in the supplement business and then they move to other industries that we supply ingredients to.

21:04So usually the next step is they go to the beverage sector. And then even after that, you'll see they'll end up in personal care. So from a marketing, we are always trying to share with our customers, you know, different trends that we're seeing to see that maybe they want to jump in and hit that wave as it starts to hit. My recommendation is quite often, you know, the marketplace, especially since COVID, is really becoming much more educated on the different plants. So you may not need to make all these claims that you're thinking you need to make. You can just talk about, you know, you see some of these big brands, you talk about that you have your mamate in it, or you talk about that you're using reishi or cordyceps.

21:41And a lot of these customers know that, and they know why you have that in there. So just give them a high quality product, and then they'll be very pleased with the offering. I think that's a really good point. Sometimes it's really difficult to educate about benefits, but if the education is already out there, maybe you don't need to do it as much as you think. Like certainly you mentioned reishi and lion's mane is another one where I'm like, huh, I talk to friends nowadays and they know what those are. And well, you know, 10 years ago you would have said, oh, lion's mane, you're telling you, oh, the hair of a lion, what does that have to do with, you know, functional ingredients?

22:17But now there is a lot more awareness about mushrooms and the benefit they deliver to consumers, especially when it comes to cognitive health. and you have a whole line of cognitive products and let's zero in on lion's mane. Talk about why Biobotanica's lion's mane extract is efficacious and how it differentiates from other ones on the market. Yeah, so our lion's mane, first off, we did a global search to find high quality mushrooms and we found a farmer that we're very pleased with. So we have high quality mushrooms. we're using our extraction process that, again, using less heat, we're able to come out with the high-quality extract.

23:05Additionally, the big benefit compared to a lot of other suppliers is that we offer an alcohol-free version. And that's not to say that we don't extract it using alcohol and water. It's just the way we finish it, there's no alcohol in the extract. It's a glycerin-based extract. So it blends really nicely in a lot of beverages. And we found it's been selling really, really well. So we found a lot of customers very happy with it. I'm not surprised the number of mushroom coffee brands that have seen come to market in the last year or two has been really surprising. I mean, it feels like that segment of coffee in particular has really blown up.

23:44Where else are you seeing and what other beverage categories are you seeing opportunity in cognitive health. People are using these cognitive mushrooms in so many different formulations, whether it be a soda, whether it be a milk, whether it be a coffee, we're getting requests from all over. So I don't think the way that you ingest it matters. People are just putting different spins on it, but it's all over the place right now. Certainly, Scott, if I were an entrepreneur listening, I would want to get in touch with you and your team. It seems like, again, quality and integrity are two attributes that any founder would value in a partner.

24:20What is the best way to get in touch with the team at Biobotanica? Best way, you can get on a website and submit a contact form. We're heavy in LinkedIn. But yeah, if you submit a contact form, we'll schedule a meeting. We want to learn about your company. We want to share with you how we do business, because we do business a little bit differently than a lot of other players. Like I said, when you place an order with us, they're made to order. So you're getting the longest shelf life possible. So we tell you a little bit about how we do business and we wanna learn about you because we have so many different ingredients, so many different botanicals, and we wanna see what you're looking for and we'll make recommendations and hopefully find a good fit for you.

25:02Outstanding. Well, the website is biobotanica.com, B-I-O-dash B-O-T-A-N-I-C-A.com. And as you pointed out, there are a couple of ways to contact your company, at least via a form. There's a request an ingredient sample button. And there's also an inquire about manufacturing button, as I know you also do some contract manufacturing as well. Yes. Fantastic. Well, Scott, thank you so much for taking the time to speak. Really excited about the opportunity for founders to work with you guys. Let's definitely stay in touch. Thank you very much. Nice speaking to you.