713 Michael Fedele: Founder & CEO of Throne SPORT COFFEE

0:00Kara Goldin:I am unwilling to give up, but I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. So your only choice should be, go focus on what you can control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders. We'll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can't wait to get started. Let's go. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Golden Show.

0:44Kara Goldin:Super excited to have my next guest with us here today. We have Michael Fidelli, who is the founder and CEO of Throne Sport Coffee. You may have seen it on the shelf as Sport Coffee. but there's actually a little word that says thrown in there as well. And so definitely have a closer look, but he is someone who knows exactly how to shake up a category and isn't afraid to do it twice. I'm talking about Michael Fidelli, who has not only started this incredible, incredible drink and company called Sport Coffee, but also was in another little company called Body Armor, which you may have heard about, had sold at over a billion dollars in revenue to Coca-Cola.

1:40Kara Goldin:And now he's aiming to go into the ready-to-drink coffee aisle with a brand that blends high-performance, bold flavor, and a better for you mindset that's built for athletes and active adults as well. And I cannot wait to dive into how he decided to do this twice. I'm such a big fan of serial entrepreneurs, as many of you know, but building something that he has already and going back in it. Now he's going back with an incredible partner that I'll let him talk about. and more than anything, how functional beverages are having, were having a major moment, are still having a major moment, and how coffee is kind of leading the way in this next venture for Michael.

2:34Kara Goldin:So without further ado, super excited to have you here, Michael. Thank you, Cara. I appreciate it very much. Thank you and the whole team on your side for the opportunity to join you here today. And I may have to circle back and license your voiceover in terms of how you describe the product so that we can use it in some digital advertising or something. That was very eloquent and well articulated. So we'll get back to that as we talk about the product. But very well done. Awesome. Thank you. Well, OK, so let's start with the moment that made you think, OK, I've got to go and start a sport coffee and literally call it sport coffee.

3:11Yeah, without a doubt. So long story short, you know, I'm grateful to have the opportunity and experience of a lifetime to work for Body Armor Sports Drink as the head of marketing. So I joined Body Armor back in May of 2012, you know, reporting to our chairman, Mike Rapoli, at the time and, you know, had the opportunity to get a front row seat in brand building. And again, Mike was successful himself in building vitamin water and he jumped into Body Armor as his second beverage endeavor. So, you know, throughout the nine years there as the head of marketing, you know, I had a chance to work on and oversee everything marketing related from product development to packaging to creative to partnerships with a host of A-list athletes and other entertainers, retail marketing, you know, sitting and having the ability to work with the targets of the world, the CVS's of the world, the 7-Eleven's, the Costco's, etc.

4:03etc. And building a team. Again, we had 35 people on the marketing team once we sold to Coca-Cola in 2021. So again, the opportunity and experience of a lifetime specific to sport coffee, it was really interesting. So many folks that I crossed paths with or worked with at Body Armor that were either professional athletes or amateur athletes, every time we were together, whether it was a production day or whether it was a meeting sitting down and reviewing a plan or, you know, potentially meeting them before one of their games or after a game or whatever the case may be, they were always drinking coffee.

4:37And, you know, we created a host of different products for the athlete at Body Armor from sports drink to a low calorie sports drink to a sport water to protein products that we never launched and, you know, caffeinated sports drinks, you name it. But for me, again, whether it was with, you know, Kobe Bryant, rest in peace who worked extremely closely with or an Anthony Rizzo or Mike Trout, you name it, Naomi Osaka, et cetera. They were always drinking coffee and started kind of talking to them. You know, later on, this was post body armor, kind of circling back on it because I found it incredibly intriguing.

5:12Why are you always drinking coffee every time that we're together or we're talking, whatever the case may be. And they're like, listen, we've got practices, we've got games, we've got family time, we've got travel, we've got team meetings, et cetera. We just need coffee to get going. And oftentimes they were reaching for a coffee. Sometimes they would drink it black or with very little sugar or dairy or creamer or you name it. And they were drinking it maybe three, four or five times a day as kind of a pick me up. It could be mid morning after a workout or training could be, you know, after lunch or early afternoon, or it could be while boarding a flight after, you know, a long baseball series or whatever it is to fly to the next neighboring city.

5:51So I thought there was something there.

5:53Kara Goldin:This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey, everyone, Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business, not the highlight reel, the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice to have, it's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time.

6:37Kara Goldin:That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners. And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business. Built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. There is no allegiance to any brand either. They would either send an assistant to Starbucks to grab them, whatever it was. They'd look for their Keurig one cup coffee machine, whatever's in the area to try to make a cup. So I felt and, you know, there should be a great opportunity in some way, shape or form, given the occasion, not only just for athletes, but just for people on the go.

7:23I myself drink a handful of different coffees a day, two to three coffees a day. And the reality is for active people that are always on the go, there should be a better option. When you look at the coffee landscape right now, you walk into any gas station or convenience store across the country, you know, and you open up that cooler door and there's a glass bottle sitting there. And long story short, it's, you know, you pick it up and flip it over. It's got 300 calories and 47 grams of sugar. So why isn't there a better for you ready to drink coffee option out there for the active person or on the go athlete?

8:00So introducing thrown sport coffee. That was really the foundation for it, you know, from that standpoint. And so I was kind of there and thinking through the idea, sort of working on formulas, packaging and putting together a business plan. And, you know, had the opportunity to think through, all right, who would be tremendous to partner with in some way, shape or form when you think about, you know, the ability to bring this to life. And, you know, a mutual friend put me in contact with Patrick Mahomes, obviously three time Super Bowl champion, Super Bowl MVP. And, you know, at the time, this was when he was only two time.

8:34Right. So this is about a year and a half, two years ago before his third championship. And we started talking through the idea. And a few minutes in, he's like, oh, my God, this is a coffee. I said, yeah. He's like, I need to try samples. Send me samples ASAP. I was like, yeah, for sure. That's the purpose of this call. And I was like, what do you think of the idea? He's like, I love this idea. He goes, I drink four or five coffees a day just for this reason. So the concept, the idea, the pathway genuinely resonated with him. And it was very easy for us to collectively agree on a partnership to launch Throne Sport Coffee.

9:06So very grateful to have him on board. He's the number two shareholder. He's the lead investor. He's put more of his own capital into the brand than anybody else. And he's also the face of the brand from a marketing standpoint. So adds a ton of credibility to everything that we're doing, uses the product daily, samples it with the team in the locker room, in the quarterback room. I get videos and text messages on a constant basis with new people that love the brand. And so a genuine ambassador who's passionate about the product and looking forward to continuing to build this brand with Patrick and our collective team as we move forward.

9:42Kara Goldin:This message is a paid partnership with AT &T Business. Hey, everyone. Kara here. Let's get real about those early days of building a business. Not the highlight reel. the actual day-to-day, the friction, trying to manage everything across time zones, across teams, across locations, and realizing how much depends on staying connected. I remember those days at Hint, a retailer call, an order, a decision, all of it. And you realize quickly, connection isn't a nice-to-have, it's the lifeblood of your business. As a founder, you don't want to think about your connectivity. You just need it to work every time.

10:26Kara Goldin:That's why AT &T Business matters. AT &T Business is the reliable provider for small business owners. And when you have that kind of reliability behind you, you can focus on what actually moves your business forward. Powered by AT &T Business, built to work. Get AT &T Business at business.att.com. Definitely. So when you think about brand names and you were on the marketing side at Body Armor, but what have you learned about branding that maybe helped you to think about when you were naming sport coffee? obviously trademarks, but why Throne Sport Coffee and what have you, what was the thinking behind that?

11:24Sure. So at Body Armor, again, you know, for anybody that remembers the launch of the brand back in 2012, 2013, 2014, it was a premium better for you sports drink, right? It was a new and different product. At the time, the only real sports drinks that were out there and that were successful and mainstream were Gatorade and Powerade. So, you know, for us with Body Armor, The name didn't genuinely explain what it was at the core. It was a very cool, strong brand name, but it didn't talk about how we were indeed a better for you sports drink option. So there was a ton of education that went on behind the scenes from our team, from a field marketing standpoint, talking about the reasons to believe in Body Armor and explaining exactly what was in the bottle that differentiated us from Gatorade and from Powerade at the time.

12:12For me, with Throne Sport Coffee, what I love about our brand right now, I think there are many things, to be very honest with you, but specific to the name Throne, it is something that is short, sweet, catchy, authoritative. And you can really hit people over the head with that. it's a pretty strong trademark that, you know, as we continue to build the brand and grow the brand, I can see thrown, you know, across a slew of different coffee type products, as well as, you know, products beyond coffee, potentially one day, you never know. So we'll see kind of where that takes us specific to sport coffee.

12:46And obviously the large branding of sport coffee on the package. What's terrific about it is we get folks that encounter the package at retail for the very first time. And no, they may not be packing up their bag to go, you know, playing a basketball game or a football game or play sports per se, but they're going to pick it up and understand this is a product that is more than just coffee. It has functional benefits for it that are above and beyond what your traditional coffee has. And what I, you know, discovered when I was doing my research behind the scenes early on, when I was deciding whether I should, you know, create sport coffee or not was, I think I was looking at a Mintel report and we came across the data point that I think 37 % of ready to drink coffee consumers want more from their coffee than just caffeine and energy.

13:32And that's a huge number. That's a huge number to tap into, especially in a six,$7 billion ready to drink coffee category, right? So if we can provide a better option than your traditional, what we like to call quote unquote coffee milkshakes, we can really kind of break through and disrupt the category with some better for you products. And, you know, the idea of sport coffee, people kind of get it very quickly in terms of, all right, this is a coffee that has more than your traditional coffee that can help you from a performance standpoint. And that's what it's that's what throwing sport coffee from a brand name and trademark is intended to do.

14:07Kara Goldin:What was the most difficult part of actually launching your your own beverage? Was it formulation? Was it actually I mean, you've been working so closely with senior management at Body Armor. I mean, when it was tiny, right, until it became big, which is awesome. But still, it's different when you're the founder, when you're the CEO that's doing it. But what was the probably the most difficult part of knowing that, you know, the buck stops with you, literally? Yeah, I mean, I don't want to say there's one difficult piece to it. I think there's a handful of difficult components on a day to day basis, as you well know, Cara, right, from being the founder of your own beverage as well.

14:49You know, a lot of it, I think, initiating it, you know, from jump and making the decision that you want to do it yourself. I'd encourage anybody out there that's ever had an idea for a business or thought through about creating their own brand. Go for it. Right. There's never going to be the right time to do it. So many folks put these things off. I had this great idea and I kind of know how to bring it to life. But now is not the right time. I'm just going to wait and they push it off and procrastinate and push it off and push it off. I encourage you to do it. Take the step, take the leap, get your ducks in a row and make it happen.

15:21Not that that was the toughest thing for me specifically, but that's always a consideration as a founder. You got to be ready to put your brand out there, which is an extension of you. And you got to be ready to work and build a foundation for the brand to make it successful. Right. And that's a commitment. So, again, I'd encourage folks to think through that. But that's absolutely a decision. But now that we're in market, I think a lot of it is making sure we're thinking, short-term and long-term simultaneously, right? Short-term in terms of what's going to move the needle and allow us, you know, decisions to make, you know, on a day-to-day basis that are going to, you know, build the business and, you know, continue to gain placement.

15:58And, you know, so much of that I learned from the team at Body Armor and learned from doing at Body Armor, but it's genuinely micromanaging the business to extents, you know, it sounds crazy, but to an extent you probably wouldn't believe. And that was super important when you think through kind of what it is, but then also the long-term vision. You want to make sure that long-term, you're setting yourself up for success. So all those short-term decisions that you make, you've got to have that long-term plan and vision in mind. And you want to make sure that you're taking the right steps to get the brand out there.

16:28And also thinking strategically about what you want the brand to be, setting yourself up for the next step and being forward-thinking. That's the only way I think you can be successful is being forward-thinking when it comes to that.

16:41Kara Goldin:As you're building Throne, obviously, before even embarking on this, you looked into the coffee category. There's lots of coffee drinks. There's tons of coffee beans out there, but there's other ready-to-drinks in the space, obviously. Yours is different. but where does thrown sport coffee fit into that space? Like when you're going and you're putting it on the shelf, which I know is such a key piece of business for any ready to drink beverage, even though they might have a direct to consumer business. I mean, being on the shelf and is key. Now, the challenge for those who are not in the beverage industry is that you've often got to fit into this planogram.

17:32Kara Goldin:And sometimes when you're doing something a little bit different, which I know that you knew with Body Armor and Vitamin Water and some of the other incredible brands that you worked with, that can be a big challenge. And so where exactly does this fit and kind of what challenges have you had in kind of getting the shelf space that you want? Yeah, great question, Kara. So long story short, again, we are a coffee, a ready-to-drink coffee, and we belong in the coffee set, right? So in a convenience store, that's in the cold cooler where there are a handful of different ready to drink coffee options.

18:07We want to be right next to them. We don't want to be with energy drinks. We don't want to be with protein drinks. We don't want to be with other types of beverages. Ideally, we are with the ready to drink coffees. And the same thing goes for more large stores, right? And we don't have too much large store distribution right now. Our focus really is more so a small store. But if and when we continue to grow in the mass channel and the grocery channel, et cetera, we want to be ready to drink coffee. We are a coffee. The product is made with premium erupica beans from Central and South America and primarily Colombia.

18:39And yes, while we have a different look, a different marketing approach and we promote a slightly different occasion than most coffees do, we are absolutely a coffee. So we have had a handful of different buyers, folks who control the space in these stores ask us, hey, where's the ideal location for you? And for me and us and for our team and for our brand, it's absolutely in that coffee set.

19:01Kara Goldin:So speed versus patience, especially when you're launching something in a highly competitive category. Yeah, I think it's a combination, right? It's speed and execution and your ability to move, to be nimble, to take advantage of opportunities. But it's also patience in part because Rome wasn't built in a day. Right. And whether it was body armor sports drink, which was a nine year journey, you look at some of these other brands. Again, I love the story of Celsius. Right. And 20 plus years to get kind of where they were and then ultimately kind of exploded on the scene and took advantage of opportunity.

19:34But you have to be patient. Right. I think one of the things that you'll learn is that if you have the opportunity to get on a shelf, you got to make sure you're prepared for it. Right. Is there enough brand awareness? Do you have the right marketing support? Are you planning to sample? Are you planning to invest in a retail point of sale? Are you willing to put the manpower out on the street to make sure that you stay in stock? Those are all considerations when you're thinking about, quote unquote, going big. We're grateful in part because of our story, the association with Patrick Mahomes, my partner in Throwing Sport Coffee, the awareness in the industry that we've got a team behind the scenes beyond just myself that have experience in the beverage industry.

20:09We've gotten some phone calls from some major, major national retailers, which it's incredibly flattering. At the same time, I don't believe that we're ready for that distribution just yet. You've got to crawl, then walk, then ultimately run to take advantage of some of these opportunities. And, you know, we intend to do that with Throwing Sport Coffee and be smart about it and be strategic about where we go. You know, there's a huge opportunity for us to continue to grow our brand over time. And I think, again, you have to drive awareness in terms of what we are and tell people about it, make sure the education is there before you go everywhere from a distribution standpoint.

20:40So we want to be smart about that.

20:42Kara Goldin:So when you think about going into different categories, too, like when do you know you're ready? whether it's big box stores. I mean, maybe it's actually having cash in order to go and do that right. Maybe it's having the right team in place. Maybe it's trying to actually make the decision as to whether or not you actually want to be in that channel. But how do, if you're speaking to a founder, how do you make that decision? Sure, you have to have belief and confidence in the brand. And some of that's going to be subjective confidence in terms of your gut instinct. But so much of it really should be based on facts and quantitative information.

21:24It's a combination of quantitative plus qualitative. So you have to prove it out. Do you have wins in certain accounts or certain chains or other channels already? Have you talked to consumers and are they looking for it in other accounts? So much of that at our days at Body Armor, we'd get communications on Twitter or Instagram or whatever it was at the time saying, hey, when are you coming to this account? When you come into that account, when that becomes consistent, you know that consumers are looking for your products in some of these other accounts and some of these other channels. And you may have confidence that it may be that time to go there.

21:52To your point about resources, it's absolutely a big part of it. Right. You need to make sure from a funding standpoint, a slotting standpoint, a promotional support pricing standpoint, as well as a marketing support standpoint that you can you can you can handle that. Right. And you don't want to get in over your skis. And, you know, that's why beverage, as you know, just given your experience, it is incredibly capital intensive game and you need to have a ton of resources to enter into it. And seemingly at times it's, quote unquote, never enough. Right. Because you want to be so ambitious in terms of taking on new distribution and growing your brand.

22:23But you have to be smart in terms of where you go and, you know, be successful kind of in one space before you have the opportunity to go, quote unquote, too big later on. The last thing you want to do is to go into an account too early when you're not ready and not have the velocities and the buyers not be happy. And then, you know, you get booted out and it may take you a long time if you ever get back into there again. So, you know, it's not a chicken or the egg thing. You just need to be smart and have confidence that you're taking the right steps to take on that distribution. And once you're in there and as you plan to get in there, you need to make sure that you win.

22:55We had a meeting yesterday with our partners at Whole Foods. I'm excited to say. And, you know, it should be fairly widely spread news at this point for folks in the beverage industry. But we got Throw-In Sport Coffee, National Distribution, kicking off with Whole Foods. So super grateful for that. It's our new cold brew product that's going in there for SKUs. And, you know, we met again with our buyer yesterday and we have a great rapport and relationship with him. And we walked him and talked him through all the marketing support we have going on from now until year's end. It includes hundreds of demos in Whole Foods stores.

23:27It includes point of sale in every Whole Foods in the country. It includes huge national marketing support and social media support telling the world that we're going to be at Whole Foods. Once we're in there, we need to make sure that we win and we're committed to doing that. That's just one example of how we're approaching that account with our new Drone Sport Coffee cold brew product.