EP 116: John Fieldly (CEO, Celsius) How He Saved Celsius From Near Bankruptcy to a $10B Company

28:16And so the energy dream category, the big three, as I think about it, uh, the Red Bull monster and you all, and all kind of appealing to slightly different constituents. I'm sure there's some overlapping Venn diagram that exists, but who, um, who is your core customer? Wellness is obviously a, uh, an important factor into it, but is it, uh, do you think of it as a twenties, thirties, forties something, or is it? So historically, if you go back to, if you go back to the original, when I started, it was 24 to 34. It was an older demographic because someone at that point, when you go back to 2012, almost to the 2000 kind of 16, it was really focused on someone looking for weight loss.

28:56It was an older consumer. We were still focusing on the gyms, but really marketed as a pre-workout. And then today with the fitness lifestyle in 2017, we changed that positioning. We're going and gyms become, I mean, just the excitement around gyms, it's becoming culture, right? I mean, prior to that, it wasn't part of culture. Now everyone goes to the gym, men and gym memberships, look at the, you know, the athleisure apparel industry that didn't really and it exists now it's a multi-billion dollar category yeah so i mean uh so so we've embraced that through the journey and i think that when you look back um those are some some really key milestones along the way um that allow us to be kind of change that positioning and embrace that and um where we are so who is the user or who's the the icp so today is the 18 to 24 is our main target um do really great with gen z actually we just uh last week we graduated we have a cell City University program.

29:54We have 210 college students and over 90 universities come down to South Florida. We educate them on consumer products, everything from budgeting, planning, production, procurement, marketing strategies. And they're really the CEOs of their campus. And then they go back and activate. And we work alongside them with a variety of our team members. Uh, so it's, uh, but 18 to 24 is the target consumer, uh, someone, uh, that's looking, you know, believes in fitness as a fitness lifestyle mindset, um, and looks, looks forward to living life to its fullest. That's what we're about. And so, so as you think about reaching or appealing to those, uh, constituents or that, that ideal customer profile, um, we talked about gyms as a distribution point and brands and all that.

30:41You guys have also leaned in and done a successful job within like influencers as well and signing kind of athletes as sponsors or endorsers of your business? How have you guys thought about that as a distribution point? Yeah, I mean, that's been really critical. You know, owning the phone, influencer, leveraging, you know, it was Facebook and Instagram and TikTok and Snapchat. We need to be where consumers are. What's great about social media is, you know, people can find anything out on social media and with the fitness lifestyle. There's so many trainers. We initially were embracing, we still do personal trainers.

31:22We're actually, during COVID, we leveraged them on our platform. We helped a lot of them become and helped them get subscription models on how to use, you know, better use Instagram as you can build a personal training business on these platforms. And then you had Zoom pop up and that was the video programs and video workouts. And we really embraced it. The key is to embrace the technology around you. And it's a nomine channel world. Consumers want it when they want it. And it's an impulse purchase a lot now. And everything's at your fingertips on these phones. So that's something we've always embraced.

31:57We're the number one on Instacart as well, selling energy drink. And, you know, Infler is a key strategy. Yeah. And so your personal rise within the company, so you joined as CFO, but it was only 12 people at the time. And then you took over as CEO when? I took over right around 2017. I did a dual role. I was CEO, interim CEO, CFO. Jerry wound up retiring during that time. He was getting up there in age. And the company was out looking for the pursuit of a new CEO that could take this company to the next level. So that lasted for, I guess, about a year and a half while they were going through looking for someone with pedigree that could lead the company to disrupt the beverage category.

32:47And so we uplisted a NASDAQ. I uplisted the whole company as the interim CEO, CFO, and I don't think there's too many public companies that have done that, which was quite interesting. So that was one of my justifications towards the end of the whole thing. like I want in on the next interview process, um, uh, as we're going through these candidates and, um, you know, I was running the company for over a year and a half, driving good revenue. We uplisted a NASDAQ. Uh, we're making great progress with our retailers and customers and things like that. So, uh, I said, give me two years to get rid of me.

33:17Give me a shot. So finally convinced them. How many employees, uh, was the business around that time? We were probably around, uh, about 40. Okay. And do you remember what the market cap was when you uplisted? I think it was, uh, I think around 30, maybe 36 million. Wow. Somewhere around there. Yeah. And you've been, I'll have to look back. I don't know. Well, so it was something like 36, 40 million. Yeah. Quite, quite a, quite a much smaller than it is today. Yeah. Yeah. Quite a journey from there. It's been crazy. And, and, and so I guess, uh, from, from that point in time, taking over as a public company CEO and leading the, leading the charge, I'm curious, like that experience of writing the stock price up in all uh all the different considerations around around that um can you speak to like what that journey's been like now that the stock price has has accelerated to the point that it has yeah i know when i started the stock was 20 cents um we did a three for one split uh recently this year so um you know it's been as as you're running a public company, you can't focus on the stock price, which is very difficult to do, especially when everyone's incentivized with stock.

34:28But you got to look beyond that. Otherwise, you become, what we say internally, you're going to make an outer orbit adjustment that you don't want to make because you can be perception. The stock market is so emotional. At the end of the day you need to run you got to run the business you got to run the strategy um it is a marathon it is not a sprint um and it's uh that's part of like an emotional uh piece that as running a public company you need to overcome because it can make it can make you pretty crazy we've had team members that go a little crazy and you got to like calm them down like listen it is you know things get better you know it gets it's all over the place yeah but at the end of the day we do the right things for the business.

35:11We drive revenue, we're driving profits, we're driving long-term growth for shareholders. And I believe at the end of the day, that's what's going to prevail and that's what plays out. And so from 22 to 23, revenue, I think, doubled or roughly doubled in that period of time. And you signed a distribution deal or Pepsi invested as well at that point? Yeah, 23 Pepsi invested. So when you look at that distribution journey. So as I mentioned, we started off going direct to retail. Um, we were basically seen as a, a fitness gym rat brand. Um, and everyone knew about us in the beverage industry, which was really a challenge as well, because we had this kind of skeleton in the closet everywhere we went because we were delisted at every retailer and everyone, um, a lot of people knew, everyone knew in the beverage industry that this brand was kind of like a dead brand that was trying to be revived and it's not going to be successful, especially for people that were not in the beverage industry.

36:09So I was never in the beverage industry prior to this. Um, and, uh, and either was Jerry. And so that was a lot of stigma and people remember first impressions, right? I think that's a major thing in life. First impressions mean everything. Uh, so don't mess it up. So we have, we messed it up. So we had to come through as a company and prove everyone. so we were able to get back into the distributors we couldn't get in any distributors because they saw us as a this fitness gym rat brand they called it don't that doesn't belong in the beverage category belongs in hbc and in the gyms if you remember there is a brand uh still on the shelves today uh bang energy um they came from the sports nutrition space as well They didn't have that prior stigma of getting delisted and on the attempt to be a beverage company.

37:01So they were able to have the opportunity during that time of a little bit after this better for you category. They're the buyers. I was talking about those retailers were looking to expand their shelf space. Bang was able to show the demand in the fitness channel and start to really get open the eyes to these retailers about this performance energy. So you had better for you energy, but then performance energy is the future of the energy category. And they were able to convince the retailers and the distributors gave them that opportunity to go into a lot of the ABI independent distributor network.

37:37And they did amazing. They got up to about seven or eight share. They did really good. A lot of you have probably seen their ads and tried some of their flavors. Great innovation, great flavor innovation. They had a really successful business and moved over to Pepsi. so pepsi wound up taking them on their trucks due to the success so that opened a big hole within the anheuser-busch network for volume and that allowed celsius to opportunity to go to dsd which is direct store delivery so it's more of like a white glove service that keeps product on shelf so instead of going in the back door per se you're going in the front door and someone's keeping product on shelf and that also allows you to get cold placement because when you go into a retailer all those cold placements is really that supplier or that distributor putting that product there and keeping it cold and to be sold.

38:26So that allowed our sales to almost double. We did really well because we had awareness on Amazon. We had awareness in fitness and the gyms. And then we started to hit retail. We were starting to get that consumer pull because people were seeing it and trying it. We had great flavors and the proposition we have. So we were with ABI for a little over a year. And Bang Energy had some differences with Pepsi. They wound up ending the relationship. So PepsiCo had a void within their energy drink portfolio. And they knocked on our door in 2023, took an interest in us, an 8.5 % investment into Celsius, put us on their trucks.

39:08And we're in pretty much every single major retailer in the country right now. And revenues doubled overnight again um and and continue to to grow and uh it's been an awesome partnership with pepsi i mean that dance card situation is a fascinating one bang energy must be uh you must be number one fans of of them given given both of those their moves uh we are i mean without bang uh you know who knows what what could have happened i mean they really changed the way they they opened the eyes to buyers about this performance energy and and prior to that it didn't even exist. Then this whole new category and retailers were all talking, oh, we need a performance energy set.

39:48So then that opened up the opportunity for Bang and C4 and Celsius to be in this new performance energy set as these performance brands coming out of the gym network, the gym channels are going more mainstream. And that's the same time that if you look back, these brands continue to, the gym brands, the specialty chains and everything really were gaining massive amounts of traction. I look at Planet Fitness was exploding at the time and a variety of these other national chains. I'm just kind of doing the math. You mentioned the$5 million note or line of credit. That was the original investment that went into the company.

40:27Since I started. Since you started. Okay. So that went in. That was the initial. That was the initial. The initial line of credit. So the$5 million of which you only used four. and then you took the$550 million from Pepsi, but that's still on the balance sheet. That's on the balance sheet. So is that all the money you guys have ever consumed? Along the way, I mean - For the US business. For the US business. Yeah, I mean, like in the early, I think 2015, we used about$4 million from 2012 to 2015. Then we got an investment of, I think it was around$17 million from Horizon Ventures. Many might know them.

41:08Yeah, sure. Great group. They saw us as a disruptive technology in the food space. That was really exciting, especially getting Ali Ka-shing, one of the wealthiest men in Asia, to invest in this beverage. So that was really a game changer for us. We wound up investing those funds and expansion into China. But if you extrapolate that out, we've been profitable ever since. And that 17 was only used in Asia. Yeah. Right. And so it was really the four to build the company that is now doing what over. We did 400 million last quarter. Yeah, it's a 1.6 billion dollar. And generated a hundred million dollars in EBITDA, which was unreal.

41:50Crazy. It's been. Not many companies you see doing that on a four million dollar investment getting to that scale. Yeah, it's been it's been a journey. You know, right before COVID as well, our investors really wanted to take some dollars off the table as well. So we did do a primary and secondary capital raise where it allowed them to reduce their positions. I forget the percentage they reduced, but it was right around$400 million. They were able to sell their stock to secondary investors. Through that process, company took on about$80 million. and that went on our balance sheet as well to be used as growth capital.

42:33COVID hit during that time, which we didn't know just a few weeks later. And what's another big kind of strategic move, we were looking at each other. What do we do? We started to hear noise of supply chains running out of ingredients and cans. And we had that$80 million on the balance sheet, and we put it all in prepaids to our suppliers so we could get product in cans. And if you're going to bet on anyone, you bet on yourself. That was a strategic, really strategic moment within the company. A little bit scary betting on ourselves. We actually got back to 2012, almost not being able to make payroll again because we prepaid for all of our raw materials and ingredients and product.

43:12But that allowed us to really be one of few companies that actually had product during that crazy time when everyone was running out. So that gave us another competitive advantage as well. We were able to give it our distributors Celsius to sell. When all these other products were out, we were able to get distribution. And that was another milestone, a kind of a strategic move that worked. So, you know, I say to employees all the time, and I think Abraham Lincoln does the best, you know, has a great quote. Things may come to those who wait, but only those things left by those who hustle. And opportunities come and go.

43:43You got to jump on the opportunities. So many people will see the opportunity, but they let it pass. and it's critical you jump on that. I think that we've done a great job jumping on the train when it's at the station and running with it. It's amazing. I appreciate you sharing the detail of the story. It's such a fascinating one to where you are today and it's really impressive to see. I'm curious as you think about marketing and what that means for Celsius, Are there any lessons that you would impart to maybe a founder of a company that is outside of the CPG space altogether and just sort of thinking about how do I refine my brand, be it in B2B software or consumer internet or AI or something?

44:37Yeah, I think, you know, you got to start with that target consumer audience. We were marketing to, you know, we look at, we made a lot of mistakes, still make mistakes along the way. And a lot of times the messaging does not resonate with the community you're looking to activate. And if you think about it that way, when we go to market, we look at the community, we look to activate. What is the interest of the community? How do they consume media? You know, what are they engaging with? And then can you take your, what differentiators do you have in your product or your offering that is an interest of them?

45:14And then how do you best deliver it? I mean, you really got to map that down to the community you're looking to activate. And it has to be differentiated for each community. Really, that you're looking to activate needs to be spoken to potentially in different forms. And different differentiators are most important to them. And it sounds like the iteration has been an important part of the journey, not just the positioning of where you are, but also everything from the can redesigns and the logos and all of that. How have you thought about when to keep something as is versus when to continue to tinker, change, iterate?

45:53Yeah, there's so many influences on that along the way. If it's not broke, don't fix it. But you're constantly always trying to get better. It sounds like you guys are more on the continue to move forward, optimize. I think you could have long ago seeded if it's not broke, don't fix it. We're always trying to get better at what we do. Trying to understand the consumer, the audience. It's a dynamic world we live in. Things are changing rapidly. You've got to change with the consumers. You've got to evolve. If you're not reinventing yourself, you're going to be passed up. So I think that's constant.

46:33Never be complacent is another thing. And always trying to challenge the status quo within just internally with the teams. You know, if it worked, why did it work? And then how do we constantly make it better? And kind of always pushing for that extra yard, that extra, you know, inch along the way is super critical. We touched on a number of different underlying trends that have sort of enabled or empowered your success. Are there different things that you're paying attention to as we sort of look out from here that might be niche in part but going to be mainstream in the next two, three, four, five years that people should know about?

47:13Yeah, and I guess in the beverage category, what's really interesting is the evolution of the way consumers are consuming beverages from powders. And now there's capsules and tablets that dissolve in water, different deliverables. Different segments are evolving in the beverage category. I think it keeps us really fascinating. There's kind of this new soda segment that's evolving with Olipop. And, you know, when you look at Poppy as well, there's a lot of interesting space and opportunities that, you know, the historical, I guess, nostalgic brands maybe can't compete in. It could be a big opportunity.

47:53And then within technology as well. You know, we're trying to really understand how do we better use or further use AI to help us be better marketers, be better, you know, executors. Part of the business is marketing. The other part is qualifying the ROI and the validating that it's actually working, which is very difficult to prove, especially when your product sold through almost three levels down to that end consumer. so we're hoping that we can get you know how do we leverage that within the consumer space is a big opportunity for us yeah i i can only imagine not having that um the direct relationship uh or the data the point of sale data across the board of who your demographics are and all that stuff it's uh probably uh an opaque box to iterate on it's like the i know half my marketing is working old adage i just don't know what half uh so i'm sure it's a lot of hypothesis a lot of a b testing and there's a lead time as well.

48:53It's really, really difficult, really difficult. Are you experimenting or thinking about some of those things you mentioned, the capsules or the powders or some of those things? Yeah, we actually have On The Go powder offering, On The Go sticks. We just launched a new vibe line with that. It does really well at Walmart. We're expanding it into a variety of food retailers across the country. We've got some other innovation we're working on for 25. We think that's just an untapped opportunity as everyone, you know, look at recycling, look at the plastic bottles, look at, you know, what consumers are valuing, look at the hydro flask, Stanley cups, you know, where everything's going, the refillable water fountains with the bottles.

49:35There's a huge opportunity there. How do we best tap into that? That's interesting. At a more general level, as you think about the category itself, how much of the market opportunity that you guys have been able to capture you think comes from cannibalization versus share growth of the space, like the market actually taking off? Well, we're getting a lot of data from Numerator, so a lot of consumer data. And when you look at the energy gen category most recently, Celsius has driven. And if you took Celsius out of the energy drink category, it's flat to down. So we're driving the incremental growth within the category, which is really great to see.

50:18So if you go to 18 and 24, those new consumers coming into the category, they see Celsius as a brand that's aligned with their lifestyles, which is a great story for retailers. Especially put more product on the shelf and give us better positioning. We're not your grandfather's energy drink. and that's really critical because if you're just a Me Too product, you're not going to convince a retailer because then it's just a margin play you're going to have to go after. You have to be more than that margin opportunity with the retailer. With Celsius, we have a variety of differentiators with the product offering.

50:54We align with the health and wellness goals that are super strong tailwinds where consumers are going and then we're bringing new to category. That's like the perfect, perfect mix to build a brand within retail. Is there anything clever that you guys have done or anything particularly that stands out from a building loyalty standpoint as you sort of reflect on all the different campaigns or strategies, anything that... We're big within healthcare first responders. You go back to the strategy during COVID. We took our field marketing team and we worried about human interactions. How do we continue to evolve and grow the business?

51:36So we said, you know what? We need to help first responders. What better product to offer? Everyone's working late hours, long hours. How do we get product Celsius into their hands so we can help everyone be the best and get through this together? So we dropped product off at all the tested COVID sites we could see and hospitals, firefighters, police stations. And we get so many great comments on DMs from do extremely well. We have access. We have actually Celsius sold now in a variety of over 120 hospitals around the country and growing. The product does extremely well with nurses and doctors.

52:12And so that was building loyalty. Once you have connected within a consumer in an emotional way, I think you create that all-time loyalty. Going back to COVID with helping out trainers, right? Helping them with the video services, giving them a platform that they can speak upon to help them build their audience and hopefully build their clientele, that goes a long way when a brand reaches out to you. So you, you were not always, as we mentioned, the CEO of the business and coming up from a CPA to a CFO to the CEO. Did you always think you would be a CEO of business one day? Or was that something that just kind of evolved and came to be uh for the circumstances yeah i think it just kind of evolved and came to be um you know i've always been an entrepreneur um just going back you know even in high school and and middle school you know i was you know selling candy at gym's uh gym class and soda and you know blow pops and trying to build a lawn service company i don't know i've always been um trying to pursue you know trying to be an entrepreneur and um i worked at Ecker Drugs through really high school and college.

53:27And I was there for over eight years and kind of worked my way up there. The reason why I got my CPA license was to help Ecker Drugs. I wanted to get a corporate job and help them manage their inventories better at store level because it was a disaster what was going on. And I was part of a rehabilitation team towards the last few years that I was there turning around underperforming stores. So I learned about like shopper marketing, product placement, the path to purchase, coaching, educating team, the sales team, you know, how do we upsell? How do we make sure the right products are right next to the right upsell products are next to the main product you're looking for?

54:07So I've got a lot of retail experience there, which was great. What did they teach you about the path to purchase? I'm curious. I know you studied it and figured out a lot. Yeah, that was at, I mean, at Eckert, it's always about the path to purchase. So, you know, if you're going up for, you know, like for going into the back then you had those photo labs everywhere in the corner. You know, when you're going in that photo lab, they get your, your photos, making sure that they're walking by, you're, you're going through some of those cameras to purchase the on the go cameras. The, the film is, is that right at purchase, making sure when you're cashing out the, the sales rep is asking, do you need more film?

54:39So kind of those you know, those sales tactics on the front counter, you have those impulse purchase items. If someone walks up with a, with an item. If they're sick, they're coming in with sick. Did you get this item? Did you get cough drops? Kind of creating that upsell. If there are different types of batteries in the food area, making sure you have those end caps set right for the right path to purchase as you're going down those aisles. It was really critical and increased sales at its store once you had the end caps set up properly for each the path to purchase. When you're going down through the pharmacy, making sure that particular items are on that path to purchase through the pharmacy, those impulse purchases, so you can get a bigger ring.

55:19Was there something that stands out as counterintuitive or that you didn't expect about moving, about the role of the CEO once you moved into that job and as the company scaled? Was there anything of note that you didn't expect? Well, I think, you know, one thing was I was kind of forced into that because I was doing the dual role as the interim CEO and CFO. So, um, you know, I think, you know, that probably the, the biggest, biggest challenge was, you know, dealing with the, the investors. Um, that was the biggest challenge and also the board of directors. Uh, I was dealing with them as the CFO.

55:57Um, but you know, having, uh, you're, you're trying to please so many people along the way. Um, that was, uh, that was, uh, you know, something unique that kind of came to fruition. I already won over the team. I'm very team-oriented. This is one team, one mission, one goal. Everyone in the company knows that. My door is always open, still is today. We ask team members for ideas and concepts. Best thing about working at Celsius is everyone makes a difference, and that's critical. And so, you know, kind of being forced into the role, it was like you just got to go. You got to get the plans. You got to get the strategies.

56:34I think one thing is when you're talking to your teams and you're laying out the strategies, it can't be your strategy. It has to be their strategy. So you're there as a leader to implement a strategy. You've got to get insights. You've got to be able to work together. And in order to motivate people, whatever the strategy is, it's got to be there. Everyone needs to believe it's their strategy. I've heard that you crowdsource ideas from employees and maybe consumers as well for potential flavors or different initiatives that you should undertake. I guess anything of note that's sort of come from a crowdsourced idea within the organization, employees volunteering, something specific?

57:16Yeah, I mean, that comes all the time. I just had an employee email me last week about an idea and a concept on a potential dealer loaders associated with music. And I don't want to give it away on there, but there's ideas. And I bring that right up to the leadership team. You have access. I mean, we want everyone to feel this is their company. And we have a cross-functional team that meets for new flavors and concepts and ideas. We bring people in from accounting and finance. And a lot of times it's just the innovation team that comes up with the ideas. Some of our best flavors and concepts have come from other team members.

57:54Fantasy Vibe was a great new flavor that we came out with, which was a Mandarin marshmallow. It came from a team member that wasn't in the innovation team and came with a variety of different concepts and ideas and pitched it. It's almost everyone can pitch their ideas and concepts and kind of have fun with it. Yeah, it's a good way of empowering ownership within the organization of the company and the brand. Absolutely. So one of the concepts I've heard you talk about is billboarding and getting the 30 seconds that you have to entice consumers within a retail space. Can you maybe speak to uh how you think about you talked about different shelf space and cross promotion of products or all that cross sale but uh what about the billboarding concept and the billboard effect is critical it's um and what we mean by billboard it's you know in retail it's you know it's a can of celsius is like two inches wide and you really need to get multiple flavors on shelf and probably you need a minimum of four or five to create a billboard effect um and what that really means is that you just got presence at retail.

59:00So, I mean, just think of yourself when you go into a retailer. It could be, you know, you're thirsty. Let me, I want an energy drink. You, when you're walking into a store, you already have something in mind. And you really, you might look around for other products, but probably only like five, six seconds, right? Because you already have some concept in mind. So it's, you have to disrupt the path to purchase. You have to convince a consumer at that moment, at that time, and you got 30 seconds max. And if you don't have a billboard, you don't have a placement, you don't have a presence at retail, your two cans, we call it internally, like we got to get out of the gutter.

59:40Celsius was in the gutter. And what do I mean by the gutter? It's like the bottom shelf of the cooler. You know, no one looks down there. So it's really a tough place to be. We'll take it if that's at the time, that's the best we could get, like we're in. but you really have to be at eye level. Retailer placement, product placement is so critical in retail just like it is important within marketing as well. Within the technology industry especially, there's been this reticence to go public among a number of high profile private businesses. You all have operated the full journey of being a public company.

1:00:20Do you think Celsius is a better business today for having gone through all of that? Or is that just something people would tell themselves to comfort the fact that it was a very roller coaster of a journey? I think it was good for Celsius. It kept us extremely disciplined. The original thesis from the original investor when I started was to drive profitable growth, which aligns with being a public company. You need to drive profitable growth. You need to be, you know, we're very disciplined on our spends, our investments. Timing and sequencing is very critical. Wall Street does not like variables.

1:01:04They don't like ups and downs. They like consistency. Um, so I think that's, um, I think being a public company allowed us, uh, really forced us into being extremely, extremely disciplined, calculated, uh, which has worked really well for the organization because you do get, you know, through the journey, through investors, through individuals, uh, kind of get pulled and sequenced in different directions. Yeah. So I think it was, it kept us well-rounded. Well, it's obviously been an amazing, uh, journey that you you've been on and I'm sure at different points along the way. People didn't think you would get anywhere near where you are, but I realize this isn't your ambition of where you want to go, and you still have plans to keep moving upward from here.

1:01:49And so I guess that ties into two distinct things. One is international, and two is the overall plan to get to the clear number one and keep outpacing the others in the space. And so I guess, how do you think about the international market? Massive, massive opportunity. I mean, we want to be the number one leader in the energy category. We think we feel Celsius deserves more. We want to change people's lives. We want to encourage people to live fit and accomplish their goals. And that's when you look at the, you know, the kind of the tailwinds that are driving our opportunity. When you look at fitness, you look at Better For You.

1:02:31You know, Celsius has over seven essential vitamins or green tea, ginger, guarana. We have great flavor tasting. Everyone wants better for you, but they don't want to sacrifice flavor. We win on that. We have one of the most refreshing energy drinks out there. We have our functionality. We all want our beverages and foods to do more. We want more function. Celsius is that functional energy drink. It does more than just provide energy with thermogenic properties and fat burning. Allows you to help you exceed and drive your health and wellness goals. and then fitness is hip cool sexy premium lifestyle position uh that's broad mass appeal and that's not in just in north america that's all over in the globe so we're doing well in sweden we are in sweden we're in finland we're launching in the uk and ireland uh later this year we're going to be in australia new zealand and in france we're a little bit from late on the olympics this year but we'll be off and uh kicking it off in france later this year Noah Lyles is one of our great ambassadors, an amazing Olympian that won the gold.

1:03:31It's exciting. I think the time's right. People want more. And out of their beverages, they consume. And we're here to deliver on it. I'm sure all those markets are unique in their own ways, given the nuances of any particular geo or country. But I guess as you look at international as a whole, does it follow similar dynamics generally as the U.S. from a competitive set standpoint, from an opportunity standpoint? Opportunity is going to be differentiated by market. If you look at Asia, South America and Africa and look at all the EMEA, each market needs to be somewhat analyzed differently. You need to have, we're taking our holistic approach and our strategy, our brand strategy, but then we're going to localize it for each market.

1:04:23You also need to look at, will the product, what is the opportunity, right? And can we be successful based on the pricing architectures? If you go to Indonesia, there's a different pricing architecture than, you know, if you look at the UK or in Ireland and Sweden and so on. So I think phase, you know, what we're doing phase one is really looking at the best markets with opportunistic. It's got a healthy energy drink market. Pricing is good where everyone can make margin along the way. It's going to be really critical for us. And then it could be opportunities to also adjust the product and formula, maybe differentiated from what we currently offer to go into some other markets where we're not able potentially to get the price point that would be required to enter a market.

1:05:05Do you think at a high level, do you think the existing positioning and the underlying growth in that market can take you to the number one share and just continuing to do more of the same in different geos and continuing to get better and optimize what it is you do? Or do you think it'll take a more expansive positioning to get there? I think we got an amazing position. I think what you have is you have established brands within the category that are these leaders. Red Bull and Monster are dominant. it. They are energy. Um, you know, this, what Celsius offers and within our positioning and the consumer base is growing.

1:05:42If you look at sugar free as an example, um, it just turned 50 % of the category in the U S um, that is, you know, that's evolving in other markets, which are really high sugar. Um, and so those are opportunities. I think everything's going to continue to evolve, uh, towards better for you, more healthier options. Uh, and we're going to be a leader in that, that space. Yeah, that's great. Well, John, thanks for doing this. This is fun. It was great. Thanks for having us. Amazing story. Unlike any other that I've seen before. Awesome. Glad to be here. Thank you for joining this episode of The Logan Bartlett Show with CEO of Celsius, John Fieldley.

1:06:19If you enjoyed this discussion, I'd appreciate if you subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening to us on, as well as share with anyone else you think might find it interesting. We look forward to seeing you back here next week with another great guest on The Logan Bartlett Show. Have a great weekend, everyone.