#189 Wonderade: Juice, Protein, or a Brand?

0:00Welcome to The Pitch, where startup founders raise millions and listeners can invest. I'm Josh Muccio. And I'm Lisa Muccio. And on the show today, we have Matt with WonderAid. He's raising$1 million. You know Gatorade? Yes, I do. Capri Sun? Yes. It's 2026. Why don't we have a healthy version of these drinks yet? Well, we do now, thanks to WonderAid. It makes me think of a superhero. Well, that's excellent because that's actually their whole goal. Nostalgic, fun, superhero characters. Yes, like the good old days. Like the good old days of... Tony the Tiger and the Trix Rabbit. And that Kool-Aid guy.

0:39He was kind of superhero-esque. I liked the Kool-Aid guy, but looking back, he might be a little weird. Well, he was. All he did was knock down walls and be like, hey. But I loved Kool-Aid. I was drinking the Kool-Aid. Drinking the Kool-Aid. Today's founder wants to make juice for children that's as delicious and nostalgic as our childhood favorites. But with protein, and it's actually good for you. But can today's third-time founder turn Sunny D into Money D and get the VCs to invest in juice? The pitch for WonderAid is coming up after this. But first, we are hosting two live events this season.

1:20One in SF coming up at SF Tech Week, and another one in November in New York City. We're also hosting our next taping of season 17 in San Francisco. Join us at any of these events. Go to pitch.show slash events. Support for this season of The Pitch comes from Engine. Running a small business means every dollar has to work hard. But if your team is booking travel the old way, it's costing you more than you think. Engine is the fastest growing travel and spend platform in the country, built specifically for businesses like yours. In 2025, Engine customers saved more than$300 million on travel. With zero booking fees, no contracts, and no BS, you can book a trip in as little as two and a half minutes and earn up to 10 % back on hotels.

2:11Ooh, love those points. More than 1 ,000 businesses join Engine every month. Join them and get$500 when you sign up. Start traveling at engine.com slash pitch.

2:28Welcome back to The Pitch for WonderAid. Let's meet the investors. Charles Hudson with Precursor Ventures. We have 500 companies, so you pick it, we have it. And three new investors to the show. Ellie Barmazel with Perinot. Entrepreneurship is the dance between hubris and humility. Elizabeth Galbitt with SoGal Ventures. Not all exits are created the same. And Jeff Cantalupo with Listen Ventures. Do you want this to be a premium brand?

3:01Wonderade. Oh, wow. She's a woman of many talents. I'm going to use your voice. Who did that? She did it. That was a perfect voice. I need to use that. I'm Matt. Wonderade. Yeah. Thank you. I'm Matt. Great to meet you. Good to meet you. Elizabeth, nice to meet you. Charles. Hi, Charles. Nice to meet you. Hi. Jeff. Matt, nice to meet you, Jeff. Good to meet you. Okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Matt Cobble, and I'm the founder of WonderAid, the juice that you wish you had when you were growing up. Let me take you back to my childhood. Baseball, I was drinking Gatorades. On the weekends, I was selling country cock lemonade out of a lemonade stand.

3:37At night, I was mixing up Kool-Aid before dinner. And at birthday parties, we were fighting over pouches and boxes, Capri Sun's Juicy Juice. Sometimes I wonder if my parents were reading these labels. Things are a bit different now. I have two kids of my own and I don't give them that stuff. I looked and in the last 20 years, there's been one innovation in juice. You may have heard of it. It's called Honest Kids and their big innovation is just less sugar. At the end of the day, that's still sugar water, which honestly isn't good enough. So thanks to some pretty cool advancements in food tech, what's called hydrolyzed protein peptides or clear protein, we can now make something even better.

4:18This is WonderAid. It's a juice that tastes like OJ or fruit punch, but it has eight grams of protein. It has four grams of fiber and only three grams of total sugar, all from juice. I didn't stop there. I went ahead and brought in as much potassium as a banana, as much calcium as milk, and then a bunch of other vitamins and minerals to boost immunity and brain health. My kids love it, and I'm excited to share it. The juice market is a$25 billion a year market in the United States, mostly dominated by legacy brands. We've seen the story play out in soda over the past six years, and I see that story happening again now for juice.

5:00This isn't my first time starting a beverage company. This is my third. My first, Soylent, got to$35 million in ARR in 18 months. My second, Kin, did$5 million in its first year. Both times, I saw the opportunity for taste and technology to serve a customer that had a health need. I see that same chance now thanks to my own kids. That's why I'm raising a million dollars to bring healthy, fun, and delicious nutrition to families everywhere. My only question now is, are you ready to try it? Yeah, let's try it. Cool. All right, let's do it. So these are my two staples that I found. They turn out to be the chocolate and vanilla of the juice world.

5:44Some people that love orange don't like fruit punch, and people that love fruit punch don't like orange. Isn't it so funny how it's, like, tribal? Like, it's just like, oh, I'm a blue Gatorade or I'm an orange Gatorade. Those are the people you really have to watch out for. I was a blue—ice blue Gatorade. Oh, ice in your veins. Ice in my veins. It's hard being cold sometimes. Okay. It's allergen free, so there's no dairy or anything like that. All right. Who has favorites or notes? I'm team fruit punch. Fruit punch. Being honest, they both taste very sweet to me. Very sweet? Yeah, they're sweet.

6:26They're a little thicker than I expected. Yeah, there's a viscosity to it. It's definitely sweeter than I expected. If I had to pick, I'd say I'm team fruit punch. I'm usually fruit punch, but here, because the orange is a bit less sweet, I like that better. It tastes cleaner. Yeah, it is less sweet. I think I'd be orange in this particular situation. I'm an orange person, so I always go with orange. And then I can give you guys packages. One thing that I've found in the health food space for families is that there's not any strong grants. All of my kids refer to whatever food we give them as like meat sticks or pouches.

7:05They don't identify it as the brand. Whereas when I was a kid, it would be Lucky Charms. It would be Tang. Dunk Roos. Exactly, right? And a lot of that was driven by this psychology around putting characters with familiar faces on packaging that motivated and drove kids to like want to try it. Of course, those were for a little bit now looking back to various reasons because selling sugar water maybe isn't the best idea. But I'm using some of those same ideas to bring a strong brand that kids actually love and want. When do you envision your target customer? Is this like a sports beverage replacement?

7:38Is this like, hey, I want something other than water or my parents approve it replacement? Yeah, totally. So as a parent, what I find I'm giving it to my kids is when they want to eat snacks. They love snacks. There's the rushing out the door moment, like whether it's for, you know, school or for practice. There's post-practice, I think, hydration recovery since there's hydration in there. I think it's any moment when it's instead of water, can we drink something that's fun? And then also knowing that it's getting nutrients. Can we talk about the formulation and the ingredients for a second? It's plant-based protein that you're using?

8:10Yeah, I'm using clear pea protein. Why did you make that decision versus clear whey isolate? Yeah, so I did a lot of testing across the different clear protein options. and the clear whey isolate that I found leaves this extremely astringent dry aftertaste and it like burns the throat even. And I like couldn't get past it. Whereas the pea protein had just a better flavor profile. You've done two tours of duty in beverage already. You're entering your third mission. What scars and bruises do you have from beverage that you might be holding as you come into this? Do we have enough time for that?

8:47Let's get the therapy couch out. You know, very humbling experience. I've probably made more mistakes than anyone possibly could. Yeah, I'll do. People say beverage is really hard, which is a platitude or gross statement. The reality is, is that if you make a great product that tastes good and you have a brand that people identify with, a lot of your work is taken care of. And I think my first two brands, I learned so much from how to do that. Now, when you get into the actual operation of it and you're actually trying to sell through, The reality is, is that retailers are the landowners. And while I believe in launching on D2C, getting sales and getting proof points through that, end of the day, you have to own the shelf.

9:28Owning that shelf is expensive. And there's all these gotcha costs that you don't even see coming. So the number one battle score that I've learned is there's a lot more costs that you should be more conservative about building in. So when I think about gross margin, I'm not just looking at what my wholesale sell-through is to KHE or UNFI, I'm looking at what is my trade spend going to have to be? What is my loss rate going to have to be? What is my sampling rate going to have to be? I need to build all that in because at the end of the day, you could be like, oh, I'm at a 50 % gross margin, but you're only seeing 5%.

9:58So that's number one. Number two, customer always knows that you're best advocates. So rather than spending too much money on trying to just sell them, I think it's trying to develop a relationship with them. So when I think about this and what's really exciting is how do I create more value for families beyond just selling a beverage? How can I make their life easier or more fun? Because that is how you lower your acquisition costs. That's how you actually generate real brand value that allows you to save money ultimately and to keep a customer. Can you tell us what the outcomes were from the previous two companies?

10:32Yeah, so Soylent, we got that up to 70 million in revenue, but then we hired CEOs and we all stepped away as founders. Huge mistake. If you want to talk about real lessons, stick with the brand. We all stepped away. Different CEOs came in. They didn't understand the brand. The revenue flatlined, didn't grow, eventually started growing again. But by the time that did, we weren't able to find a quality buyer. With Kin, I stepped away within two years of that, just a difference in how we should be positioning the product. We came out as a non-alcoholic alternative, but what our customers were telling us is that they were using it for almost like an energy drink.

11:08I thought we should have repositioned towards that and targeted towards that, but we just disagreed and we didn't do that. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, for sure. I love that you've been in beverage. Like you said, beverage is hard, but it's really a unit economic game and it's a channel diversification game. So walk me through the unit economics out of the gate, where are you at when you launch? And then how do you get gross margin to where you want it to be? Recognizing trade spend in the way that you'll think about go to market. Yeah, go to market for me is always start online. And in 2026, the thing that works super well is TikTok.

11:42It's amazing. You literally can just find your target ICP, get them product, get them on board and build a community starting from there. That's my go-to-market strategy for this. And then getting into retail pretty quickly. I see this is actually a mass product. So I want to certainly start in the regional retailers, but I actually think that this is a much better product for the targets and Costco's and club channels of the world. What's your price point going to be? So I'll be sitting at$250 to$350, depending on the channel. And I'll get into your gross margin in a second through this. Online, I'm going to be pushing subscription.

12:19That gross margin landed after shipping is about 45%. I can bump that up to 55 % over time through just efficiency on scale. On the retail side, the net contribution margin, if you take out the wholesale fee, the trade spend, the promo, we're looking at like a 23 % contribution after all that. that scales up to about a 35%. I'm curious to know more about this consumer. Talk to us about your product development cycle. I love products for kids, but you've got two buyers effectively, right? Parent or adult in the house decides to buy, but if the kid doesn't consume, they're not coming back. Yeah, 100%.

12:59So tell us a little bit about how parent and child wove into your product discovery and how you might've adjusted along the way based on what you were learning? Yeah, so I leaned on mom and dad groups in Austin where I live, showing the parents the packaging as well as the kids. The kids' packaging resolved very quickly. I would show the kids the packaging. That looks amazing, can I have that? The parents was much more building that trust. So working with them and then working with, you know, 10 to 20 kids at a time to like try a product, parents would be like, this tastes great. And then the kid would try it and be like, no, it doesn't.

13:33And so like the sweetener level is going back and forth and moving up and moving down. So it's been about a five-month process of doing that. I always say that when you're talking about flavor, that 30 % is never going to like it. It's just the way it is. It's a weird thing that happens. So you're really aiming for that 70%. You want to probably capture 70 % of that. So out of 10 people, I'm trying to get about five to like it. And then I believe that I can acquire more of that set through different flavor expansions. When are you launching? In June. A lot of times when I look at brands that are really positioned towards this, call it lunchbox occasion or snack occasion, I always think about the brand elasticity as it relates to what somebody graduates to from this brand and how long you can actually take a consumer.

14:19Because in this world, you might have them from, what, three to ten. Ten's probably pushing it. I don't know if my ten-year-old would drink this. So how do you think about that? Because you're going to have to constantly replenish. The way I think about this brand and the reason why I'm doing animated characters is because I think animated characters can adapt and change to new customer sets. I think Disney has proven this really well. I think Marvel proves this further. I'm starting in this age group because I see this as the biggest need right now, but I intend to grow the brand over time by expanding that character set and expanding that story that's being told.

14:54What WonderAid stands for is healthy, fun nutrition for families. So anywhere that I can make a delicious and healthy option available, I'm going to do it. I've always wanted to build like a massive food company like a Nestle that's actually good for people. Nestle started with milk. So I'm going to start with juice. Let's see what happens. I think at this stage of the game, every founder enters with known unknowns. And so I'm curious, what are the biggest known unknowns that you have to figure out with this infusion of capital to get us to the next milestone? I mean, number one is going to be that reuptake rate on a subscription.

15:31acquisition costs from the beginning of like how much does it take to get someone on subscription and number three how organic is the sharing happening of this brand are kids taking it to school telling their friends about it the way i've seen my kids tell other people about it does that scale and those are all going to have cost levers to it that are going to have massive influence on what the actual next round needs to look like because if acquisition cost is zero because it's just organic, then all the money is going to be spent on inventory so that we can go to Costco and do a massive year there.

16:02But if there's probably going to be an acquisition cost, I need to know what that is. It's going to be learning from that and adapting to the brand and even the products. I mean, I'm all about changing product taste profile in order to meet what customers are saying at scale. When you talked about your previous companies, some interesting things came out. So your first company, you had co-founders, then you decided to hire an outsized CEO that I don't know if it was your board or if it was you guys or a combination of both. And that didn't work out. And that often happens with that sort of thing.

16:36Your second one, you had co-founder issues. And I don't know what that breakup did or didn't look like. But these are really complex things that a lot of startups go through. Yeah, definitely. And it has huge impacts on us as investors. does our investment, even if it has a great trajectory like Soylent did, does it still become a zero at the end of the day? What are your non-negotiables of how you will build this company? And what are you doing differently? I have learned about myself. Well, first of all, I'm a solo founder this time. I learned that I'm not a great co-founder.

17:16I mean, Tony the Tiger doesn't have a co-founder. and he's great. We'll be right back.

17:29Support for this season of The Pitch comes from NGIN. The companies winning right now aren't cutting travel. They're booking smarter. Here's the reality. The average business traveler spends 45 minutes booking a single trip on a legacy platform. With NGIN, that drops to as little as two and a half minutes. with AI-powered personalization that gets faster the more you use it. Multiply that across your team every trip, every year. That's not a perk. That's a competitive advantage. Last year, Engine customers saved more than$300 million on travel. And with the Engine X card, get up to 10 % back on any hotel booking.

18:08More than 38 ,000 businesses and groups have joined. Now it's your turn. Get$500 off when your business signs up. Start traveling at engine.com slash pitch. Engine X Visa commercial cards are issued by Fifth Third Bank and a member FDIC. Earn up to 10 % back in points on eligible engine travel purchases. Actual reward rates vary by purchase category and may change. Points have no cash value and are redeemable for rewards through our program. See full rewards terms for details. Engine.com slash X slash rewards dash terms.

18:45I have learned about myself. Well, first of all, I'm a solo founder this time. I learned that I'm not a great co-founder. The reality is, is there's really going to be one founder. I think of startups much more as dictatorships than democracies. There's got to be someone that's the CEO that's holding the bag that's going to make that final call. And in my co-founder relationships, I have tried to acquiesce that. decision-making power to someone else. And it has always ended up in conflicts. Going back to Soylent, it was, do we focus on our e-commerce website that's doing 35 million a year? Or do we cut that and go to Amazon?

19:24Well, for me, it was like, obviously we keep our website working because it's working. But the CEO was like, no, we should just focus 100 % on Amazon. I've also been massively humble. I have a completely different mindset than I did when I was 24. So I'm much more open and honest with who I am and what I can do. And I'm much more interested in building a great company with amazing people that can teach me things right now. So I'm curious for you, when you think about who you want to learn from and your biggest gaps, who are the people you need around the table with you? And who's around the table with you today?

19:58So today, it's mostly just me. I have a pretty good sense of how to create a beverage and how to create the brand around a beverage just to get it out the door. When I think about what I want, I really want someone that's amazing at storytelling and content. And this is a big belief of mine in why this company will work. Number two, I'm looking for great salespeople. And then number three, as I scale, I'm going to need a killer ops person that understands not only formulation, not only, you know, cogs and business stuff, but also understands distribution, almost like a unicorn, I think. I'm curious, there's so much in Better For You food.

20:36And I think the lane you're going after is an interesting one. My question for you is like, at the end of the day, how do you make decisions? Like, what brand are you? Are you a protein brand? Are you a juice brand? And the hierarchy of communication, what do you think is going to work? Because you got six seconds in the store to convince someone. Yeah, so it's a juice brand with protein. And that's why when you look at the front, it has that protein right there. But everything else about it with the fruit, with the colors, everything screams juice. I have feedback on that. When I look at this box, the first ingredients, water, pea protein, organic white grape juice, concentrate.

21:17When I think of juice, I obviously think of more natural, real juice. And I see this, at least in its current form, yes, it's made with real fruit concentrate, but I don't see it as like, this is actually juice. What do you think about that feedback? If that's what you see, I don't know how I could convince you otherwise.

21:45I guess to that point, is the expectation that parents will substitute away from juice? Is that what they're substituting away from? No, I don't think parents even give kids juice right now. I don't think that's an option. I think it's more like, is there a way to add more nutrition into my kids' life that they want? But here's where I want to drill into that with you, right? Because if parents aren't introducing juice to their kids today and they're looking at the whole landscape of better for you, how do I introduce more protein, more fiber, more nutrients into my kids' diet? Are they going to be looking in the juice aisle or open to juice?

22:23How much convincing do you think you have to do to get them there? Yeah, that's a great question. Fortunately, I'm not the first to try this. I think Soda had that question seven years ago when Olipop launched. It was like, but Soda's bad for you and no one's looking at Soda as a healthy option. But they prove that, in fact, they will and they'll pay a pretty large premium for it. So I think that that is the work of the brand to create that awareness around what this product does for them to make their lives easier and better. so that they are asking for it and looking for it. How big do you think the distrust gap is for the parent right now on juice?

22:59Oh my gosh, it's crazy. It's like worse than candy probably. Ooh. Yeah, it's insane. There are people that I say the word juice to and they're like, can you call it something else? So if you're thinking about go-to-market spend, then if a lot of your go-to-market spend is gonna be focused on, I have to earn the trust in a way that isn't about like a little lockstep change, but I'm asking you to make a big leap that's going to require a lot of education. What I want to know is where do you need to reach with this million to unlock the next round of capital? Yeah. And what's the time horizon that we're talking about?

23:32Because that influences when I look at the million and knowing the hurdle that you have ahead of you in educating the consumer, like, is this the right dollar amount? So the major cost of the launch is going to be inventory. That's about$400 ,000 to$500 ,000 of that million. And then I'm going to spend an additional 200 in seeding the content out to creators, building up like a full creative library of videos that I need, and then running and testing those ads across different channels. And then I think I'll be able to get like 500 retail doors that I'll be testing velocities out of too. A question as it relates to like the brand and the content strategy.

24:13I'm a little bit torn, right? I really liked when you said, I'm going to go back to the world building of kids' brands of the past. I used to work on Pop-Tarts and Frosted Flakes. No way. I know a lot about kid requests. And you said you want to build this world, you have these characters and animation. Your go-to-market is very focused on mom approval. Yes. And so I was excited when I was like, wow, maybe you're going to go to market like the way the old brands did. And you'd maybe really start to world build and actually have kids be the audience. Yeah. But it sounds like that's not where you're going.

24:46So like, as you think about that tension, how do you make decisions on what the brand becomes? Because if you go to market and it works with mom, the world building for kids, right? Where do you do that? I think of the go to market there as just that top of funnel awareness, but the long-term brand building is going to be done through that content. It's expensive to make animated content. Fortunately, AI has made this a lot cheaper. There's more that you can do than just that content though, too, you can create apps, right? I want to make the WonderAid fitness app that's getting families having fun together, doing fitness things with these characters involved in that.

25:19So I have to focus. This is a drink brand at the end of the day that's coming out of a startup. So I got to get on shelf. I got to get that velocity rate proven. And then as this brand is growing, I'm going to shave off portions of my marketing budget to make that content that I think will be long tail improvements in building that brand awareness. You mentioned adding a storytelling and content person. Can you tell me a little more about what you're looking for? Oh, man, I would love someone that worked at Disney, that knows how to tell great stories. I want that person who's going to embrace technology, who's going to embrace all the tools that we have available to us to make this content.

25:55You just don't really have a budget for any of this in your$1 million. No, that's not happening out of the$1 million for sure. And that's what I was trying to drive at, right? Like, what are we really able to accomplish with the million, knowing what's on the road in front of you. And so tell us how you arrived at a million as your raised number. And is that what you really think you need? Yeah. Is there a valuation yet? Yeah, so I've raised 550 to date on a safe at an 8 million cap. And so to answer your question, yes, because what I believe is the simple gate to get to, to raise more money is velocity rate and repeat rate.

26:37That's like literally it. And you don't need a ton of data points for that. Like 500 stores and 5 ,000 customers is like more than enough data points to understand what that actually looks like. So reaching that is going to be my main asset that I'll take into a seed round. I think I'm out. I don't feel yet that there's total clarity here. There's a lot of pieces and I'm getting like conflicting signals from the different pieces of the business. Is it juice? Is it a healthy protein shake? Is it animation? Is it D to C to moms? I don't feel clarity yet. I'm going to join in here and say it's a not now for me.

27:29I've got a lot of questions on the go-to-market that I want to dig into with you. And I will name I'm also a little price sensitive. I feel like the valuation is a little high. I trust you've got a great lead who knows and trusts that this is the right number. We just don't have that relationship. So it's hard for me to get to a yes just based on the information I have today. Yeah, cool. I've just been thinking about juice. And it's funny. I've been sitting here thinking like, as you said, like nobody gives their kids juice. If you like pull juice out at a kid's party, the parents would think you pulled out a full sugar Coke, can I cook or something?

28:06And I'm out, but I think there's like a lot of surface area around positioning. I'm, I, when the way that Jeff put it is really like what I was wrestling with, which is, I think there's like an adversarial juice positioning, which is people come to the table with so many feelings about juice. And when you said Olipop, I was like, yeah, they did sort of manage to convince people that a category that they had a really strong set of beliefs about, that those beliefs were maybe not as informed. But it doesn't sound to me like that's really the marketing strategy here. And so I'd be very curious to see which of these two things wins out.

28:41Is it the like world building kind of bottoms up child led brand or does it end up being the connection with the parent? And I think it's going to, whatever wins out is going to pull you in a really different direction. And I don't have a sense of which one's going to win out. And I think the problem is you're spending half of the money on inventory with this packaging that you're not going to be able to get rid of until you sell it all. And you're only raising a very certain amount of money. So the ability to even test a lot of these theses just isn't there. Yes. You know what I call this? I call this often the green eggs and ham effect.

29:14the cat in the hat would have spent a ton of his burn trying to get sam i am to convince him even if you know you're ultimately right that sam i am was like actually bro you were right i do love green eggs and ham but the cat in the hat i don't know if we would have made it to the end of the book because the burn rate would have been so high yeah and i think i might have had a different response if you came into here and you said look i had 10 different creatives i tested them all This one I ended up picking has a 10x difference factor of acquisition cost, but we don't have any of that information and data.

29:51And you're going to put the inventory first and spend$500 ,000 of your$1 million, but you're not going to be able to change the box. Yeah, I'll just clarify something. I'm not changing any minds. The$500 ,000 is a budget, so I'm not blowing$500 ,000 tomorrow on inventory. I'm going to spend 50 grand on inventory and I'm going to go out to market and I'm going to test. And then I can make adjustments on that. Listen, for me, I think that you're going to learn a lot in the next six months. And I think from those learnings, I think you'll probably come back with a revised, really crisp approach. For me, I think I'm out because I think there's just some tension and that will be solved through the learning of learning from some of your early customers.

30:35Is it healthy juice or is it make juice fun again for kids? And I think as you go to market, you'll be testing that stuff and you'll learn. I mean, you're an experienced founder. So I love that about you doing this again. And I love that you're back at beverage. Like, beverage is... Who would have thought? Yeah. But so as a parent, I hope it's wildly successful. But as of now, I'd like to watch the red. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Thank you so much. Good talking to you. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Thanks.

31:06we have a couple of listener questions actually one from butch who asks taste is so subjective but taste i assume is the number one factor how can you separate your own experience um yeah i thought that was very interesting how he said you know 30 are never going to like it I target five to seven in through flavor expansion. I'm curious on this panel, what percentage do you think we all were? I'm not the customer. For me, I always try to remove my subjectivity out of this type of stuff. And we don't invest in a company unless we talk to consumers that have tried the product. Yeah. I think that's interesting, right?

31:47I always try and taste my baby's baby food and I actually never like how it tastes, but my baby seems to really, really like it. Yeah. When I taste things, I'm always trying to figure out, based on what the person told me they were trying to achieve, do I see it in the product? And sometimes I'm just like, oh, you were trying to make a granola bar that had protein and all this fiber in it. And it's a little too fibery for me, but like, I see what you were trying to achieve. I feel it. And here I was like, I kind of get what you were trying to do, whether I would drink it. I'm not the target customer, but I felt like I drank this and said, oh, I see what you're trying to achieve.

32:25You're trying to make something that's like juice like in color, in weight, but with some added benefits. It doesn't taste like Hawaiian punch. No. But that wasn't the target. So for me, it's always like, OK, how close can my brain get to like the ideal of what the person described? I mean, do I see that reflected here? But maybe I won't like it. Yeah. And I think like my mind kept going to like there's the macros, right, of like what is the nutritional content? And then there's the actual ingredients. And it just felt like a mismatch to me. And so then it goes to Jeff's point of like, what is the branding and marketing around that?

33:06So he set out to create a protein juice, but you don't feel like protein juice is the same thing as the Capri Suns and the other like nostalgic things he was trying to replicate. Like you feel like those are too different. I think it's what's the leading value proposition, right? You can be both, but what's the hook? Is it the protein or is it the nostalgia and the world building? Because those are two different hooks. And if we said world building is the hook, but the retention is, and it's got protein. I don't think that there was a clear answer to which is which there. It's like when I give my kid honest kids, I'm like, it's juice.

33:41It's juice that's like less bad. Yeah. It's not good, but like significantly less bad because it has less added sugar. So I feel I'm making a compromise, but I'm making a compromise I can live with. I think that's a product that to me like has a very clear lane that they're in. They're not pretending to be anything other than juice, but juice that is like has fewer of the things that give parents thick. And here you feel like it's not juice. Here I feel like, well, it's kind of juice, but also kind of has these other benefits. I just wanted a stronger lane. So it says big and strong smoothie made with real fruit.

34:15wonder aid which i infer it's kind of like lemonade as much potassium as a banana as much calcium of a glass of milk as much protein as an egg real fruit real fuel the word juice isn't even it's juiced up yeah but there's no branding on these front two labels that say it's juice and it's just very confusing to me like in cpg like the opportunity to be something net new is a huge opportunity. But trying to be something that exists with added stuff, I think is a harder place to live. There's three types of innovation in consumer, right? There's product innovation, there's business model innovation, there's brand narrative innovation.

35:01And brand narrative innovation is table stakes. Liquid desk is the best example. Like there's no product innovation, they put water in a can, but their brand narrative innovation crushed it. It's gotta be very clear, what are you trying to do? is this something net new? I've never seen this before. Because parents have given juice to their kids for ages and they're not doing it anymore. So I think there's an opportunity to be something net new. But I think there's a lot to communicate in the current proposition. I think he'll learn that through testing. Yeah. So actually watching him, because we've been talking to him for a long time and we've tasted several versions of the formula and it's changed quite a bit.

35:37In the beginning, I thought it was very clear, oh, it's like Gatorade, but with protein. and now it seems more like a smoothie, fruit punch. So I think the product has changed to match children's palates. Yeah. But the Brie brand comes from the nostalgia and the two maybe haven't met in the middle yet. Yeah, I think that's right. In our diligence process, we do our own discovery work. I co-lead my five-year-old niece Rihanna's Daisy Troop. Here's how I would get to conviction is I would bring it to the Daisy Troop, see what the girl said, and then get the parent reaction too. And if there were at least 50 % of the parents who were like, I'm in, and they could tell me what the hook was and I could watch the kids' faces as they tried it, that would get me into conviction.

36:25Got it. Assuming also the numbers worked. I'm at yes, yes, yes now. I understand. Great. Hopefully lunch is here, but that's a wrap.

36:39Matt left the pitch room with no commitments. The VCs want data that he doesn't have yet. But once he launches, it'll be clear as juice. Will that data say that WonderAid is magically delicious? Or will the kids not taste the rainbow? We catch up with our beverage expert after this.

37:04This is Advertiser Content from Engin. I'm David. I lead a marketing services company. We're about 120 people? Mostly strategy and customer success teams who are on the road constantly. My company has been fully remote for five years, and at this point we're spread across the country, traveling often for client meetings and customer visits. We may be coming from different places and represent different teams, but we still need to be in perfect sync when we are trying to close a deal. A year ago, I couldn't tell you what our travel budget looked like until the end of the month, and by then, it was too late to do anything about it.

37:46My team was booking what they needed, finance was chasing receipts, and I was the one having to fill in the gaps. It felt like the only way we could make sure everyone booked hotels that were in policy and with trackable flights was if I took care of it all. It was inefficient and expensive. then i found engine now everyone's travel and lodging can be booked simply and quickly and thanks to engine we know where everyone arrives and when and are assured distributed teams have stayed within budget each person's loyalty programs and frequent flyer numbers are stored so i don't have to chase them down and manually input each one regularly meeting in person is a key way we ensure long-lasting, successful client partnerships.

38:32By booking with Engine, we also have a bit more budget to celebrate a partnership well done. Whether our team is flying to our annual sales conference, client meetings, or production sets, Engine lets us manage everyone's travel centrally and simply. Last year, Engine customers saved$318 million on travel. No contracts, no agent assist fees, 24-7 member support. Engine lets you easily book, manage, and save on every work trip. You're going places. Engine can take you there. Learn why Engine is the fastest growing travel platform in the country and more at engine.com.

39:16Welcome back. A few weeks after his pitch, we caught up with Matt and his first question came as no surprise. What are you drinking? Of course you'd ask what I'm drinking. Petrichor? Petrichor? Petrichor? What a name. It's the smell that comes out of the ground when it rains. Oh, I did not know what it was. I thought they just made it up. Yeah, this is their lightning drink. Focus Energy Flow. Lemon and blueberry seltzer. Amazing. Okay, so most important question to follow up on. Matt, how is it going? Oh man, such a nice question. that's me the king of nice questions it's going well you can see i shaved since the show because my kids demand a smooth face they will give me spot checks it's almost like i'm in the army or something they're like is it smooth but yeah it's going really great i'm just so grateful to be working on something that i love something that i know my kids love and that is like the draw of being an entrepreneur is like for all the ups and downs and bads, it's like every day waking up and knowing I'm building something that I truly care about on my own.

40:29So like, I'm curious as a third time founder, how was your experience pitching on the show? Have you ever done anything like this before? I never did anything like this. When everyone's on camera, everyone sort of becomes a character. The investor character is this very like, yes. and vcs don't normally do this on calls most of the time when you have just like a phone call or you're just chatting with them they're especially when you're talking about food and beverage i think because food and beverage is such like a fun thing for everyone i remember talking to this one sass investor about kin and he was like oh i make all my money on sass but the ones i talk about are my food and beverage investments yeah because when i go to sundance no one cares about the SaaS companies.

41:13They care about the popcorn company. And so when they're talking to the food and beverage people, they're just like actually happy because they're like turning off their business and turning up their home stocking fridge. It's like they're going grocery shopping. Well, it's very relatable. We all like to eat and drink. Totally. The main feedback, if I were to give my analysis, the main feedback in the room seemed to be, there's a lot going on here with WonderAid. It's a juice. It's a smoothie. It's protein. It's a kid's brand. But they didn't really understand like which direction, which lane was the important one.

41:49Which one is going to actually resonate with customers? What did you think about that feedback? Yeah, I think pre-launch on a drink, it's really hard to tell if it's going to work. So I get that. And to be 100 % honest, I don't know either. I can't control how the market responds. I have a strong belief they will respond, which is step one. No response, that means you did nothing. But as long as you get a response, there's a way to find the customer. There's a way to change the brand. There's a way to improve the product. There's all these ways once you get a response. What I enjoyed is they had a response.

42:25They cared. They cared. They could have just been like, oh, cool. Hope that works out for you. Yeah. I guess they didn't have any critiques on the flavor, if I'm remembering correctly. they were just really focused on the brand. Like they didn't understand what the brand was trying to communicate to the potential customer. Yeah, and I think that's a big risk that I'm taking as a brand because typically the better for you, especially for children, but just better for you in general, the branding has followed for the past 15 years this very specific beige coloring pattern. Very granola. Yeah. I'm the healthy choice.

43:04and you can tell because I'm understated. Understated is a perfect way to say it. So coming to the table with investors and showing them something that does not look like that, but then telling them it's healthy, I think is a lot to ask in like a quick session. We all know that the classic marketing of the 80s, 70s, and 90s worked extremely well. I think what everyone says didn't work is the ingredients themselves. You're talking about the Sunny Ds, the Capri Suns. Yeah. And any of the cereals, the Lucky Charms, those companies just completely knocked it out of the ballpark with branding, messaging, marketing, getting someone to pick it up.

43:42Right. And in food and beverage, that is your biggest challenge. And the reason why the healthy granola worked so well when it did was because the only thing that existed was those very loud brands that had become synonymous with poison. but times have shifted. We have a more sophisticated consumer now that we're back to the world of we need to get attention. We need to actually get people to pick this up and look at it. Has anyone actually successfully marketed the healthy component to kids? What's crazy is I've seen that actually working out. Like my kids just straight up look at the characters and they start flexing their muscles and doing punches and talking about how they're getting big and strong.

44:23Like that's what they do. And I'm like, that's crazy. You're just straight up brainwashed. I don't know what other way to say it, but like you like get the brand. Like the brand has worked on you to like associate physical activity. And then I've seen other parents where they tell their three, four-year-old, six-year-old, seven-year-old, oh, it has protein in it. And the kid is like, oh, it's good for me. Like there's been this crazy shift in parenting. And so kids are like really aware now, I think more than ever about that. Gen Alpha is going to be so jacked. I hope. Jacked and tall. I can't wait for you to like get this packaging in the hands of influencers, get their kids trying it and like get more feedback on what's resonating.

45:05I know. I had a big party like I think a week after the pitch with like these 10 kids that have been kind of drinking this throughout. And it was crazy. They were just like pounding it. It was actually really great because we did this at like a big outdoor restaurant. and the restaurant serves pink lemonade and watermelon juice and stuff. And so we had that. And then we also had the Wonderade samples I had. And they were just like picking Wonderade fruit punch and orange over that stuff, which was like huge validation for me because like I thought the strawberry lemonade that the restaurant was serving was amazing.

45:40Yeah. And every parent that I've given it to and they're just like shocked when they see their child just like chugging this fruit punch drink that has this fiber and protein. And they're like, what? So I think that is not going to come across in a 45-minute pitch with adults. I think that's something that only comes across through actual in-world, real-world stuff. Charles Hudson doesn't chug anything. He sips.

46:12Yes, fruit punch. Sweet, too sweet. Yeah. Oh, gosh. So in the pitch room, there was some interesting conversation about your prior companies, Soylent and Kin Euphorix. And you previously had co-founders at both of your previous companies. That's right. And you said, quote, I learned that I'm not a great co-founder. Say more. There's two things about me. I have strong opinions. I'll say they're strong opinions loosely held, but sometimes they're not, if I'm being honest. which I think would be fine in its own if that was all the thing that hurts my relationships I'm also very accommodating so I'll have a strong opinion and I'll maybe loosely hold it but then I'll ultimately acquiesce to a partner I'll say well you're on equal footing with me so why is mine greater than yours yeah and I think what ends up happening is I don't end up developing a real honest relationship with my co-founders that adds up into this like well who takes accountability, who's taking ownership.

47:19And I think ownership is one of the most important things in all organizations, but especially in a startup. Where I'm at right now is I just feel more comfortable having that confidence to own something if it's just me. Because I love working with other people. I really do. It's just there's a nuance when you're talking about the structure of a corporate partnership that I've just found myself struggling with so far. Yeah. How's the fundraising been going? Fundraising is good. I mean, I have enough right now to get to that next stage where everyone is sort of waiting for, like including the people at the pitch, that let's get to market.

47:57Let's see what people are saying. Let's see how customers respond. Once I have that in market, that'll be the next unlock stage for raising more capital. How much did you raise in this round? Remind me. I raised 600. Okay. I'm curious, as a third-time founder, what's been different about raising money this time around? Well, the market has totally changed in the last five years. And it changed the second time, too. The first time I raised money was Soylent. You know, no one cared about CPG. Back in 2013, 14, that wasn't a thing. We just happened to have interest because we came out of Y Combinator.

48:32We were in Silicon Valley. We were selling to Silicon Valley. And there was a bunch of, like, good VCs in tech that were like, this is amazing. I don't know what it is, but it's awesome. That was like how we raised money. Just the taste of it was what they liked? No, it wasn't even the taste. Like some of them didn't even like the taste. Some of them didn't even like the brand. They just were like, it's crazy that you guys are getting so much press, whatever. We don't know what's going on here, but there's something happening. We got to be a part of it. Then in the second time around, that was much more driven by my experience.

49:04Oh, this is the Soylent guy. He's coming in, he's raising money. Like, great, he did it with Soylent. He can do a big one. It was like 2018 time period. Then the CPG market just fell apart in like 21, 22, 23. So suddenly e-com and CPG and everything just sort of fell out of favor. All these funds closed their doors. And then all those funds turned into AI funds. Now raising money is very different because there are these CPG investors now, but they're really sophisticated. they really don't care about anything else than traction so it sounds so sophisticated we care about one thing traction we just want to see people actually buy your product and like i've been fortunate to raise money from my experience but i've raised just enough basically whereas you know maybe in the past i could have raised significantly more to hire a team and do all this other stuff i think like it'll all be fine because i can get traction with what I have.

50:04And then once I do, then I can raise more and, you know, I can go through the process. Yeah. Well, you did raise from one more VC, the pitch fund. That's right. We were introduced before the show via Elizabeth Yin. And I don't know, I think our position is like all of the things that the VCs brought up in the pitch room are totally valid. Yeah. But I think you're going to figure it out. Thank you. So we're betting on you, what you're building. Actually, you are the last check out of fund one. Wow. Yeah. Amazing. Let's see if I can return the whole thing on my own. Do it.

50:52So Josh. Lisa. I know that growing up, you didn't get all these fun foods like I did. I sure saw all of their advertisements, though. So tell me why you're attracted to this deal. To fill a void that was left empty by my childhood and my lack of sweets because my parents were so health conscious. So I guess they were the one parents of the prior generation who did look at labels. My parents definitely did not. We had like a fridge full of sodas, a drawer full of Little Debbie's, all the sugary cereal, Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch. Also, at my dad's house, he once served us cosmic brownies for breakfast.

51:35No label reading was happening in our house. Here I was drinking carrot juice.

51:43Dad, don't think you got that one right, sir. No one needs to drink that much carrot juice. Yeah, I think what we've learned about CPG is like the branding is what wins in this space. So I'm really interested to see how it goes when he launches this brand. I think it really helps the fact that we've been able to taste the product the last couple months. Yeah, definitely. Not that we necessarily like the taste that much. No. But seeing our son after a basketball game chug an entire Gatorade bottle full of Wonderade and be craving more after that was, I think, a testament to Matt. Matt knows his shit, even if he doesn't have the brand figured out yet.

52:28The kids love the drink. So for our final check out of Fund One, we invested 80K in Wonderaid alongside Elizabeth Yin and longtime friend of the show, Ryan Hoover with Weekend Fund. No offer to invest in Wonderaid is being made to the listening audience on today's show. But you can invest in the Pitch Fund, where we invest alongside the VCs on the show. We're currently deploying Fund 2, and we're open to new investors through the end of the year. To learn more, go to thepitch.fund. Next week on The Pitch. Let's be clear. I am not getting off the train as soon as I reach$60 million in revenue. And I am 1 ,000 % someone who sets huge goals and achieves them.

53:14So why tell us a small story when it's not a small story? That's next week. Subscribe to The Pitch on your favorite podcast player so you don't miss future episodes. You can watch full-length versions of every pitch over on our Patreon at The Pitch Uncut. And if you're a founder raising a pre-seed or seed round, apply to pitch at our next event. It only takes a couple minutes to apply. Go to pitch.show slash apply. We'll see you next week in the Pitch Room.

53:46This episode was made by Josh Muccio, Lisa Muccio, Anna Ladd, and Enoch Kim, with deal sourcing by Peter Liu, John Alvarez, and Phoebe Sun. Music in this episode is by The Firmware Rebels, The Muse Maker, Breakmaster Cylinder, Boxwood Orchestra, Cosette, Our Many Stars, Soul City, and Peter Jean and the Runaway Queen. The pitch is made in partnership with the Vox Media Podcast Network.

54:22Thanks to Engine for sponsoring this season of The Pitch. The companies winning right now aren't cutting travel. They're booking smarter. Here's the reality. The average business traveler spends 45 minutes booking a single trip on a legacy platform. With Engine, that drops to as little as two and a half minutes. with AI-powered personalization that gets faster the more you use it. Multiply that across your team every trip, every year. That's not a perk. That's a competitive advantage. Last year, Engine customers saved more than$300 million on travel. And with the Engine X card, get up to 10 % back on any hotel booking.

55:02More than 38 ,000 businesses and groups have joined. Now it's your turn. Get$500 off when your business signs up. Start traveling at engine.com slash pitch. EngineX Visa Commercial Cards are issued by Fifth Third Bank and a member FDIC. Earn up to 10 % back in points on eligible engine travel purchases. Actual reward rates vary by purchase category and may change. Points have no cash value and are redeemable for rewards through our program. See full rewards terms for details. Engine.com slash X slash rewards dash terms.