38 : Raising the Bar: How Grüvi's Non-Alcoholic Revolution is Transforming the Beverage World with Niki Sawni

If you are looking a fresh, innovative way to elevate your guest experience effortlessly, you're in the right place. Join this conversation where I showcase the story of an award-winning non-alcoholic beer and single-serving wine that's creating a significant impact not just in restaurants but also in the community and for the planet.

Niki Sawni is co-founder and CEO of Grüvi; a playful and delicious brand of feel good social beverages. Originally from Toronto, Niki and his sister, Anika, moved out to Colorado with just an idea, some unmarked silver cans and lots of hustle. Fast forward 5 years, they've become one of the fastest growing brands in the alcohol free space and have won the highest awards in both beer and wine. 

00:00:08 -  Elevating Guest Experience with Grüvi

00:15:07 - Building Impact and Innovation in Beverages

00:30:04 - The Power of Customer Feedback

Today, we are going talk about Grüvi’s approach to differentiating their brand by offering single-serving packaging and creating flavor profiles that are different than anything else you’ve seen on the market. We are also going to share how the company has brought their loyal customers along as investors and how Grüvi’s approach to sustainability and community helps attract top talent and retain employees.

Resources from the Episode:
Niki Sawni
Grüvi
This Under 30 Beverage Brand Is Celebrating Dry January Year-Round

More from Christin:

Curious about one-on-one coaching or leadership workshops? Click this link to schedule a 15 minute strategy session.

Transcript

Christin Marvin: 0:08

what's up? Listeners, if you are looking for a fresh, innovative way to elevate your guest experience effortlessly, you're in the right place. Join me for this conversation where I showcase the story of an award-winning non-alcoholic beer and single serving wine that's creating significant impact not just in restaurants, but also in the community and on the planet. Niki Sawni is the co-founder and CEO of , a playful and delicious brand of feel-good social beverages. Originally from Toronto, Niki and his sister, Anika, moved to Colorado with just an idea some unmarked silver cans and a lot of hustle. Fast forward five years. They've become one of the fastest growing brands in the alcohol-free space and have won the highest awards in both beer and wine. Today, we're going to talk about approach to differentiating their brand by offering single serving packaging and creating flavor profiles that are different than anything else you've seen on the market. We're also going to share how the company has brought their loyal customers along as investors and how 's approach to sustainability and community helps them attract top talent and retain employees.

Christin Marvin: 1:28

Welcome to the No Hesitations podcast, the show where restaurant leaders learn tools, tactics and habits from the world's greatest operators. I am your host, Christin Marvin, with Solutions by Christin. I've spent the last two decades in the restaurant industry and now partner with restaurant owners to develop their leaders and scale their businesses without wasting time and energy, so they can achieve work-life balance and make more money. Hi, Niki, welcome to the show. How are you?

Niki Sawni: 2:07

I'm good Thanks for having me.

Christin Marvin: 2:09

Absolutely. Thanks for being here. I am so excited about this episode today. For anybody that's been listening to the show, they know how much of a crazy fan of the non-alcoholic beverage scene I am. For those of you that don't know, I'm a huge fan and when Tyler and I stopped drinking a couple of years ago, we really were trying to find a really delicious wine, and it's really hard.

Christin Marvin: 2:35

A lot of the non-alcoholic wines out there taste like grape juice and we had searched and searched and searched. I mean gosh. We were both sommeliers and wine connoisseurs for, you know, 15 plus years. So wine was something that we still wanted to be able to pair with our meals for dinner and just enjoy on a patio on a nice sunny day. My husband's nickname used to be Tyler Rosé because he loved drinking a lot of Rosé. So anyway, huge fan of . It was so excited to discover your product. We are just huge fans of the dry red blend and your bubbly rosé. Those are two of our favorites. So it's super excited to just to be able to connect with you and Anika and cheer you on and hear more about your story and how this has really grown, and just super excited to share your story a brand with the listeners today, so thank you so much for being here.

Niki Sawni: 3:28

Yeah, no, I appreciate it and appreciate all your you know advocacy both for the alcohol-free movement but also prioritizing physical and mental health within the hospitality industry. I think there's a tie between both of those things and they're both heading totally in the right direction. So the more awareness that you know both of us can push, the better and happier everyone will be in the future, hopefully.

Christin Marvin: 3:52

Yeah, 100 percent it's. There's such important topics and we really, I think if the industry wants to be successful and sustainable, we need to really challenge operators to think differently about every single aspect of operating their business. And I think you know I started drinking in restaurants when I was 19 at the end of the shift and you know the manager was the one pouring us cocktails. And I think that alcohol is such a predominant part of the culture in restaurants and there's so much accessibility and I'm excited to see more non-alcoholic options coming into restaurants that can be available for not just the staff but for the guests as well. So I'm super excited, like I said, to share your story and the story of the company. But I'd really love to start by diving into your mission. Your mission statement says that you are trailblazing a new way to live and socialize with alcohol-free beverages that make every moment more groovy, which I love. Will you speak a little bit to that?

Niki Sawni: 4:55

Yeah, so you know, like you mentioned, we started with my sister Anika. You know we're both under under 40, she's she was actually she's actually a Forbes under 30 winner. But I mean, from an early age I think we both inherently could feel the challenges with alcohol. Like you know, we don't call it like a anxiety for nothing, like the, the repercussions you can. We were like, okay, it's, it's obvious that this is having kind of negative impact on both your physical and mental health. And so, you know, we both love socializing, love beer, love wine, and really wanted to help create a platform that allowed people to reduce their alcohol consumption in like a fun and playful way and, you know, allow them to enjoy all the moments, all the groovy moments that you know they may have felt like they were missing out when they were, you know, reducing alcohol consumption. So that's kind of where that mission started.

Christin Marvin: 6:05

Where did the name come from?

Niki Sawni: 6:07

Yeah. So, you know, going to the mission is was like you know how do we normalize alcohol free products? And they had such a negative stigma. We started five years ago, right, you know, and it's a little bit of a different environment now, but five years ago, you know, we would get laughed at out of most bars and restaurants and so we were like how do we take something that is so uncool, really, and try to make it fun and cool?

Niki Sawni: 6:34

And and really, the word groovy is what kind of came to us is because, you know, groovy was an old word and it had that meaning of, you know, excellent, had that meaning of you know, excellent, playful, cool. And so we're like let's put this name on, you know, this category and see if we can help direct it in the right direction. Obviously, the traditional spelling of Groovy was untrademarkable, so we had to, you know, make some adjustments, but we ended on GRU with an umlaut VI and just bringing that, like you know, inherent feeling that that word brings to the brand. So it's funny because sometimes we'll just, you know, run into people where that word was part of their regular vocabulary. You know, maybe they they were part of the, you know, hippie era and it's just nice to see like a smile come back to their faces. They remember those times in their life.

Christin Marvin: 7:30

I love it. That's awesome. So you said you mentioned five years ago, when you started, you were getting laughed out of restaurants. Was that in Colorado or?

Niki Sawni: 7:40

Yeah, so we started. Anik and I are both originally from Toronto. Yeah, so we started. Anik and I are both originally from Toronto. But we decided to pack up and move to Colorado to launch the business. You know, not out of anything too strategic. We had just like Googled the healthiest state in the US and I think Colorado came up and, like most craft beer breweries in New York, so we're like, oh, let's give this place a shot. And in hindsight it's such an awesome market to build a brand, a lot of really supportive individuals and breweries and stuff like that. And so, yeah, the first little bit we sold into liquor stores and they were moderately accepted.

Niki Sawni: 8:25

But we really had no traction in the bar or restaurants. They wouldn't even kind of entertain the idea. So for a long time we probably had less than 10 customers. That were bars and restaurants for those first few years.

Christin Marvin: 8:42

When did you see the shift start to happen?

Niki Sawni: 8:46

The big shift, honestly, in the last like six months. You know it's slowly started accumulating, but the last six months has been, you know, phenomenal on-prem adoption of alcohol-free products. You know I think we were chatting, you know chatting earlier. But in Colorado, which is their home market, almost half the business now is coming from bars and restaurants, where prior it was less than 5%. So it just shows you the uptake from bars and restaurants. But, more importantly, the demand is what's pulling it. It's not just people putting it on for the sake of it, because they're reading the news and they're seeing all you know, podcasts and stuff like this. The customers are buying this product, you know products in large quantities and they continue to add and figure out where that balance is. So that's kind of exciting for us and it's a big focus for us. Moving forward is is working with more bars and restaurants.

Christin Marvin: 9:45

I love it. Are you finding that customers are calling for your products more and more and more? Or are you guys still I mean, just, I know you're always going to be in sales and out there hustling but are you seeing that people are starting to recognize the brand more and call for it?

Niki Sawni: 10:00

Yeah it's, it's slowly, you know, for years it's felt like it's been pushing the snowball up the hill. I would say it's like on flat ground kind of, you know, starting to roll by itself, which is always easier. And I think it's because we have such like a focus on, you know, our home market right now that you know, as you know, people bounce around. You know, maybe they carried gro, maybe they carried a at one restaurant and now they they're working on another one. They can make that recommendation. So it starts to become a little bit easier and the brand awareness is there.

Christin Marvin: 10:34

So and you guys are distributed through Southern Wine and Spirits, Is that right?

Niki Sawni: 10:38

A bunch of different distributors. We do elite brands in Colorado, we do Southern in a few other States. We've kind of found our home in that craftier distributor ones where we're not the bottom of the barrel in terms of their brands, like something that their reps can get behind.

Christin Marvin: 10:58

Yeah, Got it Awesome. So, beyond just the product line that you have that we're going to talk about here in just a little bit, you guys I think it said on there your volunteer goal for your, your team, was 450 hours and you hit like 430 last year, which is just incredible. Will you talk a little bit about why you know why you decided to really put so much effort into that impact and some of the things that you're really proud of?

Niki Sawni: 11:43

Yeah, no, appreciate you taking a look at that, where, again, we're super proud of that impact report and we hold it at the same level of accountability as our financial metrics. They're the same to us. But yeah, I mean, I really actually got inspired from my first job where I worked at Salesforce, which is a tech company, and they kind of had this initiative which was like the one one one. Salesforce, which is a tech company, and they kind of had this initiative which was like the one one one model which was basically like 1% of everyone's time, 1% of product and 1% of capital. Going back to your local community and early days, it allowed me just to feel more connected to the job, more connected to my coworkers and feel like I was making an impact. So I kind of put that in the back of my mind. I always knew I was going to be an entrepreneur and being like you know what, whatever I do from day one, it's going to have this aspect for it. So you know, for those interested, you can, on the Groovy website, you can take a look at our impact report. But, as you mentioned, we set our goals for employee social diversity and governance for the company. So, from a social aspect.

Niki Sawni: 12:58

Every employee is required to volunteer a half day a month within their local community. They can do whatever they want. That, that, uh, they choose and we were. We report on it. Um, and so if you missed one month, you know, maybe the next month you got. You got to do two days or bring friends and family into it. Um, we really strive on employee um diversity, especially in beer. Beer is very masculine, you know, very white-dominated industry. So you know we strive for over 50% female employed and over 25% diverse non-white employees. So we hold ourselves to those metrics. And anyone who's you know, even a bar or restaurant or retailers like Whole Foods, or investors, we send that out to everybody each year and so we know that you know the collective community is holding us responsible for it.

Christin Marvin: 13:58

I love it. I know when we were talking last week you kind of mentioned too that when you guys were building your impact report you just mentioned like oh, I actually looked at snooze and found their impact report and I reached out to a couple of the girls that were part of the company for 10 years and a huge, huge part of that making that impact come to life and putting that report together and that totally made their day.

Niki Sawni: 14:20

So that report is kind of like our North Star. Oh my God, yeah, that report is kind of like our North Star. So I also recommend people to read through that. Such a well-done report, and that's kind of where we hope to get to. But just, you know, it's really cool to see a company's impact progress over a longer time period right, five years, 10 years. And see, you know, okay, they, they reduce their environmental impact by this much each year and it gets better and better and better and social and stuff like that. And it just shows you that it's not. You know, some organizations may just talk about it once and then it's, you know, on the side. But Snooze has just done such a authentic job at showing their commitment over the tenure of their brand and we're going to do the same.

Christin Marvin: 15:06

Yeah, I love it. Will you talk a little bit about how that impact and how you you know how infusing that into your culture has really helped with, you know, building candidate flow, retaining your staff? What kind of impact has it had on your company in terms of people?

Niki Sawni: 15:22

Yeah, I think it has an impact in twofold. One, we're bringing a lot of maybe new people to this industry. Then maybe they would have got not considered for previous kind of roles. But second, it just allows, you know, team bonding. We're a relatively remote company but you know we definitely get together for volunteering. It allows us just to kind of connect on something that's not always business focused and I think for any of us, you know we want to know that we're doing good in society and I think anyone on you know anybody, when they leave a volunteer event is so happy that they did that. They feel good and that connection just fosters the groovy team feeling like a team.

Christin Marvin: 16:17

Love it. You mentioned earlier that you knew that you always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Where did that come from?

Niki Sawni: 16:26

Yeah, that you knew that you always wanted to be an entrepreneur. Where did that come from? Yeah, um, always, like just from from day one. So, like I was, uh baking cookies and selling them door to door as a kid, um, I had, uh I had a business, uh, where I was, like you know, selling people's junk, which is, like, you know, an early business, made an app. It's just something that you know. Selling people's junk, which is, like you know, an early business, made an app, is just something that, um, you know, I always had that feeling of creating and problem solving and and so, uh, I knew this is what I was, what I meant to do really.

Christin Marvin: 16:56

Yeah, I mean you're in one of the toughest segments out there, right Like the beverage segment is so saturated and there's so much going on and there's so much awareness still to be brought forward. I think about the non-alcoholic category. What are you seeing as far as trends and what's happening in the industry?

Niki Sawni: 17:14

Yeah Well, first off, I didn't, you know I was, being naive is a blessing. I didn't realize how, you know, challenging beverage is I, I, I had no clue, um, and you just kind of do one thing after another and you're excited and then you're, you're in. You know, you're in the beverage industry and you realize, you know this is a tough, uh business, exciting, um, but you really, you know, got to get your, your product and ops going, your brand, building your sales requires a lot of capital, um and uh and it you need to hustle right, especially, as you know, the voice or the founder, like you got to be out there building relationships. So, uh, you know, I think being naive was great, uh, great early days, um, but yeah, we're like totally um when we look at kind of the data trends I know you had other guests on the podcast here, but still very much early days in the non-ALC space Coming off of about 30 percent, I think, 33 percent growth last year after the first quarter of this year, still on track for 30, you know, 30 plus percent growth again across various channels.

Niki Sawni: 18:25

We're seeing kind of the demand switch channels this year and different categories start to develop. So the market is still almost completely dominated by NA beer. It's, like you know, 80 plus percent of the market. Um, but you know, na wines and NA RTDs are starting to uh, you know, develop customers start making their way onto menus, um, as people uh, you know, find those products for the first time.

Christin Marvin: 18:58

Yeah, Hello to all of you amazing leaders in the restaurant world. Before we dive back into today's episode, I want to take a moment and let you know about one of the incredible ways that you can further your team's leadership development. If you've been listening to the show, you've already experienced the passion I have for enhancing leadership skills. Did you know that I also offer exclusive leadership workshops tailored for restaurant management teams? These sessions focus on strengthening leadership abilities, fostering effective communication, crafting a unique leadership style and developing robust business strategies and visions for the future. If you or anyone you know in the restaurant industry is looking to treat their team to a customized multi-day leadership training that will improve every aspect of their business, please reach out christinlmarvin@gmail. com me at . Thanks a million for being awesome listeners. How are you setting yourself apart from the competition? Let's talk about ways that you're innovating with the beers and the wines and why they taste so fucking delicious.

Niki Sawni: 20:23

Yeah, yeah. So I'll talk a little bit about um, talk about that in a few aspects. Um, and so you know, you know, taking from typical alcohol, one of the best ways you know, build brand is through the bars and restaurants. That that allows you know people to try the product, but also gives you an opportunity to educate them and have the credibility of of. Uh, um, you know the menu placement, and so we knew for us to get non-alcoholic wines on the menu is an uphill battle. And so we made a real conscious decision early on to, you know, create the products and single serve factors, because we knew, you know, a bar restaurant would have a ton of hesitancy around opening a full bottle of wine, maybe not being able to sell all those glasses that night. It was just too much friction, right? So we're like, hey, let's create, you know, a single serve where they can just open. If it's just one a night, that's fine. Um, and allow us to uh build, start building habits around alcohol-free products. And then we also noticed that, um, same thing with consumption, that same thing with consumption. A lot of non-alcoholic wine in particular, is just consumed by one individual during the week. Right, it's still not something where you're going to have four or five people over and be able to share a bottle. You know, hopefully we can get there in the future. It's just not realistic right now. And so, again, that single serve at a price point that allows somebody to, you know, crack it open without having to, you know, have this huge celebration. We knew that was critical for driving kind of that.

Niki Sawni: 22:02

Mainstream adoption is just increased consumption frequency, because I think we all have felt this. You know, tug of war sometimes where we're, we're at a bar or restaurant or even at home, and you're deciding whether you want an alcoholic product or not. Um, and that can be this kind of internal tug of war. But you're always so happy once you've chosen that alcohol-free product, no one's ever regret it. Once you get the taste and the satisfaction and all the placebo effects associated with it, um, you it, you're like, oh, I made the right decision. You know, you can congratulate yourself. So how do we make that as easy as possible for everybody? And that was kind of that, that initial focus. And then, yeah, from a taste perspective, I think that's, you know, that's going to be paramount for this entire industry the products.

Niki Sawni: 22:53

What the customer wants is products that taste as close to the alcoholic version as possible. That's that's, that's the benchmark, um, and so, you know, the products that we launched five years ago are very different than the products that we have today. Um, because you're, you're constantly uh learning about new ways to produce the products. You know getting better. And so, you know, for our beers we produce, you know, full alcoholic beers. We remove the alcohol and then kind of, what's unique to Ruby is we add a final level of fermentation and that's what kind of cleans up the beers, allows it to have like a real authentic uh, beer taste.

Niki Sawni: 23:33

Um, and uh, and yeah, some of the awards that we've received kind of speak for themselves.

Niki Sawni: 23:38

So the one of our loggers won, uh, world's best non-alcoholic beer last year, gold medal at the world cup of beer.

Niki Sawni: 23:45

Um, and then we did the same thing on the wine side this year. So the highest awarded, our sangria, was the highest awarded na wine produced in north america. Uh, last year, same same kind of approach, um, so, yeah, what's next for us is, you know, the beers are, I would say are, are there, and so where the innovation occurs next is probably kind of that form factor is can we move na beer to draft handles so that an individual again can order a draft beer and it comes in a, you know, ice cold glass identical to any other product, right, that's a big step for somebody where they can just order and it comes back and there's no. You know, there's no difference, you're not getting a can, that's sitting on the side, kind of thing, and so that's probably the next wave and you know we're starting to see and get the requests for that product. So I think this year or next year, you know, I wouldn't be shocked if you know they start outselling, you know, several of the alcoholic beers.

Christin Marvin: 24:47

So, yeah, I love that no-transcript. Like being out in a restaurant or a food hall, vibe or whatever, like everything just looks the same, there's, there's no questions. You don't even have to prepare a response or have any of that anxiety or peer pressure around what you're going to drink, because it's certainly a real thing, right? Whether you're at a happy hour with coworkers or you're at a work function, you're on a retreat with your managers or whatever the case is holiday party, that pressure is definitely real, yeah.

Niki Sawni: 25:47

That's why I'm a big believer in just like anything that we can do to cut the friction, to allow the individual to make that choice for them. Those are the investments in the right area. So, like you know, you know early days it wasn't on the menu, right? So you've created more friction because somebody has to ask if you have any NA, so let's put it on on on the menu. You know, the next area of friction, it could be the server, right? So maybe the server is uneducated about alcohol-free products. They're unaware they're going to make, you know, they don't even know the brand name sometimes, right? So let's educate there. So reduce the friction once more.

Niki Sawni: 26:23

You know other things that are on. Alcohol is, like you know, descriptors and stuff like that, right. And so how can we add some of those descriptors to our wine or beers and allow people to know, hey, this was, you know, selected, was one of the world's best wines or beers? You can have confidence in your decision, that you're going to be satisfied with it. So all of those aspects and draft being one of them, and we can talk about wine a little bit afterwards but just reducing any, you know, any hesitancies and making it as easy as possible for people to make that decision for themselves.

Christin Marvin: 26:56

Yeah, so what's? What's next for ?

Niki Sawni: 27:00

Yeah. So we're like. I mentioned the, we're super excited about the on the beer side, but the wine has so much innovation left to be conquered. I think anyone who's tried NA wine you can try groovy. It's some of the best out there. I'll be transparent there's still a taste gap, right, and there's still a gap that needs to be invested into.

Niki Sawni: 27:28

To close, and what's so interesting about NA wine is you have all these different variables that you can play with, right? So you have, you know, the base alcoholic wine that there's so many. You know different styles and quality and so much you know different stuff you can do there. That's always going to be tweaking to figuring out which which wines are best suited to alcohol free wines. And then you have the alcohol removal technology, which is constantly developing. What is the best way to actually remove the alcohol and how can we do it in a way that retains the most of the original wine? So there's always variables playing there.

Niki Sawni: 28:09

And then, when it comes out, what can you do to the after product, right? So what? What can you do to be able to re-add some of those flavors? Um, you know, reintroduce something that may have left, maybe re-add some of the aroma. So there's it's kind of this fun puzzle where it's like you're, you're trying to improve all three of these aspects, um, uh, of the business or of the product at the same time. And you know we're really excited for kind of the second two and I think there's gonna be a lot of innovation coming, you know, in the next few years on, you know, maintaining the integrity of the wine while the alcohol is being removed.

Niki Sawni: 28:50

And looking at, you know, even, you know, for those unfamiliar after, you know, after the alcohol is removed from the wine, you're still left with this great like base of it's just ethanol, but there's still some great flavors and aromas and stuff captured. And you know what, what can you do with that byproduct and to continue to refine it, to maybe put some of that stuff back in the wine. Um and uh, you know we've really turned to other industries, um, to see how, how they've done it. Um, right now we're diving deep into, you know, instant coffee. In the coffee industry there's a lot of similarities, obviously, with coffee and wine and and instant instant coffee is interesting because, you know it, it's essentially missing all those aromas. So how are they bringing the aromas back into instant coffee to be able to produce a full experience or decaf right, and can we use some of those innovations back in wine. So I think, give it, you know, give it another year or two and and that gap will be closed significantly.

Christin Marvin: 29:56

Wow, that's awesome. How are you? How are you staying up to date with all the trends and continuing to develop yourself? As you know, the owner of the company.

Niki Sawni: 30:07

Yeah, um, relying on a handful of advisors, I think. So this was the first company you know that really had like employees, otherwise it was just myself. So a lot of development has happened, still needs to happen to be able to be an effective leader. So just fortunate to have an advisory board of individuals who have managed and led. You know, consumer packaged goods companies give people a parameter to work within, but some creativity, but the guardrails of what's needed and just being open to receiving feedback and actively trying to collect feedback, giving feedback so that relationships and trust can be developed.

Christin Marvin: 31:11

That's great, yeah, collect, collecting feedback can be really really challenging, depending on where you're at and in the stage of your business, for sure.

Niki Sawni: 31:19

Yeah, I think it's just so impactful for all aspects of life. We develop the products off the feedback of our customers, just understanding how important it is. So if you ever grab a product, all of them have a QR code on them somewhere and that's where we get our customer feedback. So, you know, if you scan our golden lager and you know, you say it. You know tastes like this, tastes like that.

Niki Sawni: 31:47

We look at that at a quarterly basis and been like okay, we're getting you know seven out of 10 here and you know 80% of people said they would rebuy. Let's take the criticism and see if we can make a little tweak to it and then let's look at it next quarter. Okay, now we're you know 8.2%, you know out of 10 kind of thing. Are we getting better? We're getting worse? And just doing that with all aspects of the business employees. You know product investors. We have a very fortunate. We have a large community of customers that are also our investors, and so just try to collect as much feedback on how we can make you know the best tasting products in the market.

Christin Marvin: 32:31

Will you say a little bit more about how your customers are your investors?

Niki Sawni: 32:35

Yeah, so, um, I guess, being naive again, at the early days, I totally didn't understand the industry and was just reaching out to all these venture funds and hedge funds that are probably not the right fit for , or we weren't even close to the right radar about how much capital a beverage company requires. You commend if someone's built one on their own, bootstrapping, but it requires support and help, and so it kind of came naturally. But we would get these emails from customers every once in a while saying, hey, I absolutely love your products. It's made a big impact on my life, you know, if you ever need investors, let me know, kind of thing. And so, you know, we got these emails and we didn't really know what to do with them, because you know, to invest in like a startup you have to be an accredited investor actually, which requires certain levels of knowledge and wealth and stuff like that.

Niki Sawni: 33:48

But they started coming in frequently enough that we decided to host a webinar and so we invited everybody who had emailed and then we also just sent that out to our community, sent that out to our community, hosted it and basically, you know, asked if anyone was interested in investing and welcoming them on board to the company and you know we have 120 now individuals who have invested in and most of them started as customers.

Niki Sawni: 34:20

So we got this, we got this like incredible you know WhatsApp group where, uh, what we communicate with them and uh, they'll like, let us know, hey, I, you know, I saw a movie at whole foods. Or you know good, like you know great. Or the bads, like, hey, you know, your product was all beaten up and I got a shipment and it it looked like a you know dog, to short it Great, we need to know that too. Like let's, let's go fix those things Right. So it's kind of just been this nice, you know relationship to have investors that are passionate but also like in it for the long run, right, and and allow us to, you know, know, build a groovy brand intentionally.

Christin Marvin: 35:05

I love that. It sounds like there's so much organic growth happening, in addition to you guys just hustling your tails off. I know how busy you are and how hard you're working and you know. Kudos to you for really creating something that's making a huge impact in people's lives, and I've never heard a story of anybody that owns a company saying, oh yeah, people have just started emailing me wanting to invest in my company, when you said that the other day it like blew my mind. I was like, well, what is this there's?

Niki Sawni: 35:32

no chance. No chance we would be where we are today without that. Like they've just been so instrumental in getting us like through that really tough phase of being a startup right, like going from you know two or three people to you know we're 12, coaching 15, like that just requires support and it had to come from this group. I don't think it was going to come from you know venture funds and investment bankers and stuff like that. It was just very fitting.

Christin Marvin: 36:09

That's so cool. Well, congratulations on all your success. I'm super excited for you guys and I'll be traveling back to Denver next week to host a leadership workshop, so you want to highlight some of the restaurants that I can go to to drink groovy.

Niki Sawni: 36:25

Yeah, we were just doing a little report. We're at 308 restaurants in Colorado so, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of the actual local breweries um have been great partners. A lot of the, you know, creative concept brands have been good partners.

Christin Marvin: 36:48

So you know the Mestroso, yeah, and the Tap and Burgers. Awesome.

Niki Sawni: 36:54

Some of my favorite restaurants, yeah, yeah, and really kind of finding a home in the Italian space right now. Space right now, maybe. Maybe it's cause our Prosecco's or our wines, Um, uh, so, uh, a bunch of different options. You know, if you're ever looking for a place that has groovy, we have that kind of a website finder. Uh, all in just trying to do a good job of also sharing their stories as well on our, on our social.

Christin Marvin: 37:22

I love it. You said you're in, obviously, liquor stores. You're in Whole Foods. You can order online. Are you in Sprouts or any other retailers? We're in.

Niki Sawni: 37:31

Colorado, okay, actually Colorado and New Mexico. The other kind of main retailers would be Total Wine, so any Total Wine location. And then, yeah, it depends on the areas. You know Midwest Fresh Thyme and Binney's, and you know in the Rocky Mountain Safeway as well. So, just continuing to chip away and, you know, add new distribution availability for everybody.

Christin Marvin: 38:00

I love it. Well, you guys are doing an incredible job. Thanks again for coming on the show and telling your story and giving us a little bit of a peek behind the curtain of what you're doing and can't wait to just continue to watch your journey and watch you guys grow. So really appreciate it.

Niki Sawni: 38:17

Yeah, no, appreciate for you having me and allowing me to share our story as well. And, like I said at the beginning, we're a huge fan of the work that you do and we'll continue to amplify it together and excited where the future takes us.

Christin Marvin: 38:33

I love it. All right everybody. Thank you so much for listening. Be sure to share this podcast with any leaders you know in the restaurant industry, and we will talk to you next week. Thanks so much.