Founder GT Dave at BevNet Live 2018 | GT's Kombucha

[Music] good morning everyone I guess I want to just extend my own personal welcome to all 800 of you that are here as Jeff said this morning this is our 20th one of these which it's pretty wild to see what it's turned into so definitely want to thank folks like Jeff and a couple others on our team who also have been at all 20 of these so it's always a blast so anyway I guess I also have the pleasure of introducing you know one of my favorite folks in the industry which is GT Dave GTE if you don't know him is the category creator of the kombucha industry with this line of best selling products known as GTS kombucha and synergy founded over 20 years ago while GT was barely a teenager GT started brewing and bottling organic raw kombucha in his parents kitchen in Los Angeles since then he has expanded the company's portfolio beyond kombucha and is once again become a pioneer of cutting edge wellness offerings including non-dairy Kieffer's non-dairy raw coconut yogurts probiotic shots adapted adaptogenic teas and much more he continues to be the creative and visionary force behind all of GTS living foods while allowing the company to remain family owned and operated so today GT is here to talk about keeping attachment to their car audience and engaging with it as the business scales and he's going to talk about their present strategy which includes a focus on seasonal offerings as well as some most recent expansions so GT come on up [Music] Santa texting you made it home only made me feel more I'm still all about you but you're told you don't wanna be the first to make up [Music] be the first [Music] what do you think [Music] bet you left me on your mind good morning everybody hopefully that little music video woke you up what you just saw was our unity pre-roll which was a video that we launched this last summer to celebrate what we believe is important in life and that's the human see human spirit and celebrating things that unify us we at GT living foods continue to aspire to inspire and that means we want to be something that excites and inspires our fans and brand lovers throughout the brand's 23 years it's been a passionate and purposeful journey that began in 1995 now I know what you're thinking GT 1995 you look way too young to have started a company then and all I have to say to you is thank you the truth is that I did start my company when I was 15 years old which you can tell is also at the peak of my awkward stage as a teenager which through the ponytail that you can barely see in the overly tweezed eyebrows and the very a cholo goatee I was trying to find myself but through kombucha I found my purpose and as many of you already know I started kombucha when I was just a teenager I didn't have a business plan I didn't understand even the word entrepreneur but what I did know is that kombucha excited me and I felt that it was my gift to share with the world and so I did and so I created a line of products that I poured my heart and soul into that I believed that every square inch and every ounce of the bottles that I initially bottled with my bare hands had my DNA in it but over 20 years staying on that path is not an easy one I found myself at a crossroads and I honestly believe that every entrepreneur that starts off with the love and a passion can easily get distracted many of you are here today to raise money you're here to follow trends you're here to talk about profit share market share and EBIT uh but honestly in my opinion those are things that can erode your brand and certainly your soul so first what I want to do at GTS is I wanted to reground ourselves with a visual image with our brand identity because I believe that a company in a product's logo and very in very many ways is the products face and in 2017 I wanted a facelift and so I did so what you see to one side of the screen is our old logo and then the other side of the screen is our new logo and we use that moment to put a stake in the ground to rename the company gt's living foods which was my North Star to tell myself my internal team and all external audiences of who we are what we stand for and who you're not I am a firm believer that people don't always remember what you said and I also believe that people don't always remember what you did but I believe they always remember how you made them feel and that's why more than ever we make a conscious effort to engage our consumers inspire them and connect with them so an example of that is our seasonal offering sorry for these papers our seasonal offerings was a moment for me to tell a story to transcend the packaging and the liquid in the bottle and be more than that to start a conversation to utilize human connections human behaviors human emotions and specifically times of the year to anchor ourselves with the story and so as you can see here there are four flavors that were exclusive to each season and I'm going to take you through a little quick deep dive into each one the first one naturally our winter seasonal is called pure love as a brand and as an organization and certainly as a person we say on all our packaging made with 100% pure love and that's not a marketing slogan or anything like that is a genuine emotion so naturally our first seasonal flavor was called pure love and what it was intended to do was to be anchored by Valentine's Day which in my mind is one of the most beautiful holidays during the winter season everybody's kind of coming off the New Year's and Christmas kind of call it hangover and they need something to excite them and I believe that unfortunately Valentine's days has been a little institutionalized a little commercialized so what I wanted to do especially in this divisive political environment that we all exist in is I wanted to take a moment and reinterpret what Valentine's Day means and most importantly reinterpret love and so as you can see what we did is we created a campaign of love is and it was our way to share with our fans and brand lovers what we believe is the true meaning of love love is unconditional love knows no gender no age no raise no Creed and we engaged our fans and brand lovers and encourage them to share with us what they believed pure love meant to them what we also did is we wanted to further that dialogue and so for people who took a selfie with our bottle and did hashtag pure love one person one couple for the three-month seasonal was selected to be sent off on a trip with their loved one brother sister mother father boyfriend girlfriend you name it and it would be on us and it was a way to say we want to celebrate your meaning of love who you express it to and allow you to cherish it together our next seasonal was bloom now bloom is anchored by spring and spring honestly is one of my favorite seasons because I believe we can find our inspiration through nature and I believe that spring is a time for rebirth and I believe as human beings we can use the spring time is inspiration and a metaphor for us and what I mean by that is personal transformation the opportunity to be reborn no matter the day the week the month the year and so through bloom we basically wanted to tell a story and we chose 12 individuals that whether they were gay african-american old young bullied you name it and we sat down with them and we listened to their story and as they told their story we shared their information with a painter or artist and the artists created these butterfly wings that were a reflection of that person's personality and we used it as a platform for people to tell their story and honestly not all of it was positive it was talking about the dark times the painful moments the loss but how they transcended it and what we did through bloom we partnered up with Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation which of course celebrates uniqueness and fights people's right - for people's right to be different so for every bottle that a fan took of our bloom and tagged us with the hashtag bloom we donated to the born a foundation and again it was a beautiful way to put our money where our mouth is now as you saw early on unity now unity was our summer offering and honestly the genesis for unity was and don't laugh was Coachella because I actually was a little late to the game and I went to go tell a couple years ago and although Coachella is definitely a scene it is pretty spectacular to see people of different ages different styles different genres different looks culminating and collecting together to celebrate an art and they come and they celebrate an artist that they all appreciate and through that you have unity and so I wanted to create a seasonal that embodied that and so unity did that and what it did is that we created similar to pure love kind of a campaign that we were trying to delicately share and tell a story of what is unity unity in many ways the things that make us different is actually what unifies us and unity can be through friendship through vulnerability through promise through anything there there are bad things that unify us to be honest and so again we use that to tell a story now our last one is living in gratitude now Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and the reason for that it's not connected with anything commercial it's not Kripke nected to anything religious it's essentially just an opportunity to reflect and to count your blessings and it's something that it I'm personally passionate about because I genuinely feel that no success no accomplishment is achieved on your own and you must reflect and look back and celebrate the relationships and friendships that were there for you and your time of need in your time of darkness and so we use living and gratitude to inspire people and what we do is similar to all the other seasonals we ask the question to our fans what are you grateful for and we try to nudge them in the direction of not just the typical things that I'm healthy wealthy all of that really encouraging them to look at the small things because in my mind it's the small things that matter the most and so similar to bloom we decided to allow living ingratitude to be a charitable philanthropic contribution so every time a fan of ours took a picture again with a living and gratitude bottle and did hashtag living in gratitude we donate 10 meals to somebody in need through a partnership with feed in America and again it allows us to put our money where our mouth is so just to recap the seasonals in my mind or exemplify the arc of a story that we a cheetah's living foods want to tell and want to continue to tell and and it doesn't stop there of course we have other offerings that we're very proud of that each and every offering is carefully crafted and tailored to inspire and uplift and perhaps even tell people what they need before they know it so an example of that is our latest offering alive which is an adaptogenic tea we utilize the fruiting body of these medicinal mushrooms the reishi chaga turkey tail to allow the consumer to experience nature's plant-based medicines we also have our classic gold which is for people who want a little bit more alcohol but not a lot but they still want authentic kombucha so our classic gold is a 3% fully raw fully authentic hard kombucha now the journey continues our next offering is clearly a love child and it is something that I tapped into my childhood experiences the way I was raised and the things around me that inspired me so as a child I grew up in a very spiritual and holistic household my parents had a lot of different things around the house they were a combination of religious and spirit they took me to India when I was a child and I stated in ashram one of the things in the household was something called a dream catcher and the dream catcher to me was beautiful it was inspirational but I honestly didn't know what it was initially it looked like almost a sacred shield something that would protect you protect you from the dark and bring you to the light and so I'm very proud to announce today for the first time so it's about that exclusive dream catcher and what dream catcher is it's a sparkling wellness water that utilizes again plant-based ingredients to encourage people to be their best and we at cheats he's living foods wanna be that partner that companion that guide that holds the hand of the consumer and says let's be better reach for those dreams and that's what dream catcher is so in summary the way I run my company is very much and you guys have heard this before like an overprotective parent and being an overprotective parent you see your products as your children and you see yourself in them so God forbid they ever go off track and I believe that all of you here that are entrepreneurs or business owners are part of a company that makes a consumable food I think we all have the privilege but also the responsibility to make something that in my mind is one of the most intimate things you can make and that's something that you put in your body and I think we all need to treat it's sacredly and the products we make Ajit sees living foods their purpose is our mission and I'm here to tell you that I believe that we're just getting started and I have no plans to exit thank you [Applause] everyone okay awesome thanks GT this dreamcatcher is pretty good by the way thank you nicely done you know we don't have a lot of time for questions but you know I suppose want to follow up on dreamcatcher since you know aside from have not having a cannabis conference CBD is certainly something that is buzzing in the industry and I know you've previously had a CBD kombucha called cannabis or you still have excuse I haven't yeah you know kind of curious if you can talk a little bit about just you know how you decided that this was the right time to dive into that space I mean that's a great question I mean for me what I define is the right time is how I feel you know I lead with my heart I'm personally passionate about plant-based foods and things that are medicinal and offer health benefits and yes CBD has been a trend recently but honestly I've been keeping my eye on it for the last five or six years and I think what had to kind of catch up with that desire to make a CBD product was making sure that the market was ready that the consumer was educated and that there was reliable ethical suppliers that I could partner up with and I'm happy to say that we've arrived they're awesome and I guess one other just follow-up to your presentation you know you talked about sort of the you know the path and the choice and obviously you've built a very successful business that's you know you've earned the right to be able to choose you know what advice do you have for the entrepreneur who's just you know starting out and and maybe has to deal with things like I don't know cash flow and and payroll to use other sort of things that people worry about yeah I mean it's a slippery slope right when you start a business first of all I believe you have to ask yourself many times almost daily what am i doing and why am i doing it because again it's so easy once you start mapping out that business plan that you get caught up in all these noises distractions all of that so to answer your question simply is follow your heart and try to make a positive impact do not get caught up in the dollars the percentages all of that they're important but they can't be the singular driver you have to go with what's inside awesome well I guess we're out of time since the clock is done GT thanks a ton for being here of course thank you for having me everybody [Applause] [Music]

Channel: GT's Kombucha

Views: 3,514

Rating: 4.8222222 out of 5

Keywords: kombucha, gt dave, synergy, synergy kombucha, bevnet, ceo, founder, dream catcher, dreamcatcher, cbd, farmers bill, innovation, advocate, cause marketing, leader, pioneer, entrepreneur

Id: KM7tIuHnS7I

Length: 21min 6sec (1266 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 23 2018