Thank you Alex Pattis for the intro to our guest today, Kyle Cooke, Founder & CEO of Loverboy. Loverboy is a better for you alcohol beverage brand that produces sparkling hard teas, spritzes, and RTD cocktails brand. Kyle is one of the stars on the reality show “Summerhouse”, which I must admit is how I found out about the brand and now they’ve sold over $38 million worth of product. We discuss Kyle’s entrepreneurial journey and how he founded several businesses, why Loverboy worked, and how he was able to leverage Summerhouse the show, how he got into retail and approached new flavors and much much more. Without further ado, here’s Kyle.

What was your attraction to entrepreneurship?
Seems like your past experiences were founding tech companies. What was the opportunity you saw in beverage?
What was the overall thesis? What did you see in sparkling tea? What was your first product?
How did you think about testing
Alcohol investors call it the mob
Did you think about retail first? How did you get into retail?
What was it like founding a business and working with Amanda, your girlfriend at the time and now wife?
Has Summerhouse and Winterhouse helped with distribution? How do you think of those programs as marketing channels?
How did you think about retail footprint on a national scale? What did you learn about the craft brewery scene when it came to scaling?
What was hard about raising capital?
What ways did you leverage social to drive sales?
How do you approach new flavers?
Why did you launch cosmos?
How are you thinking about your business in this market? When I’ve chatted with investors many say optimize for profitability, others believe this is the perfect time for growth expansion, getting to scale to improve your gross margin profile. What’s your plan?
What’s one book that’s inspired you personally and professionally?
The Challenger Sale - flips the traditional selling
David Goggins - Can’t Hurt Me - the audio book

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Kyle Cooke (Loverboy) - How he started a $38m alcohol brand while on a Reality TV, His journey as an entrepreneur and why Loverboy worked vs. his other ideas

Consumer VC