Founder Stories: Future Proof Brands LLC

by Foodbevy
June 6, 2021

Let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there. How did your company get started and why?

We had seen boxed wine at every party, tailgate, and river float trip, but no one loved the wine they were drinking and the brands did not appeal to our generation. My business partners Justin, Brad, Jason, and Dan came up with the idea to make boxed wine less boring. I met Justin in Entrepreneur club during the first semester at McCombs Business School while we were pursuing our MBAs. He recruited me to join the team. At the time I was a DJ on the student radio station KVRX 91.7 FM. Justin, Jason, Dan and myself were the MBAs who always wanted to go to concerts together. Music was at the center of our social lives and so we wanted to create a brand that was all about bringing people together with music. We created many prototypes, tested out different radio type packaging with different designers printing stickers we put on boxes, we emptied out wine bags and filled them with our own concoctions of alcohol, lemonade, and other mixers, and tested the product out a ton! We went to parties, large apartment complex pools, tailgates, etc and got more than 1000 points of feedback on the product and launched the product in stores on March 2013, right before we graduated with our degrees. BeatBox was the world’s first ready-to-drink party punch in a “boxed wine” format.

 

What is your product and how would you describe it?

BeatBox is the Worlds Tastiest Portable Party Punch in classic flavors with a kick like Blue Razzberry, Pink Lemonade, and Peach Punch. At 11.1% it’s deliciously potent. It’s also low sugar, low calorie, and gluten free. We use eco friendly Tetra Pak containers that mean you can take BeatBox anywhere from the beach to the picnic to the quaranteam house party. Through a big break on Shark Tank, many years of hard work, and most importantly the incredible love of our community, we have grown to be named by Nielsen / IRI as the fastest-selling and most profit-driving of the top-10 wine brands in the US in our category.

 

How have you pivoted your business this year?

Coming into 2020, we had a full slate of sampling programs, events, and music festivals to promote our alcohol beverage in. When Coronavirus hit, our marketing team had to do a complete 180 and switch to a fully-digital marketing plan. From hosting a Virtual House Party with an all-star DJ lineup to raise funds for ACLU to launching a completely new influencer and viral media marketing program, our team has found ways to survive and thrive in terms of brand awareness.

What is your next challenge to overcome?

For any small brand in alcohol beverage, we are always fighting for distributor share of mind along with the thousands of brands, some of them multi-billion dollar global companies. For us, it’s all about stepping on the gas to continue our growth as a brand. That is why we’ve extended our Wefunder crowdfunding campaign, to bring more capital into the business and bring in more sales and marketing staff, produce larger quantities of inventory at a time to avoid stock-outs, and do some larger media and marketing partnerships. We are looking for investors to come into our crowdfunding campaign at https://wefunder.com/future.proof.brands.llc and for fans to continue spreading the word on BeatBox.

What do you predict for the food industry over the rest of the year?

We will continue to see more adoption of online ordering platforms such as Instacart, Gopuff, and Drizly and brands doing bigger partnerships. Sampling programs and larger events coming back in the Fall could provide more opportunity for brands to connect with customers in person and push all the new innovation that has been coming out in a bigger way.

Learn more at: FUTURE/PROOF – BeatBox Beverages (futureprf.com)

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