Beverage Startups
Jools insights about DrinkPreneur Live 2015 competition
Jools are the winner of DrinkPreneur Live 2014. They were the best startup project, which charmed members of jury board. They were invited to DrinkPreneur Live 2015 to participate as guests at the event. As the former winner, we thought they have some insights about DrinkPreneur Live 2015 competition and this year competitors. Today, I’m speaking with Leo Laforgia the Founder of Jools.
It has been a year since Jools won first DrinkPreneur Live competition. What impact on Jools had this award? What was the best part of winning for you guys?
Drinkpreneur was the first of 11 awards in just 10months for us. I guess it definitely helped increasing the visibility of our proposition and it has been a great platform to meet with retailers, journalists and F&B industry stakeholders. The best part of winning for us was the possibility to establish real connections and identify great partners to help us bring the best out of our F&B proposition.
What has changed during this year? What are future plans for Jools?
Drinkpreneur was also a great moment for self-analysis and feedbacks.
It started an intense branding exercise for JOOLS, in preparation of our launch to market. From our marketing agency to one of our NEDs, at Drinkpreneur we met some of the brilliant individuals and partners that help us drive our business day in day out.
In a little over 10months we have secured distribution in about 700 stores and started operating in 3 countries outside the UK. Jools was the official sponsor of London Fashion Week 2015 and we have also supported boys and girls in their struggle against cancer by partnering up with the Moonwalk 2015 and Samuel L. Jackson for “One for the boys”.
We have also closed a new funding round and built an incredibly solid team to help us deliver on the ambitious plans for the upcoming months.
These include Increasing our penetration, growing our offering and cementing awareness of Jools and the Pearl technology in the UK and across selected oversea markets.
This year you had chance to meet all entries. What was your Top 3 contestents list? For who Jools would have given first place?
We were all positively impressed by the quality of the entries and felt like congratulating everyone for the achievement, knowing the amount of hard work that goes into getting to that stage.
Amongst the ones that stood out for me, Tapped, Lovo and HelloHungry were perhaps my favourites.
In the end, Tapped surely had the most coherent and best presented proposition, so I very much agree with them being the rightful winner for this edition.
The First place at DrinkPreneur Live 2015 won Tapped. Have you tasted their product? In your opinion, why did they won first place?
We’ve known the outstanding guys at Tapped for quite some time now and I’m sure they must be thrilled to have won Drinkpreneur 2015.
I might have been one of the first ones to taste their products and have seen the concept develop overtime, till the sleek execution that is today. They’ve done a great job in keeping the messaging neat and delivering their drinks in a brand-enhancing packaging.
It is always a great thing to get some advices from people with greater experience. As a former winner of DrinkPreneur Live 2014, what advices could you give to this year winners?
My advice would be to make the most of the connections initiated at Drinkpreneur and to treasure every bit of feedback secured during the interaction with attendees. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt so far is that there’s no such thing as bad feedback!
