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The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
#775: ZICO Coconut Water Founder Mark Rampolla on brand integrity and the courage to make tough decisions
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The agile brand. Welcome to Season seven of the Agile Brand where we discuss the trends and topics marketing leaders need to know. Stay curious, stay agile and join the top enterprise brands and martech platforms as we explore marketing, technology, AI, e commerce, and whatever's next for the omnichannel customer experience. Together we'll discover what it takes to create an agile brand built for today and tomorrow and built for customers, employees and continued business growth. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, AI and marketing operations. The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world application. For more information, go to teksystems.com to make sure you always get the latest.
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Episodes, please hit subscribe on the app.
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You listen to podcasts on and leave us a rating so others can find us as well. And now onto the show. For most entrepreneurs, the exit is the goal as well as the end of at least that part of their story. But what if the end is actually a new beginning? Agility requires a deep understanding of your brand's core purpose and the conviction to protect it. This often means having the courage to reverse a decision that was once seen as the ultimate success. Today we're going to talk about brand integrity, the founder's paradox of building a company to sell, and what happens when you get a second chance to reclaim.
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The brand you created.
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A
We're going to explore the delicate balance between corporate scale and entrepreneurial soul and how a brand's purpose can be its most resilient asset. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Mark Rampola, co founder and managing partner at Ground Force Capital. Mark, welcome to the show.
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C
Thanks Craig. Great to be with you.
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A
Yeah, looking forward to talking about with you here. We'll get to your current role at Ground Force in a minute, but we're going to go on a little bit of a journey here. So go back a few years here and wanted to talk about your early days at ZCO. And so starting at the beginning around 2004 I think, can you talk a little bit about, you know, why did you found zco? For those maybe less familiar, you know, what is it? And you know what and talk a little bit about your early days building that brand.
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C
Sure. So Zo is Coconut Water, one of the first kind of the new wave of brands that came onto the scene around that time in the early 2000s. And you know, the reason I started the company was first of all, I did have a Passion for health and wellness and wanted to bring this sort of amazing, you know, electrolyte, rich beverage to the world. But it was also a very personal story for me in that I wanted a different life than my corporate career. You know, I'd been with a major corporation, international Paper, for about seven years. I was on a trajectory to reach kind of a C suite level at some point in time. And I kind of looked at my boss's job and my boss's boss's job and you know, at the time we were, I had an expat contract, so the company was taking care. I was living abroad, the company's taking care of housing and school and all this stuff. And I realized, God, it was nice, but they were golden handcuffs and I wanted to be free. So I thought that, like a lot of people, that entrepreneurship would be sort of my ticket to freedom. And I just happened to love coconut water, love the healthy, active, natural lifestyle, and thought that the two would fit together, that I could fulfill that sort of mission of bringing a healthy, natural, active lifestyle to everyone and build my own personal freedom along the way.
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A
Yeah, yeah. You know, often some of the key decisions and even challenges that founders go through help to shape the brand. You know, what were some of those key things that really kind of set things on the path that it went on?
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C
I'd say the biggest one was early on, I think I had sort of an intuitive sense and also had researched every, every product I could think of and every service that was coming to market and realized we got to find our core. Who's that core passionate consumer base that we can build with and sort of co create something over time. And I'm really glad I stuck to that process because it took us a little while. We tested out early on with runners and cyclists and college students and natural food consumers, but we really found our home in yoga studios. And at the time, hot yoga was the rage. And there were a bunch of studios in New York where people were doing 90 minutes at 108 degrees. And it's an active type of yoga, of course. And Zika was the perfect post workout recovery beverage. And so that became our calling. Card. Post workout recovery. It was good enough to do in intense hot yoga, it was good enough to expand. So in many ways, you know, we always wanted to go beyond yoga, but building with that community, having a reason to be and a very specific value proposition to a very specific audience and a very specific use occasion became really the thing that helped us break through over. Over the next decade.
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A
Yeah, yeah, well, and then, yeah, you definitely, you know, you grew the brand quite successfully. So, you know, Coca Cola, I believe, took a minor minority stake in 2009, and then by 2013, they acquired the company in full. I asked this, I mean, on a smaller scale, but I've sold a company before. I know some of the emotional decisions and stuff that go into that. But can you talk a little bit about kind of what you were thinking is obviously this was. You founded the company, you grew it, and I'm sure the investment was exciting and everything, but what. What kind of maybe changed in your mind or. Or was going through your. Going through your mind as you, you know, first got the. The investment and then decided to get acquired?
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C
Yeah, first of all, you know, without a doubt, one thing, the first thing I was thinking about is, okay, I have capital now, right? Because I'd been raising money kind of piece by piece, little by little for about five years at that point. So this was our first really serious capital. So the first. It was nice to be able to breathe and have some capital. Secondly, I believed. I can look back now and see mistakenly, oh, God, they're gonna help me with a ton of problems, right? We had supply chain problems and logistical problems. The reality is they didn't help with any of that. And no critique against them. They're just not used to dealing with small company problems. And the other thing, though, when I look back, probably the thing that changed the most is I don't love admitting this, but I can own the game. Changed to versus building the business to last. It now became build to sell because that became the game. Okay? They have a minority investment. They want to buy it. So over the next few years, we built the company to work for Coke, not necessarily to work to last forever. And I can see that now with hindsight, and I think both of us sort of set it up and we'll get to the part of the story layer later. But it didn't actually work in their system. They did buy it all, but it didn't work in many ways. I look back and say we collectively didn't build it. The last.
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A
Yeah, yeah, got it. Yeah. And we'll get to that in a. In a second as well. But I want. I want to. Maybe one more like kind of moment in time is, you know, that you get acquired, the acquisition is official, and, you know, it's officially Coca Cola is. What's the. What's the feeling at that? You know, was. Was there a feeling of relief at that point? I mean, I know, you know, there's there's more to the story, but like, was there relief or was there, was there some second, you know, second guessing or.
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C
Look, when I, when I look back on it, at that time, there was no second thoughts and there was relief. There was relief in a sense of like, wow, I won. Yeah. And this is like, I'd been working towards this for a decade. That was my goal. We achieved it. The business still had a lot of challenges, so there was a sense of relief. And so it wasn't until a few years later where I started to realize, huh, this quote unquote success was not all I thought it would be. Right. And I do have talked to founders that feel like the day after they sold their business was the worst day of their lives or maybe this, maybe the best was when they sold and the worst was the day after. It took me a few years for that to settle in, but at the time it felt great. It felt like I won. Right? Like everything I'd worked towards, this whole goal was like, okay, now. But over a period of time I started to decide, well, now what?
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Yeah, yeah. You know, when any large organization acquires a challenger brand, there's that risk of also losing the original magic. You know, you had something, you built it and you know, from, from nothing essentially and, and built it from your perspective. You know, maybe what, what were some of the core elements of ZCO's identity or, or strategy that you felt like were maybe not being carried through after, you know, post acquisition?
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Yeah. You know, Greg, I was thinking about this in prep for this and I realized your, your name, it nails it. We were a very agile company and the brand was agile. We started with yogis and then we pivoted to runners and cyclists and triathletes. We started in, you know, natural food stores and then we expanded beyond that and our messaging shifted and our products and branding shifted. And so what I hadn't really thought about for a while is we had a very core strong brand and culture, but both were agile. And what was interesting is Coke kept. They actually did quite a good job keeping integrity of brand and integrity of quality, but they had no agility. And so it's like they were stuck in. Well, it was this way, therefore it has to be this way. And that doesn't work with a fast growing brand. Yeah, they were trying to take the brand from, I took it from 0 to 50 or 60. They're trying to take it from 60 to 600 that you can't keep everything the same. And so they lost that sense of agility and it became frankly a little bit stagnant. And so when I look back, I think that's one of the things that, you know, I wouldn't have thought about at the time. I would have thought like, keep the integrity, keep the integrity. But you can have integrity with agility. In fact, you have to, both as a leader and as a brand. And they didn't have that.
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Yeah, I mean, I guess in a sense, you know. And again, nothing, nothing against Coca Cola, but like they were doing what Coca Cola does, which is build big brands and kind of keep them memorable and all that. Right.
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C
They've created hundreds of billions of dollars of economic value by getting red dark soda in a red can here, there, this way, that way, within arm's reach of everybody on the planet. That is the exact opposite of the agility and flexibility. And also like we talked about, great people, amazing friends there. I wouldn't be any different had I stayed in Coca. I had an internship in grad school in Coca Cola. Had I built my whole career there, I wouldn't be any different. But that's the skill set that allows a leader to thrive and grow in a Coca Cola is not the same things that allows a leader to be successful as an entrepreneur.
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A
And so then let's get to the next part here, which is, you know, as I, as I said in the intro, you know, most founders see an acquisition by any company, but a company like Coca Cola, you know, as the ultimate win. You know, what was, you know, you talked a little bit about some, you know, some, some doubts maybe, but, you know, what was the catalyst that made you ultimately decide to go against the conventional wisdom of like, you know, again, I won, I'll move on to something else or whatever and, you know, to actually move to buy Zico back.
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Right, right. Well, look, first of all, sometimes it's sometimes better to be lucky than smart. Right? So it happened to be seven years later during COVID Coca Cola, like a lot of major strategics, decided they were going to focus on their core. And so they decided to sell off or shut down 200 brands globally. Pretty much anything under a billion in revenue was potentially on the chopping block. And ZCO was there as well. So the brand had done okay, but it wasn't a home run in their system. And so they decided to sell it off or shut it down. By this time, I'm running Ground Force Capital, institutional management firm. We're at the time on our second fund. And so there were really two things. One was a pure economic decision that we looked at this and said, look at the right price. If we can buy it back, we still believe in the category, we still believe in the opportunity. We just believe that we could do it better than Coca Cola. So at the right price, it's an economic opportunity for our firm. But I'll also own that. I started to realize, wow, I thought I was done with this brand. I Never thought I would have interest in the category, let alone the brand again. And sometimes I don't know if you've seen this happen. Sometimes life gives you a second chance. And so what I started to wonder is, I think I still have some learning. I've got something to learn through this experience. Now, the economics had to make the decision for the firm, so I recused myself from the actual investment committee decision to make the decision. My partner and our team looked at it, but once it hit the economic hurdles, then I'm all back in about what do I need to learn? What's. What's the universe given me an opportunity to figure out again?
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Yeah.
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Yeah. It's an exciting opportunity to. And I wonder what are maybe one or two of the things that you did decide to do differently or the second go round?
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Yeah. I'll give you a few examples. Both sort of maybe philosophical and tactical. Right. The philosophical is I was in a rush the first time around. I was in a hurry. I thought that it should be built a certain way, and I thought the goal was build it to sell. Right. And I also was. I frankly did a lot of learning about the business. I didn't do as much learning about me. How am I as a leader? Where am I great as a leader? What roles do I think I should play? But what roles really do I want to play? And where am I? Where's what I would call my zone of genius versus feeling like I have to do everything right.
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Right?
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And so the learning for me personally was, hey, take a breath, slow down, right? What's the. What's the right way to build this? How do I want to build this? What role do I really want to play? What is my zone of genius in this? And part of that conclusion was, look, I was a good operator first time around, but there's people that are better than me. So we brought in an amazing management team and we challenged them. Build it to last. It's one of these things. If we build it right, the acquirers will come, but let's build it to last. And second of all was I wanted to learn myself. Like what? You know, where did I get wrong the first time? Where was I not willing to face my own fears, see my own limitations? I buried a lot of emotions. I denied and avoided a lot of fear and lot of insecurities. I didn't want to take that approach. So we have a board meeting where we start. We share emotions. I have cried in board meetings. We start our board meetings with meditations. You know, I just Decided to take a very different approach. We're still driven for results. We still want to grow, we want to be profitable, we want to build a killer business. But we're also going to do it by creating an environment where everybody involved has the opportunity for self realization.
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Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of pressure on founders. Right. Is to. And you know, again, in my experience as a CEO as well, the first time I did it, I always felt like I had to know all the answers. The second time I did it, I realized I never would. So, you know, having. Having that kind of. That second chance to not only do that, but also, you know, in your. In your work at Ground Force now, you know, how does. How does this, all of this experience kind of influence the way that you evaluate success in the brands that you invest in?
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Yeah, it's a great question, Greg. I'd say a couple of things. One I'll talk about. I think there's no question. Interestingly, it took me a few years to go from corporate world to entrepreneur, to undo what the corporation had done to me to become true entrepreneur. Similarly, as an investor, it took me a few years as an angel investor to realize a lot of things that made me successful as an entrepreneur do not make me successful as an investor. Very different skill sets. But over time, I've come to see the value of both. Like, I love the ability to still be very close to operations running a business. You know, being intimate with it. Even though I'm not CEO of Zeeka, I'm sort of a very active chairman of the board, helps me stay sharp with the way we look at investments. And at the same time, having an investor lens is super helpful to bring that to the companies we invest in to help them think about their build. But when you talked about measuring success, you know, certainly we've got the criteria we look for for a successful business. But I'll tell you where I spend a lot of my time right now, and I actually wrote a book about this recently called An Entrepreneur's Guide to Freedom is helping the individual leaders define their definition of success, right? And being honest, where it might have a gap, right? Where if their real goal is to scale the business, maybe they need to think about bringing in a different team around them, above them, underneath them. Right. Do they really want to take this all the way to the finish line, or do they have other interests and they own that? Right. Because I think you're right. So many entrepreneurs feel like they have to do it a certain way.
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Right.
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And we beat ourselves up, right, as entrepreneurs and leaders. Oh, I'm not doing this, I'm not doing that. I try to help entrepreneurs and leaders get to know themselves, accept themselves, dare I say, even love themselves and then define their own definition of success and really not wait for freedom. Start with freedom first and build a business in life from that place.
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Yeah, love that. One thing I want to ask as well, you know, to kind of go back to the acquisition piece and just the brand aspect of ZCO and you know, for those lots of marketing execs listening to this and probably, you know, either going through being acquired or acquiring other brands, you know, what's some advice for them that you would have about, you know, trying to preserve, you know, we talked about the founders and the leaders roles, kind of preserving that through the integration. But what about the brand at itself and the marketing message?
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Yeah, I would say I really hadn't thought about this until again, kind of thinking about this in this lens. What are the foundational principles and where are you adaptable and agile? And I think that's two aspects, which is the brand and the brand. And the people are generally inseparable. But the good news is when you build both brand and culture in a clear way that has values, but it's also agile, they reinforce each other. So what I've seen is great brands. For example, we've bought some companies, right? We're mainly growth investors, but we have acquired brands. And what I see is when those brands are built with a culture that has clear values but is also agile, even if a few people leave, the integrity of the brand can be kept. Right? And those are usually pretty simple and clear. What are the guardrails? What are the guidelines? And they don't also have to be locked in stone, right? Because brands live brands like one of the things I loved when I finally realized I've got two daughters and I've got this rambunctious son named Zico. When he came into the world, I realized he's not mine. Right. He's its own letter brand. Have its own life, let find its own journey. And like at least my view of parenthood is they're not our kids, they're the children of the universe that we escort through some period of time in our life. I think great brands are the same way that brands, people view themselves as stewards, as guides, as coaches, as mentors for this brand. Let it have a life, find its own life.
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Yeah, yeah, I love that. And so speaking of mentoring and guiding your work with Ground Force Capital Maybe just talk a little bit about. I think you touched on a little bit, but talk a little bit about the kind of brands you invest in.
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Yeah, so we're a $600 million growth equity firm, so we typically write 20 to $30 million checks into consumer, predominantly food, beverage, beauty. We're beginning to do a few things in the consumer supply chain companies that are high growth and high impact and so health and wellness and sustainability. So among them are liquid death, Bobby baby formula, thrive, market required, Zico Hum, Kombucha Thistle meal delivery company, Giada restaurants here in la. So all of them are sort of the next generation of consumer brands that are bringing health and wellness and sustainability to the mainstream.
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Great, great. And so you know, what's, do you see any common threads in the kind of next wave of, of these types of sustainable brands that you're, that you're investing in? And you know what, what are some of the principles or other aspects of a company that they need to have for you to even consider investing?
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Yeah, I'd say, you know, gone are the days that it's only a big category, a great brand. Those are true. Great category, great brand that resonates with consumers. Consumers that are fanatical about and love their product or services. Founders that are both great operators and self aware, humble, hungry and hustle that they don't feel like they've solved it all. They're always learning, but learning about themselves, willing to look in the mirror and ask tough questions and allow people to ask them tough questions. Founders that know that the inner work is as important as the outer work and that you can only grow, your brand can only grow as fast as you grow as a leader. And at the same time there's no substitute for great, well run businesses. And that's something that we're seeing 10 years ago it'd be rare to see businesses that grew with minimal capital, businesses that grew to become profitable at a small stage. We're seeing that all the time now. There's sort of a next generation of leaders that are figuring out how to build great brands that make a positive impact, that you know, solve some big problem in consumers lives and do it profitably and do it with tight, well organized, you know, sort of business metrics and it's, it's a rare, rare to find it. But that's what we're looking for is that gem of a business and gem of a leader that, that, that's what it takes to build the next, you know, billion dollar brands.
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Nice.
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Nice. Love it. Well, looking forward to see some of those brands grow over the months and years to come.
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I do too.
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Yeah.
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Well, Mark, thanks so much for joining today. One last question for you before we wrap up here. What do you do to stay agile in your role? And how do you find a way to do it consistently?
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Oh boy. Thanks, Greg. Look, I'm fanatically disciplined in my personal life. I barely drink anymore. I go to bed early. I meditate every morning. I have a strict workout routine. I'm very strict on my schedule. I'm very disciplined on my energy and managing my time and attention. All of which I write about in this book called An Entrepreneur's Guide to Freedom. Because I realized I used to think that if I become successful enough, I can just do whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want to. I realize exactly the opposite is true, that freedom takes discipline.
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Nice.
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Nice.
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Love it. Well, again I'd like to thank Mark Rampola, co Founder and Managing Partner at Ground Force Capital, for joining the show. You can learn more about Mark and Ground Force Capital by following the links in the show notes. Thanks again for listening to the Agile Brand brought to you by Tech Systems. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show as well. You can access more episodes of the show@theagile brand.com that's theagile brand.com and contact me. If you're interested in consulting or advisory.
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Services or are looking for a speaker.
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For your next event, go to www.gregkilstrom.com that's G-R E G K-I H L S T R O M.com the Agile brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile.
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Before we continue, I wanted to share a key strategic resource that a majority of the Fortune 500 are already aware of. Finding the best technology, business and talent solutions is not easy. With business demands and competitive pressures mounting, you need to be able to design, deploy and optimize your technology to provide leading customer experiences while driving business growth. Those of you that have been listening to this show for a while know that this podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, a global provider of technology, business and talent solutions for more than 80% of the Fortune 500. TechSystems accelerates business transformation for their customers. Whether you're looking to maximize your technology ROI, drive business growth, or elevate customer experiences. TechSystems enables enterprises to capitalize on change. Learn more at techsystems.com that's teksystems.com now let's get back to the show.