20VC: Turning Canned Water into a $700M Media and Health Company, What Makes Truly Great Brands, How Founders Can Build Their Brand From Day 1 Today & How to Create Viral Content with Little to No Budget with Mike Cessario, Founder and CEO @ Liquid Death
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 20 January 2023
⏱️ 47 minutes
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Summary
Mike Cessario is the Founder and CEO @ Liquid Death, the man hacking the healthy beverage market with the first hilarious water brand. It is working, Liquid Death's latest valuation was over a staggering $700M and Mike has raised over $200M since founding the company from the likes of Science Inc. Away's Jen Rubio, Dollar Shave Club's Michael Dubin, Swedish House Mafia and Tony Hawk to name a few. Prior to founding Liquid Death, Mike was in the advertising industry at a number of dirrect firms including VaynerMedia.
In Today's Episode with Mike Cessario We Discuss:
1.) From Canned Water to $700M Business:
- How did rockstars' hydration problems lead to the founding of Liquid Death?
- How did growing up with guns and heroine needles around him at school, impact how Mike sees the world today? What is he running from? What is he running towards?
- Everyone said, "canned water, that is a stupid idea". What does Mike tell to all entrepreneurs who are told their idea is stupid? How does Mike advise on picking your idea?
2.) How to Build a Truly Great Brand:
- What does the term "brand" mean to Mike?
- What does he mean when he says, "truly great brand transcends functional value"?
- What are the single biggest mistakes Mike sees founders make today on branding?
- Why does Mike believe people will always hate your brand, if it is good?
- What are the biggest brand mistakes Mike has made with Liquid Death?
- What brand does Mike most respect and admire? Why that brand?
3.) Marketing: The Secret to Reaching Millions of People with Little Budget:
- How does the Liquid Death team come up with the ideas they have for content? Why does Mike believe the label "storytelling" is kinda BS?
- Why does Mike believe people will always hate your marketing? What was Mike's biggest lesson from their Superbowl commercial with kids drinking Liquid Death, looking like beer?
- How does Mike decide which channel to prioritise? How has the rise of TikTok and short form video changed their approach to content?
- How does Mike approach resource allocation for new pieces of content? Do they spend big on few bits of content or spend little on many and see what works?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If there are people who truly love something, there has to be people who truly hate it. |
| 0:05.3 | It is not possible to make something that everybody loves. |
| 0:09.1 | All it's possible is to make something that everybody doesn't really give a shit about one way or the other. |
| 0:14.1 | Oh, I mean, I thought I knew branding. |
| 0:16.1 | I thought I knew storytelling, but I learned from one of the masters today. |
| 0:19.5 | I learned more in this episode than I have in a podcast for a long time. This is a masterclass in marketing and branding from a man who's |
| 0:25.9 | turned canned water into a $700 million media and health brand. Yes, I'm thrilled to welcome Mike |
| 0:32.1 | Cesario, found and CEO at Liquid Death. Now, with Liquid Death, Mike has raised over $200 million since founding the |
| 0:38.8 | company and check out this cap table. They include names like Science Inc, but then also |
| 0:42.9 | away's Jen Rubio, Dollar Shaves Club's Mike Dubin, Swedish House Mafia, Tony Hawk. What an incredible |
| 0:49.5 | cap table there. And prior to founding Liquid Death, Mike was in the advertising industry at a number of |
| 0:54.4 | different firms, including Viner Media. And I want to say huge thank you to Peter Fam for the |
| 0:58.6 | intro to Mike today, without which this show wouldn't have happened. This is such a special one, |
| 1:03.2 | especially if you love storytelling and marketing, so stay tuned. But before we dive into the show |
| 1:08.3 | today, the single most important element of any team is |
| 1:11.5 | their ability to work together in the best and most efficient way. And Coder is the dock, |
| 1:16.4 | where teams can work on entire projects from start to finish with everything they need, all in one |
| 1:21.6 | place. Think about the way your team works today. If all the work is spread across different |
| 1:26.0 | documents, spreadsheets, and a stack of |
| 1:28.2 | workflow tools like they are in all of my teams, it's tougher to focus on getting things done, |
| 1:33.0 | let alone getting them done together. And that's why I realized that I have to have Coda and why |
| 1:37.5 | you need Coda. Coda is the doc that brings it all together by putting data in one centralized |
... |
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