5 • 145 Ratings
🗓️ 16 September 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Angus Rittenburg, Co-Founder and CEO of WYNK, to explore one of the fastest-growing trends in the beverage industry: low-dose THC drinks.
Angus shared his incredible journey from engineering at Tesla and SpaceX to launching a scrappy startup with a vision for healthier, more social alternatives to alcohol. What struck me most was how much of WYNK’s story is about holding onto a vision—even when the path forward wasn’t clear and staying scrappy, adaptable, and true to quality.
In this episode, Angus and I discuss everything from his early mentor, who taught him to value education over money, to the inventive mobile production systems that helped WYNK break into multiple states, to the massive regulatory unlock that allowed hemp-derived THC beverages to finally reach mainstream shelves.
Along the way, we also explored the challenges of consumer education, the better-for-you movement in beverages, and what it takes to not just build a product but build a category.
Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:
* How a mentor’s belief in vision over money shaped Angus’s entrepreneurial journey
* The scrappy origins of WYNK and how a mobile canning trailer became the company’s launchpad
* Why low-dose THC beverages are poised to disrupt alcohol consumption trends
* The regulatory shifts that allowed WYNK to expand beyond dispensaries into bars, restaurants, and liquor stores
* How WYNK is investing in quality and compliance to build not just a brand, but an entire category
Join me, Ramon Vela, as I listen to this fascinating episode of 'The Story of a Brand,' where we explore the vision, challenges, and triumphs behind WYNK, a brand rewriting the rules for social beverages.
For more on WYNK, visit: https://drinkwynk.com/
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave The Story of a Brand Show a rating and review.
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| 0:00.0 | Yeah, I think the one thing that served us very well is investing really heavily in doing the right thing. |
| 0:06.2 | These startups are very tricky because you have limited budgets and you have a lot of money. |
| 0:11.0 | You have a lot to invest in to get the business off the ground. |
| 0:13.9 | It's easy to cut corners, especially with compliance, I think with any business. |
| 0:18.5 | But right when we started Wink, the first thing that I bought was all of the lab equipment |
| 0:23.3 | that the state cannabis labs had to test quality. |
| 0:26.4 | And that was the first thing we spent money on was making sure that any product that we produced |
| 0:30.7 | could be tested to the same standards as the states. |
| 0:34.1 | And that allowed us very, you know, early on to ever since the first version of |
| 0:39.3 | Wink that we produced, we had all the tools needed to assess quality to an insanely high |
| 0:43.8 | standard. And we've carried that through with us, you know, since starting the business. Hey, everyone. This is Ramon Vela, and this is another episode of the story of a brand. |
| 1:03.7 | Like always, we have an amazing guest in brand that we're going to feature on today's show. |
| 1:08.3 | But before we do, scaling the D toC brand gets harder, the bigger you grow, |
| 1:12.4 | especially while you're stuck selling to just one channel. So while you're focused on the day-to-day |
| 1:17.4 | ops, your competitors are unlocking marketplaces like Amazon and Walmart and even retail |
| 1:22.5 | shelf space, and they're capturing customers you're missing. That's where OneCommerce comes in. |
| 1:28.3 | They help high-growth brands expand beyond their own sites, |
| 1:31.6 | handle end-to-end fulfillment, |
| 1:33.3 | and scale through a revenue share model |
| 1:35.1 | that means they only win when you do. |
| 1:37.8 | And as a Storyber Brand listener, |
| 1:39.6 | you'll get one month of free storage |
... |
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