EXPERIENCE 149 | Turning Good Times Grüvi with Anika Sawni - Co-Founder and Chief Brand Officer of Grüvi

I met Anika Sawney at the Unstoppable Women's Conference in October of 2023, where she was an inspiring keynote speaker. And what I learned in this podcast was her very first keynote speech. She'd recently been named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list, and I was captivated by her talk and her brand and her market and her culture changing opportunity. At the conference I was able to sample Groovy's Juicy IPA, Rosé, and Dry Secco, and I loved them all. And none of them have any alcohol. What? Annika joined me for her first in person podcast recording session during the Christmas season, and I'm happy to share it as our first episode of Season 4 of The Local Experience. Annika was in her fourth year of university in Montreal when the seeds for Groovy were sowed. After a healthy lifestyle in her earlier years, she drifted into binge drinking, like most of her friends, during her undergraduate, but gave up alcohol when she saw it impacting her mood and her performance, and threatened her acceptance at medical school. She was on a neurosurgery path, but when that path was disrupted, she opted out of medical school and pitched the idea of a cool, counter cultural, and non alcoholic special times beverage to her brother, Nicky. Nicky had gained strong experience in business and finance at Salesforce, but had an entrepreneurial itch. And soon after, Groovy was born. Finding their path to revenue largely blocked in their native Canada, the pair soon moved themselves, their parents, out of retirement, and shortly thereafter, Annika's boyfriend, to Denver, Colorado. Epicenter of tasty beers and healthy lifestyles in the American West to work on Groovy. This is the story of a young company making its mark with fresh and tasty and low calorie and alcohol free beverages and the young lady's vision that started it all. It's a Groovy episode and I hope you'll enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Annika Sani. Welcome back to the Loco Experience podcast. I'm joined today by Anika Sani and Anika is the co founder and chief brand officer at Groovy. So, um, Anika, why don't you just give a quick introduction to Groovy for those who haven't. Partaken yet. Yeah, of course. Well, first off, thanks for having me excited to be here and in person So groovy for those that aren't familiar is a line of delicious non alcoholic beers and wines That we launched in about 2019. Wow. I didn't realize it was so young. Mm hmm. Yeah, so I Guess the first question I have is COVID happened like right after you were getting started. Did that help you or hurt you? Because it feels like non alcoholic drinking wouldn't be something that you would do at home much. Yeah. So it was really interesting. And always in retrospect, when I think about it, we were like, I'm so grateful because. I think it was the month before COVID that we actually first moved, oops, that we moved in, um, to our 3PL fulfillment center versus packing out of our own house. Okay. And so had we still been packing out of our own house and not made that transition and COVID would have hit, we would have been in trouble, I would say, right? Um, so what happened with COVID is really, there was a huge bike and increased drinking around alcohol, right? People are home. People are stressed. People don't know what to do. People are having happy hours. I remember my recycle bin somehow was more fuller during those months. Yeah. No, exactly. And even I think there was a period in Colorado too, in Denver, right? When they were saying that they were going to close the liquor stores. And so people were like, you know, headed right to the store to stock up. And so what kind of happened there is people overindulged in alcohol and had happy hour every day. Yeah. Three o'clock maybe, even earlier, right? And started to create some of these habits that weren't really helpful, right? I'm carrying some weight still from those days, honestly. Yeah. And so what happened is there was kind of like a false peak there where Yeah. And, um, the content and the search for the right answer is, uh, awful. And the content, the search for the right answer is pretty bad. It's a bad search, it's a bad search. In a sense. Yeah, but, um, I have my own opinion, and I'm not, I'm not really sure that that's And it's weird, I mean, uh, That's, you know, a quarter of the calories in comparison to their alcoholic counterpart. Yeah. So that's a hugely significant difference. I mean, I think what's interesting too is a lot of alcoholic products don't even have the calorie count on that, so you might not even be sure, right? You grab a beer, a regular alcoholic IPA. You don't know how many calories are actually in that, right? How many are in the juicy here? The juicy is 60 calories. Okay. That's probably compared to about 200 on the average. Exactly. Exactly. So, um, I guess we like to set the stage with where you are now and then jump in the time machine a little bit to the earliest days and hear stories around that. Tell me what's happened over the last, you were on the 30 list that had to have gotten you a ton of just visibility and makes it easier to knock on doors when they're like, Oh, yeah, of course. So, um, right now where we are, it's been a really exciting year. I feel like there's been a lot of key milestones this year, especially, you know, with the category as a whole. And yeah, it's a dogfight shift of people. Looking for options on a regular basis, right? And people just being a lot more intentional about what they're consuming, whether it's alcohol or just in all facets, right? What foods you're eating, et cetera. Um, and so we've really this year made a lot more expansion into retail. So we landed Whole Foods, which was a super big milestone for us. Um, and then, yeah, we got, well, I guess I got the Forbes under 30, which, you know, that we can get into more detail on that later. But every time I think about it. I'm like, still can't believe it. I think, you know, yeah, exactly. Um, and so really just starting to get that brand awareness out there. So are you nationwide with Whole Foods, for example, or is that regional? We're nationwide, like approved, but because we still go through liquor distributors, it's on a state per state basis. So we're available in the states that we have distribution. Okay. So we think we're in about like 300 Whole Foods locations. And are you only carried by liquor distributors then? It seems like the food distributors could take you to other markets. We do both. That's the unique part of, obviously, non alcoholic. And in the early days when we started, um, in 2019, then there wasn't really many options in terms of path to market, right? So liquor distributors, liquor stores is actually where the most volume was moving. But this year, last year, we've seen grocery really kind of, you know, speed up a lot more. So we met when you were the. Keynote for the, what was it, Unstoppable Women's Conference, is that right? Yeah. Um. Have you done a lot of that kind of stuff, uh, or is that part of your brand officer kind of thing is just getting out there on the hustle in front of as many people as you can? Yeah, so that was my very first keynote ever. Really? No way. I was so nervous leading up to it. Um, when I was told I had 45 minutes. On stage. I was like, oh my God, what am I gonna talk about for 45? Similar to what we said, we're gonna have two hours here together at the local experience. Exactly. Um, but no, I have been actively, you know, trying to find those avenues where you can get out and share the story. Um, you know, that to me, that's how you really build communities. Yeah. Having the chance to share your story authentically, meet people, um, you know, help other people along the way as well. Yeah. Um, so I'm, I've been doing a lot more of that recently, and after that I actually just had, um. Another kind of women's conference in Toronto that I got, uh, just before Thanksgiving and yeah, now it's, it's funny. It's kind of shifting that role, right? From, you know, being a little bit more in the weeds still of day to day basis of running the business to a little bit more of that, um, kind of brand. face of the brand in a way. Yeah, yeah. Does that come with pressure? Um, I always say it's kind of tug, tugging more because I really love doing it. And getting off stage, it feels really good. And I'm slowly starting to build my confidence with it. But at the same time, it's stressful no matter what. Like if it's a big event, small event, podcast, I get nervous for all the things, right? So, um, I think finding that balance. is, is important and still kind of making sure that I have the pieces that Ignite me that can be a little bit more like internal and not outwardly facing, right? And you operate this business with your brother. You guys are co owners as well as maybe some others too or yeah Yeah, so my brother nikki who's five years older than me. He's my co founder um, and then really my Um, whole family's been involved since day one as well. So my mom, um, and my dad, we pulled them out of retirement when we got started with Groovy and they said they'd come help us out. Um, and of course my boyfriend works for Groovy as well. So I mean, I find that when you're building a business in the early days, anyone that's there to support you and willing to, you know, pull up their sleeves, we'll take them. That's what I was thinking about. Like how many people in your times on stages and stuff have kind of stood up or met you afterwards and said I want to help and I know this person or I have this connection, you know, they resonate with and your friends and your family were the first ones to hear that story. Yes. Yes, exactly. I think that's, it's so important. And like one of the biggest learnings I would say of building a business so far is the importance of that support system. Right. Sorry. We got those arms at a funny angle for you. I talk with my hands a lot, so. Yeah. Keep them flying low. It'll be okay. Um, so does your brother kind of handle more of the operational? Is he effectively the CEO? Yes, he's our CEO. Um, he has a background in business, so he studied business in his undergrad. Um, he's always had a big passion for that. I've always been very entrepreneurial, I'll say, since he was. young, even at the age of four, selling cookies to neighbors and things like that, right? Finding little opportunities for business. Um, and then he had an app that he had started. Um, essentially it's called puck app and it was a goalie sourcing app for hockey. Mm hmm. Sounds very niche. Yeah. I mean, he loved hockey. Exactly. You know, he saw the gap in the market for that as he was playing hockey at higher levels and you get outside of, you know, kind of the teams that you grow up with and you get to men's hockey. It's a lot harder to find goalies. Interesting. Apparently. Huh. Okay. Um, so he spent some time with that. It's like a match. com for hockey of sorts. Exactly. Exactly. Um, and so, yeah, I would say that, you You know, he's always had that passion for me, it's a bit of been a different journey and, um, we can get more into the details of how that came to be, but, Um, I'm sure we will. I'm sure we will. What's your favorite thing that you've learned? Like, Maybe the biggest surprise. It sounds like this is a first time business for you. Yeah, yeah. First time business. Uh, first time. Like really in the work environment as a whole. Oh, is that right? I started groovy right out of university. Oh, are you? You're just a baby? I'm just a baby. How old are you? Um, I'm 27. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. Well, not to say you look old, but you definitely carry yourself. Uh, of somebody that could be well, you know, 30 something at least. Yeah. Yeah. So it's all I really know. And so it's, it's honestly been a huge learning curve, right? Everything's learned. From how a business operates to how to manage a team, right? And I think for me, the hardest piece has been to, or the biggest learning is to like grow my own personal confidence because of that, right? Starting so young. Well, and 50 year old men like me. And so it has to be, it has to have that feeling at first and then, you know, it's only from other people that you can kind of build that confidence when they're like, you, you, you got this, you know, you did a good job. Yeah, exactly. So I think that that's been like a bit of that personal journey alongside building Groovy as well is finding myself, my own voice, having confidence in my opinions and not just trying to lean on my brother for a lot of things. Right. Um, and he's done a great job of empowering me on that side because we. Do you work in very different parts of the business as well? Yeah. Can we talk about the operation a little bit? Like, are you contract manufactured? Do you guys have a production facility, or do other people use your recipes and put it in cans for you and stuff? Yeah, so we, um, developed all of our recipes, but we've worked with partners in the development of them. And because we're so unique, you know, there's no other brand that's doing both non alcoholic beer and wine, right? And so we're doing completely different processes in how you make a beer versus how you make a wine, even how we make our sparkling wine versus some of our still wines. So it's just really hard to put that all In one house. Right. Um, instead we've really worked with finding experts in each of the areas, developing the recipes. And so, yeah, we're producing in three different areas right now. We're producing, obviously, in Colorado, as well as California and Toronto. Um, yeah. Yeah. And tell me about the Toronto connection, because, uh, uh, because I can, my sense is that you're kind of in Denver and Toronto or something. Has that been a long time, or? Yeah, so we're actually Canadian, so I grew up in Richmond Hill, which is outside of Toronto. Okay. And where's, Toronto is like, right above Buffalo or something? Or where's Toronto at? Yeah, it's close to, uh, Michigan. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So mid, mid Great Lakes area, kind of? Yeah. Yeah. Right off of Lake Ontario. I'm from North Dakota, so I know, like, the western and central part of Canada a little bit, but the other parts are kind of mysterious to me. Yeah. I mean, it's the biggest city, for sure, in, in Canada. Um, and so, yeah, we kind of grew up in the suburbs outside of Toronto. Okay. Um, and went to school and university, um, I personally went in Montreal and then we moved out to Denver to, pretty much as a whole family, to launch Groovy here. And so this is where we decided to launch the business. So you had, like, the idea bucket was full, um, and was it costs or just the quality of water that you could source in Colorado in comparison or you just wanted to be in the mountains and you're sick of being out east or all those things? Yeah, so it was a few different reasons why we decided to launch in in Denver. So first is, um, honestly, the Canadian market for non alcoholic was I'd say it was slow to get started, so it was a little bit behind and the market's really different in the sense that you have, um, less kind of independent liquor stores or grocery stores. And so you have the Liquor Board, which is the LCBO of Ontario, so that's all through the government. those non alcoholic beers. Exactly. And then your grocery is monopolized by pretty much two or three grocery chains across the country. Yeah. And so those are just big accounts. Those are huge chains. Correct. That's huge. A branding. And so we Yes, we'll take it. We need 100, 000 cases. And you're like, uh Exactly. Just even getting them to see the opportunity. Right. Totally. That's the thing. They didn't see the opportunity. We already have one non alcoholic beer. And so we were like, well, we are not going to sit here and wait around for you guys to see this opportunity. We, we see it Oh, so you were knocking on doors, you're kind of doing your pitches, things like that. Exactly. And so we kind of got started. And then we're like, well, we're where do we want to get started? Where do we want to launch? And honestly, you know, there's so many options. Um, we hadn't even actually been to Denver prior to launching Groovy. Um, but we found that it really just married an ideal spot to kind of start and have it be our pilot, gather some data. Um, And partly because of, you know, the consumer that we thought it married really well, right? Obviously being a craft beer mecca, having all of these breweries here. But also super active, healthy, fit people. Exactly, exactly. So this, you have to love beer if you're going to want to drink a non alcoholic beer, right? You have to love the occasion, the socializing, that same experience. But also married this consumer that had, yeah, you know, a bit more of healthful spending weekends out in the mountains hiking, you know, boulders obviously been, um, you know, known for being one of the health food capitals of the country. Right, right. Yeah, great food production industry over there, innovation. Yeah, so, so we were like, I think that's our spot and we went out. And you brought your parents out of retirement and everything? I'm imagining like Beverly Hillbillies style, but like it's crazy to bring a whole chunk of a family out. Yes. We, we did. So my brother came out, um, a few months before us, kind of scoped it out and was like, had, you know, I think cans without even labels yet, just some, you know, silver cans with product trying to just get some initial feedback about it. Um, and he was like, okay, I think this is, is a good. Good spot for us. And so my mom, my dad, dog, we all packed up the car, the van, and we drove across the country. That's amazing. Do you all in one big house? Yeah, so we rented a house. Um, and it was really interesting because of course we are, you know, adult children and we were back all living in the same house again. We hadn't lived in the same house. for like at least eight years. It speaks well to the relationship that was there before you struck off on the world, though. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, it was an experience for sure. We kind of said it was our little like groovy frat house, even though it was just family. So, what's your, like, Say, two year vision, three year vision. Is it, uh, world domination, uh, like every small company? Or, or, yeah, tell me what, uh, are you gonna launch more and more products? Expand that range? Or just get deeper into your lines? Yeah, so, when I kind of think of our vision, I think of it a little bit high level, right? And so, our goal is to really normalize non alcoholic beverages in every occasion and every setting. So, you know, We're not, we're very not anti alcohol, I just want every occasion for someone to have an option. And that's what I felt like I didn't have when we launched Groovy. And so we kind of say, you know, we're working after making moments more groovy. Whether that's, you know, out at the bar or at weddings or brunch with the girls, whatever the occasion is, let's, you know, make it more groovy, right? Um, and so, yeah, really working on expanding and building that brand awareness for us right now. Like I said, Whole Foods is really starting to get into the retail, um, presence for the brand has been instrumental in gaining that awareness for it. Um, and, yeah, just kind of chugging away. Fair enough. Um, Oh, I just had a really good question and now it drifted away from me. That's why I should bring this little notebook so I can write those down. But I'm confident that I'm not going to lose them. You have time, I'm sure I'll come back. Probably so. Um, so what's the operation look like today? Uh, is it mostly a family business? 10, 15, 20 employees. Yeah. So right now we're a team of 10. Okay. Um, I guess almost five of them being family. So a little extension. I mean, we've always had this mentality as we've been growing the groovy team that because we started as a family business, like everyone that we do hire that comes in, it's just really still feels like a family business and everyone becomes a part of the family, not just a team member and employee. Um, and so most of our team. Is between Denver and Toronto as well. Okay. Um, but again, we're pretty small right now, so. And what do they do? Like, because you've got contract manufacturing, is it mostly about? Sales and marketing. Sales and marketing. Yeah. So they're trying to make accounts. And so do you work, I guess you're trying, you have one distributor, so how do you influence sales in a situation like that? Is it about trying to get the end user retailers, like trying to help those distributors get in those doors? Yeah. So we obviously. They have a different distributor per each state. Oh, sure. Um, again, because we're going through mainly liquor distributors, each state has its own regulation. So you're have, you know Yeah. Kind of territory, territories dedicated. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, and so from a sales standpoint, you know, each distributor has some of their own sales reps, right? So a really big piece is. A distributor also has so many brands, right? And so how does Groovy stay top of mind for them? And so a lot of it from the sales team is helping to support the sales reps of the distributor. Um, and, you know, lift wherever we can already get our foot in the door and drop off samples and kind of provide them hot leads already. Um, as well as just providing them, you know, constant education and making sure that they've tried all of your products. Like, you have to remember distributors carrying, you know, thousands of brands potentially, right? So when they go into a store, how do they think of Groovy over pushing one of the other products that they have, right? And so it's just really about having that open line of communication. And then at the end of the day, you're building relationships, right? How many, um, What's the competitive landscape? Maybe in the wine and beer separately, I assume it's different. You know, it's a bigger category right now. It's about 80 percent of non alcoholic, as a whole, comes from beer. Um, and wine is about 20%, a little bit less than that, kind of married with spirit. So they're a lot smaller. They're growing at fast pace, but it non alcoholic beer has been around for a lot longer as a category. Yeah, yeah. Um, Although it's only just starting to get good. It's just, yeah, yeah, exactly. From the innovation, from the taste standpoint, it's really made strides in the past few years. Um, but the category's been around for a long time. So when you think of like, retailers, they've had an option on their shelf for a long time. Um, a lot of the big players have had a non alcoholic option for, you know, a period of time. O'Doul's is obviously the one that comes to mind for everyone. But Heineken's got an NA that's actually pretty tasty. Yeah. And they're investing, you know, a ton of their marketing dollars towards their non alcoholic options, right? Right, right. And Heineken's, like, got a bigger budget to, to grease the doors open than you do as well. Yeah. So you're competing against those big brands in most cases, right? So it's more of the craft versus the Corporate. Exactly. So I don't really look at them necessarily as competition because the person that's gonna choose a non alcoholic Heineken isn't necessarily the same person that's looking for a craft beer, right? Yeah, right. Um, and so great that they want to use their marketing dollars and spend it to grow the category because at the end of the day that's what it's doing. It's growing awareness for non alcoholic as a whole. Um, and so I think in where we are right now in the category, it's, you know, whatever that's saying is that, you know. All rising tides bring up all ships or whatever, right? Well, and I like how you postured that your mission isn't to sell as much Groovy as we can. It's to change the world, change the perception of non alcoholics. I mean, I hate to say it, but like, especially ten years ago, if you saw somebody drinking an O'Doul's, it was like, Oh, Phil got a drinking problem, doctor put him on the O'Doul's, you know, or whatever, right? Or the wife. A hundred percent, right? And that's part of it. There's been a negative stigma around non alcoholic beers, um, options in general. You always need a reason as to why you're not drinking, an explanation, um, and so starting to change that conversation. You're like, well, cause I'm smarter than you. I'm minus 60 calories and I'm not going to make a fool of myself. So you could totally, if you got like hammered at the trailhead one night. hurt your reputation a little bit, right? Yeah, I mean, you gotta There's some responsibility in the brand officer role. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so, you know, on my personal journey, it's really My personal journey with alcohol, to specify there, like, it's really grown as I've built Groovy and it's developed and it's changed over time. When I launched Groovy, I still drank alcohol. Um, and it was, again, we launched with the mission and vision of providing an option for people, making it feel fun and exciting for the occasions that you didn't want to drink. Um, but through that journey and through, you know, having my own beverage as an opportunity and as an option when I was out with friends or at a bar or a restaurant now, Every time I ask myself, Hey, do, do I want to drink? And I'll kind of be conscious about it. I'll ask myself, do I want something? And more and more I'm like, no, I don't think so. And so I just go with that answer for that. And so that's what we said, you know, before actually getting on the podcast is I don't consider myself sober, but more of a, you know, intentional drinker. And so there might be an occasion in my future where I drink again, but at this point where I'm. I don't think I've drank it in the past year at all. Well that brings up the question of, uh, was Colorado at all because of the, the, the THC culture here? You can be a non drinker, but you can Yeah, so it's funny that you mention that because it was definitely an original concept for us. Because, exactly, you know, we realize, and also in Canada, it was around that same time that cannabis, you know, was becoming federally legalized. And so we're like, is there a potential opportunity or a play with non alcoholic options to kind of pair it with cannabis? Because Mixing alcohol and cannabis doesn't usually end up in a good scenario. Yeah. You don't know what's going to happen. Um, if you do that. So it was about if someone, and if cannabis becomes more of like a social, you know, drug in, in cases, then people still want to beer or wine because that's how as a society we've been taught to socialize with beers, with wines. Right. Um, and so that was definitely pivoted away because. We just knew that there was a huge opportunity and so many people that actually be more healthy Yeah, I wanted an option that had nothing to do with that. So I think it's still an occasion And that's that's what's unique about groovy again There's so many different occasions in which you might choose a non alcoholic beer or wine and that that is one of them our Sponsor of this podcast is a company called in motion and also best craft. Okay, and they actually are moving distributing a THC bubble water or something like that right now that's being made in Minnesota. Yeah, so we're starting to see, you know, I mean, it's taken a while, I think, for some of the, the THC beverages and things to really take off. Well, you probably can only buy it at the weed store, right? Exactly, right? You could only buy it at, um, your dispensary. And now I think even Total Wine, I saw a photo the other day that they have a section of THC infused beverages that you can buy there, right? So I think it's taken a while from where we launched and maybe we're early with that little bit of an idea that came to mind. Um, we're starting to see that expand a little bit more. So I'm curious to see where that industry itself goes. But probably not part of your brand anymore. Not, not where we are right now. I mean Never say never. Yeah, exactly. Fair enough. Um, and so, what, uh, like, what makes you worried? Lots of things. Yeah. It's a, I mean, it's a, it's a tricky industry, right? Like there's slim margins and always rising costs and gotta keep growing the monster. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know. I think that where we are in the market today, it's it's definitely felt a little sticky the past few years. Um, and I think a big piece is, you know, we don't have the capital and our own pockets to be able to invest into the brand. So big pieces needing to raise money to continue to scale. Um, so I think that that, just creates a lot of pressure for the business, of course. Um, but at the same time, you know, I believe businesses, most of the time we say, okay, they fail because they run out of money. But really, I think it's you feel because you eventually you give up on it, right? It takes a toll on you, or you can't keep moving. And there's a route to keep surviving as a business, whether you choose to kind of decrease and become, you know, shrink in size for a period of time or You know as long as you don't give up to me like yeah, you can keep running the business, right? So are you raising capital now? Yeah. Yeah, so we Pretty much are just at the final tail end of our seed round. Okay, it's been exciting. Yeah, that's something new like 90 percent of the business people I know have never been through kind of an investor capital raise kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, so it's been a journey We actually did something really unique with So, um, we haven't brought on any VCs to date, so we've done mainly angel investors, um, but what we did this round, and actually last round too, um, is we opened the opportunity to our community. Oh. And so, as a brand, what we've built, we've been very community focused, um, And I can get into like, you know, the QR codes that we have on the front of the can. I didn't even know. I've got QR codes all over a bunch of my stuff, too. Yeah, exactly. And so these QR codes, they lead you to direct feedback of the product. Oh, no crap. So instead of just taking you to, you know, here's our website, here's where you can find it, it's, hey, what'd you like about the Juicy IPA? What would you change about the Juicy IPA? Um. And just getting direct feedback. So every day we get people giving us input on the product, what, what would they change, what they liked about it, et cetera. Um, and so again, because we didn't come from a background of winemakers and brewers, it felt very unauthentic to be like, well, I know what the best tasting non alcoholic beer is, right? I know what the best taste is so subjective at the end of the day. And so we're like, who are we to be the ones? Yeah. Let's actually open it up and build these products with our community. Did you learn that from somebody else? Or does that, you guys come up with that just all by your lonesomes? Not that I know of. Maybe some seed got planted somewhere along the way. I mean, that sounds like brilliant. Like I, I wrote that down and underlined it twice cause I was like, you know, we could do this at the end of our chapter meetings. Yeah. Did you have a good chapter meeting today? Yeah. Let's get some direct, immediate feedback. Of course. So many brands could use that to engage their consumption, especially on food beverage products. Yeah. And because we're still small and nimble, I like to say, as a startup, we're able to take that feedback. Yeah. And we're able to iterate and improve our products. Interesting. So you'll also see on the can, it says a batch number on it. Maybe not these ones now that we moved to printed, but we did multiple batches. So someone gave us their feedback. We were then going to brew the next round, compile the feedback. Yeah. People thought. the juicy, one of the feedback was more pineapple, we love the tropical flavors, can you amp that up? And so we're like, okay, next batch, batch number two, we amped up the pineapple. And then you hear some, too much pineapple. That's the thing, right? You know, you have to keep in mind that, again, taste is subjective, but if you have an overwhelmingly input on, you know. can make, then we're able to do that. And I think a lot of bigger brands, they're not able to iterate and launch the next batch. And the machine is this big. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's really cool. You do that with the wines and everything, every product just. Yeah. Well, so we launched what was called our Discovery Series, which was essentially this concept that we launched about. Two and a half years ago now. Um, and so it's essentially this concept of people, we launch these small batches, and we get feedback, and we iterate on them, and we build these BEVs with our community, and then once we land to a place that, hey, you know, The majority of feedback is amazing. Let's really scale this product up. Yeah. What do you know about the, like the brewing process and stuff? Uh, did you do a lot of that research as far as finding packers or you just tell them, Hey, brew it this way, but with more pineapple. It's been definitely a learning curve. Um, I think that at the beginning it was a little bit harder for us to develop the recipes in terms of, yeah, even just being able to have the language and how to describe what you're looking for in the product. Like, well, you know. We needed to be more beer y, really, right? Okay, well, the brewer's like, What? Um, and so, we've, we've had to bring on some It's very beer y Now it is Like, for a 60 calorie, uh, IPA, fake IPA Or whatever you want to call it Yeah Yeah. Yeah. And so we've, we've iterated on them. We've played around with different processes and how we make the beers and the wines as well. Um, and ultimately really hiring on some experts in this space to kind of be advisors for that as well. So like, do they make beer and then take the alcohol out in some way? Yeah. Um, so it's used, it still uses the grains, it still activates all that? Same ingredients as beer. Um, we've. Played around with a few different processes, but essentially brewing a full strength beer. Um, I'll talk to like the lager, for example, which is our gold medal winning non alcoholic beer. So, it's one of the only beers that's going through a full lagering process for about eight weeks. Then, it's a full strength beer. We're removing the alcohol from the beer. And then, like, I can't get into like all the details of it. Yes, exactly. Um, but gently removing the alcohol from it and then actually doing one more fermentation round. And that is one of the unique pieces of groovy because that last fermentation round gives it this really clean, crisp. finish, especially in a lager, you know, you don't have all these hops and flavors to hide behind. So it's been very hard to get that exactly mimicked to your alcoholic partner. Um, so sometimes people don't understand the process because I feel like so many times people are like, well, it's not an alcoholic, like even from a price point, right? It should be cheaper because there's no alcohol. Right. And I'm like, Yeah. Yep. It sounds to me like it should be more expensive now that I'm listening because you have to make beer and then take out. Is there a resale market for that alcohol that you remove? Yeah, people have asked that a few times. Um, I mean, to some degree you can repurpose it Right, they could make a Truly's out of it or something like that, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, so, But, so, I guess that goes with my next business question is, is that, like, are you price competitive and, and are your margins able to sustain? Because it seems like a tough business if you. Have to if it costs you a lot more to make it and you have a tough time selling for the same Yeah, so I mean it is priced around the same price as an alcoholic six pack of this is pretty much 14 bucks or something Yeah 12 Yeah. Okay. It depends on the retail, retailer as well at Whole Foods, I think it's at 12. 99, depends on the state. So, you know, it's not across the board. Don't quote me. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so it's the same price as an alcoholic craft beer. So there's just that piece of education. But I think once people try it and taste it, as long as it delivers on the quality there that they're looking for, that it tastes exactly like an alcoholic beer without the booze, um, then they, they start to understand that. I think it's just kind of upfront. Without awareness to the category, people are confused, and so most of our competitive, um, the other craft non alcoholic beers in the space are around the same price as well. Fair enough. I, uh, reminded myself of the, uh, keychain that I used to open your bottle there, and I didn't want to forget to give that to you. There you go. So, um, I feel like we might as well talk a little bit more, like, let's just zoom back past the founding story and catch back up to it. Uh, on the way. And so, born, raised in Toronto? Yep. Your parents were there, lifelong Canadians they are as well? Yeah, so my dad is Indian and my mom is German. Okay. Um Like, native Canadian, you mean? Or India? India. India, India. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So he was born in India. He moved to Canada with his family when he was pretty, pretty young, about six years old. Oh, wow. Um, and then they went back to India for a period, but then ultimately he came back. Um, and my mom, she, she was born in Canada. Her parents were immigrants from Germany. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, is it just you and your brother? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And are they, were they city slickers in the city? No, so it was, um, Yeah, tell me about Toronto a little bit. I know very little. Yeah, so we grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, kind of the greater, it's called the GTA, the Greater Toronto Area. About like 30 minutes from downtown Toronto. Toronto's like a million people or something? Um, yeah. I don't even know what it's at these days, I feel like. Is there an American city you've been to that reminds you of Toronto? People often say Chicago, but I've never been to Chicago, so I can't actually speak to that, but people kind of relate the two together. It's not the French speaking area, though, that's Quebec and Montreal a little bit? That's Quebec and Montreal. That's where I went to school. Okay. Yeah. Quebec's, um, I mean, Montreal is a really charming city. I really loved it. Um, obviously, So I actually, like, went to French immersion school, so I grew up and, like, started speaking French in grade one, um, with a strong, heavy anglophone accent, um, but that never really phased me from, like, the language barrier standpoint. And there's just a lot of kind of charm and history to the city, in my opinion. Um, I really, I, Toronto, I didn't spend much time until later in my life, actually, because again, you grew up in the suburbs, so you spend most of your time there, and you don't really go down into the city that often. I think I like only went up the CN Tower when I, was 13 or something along those lines, and we had friends visiting from somewhere else. Um, and so, yeah, we grew up, we went, we went to public school. What were your folks doing? Yeah, so my dad is also been very entrepreneurial throughout his life. Um, and so he kind of took over his family business, which was a label printing company that he did with his family and his mom. Um, and so at that time he was running it. Um, and he's always kind of. His, his background in education is in finance, um, and so, you know, came on board with Groovy to really help us out from that standpoint and be our CFO. Um, and then my mom, you know, she, she had a life, she was at a mutual fund company for, you know. Most of her life. But when I was born, she was very present. So then she kind of had an early retirement from that. Um, and kind of pursued her next passion in life, which was interior design. And she kind of went back to school for that and learning and started taking on projects of, you know, Friends and family's houses and redecorating and, um, to this day she, she finds any opportunity to like spruce up a room and make it feel homey. Yeah, yeah. Um, but I gotta, luckily gotta spend a lot of time with her growing up, have her be involved with like school field trips and, you know. Yeah, yeah, that's funny. Piano lessons and all those things. My, uh, my wife's mother, uh, was an interior, kind of a freelance interior designer for most of her like teenage years and stuff in the same way and it, I suspect you have some, um, Uh, a knack of your own in comparison to many of your friends and stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Same thing with my mom, with my wife. She's like always changing things up to make it a little cooler. Make it a little more groovy. Yeah, exactly. and it was just you and your brother? Is that what I, I think I asked two questions and only got to one. Yeah, so me and my brother, again, we're five years apart, so we didn't really go through school together very much. We were always at that one year where, you know, once I was in middle school, he was already in high school, and once I got to high school, he was in college. Um, so, yeah, we, we, we weren't, Like, it's, it's really interesting and I think that's something I'm so grateful for in starting Groovy is my relationship with my brother. Because we've become so, so close. Right. I mean, we talk to each other every day, we work together, um, we've seen each other go through many struggles and hardships now. But growing up, you know, of course we were siblings, we loved each other, but we weren't very close per se. Yeah, yeah. We would see each other at the family holidays and things like that. We weren't very texting often or even. Right, right. Um, I think for a lot of. Time I was just the young little sister, you know, and so he wanted to go do his thing and I wasn't allowed to come play Tell me about tell me about young Anika. Were you athletic? Were you a bookworm? Were you friend had all the friends? Yeah, so You know, I definitely love sports, um, growing up. I think both Nikki and I have something that we shared in that. Um, I think especially in early elementary, I guess I kind of like peaked early in puberty. So I was one of like the taller girls. Right, right. So I was playing like basketball and doing a bunch of the different sports. Volleyball coaches talking to you too. Volleyball was the one sport team that I like did not make the team. So, I'm like, ugh, I don't like volleyball that much. So, um, and then on the, on the book side of things, were you studious right from the start, or? Yeah, I think that I, I definitely really enjoyed learning. Um, and I think that there was a piece that I, I cared about doing well in school. Um, I definitely wasn't, like, flunking out. I, I cared about my grades and put time and effort into it. Um, and then, yeah, I was playing a sport called ringette. Tell me about it. Yeah, so, most people don't know about it. Is it a Canadian thing? It's a Canadian, um, sport. So essentially it's like hockey. Okay. Um, but it was kind of hockey started for the girls club. Okay. Before girls were allowed to play hockey. Yeah. And so it's very similar. It's played on the same rink and ice and everything. Except there is no blade to the hockey stick. So it's just like a straight stick. Oh. And instead of a puck, it's a ring. So you like stick the stick. In the ring, and then you have to kind of pass over the blue lines and stuff. Um, and then women were allowed to play hockey, so that kind of took off as women's hockey, but that's what, where it started. It's big in Canada, and it's big in Scandinavia. And it's still big, even though women are in hockey too now? Yep, yep. In Canada, um, the U. S. has a team and stuff. I don't, I think maybe there's a few states where it's bigger versus others. And so it's like slower shots and stuff, I suppose, because you can't like, do that whack thing you gotta kind of slide it more? It's faster. It's a faster sport. Oh, interesting. Yeah, because you don't have to like stick handle. Right. Essentially. Yeah, yeah. You can stab and skate, right? And then it's in. Um, you do have to pass over the two blue lines, but worth googling to see a little clip of it so you understand. I'm gonna, I'm gonna. So I grew up and I played, my brother played hockey at high level, like triple A, etc. Um, and I played kind of at the national level for ringette. Um, Until the end of high school, and then honestly, I never got back into it after that. That's cool. And, uh, you went off to college at Montreal, and for, for what? Was it in marketing and brand and stuff like that? I was the kind of girl where I had so many different passions and interests, um, that I was kind of confused as to what I wanted to study. So I honestly, I applied to so many different programs. I kind of knew I wanted to go to McGill, which was, um, one, because it was away from home and I was ready to like, you know, go on my own independent adventures. Um, and two, I don't know, I think there's a prestigiousness to, to McGill in terms of like the quality of education that you can get. Okay. So I did really work hard in my last years of high school. Is McGill kind of like the Ivy League of Canada ish? Yeah, everyone kind of quotes it as, like, the Harvard of the North or whatever. Fair enough, yeah, okay. Um, it's a mostly international school. So, I would say that, like, you know, there was a lot of People from other places actually come there, so it must be pretty good, kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, but, so I applied to commerce program, I applied to the arts program, I applied to science. And science is where, really, where my passion was for, like, you know, I loved biology, I loved chemistry. Um, and so I thought I was I'm going to go into science. And then I also applied to a unique program in cognitive science. And so, that's the program I ended up deciding to do. And essentially, I majored in neuroscience and minored in psychology. But it was this program that also married having, um, kind of arts and science together, so you could have a major in neuroscience and you could have chosen a minor in philosophy, for example. Yeah. Um, just so it ended up that mine too that I was most gravitated towards were neuroscience and psych. Um, but you could have mixed and matched a little bit within the program. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, as, I mean, neuroscience has advanced a lot the last, like, ten years. I, I, uh, David Engel's book, The Brain, is a very strong one, at least from my impression. It'll change the way I think about it. Thinking. Thinking, you know, and, uh, and really understanding to what level the, uh, garbage in, garbage out kind of thing is, you know, when, if you fill your head with junk, junk's gonna come out of your mouth too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just how, how, I think one of the most important discoveries in neuroscience in the past, whatever, 20 years is the plasticity of our brain. Right. Totally. The ability to be able to really, you know, You can change the pathways and the connections from, you know, being anxious to not being anxious. You can change the wiring of your brain, right? Yeah. Yeah. And we see that even with people about, I mean, you're, if you're blind, for example, right? Like your brain gets rewired to heighten all of your other senses. Right. Right. Um, so I think that that's one of the biggest things, but yeah, I knew that I really loved the brain and I was just fascinated by it. I thought that there was so much to learn and I think it was because also there's so much that was still being learned. Right. Yeah. Right. We still don't have all the answers, right? Oh, for sure. Like, the progress in physics has been super slow the last 80 years, right? But in neuroscience, there's like lots of new, fresh territory being uncovered all the time. Exactly. So, yeah, with that, my passion and thought was that I was going to be going to med school. Oh. Um, and I knew I wanted to do neuro if I went into med, so that doesn't leave too many options. You can be, um, a psychiatrist, a neurologist, or a neurosurgeon. And so, that's kind of the path that I thought I was headed on, and, um, as, as it got closer and closer to your final years of university, you start figuring out, you know, in more depth and reflecting on that a little bit more deeply. And what I realized is, to get to. Neurosurgery, which is what I thought I wanted to do. It was gonna be like another 14 years of school from where it was. Yeah, and I was like, okay, that's like a big commitment, right? Like that changes the course of your whole life. Now, you're not starting a job until you're maybe 35. Right. Um, you're gonna be in school for, you know, another pretty much 14 years. It's going to be really tough, and so I just had to kind of come back to myself. You'll have 400, 000 in school loans unless your parents are kicking in a big chunk. Yeah, exactly. Um, and so I just had to think really deeply about it. Like, do I love it? Am I so passionate about it that I'm ready to do that, right? Well, and this is the biggest neuroscience experiment ever, right? Like, you're trying to change people's pathways into being those that can say there should be non alcoholic options that are groovy. Yeah, it's interesting because You know, at the time I obviously didn't really be like, Oh, what am I going to do with my degree in neuroscience? I'm going to start this beverage line. But as I go back retroactively and even within building the business, there's been so many ties that are connected to it, right? I mean, on the marketing side from building a brand, just understanding, you know, consumer mindsets and behaviors to actually study the impact of alcohol on the brain in a whole class. And so understanding, you know, How alcohol impacts the brain, how addiction comes to be, struggles around that, right? Um, and to what you said now, rewiring people's brain and ways of thinking around non alcoholic options, around sobriety, around what it means to be social. Um, so a lot of, and it's just a healthier option at the end of the day, right? Are you creating content around that? Like it's not just, hey, check it out, it's tasty. But you're also, are you also doing like commercials or short videos or things like that to try to reinforce that deeper psychological communication? Honestly, we haven't done too much on Kind of tying into the the neuro aspect of it. I think the biggest piece there is when we talk about like habit formations and Essentially when you drink alcohol, you know, it releases dopamine our happy chemical that makes us feel a certain way, right? And so What happens is there's an overproduction of dopamine, and when you stop drinking, now that gap feels even, like, There's a good emptiness there. Exactly, right? And so then you end up feeling more anxious or more sad or lonely or whatever feelings you were maybe feeling before, they're actually exacerbated because of the lack of dopamine that you now have. And so what happens is this is how you build those addiction cycles, right? Well, you're rewired to go. Let me reach for that thing that made me feel good, that made me feel happy. And it becomes this bit of a vicious cycle that's hard to get out of, right? Can groovy, uh, kick in my dopamine? I mean, does your brain make dopamine because it's happy or because alcohol makes it make dopamine? It releases more of the chemical from an actual, like, chemical standpoint of alcohol. Gotcha. Um, but I mean social connections and interactions Right. Give you also a release of dopamine. Well, and so if you, especially if you Kind of focus that on special occasions require groovy, you can start to build those pathways of, of, I'm happy. It's a positive habit and you're not going to kind of have the, um, I mean, part of it is it's an addictive substance, right? Right. There's some things that are hard to compete with, you know, that. Particular element is one exactly fair. Um, and so where did this pivot start to take place? So you're like Next steps where you were graduating with your degree Yeah, so I was getting ready to graduate and a few factors that led into that So I was already kind of on a new path where I wasn't as much On to med school and going the whole journey of neurosurgery Partly I worked in the lab in my last year, um, I'm neuroscience lab in neurosurgery and kind of bringing AI and tech to it so that neurosurgeons could practice and have full like haptic feedback, um, virtually. So like using like a. AR goggles, virtual reality goggles, and then you're, you're operating because to date you, you can't operate on. Right. You can't really practice on real humans. You're actually just cutting into jello, not, uh, not a brain. So they, they've used pig brains a lot, which is like similar to the human brain in some capacity. Um, but this was giving people a human brain that they can actually try on. And so. I was doing more, like, on the research side and data analytics, etc. Um, but I got to try it out, of course. And what I realized is I had a bit of a, like, performance tremor that came about to be when I was doing it. And so, that obviously was not good news to receive. Um, because, I mean, you can't really do surgery if you're, you know, shaken. Um, and so that obviously came to light and I kind of found some other paths that I was looking at where you could be like a physician's assistant where you're not actually the one doing the surgery, but you're kind of like the right hand man and involved in it. Um, and all while that was happening, especially when I was in the lab, it was my last semester of school. I started to question that relationship with alcohol and started to be like, where does alcohol fit into my lifestyle? That wasn't the source of the tremors though. No. Sorry. I haven't figured that out yet. So. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it depends. If I'm doing something like that's really like anxiety provoking or like getting on stage, that's where we'll come. It's very much like performance thing. Um, but now, now I'm not gonna be a neurosurgeon. Um, so what was I just? Oh, just kind of the rest of that pivot. Like, okay, I'm definitely not gonna be a neurosurgeon. Yeah, so that came from kind of my own personal journey of my relationship with alcohol. And so that was really discovered in my last year of university, partly because I was really focused on school. Um, and I kind of set myself an internal goal of ending the year with, A 4.0 and all a's in my classes. So I just became a lot more intentional about it. And partly because I was thinking I was gonna apply to, you know, post-grad PA schools. Right, right. And things like that of course, as well. Yeah. Um, and so as I did that, I started to just become more. Mindful and aware of all of these situations and occasions where alcohol was involved and I would be like, I can't have a hangover tomorrow. I have an important test to write. So you didn't necessarily have a super unhealthy relationship with alcohol, but it was more about to be a high performer. I'm going to take this out of my equation. Exactly. I would say I was It's kind of your average college girl. So you did not have an unhealthy relationship. There was a heavy amount of drinking for sure, but it was just the normal, right? It was so normalized and I think big pieces, I didn't, I wasn't aware of it. It was just like if you're going out with friends, like, of course, there's going to be alcohol there. If we're, it was just, Yeah. Very mindless. Yeah. And so this caused me to become more mindful and start to question, I'm being healthful in all of these other areas of my life, right? I'm intentional about what I'm eating. I really like cooking and food. So that just came very naturally. And as a family, we've always, like I said, grew up playing sports. We've always just been very Health focused and my dad honestly led a lot of that. He just big passion for reading every book that he can kind of finding every little life Hack that he can and sharing that with us and we kind of became guinea pigs on a lot of different things And so yeah with that As, as, and Nikki, my brother, was on a very similar journey at a different phase in life. Well, you are a national level. Ringette. Ringette player. Yeah. And so he, you know, five years older was already in, in working, he was working at Salesforce and I think he really experienced that same like work hard, party hard kind of culture that existed, right? And so same thing. He's like, I care about my health in all of these different ways. But then, you know, there's happy hours with a crazy amount of booze and how does this all come together, right? And you kind of create this cycle where you're like healthy and then unhealthy and healthy and unhealthy throughout the week. Um, and so yeah, kind of started having just little conversations figuring out what was next. I was graduating in a few months. My brother decided to take a year off from salesforce and kind of figure out who's working on his app a little bit and figuring out what he wanted to do next. And so it just so happened that it was this very Um, we were all kind of figuring out what we were going to do next, and as we started to do our research and look for more non alcoholic options within our own lives, we just saw this amazing opportunity to create something that did not exist in the market at the time. Yeah, you're like, O'Doul's, meh. Yeah, something that was fun. Something that was exciting. I think that was a really big piece of it for us, right? We wanted to reach for a beverage and not feel like we were going to be judged for the non alcoholic option we were picking up. So, circle me this. Was this like 2017, 18, 19? How long did this 2018. Okay. Yeah, so I graduated, ended up graduating from college at the very end of 2018. 18. Okay, gotcha. So, uh, It was pretty fast, honestly. A year of whatever. It wasn't so long of, like, ideation and, um, I think my brother loved that a little bit. I'm probably a bit more of the perfectionist between the two of us, um, but okay, let's, let's just go for it. Let's get some product to market. Let's start developing it, not try to wait and make it perfect and know a hundred percent. Let's, you know, entrepreneurial spirit there of bumping into those Canadian learn non opportunities and that precipitated the move to Denver and bada bing, bada boom, here we are. Exactly. I wrote down a question earlier, I was thinking about your family being like Indian food and German food are like opposite land, like what was the menu like at your house growing up? Or was it just Canadian food? Because that was normal. Yeah, I would say it was a good mix. It definitely like. I'm very to it like who was the chef within the house at different periods of her lives. Um, so at one point, obviously my mom was home more, so she was making more of the meals. But later in life, when we were a bit older, I think my dad really transitioned to having a bit more of a passion for cooking. And so that's where he got actually more into cooking kind of some of the traditional Indian foods. I think this is gonna come out after Christmas. So I bought him a whole bunch of. Different new kind of products on the Indian food market that have come out recently. I was at Expo East, whatever, a month or two ago, and I met all of these founders that had these really new, innovative Indian brands with kind of a twist of, you know, bringing in a new, fresh life as well. Yeah, yeah. And so that's his Christmas gift, actually. That's awesome. Have you had, uh, sauerkraut before? Yeah, you know, that's not my favorite. It's good with Midwestern cuisine. How about, uh, let's think of some other, how about Nephla soup? Have you ever had Nephla soup? I don't know that I've heard of that one. It's kind of like, uh, imagine like a creamy chicken dumpling. Okay. Uh, but the neflas are like little dough balls. Ooh, that sounds good. You know, everything should be kind of white or translucent in German cooking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Much different than Indian stuff. I like the spetzle. It's always been one of my favorites. Yeah, spetzle's pretty good. Yep, yep. Um, is your, your surname Sani, I guess that's an Indian name? And that's your dad's last name? It was actually originally Sawani, so it had an extra A in it. I wondered. I've seen that name before. A little bit. more Indian, I guess. Um, but when my grandparents moved to Canada, they had essentially Canadianized it a little bit. Yeah. A guru that said, this is a good luck. You need to remove the A. Um, so yeah. Interesting. Um, have you been to India where your family's roots are? Yeah. Yeah. I've been three times, I guess now. Um, once when I was really little, so I don't really remember that. And then, yeah. Um, in university, I kind of did a big trip with my parents, which was really nice. I've tried to go many times, and so I did that big trip, and I fell in love. I like, just, really, I mean, it stimulates all of your senses, I don't know if you've been to India. I haven't been, but it's definitely on my list. Yeah, so, you know. Every sense is stimulated, but there's so much going on, and just so much culture, and I do think that you have to look past some of the, you know, Yeah. hardships that are in front of you, but there's also so much beauty to the country. Yeah. And so, ever since coming back from that trip, I've been trying to go back, because I was like, I, I really love this. Yeah. And I think I had about three different times, separate occasions, flights booked to India and they all had to get cancelled for various different reasons. Once I got really sick with mono, which was a whole other thing that, you know, was not fun to deal with. Um, once because the airspace was closed between India and Pakistan. Oh boy. Um, once because I think my mom I had kind of a health blip at a period of time that had to cancel. You're like, I'm not going to be in India if this is going to get worse or weirder. Exactly. So I finally got to go. Oh, the last one was COVID. Oh. Literally so many times that I tried to go. And I got to go again last year for when my cousin was getting married. And so I got to experience an Indian wedding in India. Oh, cool. Which was also just kind of a once in a lifetime experience. Was it very traditional style and whatever? I mean, there's like seven, seven events. 7 days long. Oh boy, interesting. Yeah, I mean it was really cool, so I was really happy to go back and actually share that experience with my cousin as well. Tell me about, uh, like, India, the part of India, because India's a big country as it turns out, and there's lots of different regions and cultures even. Yeah, so most of my family is from Delhi. Okay, which is the big, big city, right? Yeah, yeah. The biggest. Like 20 million people or something almost. Yeah. Huge. Um, I got to travel around a little bit to some of the different areas as well. And Delhi's not too far off the southern tip almost, or south? No, it's, it's more north. It's way up there, okay. Um, south, yeah, south you have Kerala is kind of like the bigger and, and the landscape changes so it's a lot more like rich green forest as you get into like the south and going into Sri Lanka and stuff as well. Why is Delhi so big? Is there like a giant river there that gathers all the products from the agriculture? Or like, usually the biggest cities are right on the coast, but it doesn't, that's not, right? Yeah, no, it's, it's inland. Um I don't know. We can look it up later. Wikipedia will tell me probably, or maybe not. I mean, it's the oldest in terms of, you know, kind of the British coming in and setting up, you know, home there as well. So there's a lot of, um Oh, and all the government and stuff. Yeah. There's probably some mass from that. But usually when there's a big city, there's You know, like New York Harbor is amazing. That's, you know, partly why New York is there and whatever, or San Francisco Bay, right? Yeah, yeah. That's a good point. I don't know. Anyway, move on. Um, I, I'm, I'm feeling like we're pretty much caught up to present day and we can jump into the closing segments unless you want to talk about more business y things, like, let's talk about, talk to me about the You talked about family being kind of the vibe, but I assume you've also done a lot of work on, you know, refining your mission. You know, I think I heard that pretty much within that, uh, element there and your values. And like, how do you communicate that with your team, those new coming on and stuff like that? Yeah. So I mean, I think right off the bat, when you hear the word groovy, your mind goes to think of something, right? A certain way of being in a certain way of feeling. And so in the brand that we've built, we've really tried to emulate that feeling. And just to give a little bit of background there, because I mean, I get asked this question a lot. Why, why groovy? Why is that even the name, right? How did that come to be? And so there's a few different factors that play into that. But one of them is, well, Again, this feeling of, you know, letting loose and having fun, we can do that without alcohol. Right? You don't need alcohol to get groovy, to be a little silly, to just be authentic, to be yourself. Right? Um, and so that's one of the pieces. The other one too is from the counterculture, obviously going back to the sixties and seventies of when we think of the word groovy. Yeah, yeah. It was a bit of this counterculture period, right, where people were challenging the norms and so we're kind of doing the same thing today's day and age, except with alcohol and non alcoholic options. And then the last one, obviously, if you are able to like look at the spelling of it, it's not spelled G R O O V Y, but G R U V I with the umlaut, which is our little touch of German heritage in there, but giving it kind of this fresh new look. And with that is. It's kind of our perspective on the category, right? It is a category. It has existed, like I said, for a long time, but how can we kind of bring it back to life and infuse some excitement and love into it and give it a fresh look, um, and hence why we kind of modernize the spelling around it as well. So yeah, with that being said, really kind of The culture that we've tried to create at Groovy has been really mindful around having fun, right? You're like, yes, you're building a business and it's gonna be really tough at times And if you can't find the joys in the moments of building a business I think sometimes that defeats the person then your head down just trying to get to an end goal and part of the journey is That is the journey. Right? I mean, that's what this podcast is about, is just giving that opportunity. You're very young in business. I usually have, like, old guys and gals on my, on my stage here, but, uh, your story was one I wanted to make sure we could share. Um, I think that's great. Uh, I'm going to call a short break and we're going to jump into the closing segments when we come back. Okay. Sounds good. One thing I wanted to make sure we talked about because, because of our acquaintance from the women's conference and really that whatever 500 ladies getting together and making sure their businesses work as good as they can. Um, what has been your experience as a, as a woman in business? Yeah. You know, it's funny because I feel like since that event, I've been a lot more intentional to with connecting with other women in business opportunities. And, um, I think that. The biggest difference that I have seen, and I mentioned this earliest earlier as well, is that notion of confidence is a really big piece that what I've noticed is something almost across the board with women having and feeling as confident in, you know, what they're pitching, even when it comes to like pitching investors or things like that, I was at a talk the other day too. And she was, this is like an angel investor that was speaking to, you know, you know, Women, and she was like, the men, they come in and they, they pitch and they're like, they might not even have the full idea mapped out, but they're like, I, you know, I know what I'm doing. It's going to be amazing. Like, you should, you're going to have FOMO if you miss out on this opportunity, like, um, and just a lot of confidence. Right. And it creates, you know, momentum and people go, okay, they, they feel that. And women, they might have like everything mapped out. They've done all the behind the scenes. They have their data room all put together, but they're just not leaning in and being confident. Um, and I think I've personally experienced that to a high degree, again, also just with my age. Right? Right. So not feeling like I'm definitely don't feel like I'm the most experienced person when I stand in a room. And so why should I? Be able to, you know, speak to a topic or even at the women's conference, right? I was probably one of the youngest women for sure in that room and I was the one getting on stage and I'm like well Why why me right and so that comes back to that whole imposter syndrome piece But you know what? I also shared actually in some of the content of that conference was where I think that As women, and I think there's a really good TED talk on this, that, you know, men are taught to be brave and women are taught to be perfect in many ways. And how can we actually teach our women to be brave? And so we go through life trying to present ourselves, especially in women in business. Like, we think that we need to present ourselves in a certain way to make sure that we get our best chance and really have that perfect image or perfect presentation. Um, and then what we end up doing is holding a lot of stress, right? Mm hmm. Again, there's, you know, male to female, but it's also just person to person and how we react right and how we deal with stressors and me personally, I feel like I'm a very like emotional person. So I take things on my shoulders, even if it's not even my own pain or my own struggle. And so That has probably been one of the hardest things. What do you do to shed that? Yeah, and that's what I'm learning, and that's what I'm going through right now, because I feel like that's been one of the hardest pieces of entrepreneurship for me. Um, again, I dove headfirst into starting Groovy with no background, no sense of the The amount of responsibility that I was all of a sudden going to have on my shoulders, right? The pressure of failing your business, right? That's a big piece to you, right? Especially as you add team members and stuff like that. It's one thing when you're paying mom and dad almost nothing to pack some, pack boxes or whatever, but different thing altogether, when you've got other people with families, with mortgages of their own, you know, yeah, coming to work for a paycheck. Exactly. And so I feel like this past year has kind of been, even when I created my vision board at the beginning of the year, it was called the year of perspective. And I had two parts of it. I had one part that was really focused on, you know, words about balance and rest and meditation and letting go. But another part that was striving towards, you know, amazing big brights and getting out there more and, you know, facing my fears and getting up on stages. Right. And so those tend to feel a little bit contradictory in some ways. And in the middle of it, I had kind of, you know, what that piece is, is finding the balance in between those two. Um, But it's so much easier said than done. It, it really is. Um, and so I feel like I've had to be very intentional with it, especially when you're a family business, right? And so not only am I working with my brother and my whole family, but I'm also working with my boyfriend and my partner. So almost every occasion in my life ends up revolving around groovy in some way or aspect. And so I've kind of, my identity has become so closely tied to Groovy, it's, it, and a lot of me being the brand and the marketing, like a lot of Groovy's voice has been my own voice as well, right? Um, wasn't like, you know, this is Groovy's voice and this is my voice. Sometimes I don't know the difference between the two. Um, and so I think with that, I've had to find ways to like, kind of step back. And for me right now, it's just about like coming back to like, Who am I as a person? Who am I without my company? Who am I, you know, without even my partner or my family? Just understanding me and I think that maybe this is just a period of time in my life and we all go through this. I, I can't speak to that necessarily to now. Um, but just having time to like process. It's the day or the week and like let go of things that I don't need to carry around with me on a daily basis. Um, I think it's a work in progress. A hundred percent. Do you do meditation, yoga, any of those kinds of things to help shift that focus? Yeah. So I've, I really always have since I was young and also influenced by my dad really loved yoga. Um, so coming back to that recently in the past few months I got into breath work a little bit more and I found that that has actually been really transformational. And just, again, letting go of, I don't even know what comes up sometimes. There's no, you know, it's not actually something, it's just energy almost that I can let go of. Um, so I found that that's been very helpful. And then, you know, on my weekends with my partner being intentional, like let's have a date day and like not talk about groovy ones, right? Because it just, again, it comes up in every conversation that I'm a part of. Um, so sometimes you have to be like, okay, you know, I love work, I love my brand, but it's not. It's not me. It's not all that I am. Have you done some things to, like Learn about the, the, the business side of business and not the brand and the marketing so much, but maybe more of the what are, how do margins work and cash flows and inventory turn times and, or are you kind of content to let Nikki and the ops team and dad do most of that stuff? Um, yeah, I wouldn't say that it's, you know, my daily responsibilities on what I'm working on, but I've really been intentional about. Learning it right. Um, again, I think it's been such an amazing opportunity to be my first experience in the workforce. And so touching all these different areas of the business, of course, I'm learning so much about, you know, raising money and capital. And yes, what our margins are. I think it's not my forte. It's not like How my brain works is best and that's why I think Nikki and I are such a great balance together because I'm able to really bring the creative thinking to the company. Right. Um, well, the numbers only measure what already happened, you know, and it's the brand ultimately and the production and the quality and the customer outreach and all that, that makes the numbers happen. But the numbers are just a record of what already did and don't happen. Exactly. So we, we definitely, you know, I, I feel like I have a good sense and learning and even had the opportunity to. Do kind of a business course at Tuck University this past year that was just all encompassing and even, you know, creating my balance sheet and things that, you know, at the end of the day, usually you hire someone to do those things, but to just get a good understanding of all of it. Yeah, you get your fingers all the way in the pie. Exactly. Understand how it works. You don't have to be the one that does it. Yeah, for sure. Um, what would Nikki say is, uh, your single greatest strength as a business person? And then, uh, complimentary question, what would you say about him in the same? Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to answer him first. And while I ponder what he might say, um, I think for him, I mean, he's really, really great at like problem solving, but I think what makes it really special is his adaptability, like in no matter what scenario. And that's why I have so much confidence that, you know, no matter what hardships or what curve balls are thrown our way, we'll get through it. He kind of thrives in those settings. Um, where I feel sometimes I can, I can first reaction be a little bit more panicky. Um, so I think that his adaptability has been crucial to where the business is today. For me, what he might say, I, you know, it's funny, I think we did some sort of Q and A somewhere along the way where he probably answered this question. Um, but I think my brother would say, I mean, passion would probably be a big one. Um, but I also, this wouldn't exist without you. I mean. Yeah. Ultimately, even if he had the idea, he probably wouldn't have chased it in the same way that you did. Yeah. I think thoughtfulness, though, would probably be one that comes to mind. Um, again, I think in every scenario that we're in, whether it's how you're building your team or the partners or relationships that you're building, I'm always trying to think of how I can. Make that feel special for the other person and I think that at the end of the day, you know, building a business, a lot of it is about the community that you build it with the relationships that help you get along the way. And so I've always just been very intentional on trying to see things from other people's perspective. And yeah, yeah, exactly. And making like, you know, we're coming around the holiday season or just finishing up. Right. And like, to me, the holidays is It's really a great time and it's so special to me. Like I love being thoughtful on what gifts I'm going to get everyone for the year. Like to my boyfriend, that's like, Oh, I have, you know, it's a task to have to do. And for me, maybe I go overboard, but I'm like constantly trying to think of a creative and encompassing and thoughtful gift that I can give, not just something that's on someone's list. I've every year depends this year. I feel like I've also been so busy. So, you know, sometimes you might get what's on the list, but I like it. I like it. Um, I think it's time to transition to our faith family. Okay, let's do it. Okay, let's do it. Um. Where would you like to start? Family, I guess. Sure, we've started, we've talked about your family a little bit already. What's uh, what's your dad's superpower? My dad's superpower, um, calm, calmness, calm presence. I think that we kind of He feels very wise to me and definitely someone I've always looked up to, um, in many ways I feel like it was a little bit of a daddy's girl, um, just also from the sports standpoint and stuff, he was very involved in that sense, but yeah, he, and maybe this comes a little bit from a cultural aspect too, from Hinduism and, um, The cult, the Indian culture, but he's always just had a very calm essence to him. A bit of this wise Guru type feeling. Still waters run deep. Yeah. That's something I've heard. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, whenever I'm feeling stressed or overwhelmed I definitely feel like I can go to him and he'll be able to help me see that full perspective And he's taught me a lot about You know, kind of those conversations in your own head, right? Our own thoughts are one of the hardest things to deal with, right? And so, how we react in a scenario and kind of the big picture of life where it's like you can't control what curveballs are going to come your way in life. All you can do is Control your reaction to them and how you move past it. And I think that's definitely a lesson that I've learned from him. Cool. Um, same question about your mother. Yeah, my mom. So me and my mom I think are, are quite similar. And the older I get, the more I see her similarities. Um, which also means that we probably butt heads a little bit more. Sure. Especially growing up in me being a. Teenage girl, you know, going from a 14 year old girl to an 18 year old girl. There's at least going to be a few points where she bumps her mom's head hard. Yeah. So sorry, mom about that. Um, but it's been, it's been really cool to come back and work with her as well. Right. And what she does for the company. Yeah. So she's kind of run our whole, and again, maybe this is where the. Thoughtfulness trait comes from, but she's really run our whole customer support side of the business. Mm-Hmm. And then as well as our kind of logistics on the D two C side of the business. Okay. Um, but again, that came from, you know, just her thoughtfulness and how to deal with customers and how to make everyone feel special. I mean, when we get. So, um, if you have any customer questions coming through our, um, website, like, she'll take the time. She'll, she'll look at, you know, who this person is. Oh, they have this company. She'll read all about the company. She'll come back and she'll tell us, Oh my God, this person had this company and they bought Groovy. And like, she'll give us the whole background story and, um, Again, I think it's, it's so nice because she's so intentional about like making everyone that comes through, not just like a number, but making them feel special and intentional. Um, so it's been cool to work with her and she's definitely, like I said, interior design. So she has a bit more of the creative thinking side that I have as well. And so being able to work with her, one of the projects we took on together was building our tap room that we opened in Denver. So. Oh. Cool. Thank you. So this was a, like, uh, temporary pop up that we ran for the summer after COVID, so in 2021, I guess. Okay. And we decided to open a groovy tasting lounge. Yeah, yeah. And so her and I decided pretty much to do it all ourselves. Everything from, like, let's paint the whole place to let's, like, make all the paintings that go on the walls. Let's, like, construct it all. Like, it took so much time and effort. And in retrospect, I wouldn't do it again. Right. Right. It was the experience. Yeah. And so, being able to do that project and see that vision come to life with her was really exciting as well. Very cool. Uh, you've mentioned a boyfriend slash partner. I assume it's the same person. Same person. That's good. Uh, would you like to talk about him at all? Yeah. So, Alex is my partner. We've been together For six years now, um, we met in our last year of university, and yeah, you know, like I said, So he was part of the Beverly Hillbillies thing? Packed up and followed you guys out here too? Almost, a little different. He didn't intentionally pack up and come with us. You know, I spent that first summer out in Denver and I was like, just come and hang out with us. We're in Denver, you know, have fun. Right. Of course he comes and hangs out with us. And really what that means is now he's knocking on doors, selling groovy. Right. And doing all the farmer's markets. Look, you got a job already. Why don't you just stay? It's like, I don't know if that I planned that this was what my summer was going to be like. Um, but again, it was, it was really funny because now he was living in the same house as my whole family and having this experience with us. And so it kind of just all happened really naturally. I wouldn't say we had some big conversation like, Do you want to come and start and work with Groovy? Or do you want to stay here and it's over? Exactly. So that never happened. We didn't have that conversation. Maybe that's why he didn't bring it up. Um, but yeah, he's been a tremendous support through this entire journey. And, um, I'm so grateful to, in retrospect, I can't imagine working with someone that Or, I guess, dating someone that I wasn't working with in this realm because he just really understands the experience, the process, what I'm struggling with on a daily basis and we don't work together on like, Right. He doesn't report to you. No, he doesn't report to me and he's on the sales side. And so, big picture, of course, we, you know, work together on a bunch of things, but, you know. We're not working on the exact same project per se on a daily basis. So I think that that's helpful. Um, but he just understands my struggles. He understands when it's hard for me to put the laptop down because this thing is due. And so, um, and he's able to help me solve a lot of the problems together. Um, so I'm, I'm so grateful for, for his support. And, um, I think it's. It's made it really interesting, for sure. What's your, what was his name again? Alex. Alex. And what's your favorite thing about Alex? Um, oh wow. So, I feel like there's so many. Um I would say that my favorite thing is, I mean, his, his like, loyalty to his friends, his family, me, like he's just so committed to the people that he loves and I think that that you're able to really see that and feel that and Really good at, like, listening and making you feel seen. Yeah. Um, and I think at the end of the day, that's one of the most important traits that For sure. Someone can have. Yeah. For sure. Uh, same question, what would he say about you? His favorite thing about you? Oh my god. You're killing me. Um, what would Alex say about me? See, it's like, hard it's hard for me to come up with a trait about myself, right? Well, I know. That's I'm I'm trying to ask hard questions. If it was just an easy walk in the park, we could do that on Zoom. Um, what would he say about me? It'd be easier to think about if you were drinking a little bit more. Just kidding. Only my favorite non alcoholic rosé. Um, This is really good, by the way, too. This, uh, Prosecco? Yeah. There you go. It's good for New Year's Eve. Mm hmm. Less hangovers. I think Alex would say Maybe my creativity as a piece. Um, I think it's, it's very different from his lens and his way of thinking. He seems like a very structured and kind of put together responsible. He is a little bit. I mean, I don't think I mentioned this, but he's also German as well. Okay. So that German piece comes back. And I think there's a cultural piece to that as well. And just kind of way of being. And so I think kind of like my free spirit. Is something that he's attracted to and, um, I'm very much for the most part, maybe less so as I get older, but like pretty spontaneous and like, you know, let's, let's just do this experience. Let's just, you know, book a trip here and like go do it. And so I think that something that he definitely gravitates towards and also like admires because it's maybe not one of his strong suits. The image I had in my head was a sail. Uh, like that, you're sure that the sale is going to take you someplace new. And, you know, and just get us someplace we haven't been before. Yeah, exactly. I think I have that little bit of zest for adventure, um, in my life. The wanderlust style. Um, You said you didn't have too much to say about politics. Mm hmm. Uh That would be Alex's topic. Oh, okay. Interesting. He studied political science in, um, university, and so He's always up in there and reading everything, but honestly Does he try to talk to you about it, and you're like, I don't Really care he'll update me on, on things and I'll, I'll definitely listen and try to educate myself on it. I think it's just not something that I like gravitate towards. And also just, I find sometimes there's just politics these days get into so much politics versus you know? Yeah. Actually doing things. Yeah, exactly. And so I just feel like I don't have so much patience for it. And, um. Sometimes it's just a lot of negativity that like, I feel like I don't need in my life right now. So do you feel like Americanized now? Um, are you still kind of like paying attention to what, like if I say politics, are you thinking about Canadian politics in your mind a little bit or American? Probably still Canadian to some degree. Um, but I think. American politics has a lot more interesting things going on. Well, we got Donald Trump, I mean, come on. Exactly, so that's where most of my updates come from, for sure. Uh, but, yeah, I would just say for the most part I'm not overly political in my way of thinking. And I come back to just, you know, at the end of the day, values of my own values in life. And, um, The people's values. But I think sometimes it gets caught up in, in just like too much show worthiness that it doesn't come back to like the true efforts of what we're trying to do to better. Yeah. Oh yeah. So much is for like virtue signaling and different things these days. Yeah. That's what I don't like about making American politics. For sure. I feel you there. I'm a cynic. I've, I've voted third party ever since I was 18. Pretty much. So yeah. Everybody hates me. What, uh, what I wanted to ask was, Oh, tell me about, like, Canada. Like, uh, there's nine provinces or something? Eleven? How many? And it's like, all the people are kind of Toronto, Montreal, and then a few out in Vancouver and stuff, right? You really have just, like, three main cities. Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, and Calgary to some degree, but a lot smaller. Right. Um, there's a lot of, Middle, I mean the prairies where you have Alberta, Manitoba, like there's not much, Winnipeg, not much going on. Right, right. Yeah, Winnipeg is like the only thing going on. When you drive, I mean, it's still huge when you're driving from, you know, Toronto to Vancouver, like, it's gonna take you four or five days to get across the country. Right. So, I mean, it's huge in that respect. I haven't seen, you know, half the country to, to some degree. Have you been across over to Vancouver or something? I have, I have been to, done some exploring in B. C. I mean, my family, we're big skiers. Also one of the great perks of Colorado. Right. Um, so we've definitely done some exploring in B. C. and I have done an East Coast trip all the way up to, um, the Maritimes. Oh. Uh huh. As well, which has been really nice. Um, but Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I, I, I am really proud to, to be Canadian. Um, but when I think about where I want to live and kind of settle down in my life, well, you're left with three cities and I think Toronto has kind of taken its toll on me. I think what I've learned is I'm really an outdoorsy person. And so a city like Denver is really something I'm Calgary's like the only one that might appeal a little bit. Yeah, and then you're kind of in this city that I don't know how much it has to offer. So, um, yeah, I, I don't really know where, where I see myself ending up, truly. Yeah, fair enough. Um, faith is the third of the non touchable topics that we'll talk about. Yeah! Uh, you, uh, was your mom from a faith perspective, uh, German Lutheran kind of style, or? Yeah, so, I mean, her family was, but again, not overly, I mean, I think it was just kind of, Little ish. got passed down from generations in some degree. Um, and so we did grow up, and we did go to, Church for like Christmas and for Easter and stuff like that. Your dad wasn't a practicing Hindu? Or ish? Also ish. So I think both of them didn't have really strong, um, religious views one way or the other. Yeah. And so I, I don't know if my dad would fully consider himself, like, practicing Hinduism, but, like, he identifies with it and a bit more of, like, the cultural Um, and so there was a period in my life where I actually, like, I went to like Christian camp, like overnight Christian camp. Um, and I really, I really loved it because I thought that it taught me some really great values. I think that was like the biggest piece about it. I heard you say that term a few times now. Yeah. And, and the, the people that were there were, you know, really amazing. And so I really, it brought a lot of joy to me. Um, and so at one point I thought I was gonna, like, I almost, I think, had asked my parents, like, can I go get, um, not baptized, but I do my Confirmed. Confirmed, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And probably also because I had friends that were going through their confirmation and stuff, too, and I was like, I think this is what I want. Um, I didn't end up doing that, and so I consider myself, yeah, not overly faithful to any religion, um, I lean a little bit more recently to and, um, on a spiritual side when I think of spirituality, like I think of a bit more of like the energies that people have, right? And kind of those vibrations that we do put out into the world. And so I lean a little bit more and resonate with that because I guess the science girl in me does understand that we do really all have an energy that we're radiating off of and, um, even if you think of like, you know, when a dog walks into the room, right? Like they can play off the energy in the room. Um, so I think that that's something on the spiritual side that I kind of lean into a little bit more. I haven't delved into it in too much. And then for me, it's like a bit more of those cultural aspects. I wouldn't say like I'm atheist, I guess, but I'm not, I don't know what the definition would be. I think agnostic might be the term you're looking for, like, I'm not saying there's no God, but I don't know what his name is either. Yeah, exactly. Um, and I think that my partner Alex kind of views things the same way. I've, uh, I think of it all as kind of the same. Like, I imagine like all these different kind of faiths thing as having different blurriness of lenses. Uh, and you know, for me, we've got a lot of stuff from this Jesus guy, and they wrote it down and stuff. And so it's, to me, the clearest of the blurry lenses in some ways. But I think they're all talking about the same thing. Like, at least of the, the monotheist faith, uh, and the, and it is like energetic, you know, that going with the flow of the universe is kind of like walking in God's path for you. Like it's the same, it's different words for the same general understanding of how things kind of work. Yeah, I agree. To me, it's like. I, I don't necessarily believe in, in a lot of the stories that come with it to any degree, but I think that the, a lot of them have really great lessons to teach you and to like live by in, in that sense, right? And essentially to be a good person, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's the other, you know, commonality is like integrity is valued in every culture. Yeah. You know, truth, nonviolence, uh, and bravery, justice, courage, you know, all those things, right? Yeah. So we know what's good, and we know it's hard, uh, to always be good. Groovy makes it easier. There's something to that, I imagine. Um, we close with the loco experience. The craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share. In my short baby lifetime. Um, craziest experience. Ooh, can I ask an addenda question? Maybe. Can you tell me the craziest alcohol experience that you've had? Craziest alcohol experience? Yeah, like kind of a big overnight bender, or found yourself in Chinatown. Um, let's see, okay. One, so many things going through my, my life. Um, can I give you a choose your own adventure for like the first one? Or do you want me to answer the second one? Or do you want me to, one story? No, I'm going to give you two. I want to have a non alcohol one too. Okay. Oh, you mean you have more than one crazy alcohol story? No. Okay. Well, honestly, yes, but. You'll, you'll get an opportunity to have a non alcohol related, uh, crazy experience too. Um, okay, so for. For alcohol, my own experience of, gosh, um, I'm just thinking this one time I fell off the bar, but that's not really that, that's not really funny. It's not that crazy. It's not. Um, okay, well, I was drinking, but I wouldn't say that I was like the main focus of this experience. It wasn't because you were, yeah. Yes, so I did my exchange in Hong Kong. Oh, okay. And, um, loved Hong Kong, and with that, Pretty early on, I think within a month, you know, you're meeting all these new people and you don't know anyone, you're finding friends, etc. And so my roommate and I made a friend, two friends, these two guys that we met and you know, we're out there so you're trying to see all of Asia and travel as much as you can. So we wanted to book a trip. So we booked a trip into the middle of the Taman Nagara jungle. Okay. Which is, um, one of the largest rainforests. It's the oldest, not largest, oldest rainforest, obviously we have Amazon, um, the oldest rainforest and it was like this one day trek out there and we slept in the cave. Um, so that just gives you the preface of like these two random guys that we didn't really know. We went on this trip with them overnight walking through the jungle, seeing snakes and then sleeping in a cave together. And so we bonded, we had, you know, good experience with these guys and then we get back to Kuala Lumpur. And we had one day there before flying back out, and So we had like a hostel party, I think, and so we're all there, we're drinking, we're having our night, and our flight was like really early, it was like at, you know, something where you need to get to the airport at like 3 a. m., right? So we're like, hey, we're just not gonna sleep, we're just gonna stay up all night and then go right to the airport. And so, you know, we're, all of us on our own adventures, I feel like, that night. And, of course, Booz was involved too. De various degrees for all of us. Anyways, one thing leads to the next, and essentially we're like, okay, we, we need to get ready. We need to go to the airport. Where are the two guys? We start looking for them. Okay. We can't find them anywhere They're supposed to going with you? Yeah, they're on our flight. Okay. And we're like, okay. We know them again. We just spent a day in the jungle with them, but like, we also don't really know them. And so we're like, we haven't seen them. We couldn't really remember. And so, we're like, searching everywhere for them. I'm like, okay, well, I'm gonna go start packing their bags. So I go into the, like, room, and, you know, obviously tipsy, trying to pack their bags with their stuff in it. And, we call an Uber, or a cab. It comes up, and they walk towards us, and they can barely walk. They are like, stumbled, hammered. Like, but then, they're bleeding. Their legs are bleeding. And we're like, what's happening? We're like, I don't know, we need to just like, go to the airport, like we're gonna miss our flight if we don't get there. Okay. And so we kind of like rally them up and we get there and we get to the airport and they're just so out of their minds. Okay, like no one's home, like you knock and no one's home. Right, right. maybe have experienced that or seen someone experience that. Um, and so again, you know, early in the morning, we're all so drunk ourselves trying to figure out how to get these guys to the airport. Like they can't even walk. They can't even talk. How are they going to get through security? Right? And again, their legs are bleeding. I'm asking them like, what happened with your legs? Like what's going on? They like, They can't speak. I don't know what's going on. So, the other girls that we're with, we're with like two other girls, they're like, Okay, sorry, we don't really know these guys. We need to go catch our flight. We're gonna go. Right. And so they run. And they go catch the flight. And the boys are just like In dodo land like we can't really move them. They're big guys too. Like what am I supposed to do? Carry you? Like, I don't know. Um, so what do I do? So I go and I get two wheelchairs and I put these boys in wheelchairs. Awesome. And I wheel them through security myself and get them on to the flight. Your girlfriend didn't stick with you? No one wanted to help support my cause. They wanted to make You were like, we gotta get these guys there! They wanted to make their flight and, you know, drunk me is like, No, like, we can't leave these people, these drunk boys that can't even speak in the middle of Malaysia. Like, we can't do that. So, like, something inside me was like, we need to get them through. And so, whaling, whaling them through. And we did, and we got them through. Um, and on the flight, and landed back in Hong Kong. And we don't know the story to this day, what happened to them. Essentially, one of them had a broken leg and so he had to go to the hospital and get his leg fixed. The other shattered his, both of his heels and had to get major surgery and full pins and was actually in a wheelchair for the rest of exchange. But you don't know how, at least. They don't know how and we don't know how, so no one knows how, so that just shows you, alcohol. See, that was a good story. Yeah, so it's a story that. It's a mystery to this day. Well, and it's a reason to have stuff like this. Um, okay, how about the non alcohol crazy experience? Non alcohol crazy experience. Um, yeah, so choose your own adventure. That was a solid one, by the way. I liked that one. Okay, I'm happy. Um, so choose your own adventure. We could go a route of something to do with Forbes, or we could go a route of, like, more personal journey and accident experience. Gosh, well, we were going to touch on Forbes, and we didn't. Um. So let's hear the Forbes one, and if it's really good, we'll do the third. Too many stories. Um, okay, so, it's funny because I gave you this, and I'm so embarrassed to have to share this story with you and the audience. Um, and this is truly a story that not many people know, so now it's going to become somewhat public. But I think that the vulnerable piece of me says that you should share it, so we'll do that. So, obviously, Forbes, 30 under 30, right? Wow. It feels like a milestone that people strive for and you know, a huge recognition for the brand and kind of just to give the backstory of how that came to be is my PR team was, you know, pitching the groovy story out like they always are. And they were pitching one of the Forbes writers and she was like, Oh my God, this is a really amazing story. I love what groovy is doing in their mission. How older are the founders? Like you should have them submit to the under 30. Can I nominate them? And so. Nikki was 30, so he was no longer under 30, um, so they were like, have Annika submit to it. And so I was like, okay, they came back. I'm so excited. I'm like, I can't believe it. Look, she really wants me to submit. Okay, but the same time this like internal fear came up, right? And I was like, I don't know how I'm supposed to like stand out in this application. Like, I'm really, we're just still such a small business and like, I don't, you know, I just had very little, I guess, confidence. It comes back to that trait and kind of the other learning is, you know, part of this perfectionism piece coming up. And so I say this because I'm embarrassed because I'm embarrassed to say I almost missed the opportunity to be on the Forbes list. Because I got in my own way. And so this, you know, You'd like start the application but not quite finish and stuff. Yeah, exactly. So the application comes through and you still have some time. And there's just so many other business things going on, of course. So I'm dealing with those and essentially going through the application. So I sit down and I'm like, hey, I need to tell the perfect story. I need to make myself stand out. I need to be appealing. I need to like, you know, really showcase how far we've built Groovy because Again, these are big shots that make the four absurdi and somehow I have to fake it until I make it type of thing, right? That's what I'm thinking in my head. And so to me that was this central fear trying to hold me back from maybe rejection of actually Putting it in and not getting it submitted and, um, and so I go and I submit this application. I fill out the first page of like, you know, answering all the questions, the detail about, you know, the whole groovy story. And we have 20 minutes to the deadline and I go to press submit. And then I realized when I press submit, it's not a submit button. It's a next page button and you have to like fill in the data to like be able to know that. So I click next, I click submit what I think is submit, and I realize there's another page. I fill in just like random things in the blanks, and I realize there's eight more pages of questions, and I have 20 minutes till midnight. And so, oh my god, you should have seen my face. When I had this, I'm like, oh my, I don't even know how to do this. I was with my boyfriend too, and he was like, are you, are you kidding, right? Like, how are you gonna do this? At that moment, I just knew that I had to like, let go of any of that perfectionism, let go of that fear. All I could do was just answer whatever came to me in that moment and just be like, Honestly, just the most authentic person I could be in that moment, right? And so I did. I like, answered those questions as fast as I could, putting, you know, my own personality truly across, and I submitted it, and um, yeah, obviously Like 1158. Just in time. I knew that if I did anything I had to at least get it in, in time, or else I'm really missing this opportunity. So, got it in just in time, and then I didn't hear anything from Forbes for Whatever, six months. So I'm like, hey, obviously I didn't make it to the next round or whatever, right? I'm not gonna get it. And the day the list comes out, I get an email. Oh, they didn't tell you ahead of time? They don't tell you ahead of time. Um, and every like category is a little bit different. So obviously I was in food and Bev. And I didn't, to this day, I didn't get an email. Maybe I did somewhere. I don't know where it is. But I got an email from a friend, a partner that we once worked with, and said, Hanukkah, I saw you on the list, congrats. And I was on, I was in Mexico with, um, my partner, and I was like, wait, what? I pull up my own phone, it was Google Forbes, trying to find my name, and I was like, oh my god. I made it. I was in disbelief. I, like, hadn't heard anything and I was sure that I wasn't going to make it. And so, yeah, to me it's just a crazy story and a real raw story of, like, we can miss opportunities in our lives. We can hold ourselves back because of fear, because of trying to be perfect in some way. And if we can just let go and kind of embrace that and being vulnerable, just being authentic. Very real. Yeah, then maybe you'll end up on the Forbes list or the, uh, you know, whatever the goal that you're trying to reach is. That's the, uh, I forget who told it to me, but very recently there's like a super bonding agent or whatever what people are drawn to as far as charisma and stuff or whatever, but authenticity. More than very good looks, more than very intelligent, things like that, but authenticity actually has the most horsepower in terms of gathering buy in and drawing people to your cause. Cool, I like that. I mean, I don't doubt it because you can just sniff it out, right? Right, oh yeah. You can really tell. Yeah, you know when somebody's being very real. Alright, uh, very real about, uh, I'm gonna give you the third local experience. Accident. You said there was some personal story? Yeah, so this was in my second year of university. Um, essentially I had kind of terrible hiking accident. Oh, okay. And so we had, um, a house up in kind of the mountains in Tromba, which is kind of the small ski town outside of Montreal. Yep. And, um. I was going for a hike with just me and my friend, and it was October, so essentially there's this rock face that's like really slick because water was like, you know, dripping down it, and so I slipped on the rock face and slid down for, I don't even know, at least 15 feet or something, um, slid down like almost like a water slide. Off the trail, oh, oh. No, so it's like sheer. Oh, right. Nice slick rock. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm sliding down. So almost think of like a water slide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going fast and I'm going for, you know, a while. And all of a sudden there's another rock that sticks out. And so both my feet, feet first at full speed into this rock. And so essentially my leg completely snaps to the side. And uh, I'd never broken any bone. I never had any injury in my leg. No real pain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, we get there, and obviously my friend sees this too, she watches the whole thing, and I get to the bottom, and I just look, and I know for a fact my leg is broken because it's literally 90 degrees to my leg. Right, right. My foot's sticking out. And so Adrenaline kicks in, and I worked on this mountain, like, through my summers and stuff, so I had some connections. So, right away, it was really interesting to see you go into, like, I don't know, um, kind of crisis mode. So I was like, Adrenaline, I'm the one with the broken leg, I'm like, Hey, here, Melissa, it's okay, this is what you need to do. You need to call the, uh, patrol, this is the patrol number, call them and tell them we're in the middle of, literally the mountain and We need someone to come help so she takes that role on and I'm sitting there The problem is it's October like I said, so the water is coming down this rock face that I slid down But then where that rock was it all kind of pooled up and so I'm stuck into this really cold water So I'm staying there and I wait pretty much end up being there for like two hours Oh wow. So you start getting hypothermia. Right. And I can't really do anything and no one wants to, there's a few other hikers that come by and they're like there to help and support and trying to help us get the patrol but no one wants to touch you. Right. No one wants to move you because you know, you don't know what happens if you move. Someone and then they become paralyzed or whatever, you know, people are very hesitant about that. So no one wanted to touch me. The best moment was someone had a dog and the dog came in to the little water pool and gave me a little lick. So that was like the highlight of that experience. Oh my goodness, and you're just like sitting there slowly freezing to death. Slowly freezing and so it took patrol like a long time to come up and they had to come up on the mountain on like an ATV. And rescue me from that scenario, um, and then I made a full recovery on the leg. What happened? So, so then I'm lying face down in the water. What I didn't know is the impact was so strong that not only it broke my leg, but like the leg, you have two bones in your leg, right? Your fibula and your tibia, the tibia. So what happened is the fibula broke so far. It pushed the tibia outside of my skin. So it was an open fracture. Yep. So my bone's sticking out of my skin, but my skin is, like, the open wound was in the water, the running water, for two hours. So it's like massive opportunity for infection. Rotting flesh and bacteria and all that. And I had no idea because I couldn't see that side, so I didn't even know. Yeah, somebody should have drug you out of that. So when they like, the patrol comes, they're like, uh oh. Yeah, there's gonna be a recovery, there's gonna be a recovery season here unfortunately. And so we don't need to get into, like, all the nitty gritty details, but Lots of gross dead flesh and pain, I'm sure. Exactly. Um, get to the hospital. I'll say this one piece because it's really funny. So my dad, you know, he gets a call. He needs to come meet us at the hospital. He meets us there. It's a small little mountain town hospital too, right? So, you know, they don't have all the resources for surgery and things like that. Anyways, he gets there and I'm in the operating, not in the operating room, maybe the like room where they put it back into place, but he's behind me. And all of a sudden I hear like, and like something falls like, you know, some of the med kits and things just fall. And I look at the doctor and I like, I'm like, what just happened? And he's like, Oh, your dad fainted. And I was like, No, really? And he's like, Yep. And then people come in and they like need to lift him up and sit him back down. And so essentially, he's like, he saw saw me said hi, and then was like behind me and saw the wound and fainted, which is just I think he doesn't like when I tell that story. Well, yeah. Plus, he's all the Mr. Calm and you are the Mrs. Calm in that situation. Exactly. Um, and so yeah, it was definitely a pivotal point. point of my journey. Then I had to, the recovery road, like I was in a cast for pretty much the rest of that year, um, was in crutches. I had to kind of drop out of school for that semester. For the most part, I had to move back home with my parents, kind of be taken care of for the rest of that year. Um, a year where I think is, it's really exciting. You're in your second year of university. You finally have all your friends. You're looking forward for all of these, you know, different experiences. And now I was, It's, you know, doing schoolwork with my parents. Um. Do you remember the moment, like the misstep or whatever it was that caused this slide to start? Yeah. Do you have all that, a video of it in your head almost? Yeah. Yeah. I know. I've gone back and like looked at it and I did my own little, I think it's been emotional to go back to that exact spot and see where it happened. Um, but. Yeah, I mean, I think it taught me a lot, too, and ultimately I ended up doing an extra semester of school, um, which landed me to, you know, Discovering my own journey with alcohol and launching Groovy, so it maybe comes full circle, yeah, exactly, but, um, yeah, I think that, you know, lots of doctors and stuff that saw me and was like, wow, that's like a pretty crazy injury to have and to have experienced an open fraction, open fraction. The little science girl in me thought it was really cool to see my own bone, so I will say that, but Yeah, not me. I actually saw my own bone too. I crashed a motorcycle a week before I graduated high school. Oh no! Yeah, but it wasn't nearly as gnarly as yours truly, so I've never shared it in this forum. I was before, but going back now I definitely, it's changed my perception on like, you know, become a little bit more like skittish on things or if I see someone and I'm like, No, don't do that! You're gonna fall. Yeah, exactly. So, there you have it, my, my three crazy stories. Well, I see a lot more crazy stories in your future, and I hope some of them, uh, you know, have, uh, fastest growing companies on the Inc. 500 or 5, 000, things like that. And, uh, I'm looking forward to my next groovy time with you. Yeah, we'll keep making every moment more groovy. Oh, do you want to tell people where to find it? I heard you say direct to consumers, so you can just order it right on the website too, huh? Yep, yep. So we have a website, Chips Everywhere, in the U. S. So that's probably the easiest way to go. And it's like G R U V I dot com? It's Get Groovy. Get Groovy? Okay. Um, so that's the easiest way to go. And then, yeah, keep an eye, like, supporting us through, you know, the retailers is honestly probably the most impactful way for the business. If you don't see Groovy at your neighborhood Retail store you can ask for it. Yeah, they just say hey, have you had groovy yet, especially in Colorado This is like I said our home market So we're really invested makes it easier to sell all the other places if you can get a real high density concentration here Yeah, all right. I'm on it. I'll ask my friendly neighborhood liquor store guy today. Yes All right. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Thank you