Ep. 81 Happy Dad co-founders John and Sam Shahidi

The Nelk Boys and Full Send brands enjoy millions of engaged and energized fans, especially among young men -- the perfect demo for a hard seltzer. Harry speaks with Happy Dad seltzer co-founders John and Sam Shahidi in a hotel suite in Austin about how they got the idea for Happy Dad, coming up with the product, getting started with distribs and retailers, the secret to maintaining celebrity brands, and more. (Note: Audio quality isn't great so we had subtitles added to the video version of this pod on youtube, which you can find at https://www.youtube.com/beerwriter ). ---time-stamped contents--- 00:00 intro - intro/ing john and steve shahidi of happy dad.  harry gets the nelk-mania treatment in austin. 02:00 nelk boys background.  more than just pranks - authentic. full send. 05:00 nelk boys treat everybody the same. 07:00 all about the fans. 08:00 pitching happy dad idea to nelk. 09:30 creating the product itself. 10:00 ((usual technical difficulties)) 10:15 formulation -- lower carbonation, electrolytes. 11:15 naming it. 12:45 managing a diverse team. 13:00 choosing flavors. 18:00 launched brand in cali, june 2021. 19:00 first day of launch: "absolutely destroyed". 20:00 adding initial retailers, then expanding. gopuff/bevmo. 21:15 promoting sustainable re-buys. 21:30 convert the beer drinker. 21:45 going with fat can. 23:30 secret to maintaining celerity brand:  brand has to become bigger than celebrity. casamigos vs indoggo. 27:00 pre-sold 100k cases in tex. trying for a million.  in six months 368k equivs in 3 states. 28:15 gaining breweries. 29:00 overcoming supply chain issues. 29:30 4mm ce forecast 2022. 31:00 getting mobbed at heb. 34:00 telling stories. 35:00 being instagrammable (like @bevbizblonde) 38:00 grokking on-premise.  ufc watch parties. 39:15 distributor partners.  getting w&s distribs into c-stores "is like lebron going to cleveland." 41:15 "i know how big we're gonna be." 42:00 believing in retailers and distribs who believed in them early on.  (gopuff, rndc, etc.) 44:30 importance of being in the cold-box. 45:00 learning from rndc. 46:00 spec's first chain.  then heb. 47:30 talking beer summit, jan 8, '23 palm beach. 50:00 rollout plans rest of year. 50:00 hitting markets where celebrities don't go. 52:30 pos, and merch drops. 54:00 full send nft/metacard. ---About--- Beer Business Daily publisher Harry Schuhmacher joins his editors and other guests once or twice a week as they grok the industry issues of the day.   -Podcast Hotline: Text or call Harry in confidence at:‪ (262) 345-2501‬ -Audio/Video feeds at https://linktr.ee/beernet -Articles referenced at beernet.com -Twitter / IG / TikTok:  @beerbizdaily