An Interview With Martita Mestey
A story / cause — Making a great product is just not enough anymore, the decisions and efforts a company makes in sustainability or ethical sourcing is becoming just as, if not more, important. We built OVO Vodka around our cause, OVO literally stands for ‘Our Five (V) Oceans’. Not every beverage brand needs to be built around a cause but should always keep this in mind.
As a part of our series called “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jon Dunnington, COO of OVO Vodka.
A seasoned entrepreneur with over 13 years of experience in the creative industry, Jon has previously founded two successful UK-based start-ups prior to relocating to the US in early 2016. Now turning his attention to OVO, an award-winning vodka brand which advocates for oceans without plastic waste. Jon also holds a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and a master’s degree in business administration minoring in marketing awareness.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?
I would love to say my passion for liquor started at a young age but… that would be frowned upon. I grew up in Liverpool, England as one of 4 kids (2 older sisters and a younger brother) in a typically working-class Northern English family. My parents were somewhat entrepreneurial, and this is something that was certainly passed down to myself and my siblings, in high school I would bulk buy snack and candy and resell for profit (which I then ended up eating most of, but the process was there) and in college I organized parties and charged entry fees. When it came to education, shortly after my GCSEs I pursued my A-levels but began to realize that my passion was more in the creative arts which led me to a career in design. In the later years after college, through freelancing and starting my own agency, I fell in love with business, and through socializing with friends, I fell in love with liquor, leading to starting a liquor business.
Can you share with us the story of the “ah ha” moment that led to the creation of OVO Vodka?
Of course, this is one of those rare upsides of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was during lockdown that the moment came to us, but I will rewind a little to the seed that planted the ah ha moment: We (myself and Anthony, my business partner here at OVO) met the guys at Misunderstood Whiskey in summer of 2019 at a Christmas in July event. We got talking liquor and we knew we wanted to get involved in the liquor industry and started to learn what we could. Following a bunch of terrible ideas (e.g., chocolate tequila) we landed on vodka but wanted to do something unique and find a way to use this model to give back somehow… then the ah ha moment comes. During lockdown, as we began to see news features such as dolphins being sighted in Venice canals, turtle migrations in India, etc. Anthony called me and simply said “Hey, a vodka company that removes plastic from the ocean… no idea how we do it, but let’s figure it out”. The rest, as they say, is history.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
This wasn’t really a ‘mistake’ or life lesson in any stretch, and I am confident there will be multiple of these over the coming years, but in the name of poking fun at ourselves, this is a comment which I tell people about often. When we were first exploring this opportunity and started learning about the industry, we were on a call with an industry leader who was kindly passing down some well-needed advice. At the time, Anthony and I had no idea on the terminology in the industry, and he mentioned the term ‘O.N.D’, to which we asked for a pause as we picked up a pen and paper and asked “Sorry mate, you said ‘OND’, I gather that’s an industry term sorry can you just tell us what that stands for?” and he replied *long pause* “…October, November, December”. What have we learned? That some people call ‘Q4’ ‘OND’ and we’re not as intelligent we think we are.
What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they start a beverage line? What can be done to avoid those errors?
In all honesty, being so new to the market ourselves, we would not like to comment on other people’s mistakes. What I would be happy to discuss though is the mistakes that we thankfully avoided thanks to great advice from industry peers. One of the these being, don’t go too big too fast. We spent almost 17 months getting our product just right and testing with limited focus groups so when we launched, we had the best product we could create, and the business was scalable by reaching small, attainable milestones. We set a target of XX vendors before we invested in consumer marketing, we didn’t want to tell the consumer about a product that they can’t easily access. It seems exciting coming out the gates roaring, but if you cannot maintain the supply chain, you run the risk of creating a fuss and then falling completely silent, losing the traction with the consumer and the shelf space with vendors. Another great tip we got was to ‘avoid expanding for vanity’, this is potentially more unique to us given that we are based out of Hudson County and have NYC on our doorstep. It is common for smaller brands to expand just for the sake of being seen in places like Manhattan, which can cause problems. We just so happen to have recently expanded to NYC, but this was a natural progression for us based on reaching the aforementioned milestones and not merely through vanity.
Let’s imagine that someone reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to produce. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?
Consider the worst-case scenario, this was our strategy. When we decided, we were going to jump in to OVO Vodka, we asked ourselves what the worst-case scenario would be, the answer was that we end up with 2,000 bottles of vodka, we can drink it ourselves, we can gift it, and it would make one hell of a story that we have 2k bottles of vodka in the spare bedroom. If I was more sensible, I would say to explore the industry and the market, make sure your idea fills a void… but that is not how Anthony and I work. My honest answer is, if you have the resources (this part is important), then what’s the worst that can happen? If you can take that calculated risk, then do it.
Many people have good ideas all the time. But some people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. How would you encourage someone to overcome this hurdle?
I believe there is a middle section between an idea and a business, I don’t know what to call it, but there is another step… let’s just call it a ‘thing’ (an idea, a thing, a business). Focus on taking your idea from an idea to a ‘thing’. OVO Vodka for example, the idea was to have a vodka business and we had a vodka idea, so we created the brand & product, and tested the market then built the business around the product. When we started the company and spent 14 months playing with different flavors and recipes, we had no idea what our sales and distribution structure would look like or our supply chain, we just focused on making the ‘thing’, the product, as good as we could get it. By the time you focus on the business, you have learned 40% of the lessons by creating the ‘thing’.
What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?
For us, it came down to what resources were available to use, we bootstrapped OVO Vodka until we simply did not have the resources to take it the next level. We had an idea of where we needed to get to and what milestones we need to achieve through bootstrapping, and we did all we could to make our resources last and get us there. Both Anthony and I have started businesses in the past, so we know how to make a budget stretch, and when we need help, and we have just secured our first fundraise for the friends and family round. Venture Capital is something we intend to pursue at some stage, but this is based on the resources we need (not just financial but also the experience and knowledge that comes with fundraising) in alignment with our organizational goals. In summary, I would say the decision should be based firstly on the resources you have available, and secondly what your goals are (e.g. can you achieve goals A-C without VC?).
Can you share thoughts from your experience about how to file a patent, how to source good raw ingredients, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer or distributor?
Fortunately for us, as much as I would like to have an inspirational story here, we were extremely lucky to come across our Distiller from a few simple Google searches. When we spoke with our Distiller about our idea, they matched our passion for the cause and came with a whole host of experience in sourcing the best and most sustainable ingredients… and they make a phenomenal base vodka.
Here is the main question of our discussion. What are your “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Beverage Brand” and why?
- Confidence/Passion — This is something people need to start any business or brand, not just a beverage brand. The path of starting a brand goes somewhat against the grain of what we’re traditionally programmed to do, to break away from these ‘norms’ and go solo takes courage and confidence to take that first step (I add passion as a replacement for confidence because, if your passionate enough, confidence isn’t always necessary).
- A story / cause — Making a great product is just not enough anymore, the decisions and efforts a company makes in sustainability or ethical sourcing is becoming just as, if not more, important. We built OVO Vodka around our cause, OVO literally stands for ‘Our Five (V) Oceans’. Not every beverage brand needs to be built around a cause but should always keep this in mind.
- Good photographer — This is a little vainer, but I honestly don’t know what we would do without the wizardry that comes from our Photographer, great product shots change everything.
- Willingness to learn — I talk a lot about the advice that we were given throughout our journey, so this seems obvious, but the ability to listen and take advice is invaluable. We have managed to avoid mistakes which could have costed us tens of thousands of dollars, by listening to the advice but also tailoring the lessons to our own business model. Not all advice is relevant for your market or growth strategy but listening allows you to decide if there are points you can action to avoid similar issues in accordance with your own strategy.
- Capital (or access to it) — I know we previously discussed bootstrapping vs venture capital, but deep pockets is important in this industry. Whether you have the capital yourself, you can raise it yourself or you have the network to do so. We bootstrapped the product development to initial launch for OVO Vodka and we then brought on a CFO who would guide us through upcoming raises.
Can you share your ideas about how to create a product that people really love and are ‘crazy about’?
I will answer this by referring to another piece of advice that was passed to us, “if the story is as good as the juice, then you’re onto a winner”. In our case, we created a genuinely great vodka, but we’re also backed by a cause and that is something that people are passionate about. Today’s consumers demand more than just a good product, organizations need to be doing and thinking more about their sustainability efforts and giving back.
Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Given what OVO Vodka is and what we stand for, I would like to think that it’s not my personal success that is making the world a better place, but the brand we have built does this for us. OVO Vodka is responsible for removing the equivalent of 18 plastic bottles from the oceans for every bottle sold through our charity partnership with Clean Blue Sea. We also host monthly waterfront cleanups in our local area where we collect ocean-bound trash with the local community followed by complimentary OVO Vodka cocktails. We are also working on larger-scale cleanups throughout NJ and NY and building a curriculum to educate adults on the effects of the plastic crisis and ways they can help relieve or reverse the issues.
You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I know this is not necessarily about people as such and more about sea life, but I could argue that we (humans) are all unknowingly eating microplastics, so technically this does involve people… Stop using single-use plastics! Recent studies suggest that we eat up to the equivalent of 1 credit card worth of plastic EVERY WEEK! Do you really need that straw with your drink? Is it REALLY a hassle taking your own bag to the store?
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Jon Dunnington Of OVO Vodka On 5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.