DTC POD: How Andrew Huberman Is Crafting a Healthier Caffeine Fix with Nicolas Beaupré

This week, our guest is Nicolas Beaupré, Founder and CEO of Mateina; a pre-packaged yerba mate beverage brand that has partnered with the renowned Andrew Huberman to provide an alternative to coffee for those unable to drink it.

We talk about:

•  How to educate your audience.

• Maintaining growth without VC funding.

• Making and improving your production processes for scaling.

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3 Big Lessons from Nicolas

Lesson #1: Educating an audience on an unknown product.

One of the hardest things to do when introducing a product to a new market is to educate people on what it is. Nicolas mentions that in the beginning, a lot of the sales were mainly word of mouth and people around his coastal community in eastern Canada.

Sales were few and marketing was slow. There were around six orders per day.

Most of the consumer base at the beginning was gained through word of mouth. 

Today, people are proud to share it with their community and surroundings. Meaning that to an extent, audience education was being done by other clients.

How do you take this further as a brand? 

In the case of Mateína, there was a lot of talking about how yerba mate isn’t even a tea, explaining what the alkaloid structure is like, why it matters, and what the stimulating properties of the plant are.

And this ended up bringing a lot of interest because it's the only plant on earth that combines:

• Caffeine that we all know.

• Theobromine, which is found in cacao.

• And theophylline.

The combination of this creates the unique super-balanced effect of yerba mate.

By explaining that the plant grows exclusively in South America and putting it differently than coffee, matcha, and energy drinks, people were able to resonate with that. 

Think about how you could explain your product clearly through brand messaging and advertising.

Lesson #2: The key to growing without funding.

Nicolas mentions that the main reason they were able to grow without outside funding for a long time was the fact that the business was always strong on the DTC side.

This route, you get your money within three to five days. This is easier on the cash flow than working exclusively with retail partners, usually taking 45 days to pay and often getting half of your check because they take so many deductions.

This is important because most small businesses often forget about considering cash flow. This is such an important part. And it’s easy to take it for granted when you don't recognize how valuable having that cash flow is.

Especially in the early days of the business when you’re broke, financing your inventory, and waiting 45, to 90 days for payment terms.

Whereas by at least going DTC, you can get paid out quicker. And it’s been proven time and time again, that this framework is a great way to get set up and take things to market.

Lesson #3: Design the product first, then make it reproducible.

It’s easy to get lost in trying to optimize every step of the process as you go. Or on the flip side, have a messy process you never get around to cleaning up because “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

The truth is that by going through the whole process first, and figuring out how to simplify it later, you make it easier for yourself to scale and grow.

In Mateina’s case, the drink’s recipe took almost a year and a half to develop. This makes sense considering that making a jar of mate at home is very different from brewing a 10k liter batch.

Without any public resources, Beaupré took it upon himself to talk with suppliers, getting information little by little before being able to put it all together into something that resembled the final recipe.

Taking all of this he was able to make a deal with a co-packer who could brew some smaller-volume batches. After getting the process right, he was able to standardize everything with spreadsheets and make calculations & scaling a lot simpler.

DTC Job Positions!

Paid Social Manager at Prose

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Senior Manager of Marketing at Bubble Goods

• Description: Lead customer-centric marketing strategies to drive growth and enhance customer experience at Bubble Goods.

• Responsibilities: Develop comprehensive marketing strategies, manage campaigns, analyze data, foster partnerships, and mentor team members.

• Benefits: Equity participation, competitive vacation days, "Summer Fridays," hybrid work environment, and impactful role within a growing company.

That wraps up this week’s newsletter!

As always, reply any time with thoughts, questions, reactions, or ideas for future issues. And don’t forget to follow us on Twitter to unlock new episodes of DTC Pod each week!