Simon sits down with Stephen McDowell, founder of Rude Coffee, to talk about building a nootropic coffee brand in one of the hardest categories on the planet.
Stephen spotted the nootropics trend while living in the US, years before it landed in New Zealand. He couldn't find a nootropic coffee on the market, so he built one.
He sold it out of a 1980s Bedford van at expos up and down the country before it ever hit a supermarket shelf.
We go deep into why Stephen chases take-home cash instead of revenue, how expos became his real customer acquisition engine, and why 8 of his 10 sales reps came from festivals, not job ads.
Stephen also breaks down how he uses Claude to run trial reels that pull in millions of organic impressions a week.This episode is about building a brand the slow way and getting to keep it.
