Alex Bayer hopes the Sharks drink up Genius Juice, the world’s first all organic coconut smoothie, in Shark Tank episode 1115. Bayer started Genius Juice in 2014 and got his first run of product done with a successful Kickstarter that raised $15,375 back in May, 2015. There are plenty of coconut water brands, but Genius is the only coconut drink that uses coconut water AND meat in a ready to consume smoothie.
Bayer uses the whole coconut when making Genius Juice. Once the water and meat are harvested, he “upcycles” the husk to make coconut charcoal for detoxification products. He also uses the husks for alternative fuel. He had to discontinue selling the smoothies in 2016 when his manufacturing capabilities couldn’t keep up with distribution demand. An attempt at rebranding was unsuccessful and retailers started dropping his products.
Now. Bayer has a new manufacturer and is making the smoothies once again. Retailers that once stocked Genius – Natural Grocers and Whole Foods to name two – are putting the once popular product back on shelves. Bayer thinks he has a $100 million company once he gets re-established. In a Shark-like move, he has a WeFunder campaign set to go the night his episode airs. With over $1 million in sales, 1300 retail locations and a unique product, will a Shark take a chance on Genius?
Company Information
Video
Posts about Genius Juice on Shark Tank Blog
Ready to Drink Coconut Smoothies
Genius Juice Shark Tank Recap
Alex enters the Tank seeking $250,000 for 7% of the business. He hands out samples as he explains that his smoothies use the whole coconut: the water and the meat. The Sharks rave over the taste and like the fact that it’s low calorie and nutritious. Sales are good: $376,000 in 2018 and Alex expects 2019 to be over $1 million. There’s a problem though, the company isn’t profitable yet. Alex and his family invested $1.3 million to stat the business, too and he believes he can go to $100 million in sales.
The Sharks are concerned that beverages are competitive and that finding shelf space for frozen items is tough. That doesn’t stop the offers from coming though. Barbara offers $250,000 for 14%. Kevin offers $250,000 as a loan at 9% interest in exchange for 7% of the company. Mark asks if Barbara would partner with him and together they offer $500,000 for 25%. Alex accepts.
Genius Juice Shark Tank Update
The Shark Tank Blog constantly provides updates and follow-ups about entrepreneurs who have appeared on the Shark Tank TV show. The deal with Mark and Barbara never closed. The WeFunder Alex set up to open on the original air date raised a whopping $2,255,106! The company also reports $700,000 in sales for the first quarter of 2020 and over $900,000 for the second quarter of 2020. They also raised $1.1 million in August, 2020. With those kind of numbers, Alex didn’t need Mark and Barbara.
2020 also saw the company get into 2500 retail stores like Whole Foods, Publix, Albertson’s, Walmart, Target, Smart & Final and many mom & pop and small regional chains. The company released a new flavor: Vanilla Cinnamon and a line of smoothies. In 2021, the products were in around 2800 stores nationwide. In addition to the aforementioned stores, they’re also in Costco. As of July, 2022, they had $12 million in lifetime sales.
In January, 2022, they began soliciting investors on the equity crowdfunding site Republic. By March, 2023, they raised $31,700. By August, 2023, the company introduced the Genius Boost Wellness Shot. They also announced on their website that they’re “in the lab concocting something exciting.” At this time, they’re posting $12 million in annual revenue and they’re eyeing an $80 million – $90 million exit by 2025.
Out of Business
Unfortunately, that never came to fruition. In November, 2023, Alex posted a picture of himself infron of his products on a store shelf. The following message accompaniied the photo:
Pictured is me in front of a set with the last of our Genius Coconut Smoothies in August 2023. We shut down the production, and sold the last of it to our distributors and outlet stores at a discount. $8m in sales over 6-7 years (a few years we struggled with manufacturing) was an accomplishment for a high priced product with less capital than all our competitors.
We launched our line in nearly 4k stores including Target, Whole Foods and Sprouts nationally, 3 regions of Albertsons, 4 regions of Costco, and many more.
After 10 years, we put the line of our smoothies on hold indefinitely due to several core issues with the business model and supply chain. It became literally impossible to operate the smoothies with crushing amounts of cash needed to make it and the money wasn’t coming in fast enough.
It didn’t make sense to continue losing money out of “pride” “passion” or “ego” and other things that founders have when it comes to their product.
We pivoted to a shot line which has been easier and more sustainable but still difficult.
The CPG winter is here. More companies are running out of capital than ever before. Rising costs, not able to raise money, margin crushing distributor fees and retailer promotions, and no exit in sight, this business is not what it used to be.
My message to all the founders, cut everything possible unless it is VITAL to your business.
I know you want to be decent, nice, reasonable people that don’t let others down. But if you need to let someone go to save capital and ensure the survival of your business, do it.
If you pay a team $10k a month to check store shelves for you and you aren’t seeing that level of increase of sales to pay their bill, probably best to put them on hold.
If you have a VP of sales for west and another for east and you can have one person handle the entire country, best to make this change and consolidate.
This post isn’t to tell you to fire people, it’s to conserve capital as much as possible to ride out the storm and SURVIVE.
This is from the founder’s lens, one owner to another.
