In this post, we cover our interview for our "Together Talks" campaign, with GoMix and Joe Hansley, Founder. GoMix provides turn-key, ready-to-mix nutritional drink solutions. Their proprietary on-the-go concept puts the power in the powder, and allows consumers to effortlessly travel with and drink their favorite nutritional supplements.
"Together Talks" feature # 155: Go Mix presented by KLS - Your Trusted Shipping Solutions In The USA
Reflect on a goal you set and how it made you feel to accomplish it? Goals for upcoming year + Next phase of the company?
What were your concerns about making this transition? What have you learned from being an entrepreneur? How have you grown as a leader? What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most? Share a mistake and what you learned from that experience? What is your why?
Story of how it was created?
GoMix started conceptualizing in 2016. I was coaching at Colorado State University. I knew I wasn't going to be a coach long term, the lifestyle wasn't what I wanted. My original business partner started to engage in and talk about different companies we could start. Ultimately I ended up kind of landing on this concept and inventing GoMix for lack of a better term in 2017. It's funny because I was in such a different place how my vision I originally had, compared to what it is today.
My original idea was to launch my own consumer brand and keep the proprietary elements of the packaging in our brand. We sold a clean vanilla whey protein, I saw as the proof of concept and sold it online. We got into some mom and pop shops, but eventually transitioned our model with some new partners and investments to a licensing contract manufacturer model, just working directly with businesses.
I grew up as an athlete, pretty much playing every sport in the book, always struggled with the convenience around good nutrition. I think there's a lot of convenient deliveries out there, but not always the best thing to put in your body. Me being a conscious athlete, I preferred powders. And as far as prepping them in a little plastic baggie to travel with or putting in a shaker bottle or even a stick pack, there's always a challenge and some inconvenience around traveling with nutritional powders and consuming them when you're on the go with the busy schedules. That's really where where GoMix was created from.
What separates your company from competition?
We have IP that we can leverage, which is really nice. The convenience of having both the essential single serving preloaded portion, as well as the vessel or the container that you're going to drink it out of, solves lot problems from a convenience standpoint.
What have been the biggest challenges?
Domestic production and capacity. The first big brand that we launched with, a multi-billion dollar brand, we signed a license internationally to supply them in China. That's been a huge proof of concept for us with such a big audience and customer base that this brand has. With that, we were able to find the right partners here domestically to get some equipment in place to scale.
It's been a challenge getting custom equipment to run efficiently that can produce the number of units that big brands are distributing and selling throughout the course of a year. We're close. We have exciting things in the works here, but I would say the manufacturing and production of a completely new concept in requiring custom equipment in order to do it at scale efficiently has been has been the biggest challenge.
What type of company makes a good fit?
We're really looking at two things. The business that we would be selling to for them and us it's who's their consumer is and how is our concept going to be utilized in the marketplace. There's a number of demographics, customer demographics that we both develop product for and obviously have thought about internally. At the end of the day GoMix fits best with any consumer where convenience is a premium. Whether that's your hiking and wilderness and you're doing backpack trip for three days and you need an easy meal replacement or a clean hydration and energy formula that you can conveniently travel with and again consume when you're in that environment. A use case that extreme all the way down to the mom and dad who have kids and are busy in the morning running to work and need a healthy alternative for breakfast and obviously the chaos of getting kids out of the door into school. Convenience is a premium. Anyone hitting the gym after work and need to get a post-workout protein meal in. It's really the convenience factor and allowing people to maintain their nutritional routine with all the different chaos that life throws at us.
Goals for upcoming year + Next phase of the company?
Getting established with our new manufacturing partner. We ended up originally signing a license with one company here domestically to help us grow scale from a production standpoint. We got a nice shiny piece of equipment in and just didn't have the right feeling. It just wasn't the right partnership and it wasn't their right expertise, specifically dealing with flexible film.
We have since committed to move that machine to another facility and we're working through finalizing contracts. Our biggest goal is to get our domestic production in line to where we can deliver to current demand. On top of that, because that can happen quick, we want to grow and continue to onboard business and new brands. That will allow us to get our packaging out in the marketplace with more and different demographics, to continue to expand the use case.
We've been pretty finite with our production capacity, which has impacted our ability to go and grab new business and new use cases for the concept. The biggest thing is establishing our domestic production and getting a good workflow and good cadence with our partner on it.
What were your concerns about making this transition?
I was young, and I'll call it naive, 23, 24 years old. I was very ambitious, I have a communications degree from Colorado State. It's not like I was well versed in the business world. It was really something that I just jumped into and figured out as I went. Developing GoMix back at that time was the best thing that I could do jumping into something, a big daunting task to try to bring this completely new concept to market.
It really taught me a lot of lessons and gave me a good understanding of how different businesses operate. Originally I thought I'm going to build this brand that every consumer in the world knows about and it changed pretty quickly from that to more strategic alignments and understanding where where we spend our time to actually run a business and make money.
What have you learned from being an entrepreneur?
I think relationships in your network are our king or queen. You've got to be able to have the right people in place to help you grow and to be able to get your product in front of consumers. I'm probably the biggest believer in not being able to grow. anything or build anything meaningful on your own, it takes the right people.
Going out and connecting with people on a business and personal level and really building relationships where you have the ability to go out and make an impact in the marketplace. Then actually drive some traction and execute on whatever your business is.
How have you grown as a leader?
When I was younger, I was obsessed with the idea around being on my own and being an entrepreneur, being my brand or my identity, whatever you want to call it. I think I've learned that the people who are really doing it, those are the people that you want to surround yourself with, build connections with and do business with.
It's about doing something with a purpose and doing it with meaning for you and your life, whatever that is. I think getting rid of the ego side of being a successful entrepreneur and more so just enjoying the process and understanding that there's going to be ups and downs and every single day is going to bring a new challenge. But keeping that belief in keeping your foot on the gas and overcoming those hurdles is really what's important.
What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most?
For my story specifically, I was exposed to relatively big businesses and high level, executive conversations when I was 25, 26 years old. Whether that was going and raising capital or the entire 12 month process that I was thrown into to onboard a client and execute for a multi-billion dollar brand in China internationally, where I never went.
I appreciate the understanding now that there is going to be ups and downs. I think learning that and learning that nothing's perfect but there's always a solution. There are several times throughout our story and our journey to this point and it continues to happen where, I felt like the ship had sunk and everything was over and then I was lucky enough to be surrounded by people who completely changed my perspective and said, no, this is just the start. They would reiterate it is just one hurdle that we need to get over. Sure enough we did and moved forward and continue to move forward.
Share a mistake and what you learned from that experience?
Oh gosh, there's so many. I'll give you this and it's funny because it was a mistake but it ended up being something that we had to do in order to move forward for what we were trying to accomplish. It wasn't anything that I regret but I wish we would have put a little bit more attention and resources to quality in our early days, but at the same time if we didn't do what we did as far as taking the partnerships at the time and actually hitting go on the manufacturing, we wouldn't have grown. Even though we didn't have some stuff buttoned up the way we should have, we believed we did, but ultimately we didn't.
We really took a big chance. I think paying more attention to the quality is something I learned and wish I would have cared more about. At the time, it was, here's somebody who wants to use it. We have the ability to make it. Have we done it before? No, but let's let it ride and hope for the best and figure out a solution if it doesn't end up working out. I try to look at any learning experiences just that and take it, learn from it.
What is your why?
I've found a love and an industry that I admire. I have a passion for health and wellness. I care about my health, my lifestyle, my nutrition though I'm not always the best at it. I cheat, maybe more than anybody else. But it's a focus for me. I really appreciate the conversations I can naturally have in this space around living a better, healthier, and more fulfilling lifestyle.
But I think my bigger purpose has always been wanting to just live and just exist. I've always wanted to build something meaningful and impactful in the marketplace to create a legacy from that standpoint. I'm engulfed in consumer package goods in general now and have a lot of different ideas in my head for the next 50, 60 years could evolve for me.
My bigger purpose is making sure that my life wasn't ordinary and I didn't just exist, rather that I went and attacked and went after a different opportunities.
Do you have a moment that brings you the most joy?
There's two things. I really enjoyed the early grass root phase, being somebody who had never started a company, never even worked for anybody, at that time I was a college football coach for one season. I was never in the corporate world or dealt with products so I really enjoyed the challenge to figure that all out.
Then also when we landed our contract with the big brand in China, that was a pretty surreal feeling. Receiving revenue was crucial but also knowing people wanted to use us because they believed in us was incredible.
What are you currently working on?
What I'm doing now in this space includes so much more than just GoMix. I'm a partner on another company called The Human Optimization Project, that's focused on longevity and people living a healthier lifestyle. I help the product development supply chain over there.
I also work now with with a bigger corporation. It's kind of funny my entrepreneurial journey.
I feel like most people go from working corporate America, not liking it and then going and starting their own thing, but mine was kind of backwards. I went the entrepreneurial route initially and then got a really good opportunity to work with with a bigger corporation in my exact space where I could bring a lot of value. I also work with company called Menasha Packaging and we do folding carton and supply chain solutions for a lot of Fortune 500 CPG brands.
That's been a cool experience for me too. But using my platform and my expertise in supply chain and packaging side of consumer package goods is what I'm excited about.
Piece of Advice
Don't be realistic.
In Closing
KLS wants to thank GoMix and Joe Hansley, Founder, for today's "Together Talks" feature. Follow along for their journey with their social handles below!
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