https://yesyoucandrinks.com
Entrepreneurial journey told by three students
Story written by Beryl Hsu
“I definitely feel a strong case of imposter syndrome when I am called an ‘entrepreneur’. It is not necessarily a title I am super comfortable with. I guess I have started a couple of companies but I don’t pretend to know everything. I’m sort of still in a learning phase, learning new things every day. There’s a whole bunch of different
things that people who are in the industry know without even needing to think about it. So, if the right person came along, I would be more than happy to take a backseat on elements of the operational side of things. We’ve had a million hurdles in the Yes You Can Drinks start up journey, from production, flavor delays, border closures, changing manufacturing at the 11th hour to completely pivoting our distribution strategy to ecommerce with the re-emergence of COVID on the east coast 2 months ago. It’s about
“how do we solution a fire?” and I once heard a great analogy that I like to use; a duck swimming in a pond, where on the surface it appears that the duck is calm and in control, but underneath the water their legs are going crazy just to stay afloat. No one sees what’s going on behind the result. You have to be agile and try to keep moving in the right direction. It’s a matter of persevering, pushing through the barriers, and finding a way to overcome those barriers you have encountered, which may be regulatory, finance, market fit, etc. As you embark on the journey, you want to be part of a rising tide, and you kind of want to be at the front end of that. It was our own experience that was our lightbulb moment. My pregnant partner wanted something to drink that wasn’t alcohol but wasn’t just your classic soda – why not ‘take the p*ss out of drinking’ but keep the rest! We set out to create all the other amazing flavours, mouth feel and experiences that we have come to love in our favourite alcoholic drinks, without the alcohol. At Yes You Can Drinks, we are looking to build a brand with mental and physical wellness at the forefront, but not take ourselves too seriously. The brand is not an enemy of alcohol and we aren’t to preach. We created Yes You Can to give you a choice. A choice to enjoy those nights out with your mates and reward yourself with your favourite drinks, without the inevitable slow start the next day.”
Story written by Varun Kohly
You’re only one injury away from never playing again, that’s the reality of sport. An alternate pathway was always wished, I’d always be interested in [having] my own business – and I had to put the foot to the pedal and bet on myself, even with bidding to play at the Olympics. I was never looking for money, it was about trips and covering my own – to have a good little money-maker on the side. Education was a driving force to go out, get a diploma, an apprenticeship … have a few options and gear yourself for a post-sport career. Moving from a loosely translated business world, sports to a heavily critiqued placeholder – resource management and where do we see it take up, I just didn’t want to oversaturate with the clichés, but also didn’t want to be carefree and let the public come up with my tagline. It may have been a unique point to have Sophie and her not being able to drink that made me come up with yesyoucandrinks – but I was hooked to making it on my own long before, that all I needed was to have that cha-ching goal in the back of my mind and not wait for covid or Olympic pitfalls or any of the ideation dramatics to bear me down. It was time to make it happen and I knew exactly where to go, and how to get this to the launch! You come to me with an idea, and not the boring red-tape, we can see what can be done – creativity and perseverance for me, I choose that! Olympics gave me the will to believe in shifting the paradigm. I trust to manifest, to surround myself with purpose of being a part of a rising tide – the front-end of that macro trend! That’s my resonance with entrepreneurship, abundance in exploring and being aware. I wouldn’t mind taking a step back in certain expansions, as long as I have a learning curve determined and intentions aligned. I do want to end this with my personal favourite,” I just really don’t like the word entrepreneur”, I just made a few companies – sold a bunch of things and don’t ever want to stop. It’s my purpose.
Story written by Jeanette Tanasha
It has always been in me. The harder I work, the more likely I’d succeed. When I was training for the Olympics, I would wake up earlier than the others and sit in the lobby during breaks to work on Delfina Sport. At that time, I learnt, hard work pays off. If we look around, there are so many opportunities waiting for us to capture. During my professional sporting career, there were hundreds of times when we felt like a few drinks but couldn’t for whatever reason. Training that night. A game the next day. An early travel day. Years passed and I’m back in Australia. COVID hit and my pregnant partner and I decided that we should go back to New Zealand, where she was born and where her family is. Again, we were faced with a similar problem. She wanted to drink. But she couldn’t. Then this idea came to me. Creating an alcoholic inspired drink with the same good taste but without the side effects glued to it. We wanted to literally take the p*ss out of drinking! At that time, I had a gut feeling. This thing could work! I did some research and found that the industry was a rising tide. With the ongoing pandemic dragging on, people have become increasingly mindful of their health and wellness. I saw my target market. I had a vision in mind. I wanted to create something. Something fun yet classy. So, I collaborated with a specialist branding agency in New Zealand and told them how I pictured YesYouCanDrinks coming to life. It’s not the most traditional way to start a business. People usually make a product, then create a branding thereafter. But I always had an interest in marketing. As we developed the brand, I was further energised. While building the YesYouCan brand, I went to a flavour house and started developing the flavours with them. Of course, it wasn’t an easy journey. We had to come back and forth multiple times. I told them what I wanted, they played around and came up with prototypes, then I would take that and generate feedback from potential customers. Fast forward 9 months later, we are here. We’re almost ready to launch. Although there are still many things that need work, problems keep arising, seemingly out of nowhere, I just keep on pushing. We are at both the start and the finish line. The finish of the development phase. But just the start of our journey!