Adam Kroener is an award-winning 8-figure CEO and the visionary behind Carbliss, the #1 Fastest Growing Company by Inc Regionals with over 7000% growth. Together with his wife Amanda, Adam turned his dissatisfaction with the existing high-carb, high-sugar cocktail options into a revolutionary low-carb beverage company. We discussed his journey from mastering fundamental financial principles to scaling Carbliss into a beverage empire.
From his early days facing the unexpected responsibilities of fatherhood and military service to his experiences in Iraq and the economic downturn, Adam's story is one of relentless determination. His insights into overcoming adversities are encapsulated when he says, "when you have a bad situation happen, there are only two options... change a situation or... change your perception towards it."
A significant focus of our discussion is on the inception and growth of his business, born from dissatisfaction with existing market offerings and fueled by a personal passion for innovation. Adam's entrepreneurial spirit shines through as he recounts his venture into creating a distinctive product that defied industry norms, stating, "we took that learning of knowing that we had a product that was completely different in the market."
Key takeaways from this episode include the importance of narrowing focus to achieve depth before breadth in business expansion, and the strategic patience required to build a sustainable brand. Adam emphasizes, "narrow and deep is always better than far and wide," a philosophy that has guided his business decisions and led to exponential growth.
Listeners will also find value in Adam's approach to life and leadership, heavily influenced by his military training and continuous learning. His story underscores the power of shifting perspectives and harnessing personal experiences to forge a path forward. As Adam poignantly shares, he learned to "focus on what I freaking loved about the guy," referring to coping with the loss of a close friend.
This episode is not just about the mechanics of building a successful business but also about the personal growth and mindset shifts necessary to navigate life's unpredictabilities. Join us to explore how Adam Kroener turned life's lemons into more than just lemonade—into a thriving business and a life he loves.
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[MUSIC PLAYING] 21st-century entrepreneurship with Martin P. Skarek. Could you imagine when you're 18 years old just getting out of high school and fast forwarding, double the time on this earth? And now, at 36 years old, you're the number one growth spirits brand in the entire world. I have the number one fastest growing business in the Midwest. Well, when I was 18, that's not at all where I thought I was. I had a past that was riddled with some things that aren't very favorable with things in my body that I probably should not have wasn't good for me from a health perspective. And right before my junior year found out and I had, I was going to have a daughter of my senior year of high school. Around the same time I joined the army, graduated high school, shortly after went into Iraq, came back home, the economy crashed in the US. And from there, went to go work a general labor job. Didn't have a degree, worked my way up to being the director over a very large organization, 1,000 people indirectly, and used all those learnings as well as a failed business in 2014 to just jump in. And we created a product that was a huge differentiation in the market. We took all those learnings from myself, my wife, over the many years beforehand to jump in and make our business one of the fastest growing in the nation. [MUSIC PLAYING] So back in 2018, seltzers in my area became very popular. My wife and I were doing keto, so that seemed to fit what we were doing from a diet perspective. The first time I tried a seltzer, I actually spit it out. I tried it because it was low carb, low sugar, low calorie. And what I found was it was a ton of carbonation, not much flavor. And that's not at all what the label looked like. I ended up going home, creating a vodka lemonade that was zero carbs or sugar. And in very quick time, got sick of carrying my stuff everywhere. I wanted it conveniently in a can. I figured somebody else already made it, went out and bought about $500 with a product, and ended up finding that they were all the same. It was low carb, low sugar, low calorie. It was a ton of carbonation, which I didn't enjoy, and not flavorful at all. So I ended up asking people why they were drinking those drinks. Every single one of them said, it's low carb, it's low sugar, it's low calorie. Could you imagine being a restaurant owner? And they are only consuming your food because of the low cow, low sugar, low carb. It's like a slap in the face, right? I only eat this because it's diet friendly, not because, oh my gosh, your steak is the most juicy and flavorful. And so, I wasn't smart enough to actually sample them on the liquid, but I knew that what we had was different. So we took that learning of knowing that we had a product that was completely different in the market, but they're still a competitive set, and took about a year to formulate and jumped into my wife and I creating this business and putting it on the shelf in our home state of Wisconsin. We did, I worked full-time for the first year and a half to kind of fund the losses of the business, and then we got an angel investor that allowed me to take a big pay cut, but jump into the business and start running it full-time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - From a market disruption perspective, the one very interesting thing is when I think about a seltzer and the global macro trends of convenience, wellness, and premiumization, why were seltzers made? Well, if you're a corporate company and you're in a boardroom, let's put a tiny bit of flavor into the product. And what did we learn when we were about 10 or 11 years old? A lot of our senses and what we taste actually comes through our nose. So CO2 is basically free when I'm making a product. Let me jack up the carbonation. I'm gonna hit this wellness trend. It will smell so good because the carbonation's coming out, and the flavor doesn't really matter after that, 'cause we're hitting all the other things. The interesting pieces, there is also these ready to drink cocktails, vodka lemonade, vodka cranberry, margarita, in a can, that tastes amazing, just like a bartender just made it for you, but they're ton of carbs, they're ton of sugar and ton of calories. Nobody had really taken those two concepts and put them together. And so when you drink cardless, what cardless is, this a bar crafted cocktail in a can that five years ago was only available at my bar, in my home, in my home. Very low carbonation, just like a handcrafted cocktail, but it's all no carbs, no sugar, 100 calories and all gluten free. And so, you hear the old adage, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Those people I can tell you have not drank cardless because you can. And I think the coolest thing is a founder. I go to almost every market launch. Seeing people who live a thousand miles away from me, their eyes light up because they've tried 20 of these shelters and they all suck. And their eyes light up and they look at me and they're like, oh my God, this is what I've been looking for. This is what I thought it should be. Honestly is one of the coolest things to help fill my cup on a weekly basis. From an angel investor perspective, when we first started our business, we planned to bootstrap it. So, first year, we made 80,000 lost 20. Second year, I think we made 280,000, lost 70 and that was about what we had already prepared to lose. So, I was running towards that runway. We had a $50,000 line of credit and a guy had came to me in July of 2020 and said, I'm interested in investing in your brand. And I said, well, we're not interested in losing equity because my perception was Shark Tank. I'm gonna go there with evaluation. They're gonna tell me I'm an idiot and then they're gonna own half my company and I'm a slave. That was exactly why I didn't wanna do it. So, told him no. About a month later, I meet a friend and find out he's had two businesses that has just been fundraised. So, I asked him why and he said, well, Adam, how much money do you want out of your company? And I said, I really don't know the answer to that. That's not why I started. And he said, well, how does 30 million sound? Said, well, that sounds great. And he goes, okay, you're gonna get 30 million for selling your company. Do you want it in five years or do you want it in 30 years? And I said, well, if it's 30 million dollars and it's the same number, I'll take it in five. And he said, well, if you bootstrap it, it's gonna take a long time to grow and you could have 30 million in 30 years and you own 100% of the company and you sell it. Or you could sell 90% of your organization only own 10% of it. The venture capitalists will help you grow the company to be a 300 million dollar sale company. You'll have 10%, you'll have 30 million dollars and that'll probably happen in five years. And so I wasn't convinced on the idea of only having 10% of the business but the concept started making sense as to why the hyper growth could make sense. I asked him for his paperwork and I'll be transparent in saying that he had a five million dollar valuation for his last business and he hadn't sold a dime, right? It was an ideation phase. So all I'm thinking is I'm at like 200,000 in sales which in the grand scheme of things wasn't a ton but there's no way I can accept the same as he has when I have a proven concept. And so I did a bunch of bar napkin math and our stuff was only sold in one state. There's 50 states, ton of population. And I went back to this angel investor and I said based on all the data that I'm seeing with sales rate increase, the multiples, I believe the business is worth $15 million and I need a million dollars. We went back and forth a bit. He found out I was taking a 75% cut and pay from where I was working. I wasn't taking any of my money back. I get paid when we sell the business and I remember him calling me back at the end of 2020. And he said, you know, Adam, my lawyer told me I'm an idiot but we've got a deal. And that man never asked for updates. I send him updates every month. He has helped us tremendously in securing his assets to go in tandem with a line of credit to get runway extension with traditional banks. And that has helped catapult the business to be I think 21 to 23 was 74% growth, which is where we got the recognition for the number one growth in the Midwest. And I have a lot of VCs that will be ready to give us money but we've intentionally grown it after that first piece by call it bootstrapping. I could have grown faster but we opted not to because we wanted to maintain the integrity of the business and make the decisions. And this person, you know, we call him an angel investor dude is a legit angel. He helps when we need help doesn't tell me what to do, asks me questions to make sure I'm thinking through something but he's never forced anything on me. And when you think about the fact that he gave me a million dollars like as a one individual, that's got to be a hard pill to swallow to not try to force me to do things. But on the flip side, we deliver. We've over delivered everything we said. And so, you know, by the time we sell the business, that one will probably turn into 20 for him and it'll be less than three or four years. ♪ Step by this misery standing to ecstasy ♪ ♪ Fair of feeling right now ♪ ♪ Step by the loneliness right into readiness ♪ ♪ Fair of feeling right now ♪ ♪ When I want you to know ♪ ♪ Yes I want you to know ♪ ♪ I can learn to fly ♪ ♪ Yes I know ♪ - From an organic growth perspective, you know, I think a lot of people look at the growth that we've had and you assume that's going to be a tech company or, you know, the product just going rampant. And the coolest thing is the number I gave you is like 7,400%, whatever, it's somewhere in that area, right? We're only sold to less than 10% of the United States nation. So when you think about the runway on what our business could do, if I did simple math based on our run rate and we're easily a billion dollar sales company within the next few years. But the funny thing is, is I think there's also a lot of assumptions that there's luck with that. There's some luck in timing with our market, but we have a bunch of people who are just working their butts off day in and day out. And ultimately, our strategy at a high level is narrow and deep, is always better than far and wide. And what I mean by that is I'm going to become so saturated in a given city and market that the next city and market is begging for it. And when somebody who's not in your next sales cycle is already begging for it, it takes a lot of work and a lot of patience, but that next step becomes easier. Then the next step becomes faster and then it continues to compound. So our organic growth is still has an extreme runway. Our e-commerce does maybe 150, 200 grand a year. We don't put a dime into it and it's 0.001% of our sales. I don't know if I'm exactly right on the math, but it's a microcosm. We don't focus on it. We focus so hard on retail, which is where the gross margins are, and that's what pays the bills. Another term I like to grab from Gary Vaynerchuk, but it's called patiently aggressive. So you can say narrow and deep and it's better than far and wide, but if you don't take action against it and you just say it, it's not gonna mean anything. You have to actually act. And that's where the patient comes in because I have to stay in the city or these counties for two, three months. When I'm, I have the entire nation is begging for our product based on the data. We continue to say no. I say no probably 20 times a week to different distributors, different retailers. They all tell me I'm stupid. Oh, you're gonna lose traction. You're gonna lose momentum. Guess what? I can almost guarantee our brand will be around in 30 years. Our competitors will not because they're taking the quick buck. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) I don't know how many of you have been in the military, but that was kind of my mindset training out of the gate because I was 18 years old. And so the way that that operates is they break you down as a team and the intent is to get you to understand that you can build yourself up as a team before you enhance yourself as an individual. And I'll be honest, it took me a lot of years to really figure that out. Even my leadership out of the gate was very much just yelling because that's all I had experienced. Read the book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And I would say that book started my journey on an eternity of learning. And the way my mindset works is through the book, I ended up going through the Dale Carnegie training. And one of the things they taught me was when you have a bad situation happen, there is only two options. And I will challenge any one of you to reach out to me and tell me if you find another one, a third option or a fourth. But anything that bad happens, there's two options. Number one, change a situation. Number two, if you cannot change a situation, change your perception towards it. And I'm gonna give you an example. In 2016, if you look up my business is the brand is Carblis, the business name is SN Food and Beverage that stands for Stefan Nicholas Feidler, my best friend who died in 2016. He died in about three days I did the woe is me. He was driving a motorcycle because he wanted to ride with Adam and went down that crappy negative mindset hole and realized this was a good opportunity to finally start feeding myself my own freakin medicine. And so I just flipped it. And I said, not everybody got to no step. And he was an incredible human. Like walked into a room within two minutes, everybody's laughing, had this aura about him that everybody just wanted to be around, listen to him, joke with him. And he just had a light, lightness about him that everybody enjoyed. Not everybody got to know him, I did. I got to know that human for almost 30 years, right? And the amount of things that are different in my life because I knew him, the things, the other relationships that I have. And I just started focusing on all of these things. And here's going back to what I said, I'm not a doctor, nor am I God or Jesus, he's dead. I can't change that. The sooner we accept that, the quicker. So the only second option is change my perception towards it. Do I want to go down the victim mentality route? Oh my gosh, he was, you know, whatever. No, I want to focus on what I freaking loved about the guy because that's why I spent so many years with him in the first place. My grandpa recently passed within the last few months and I had to open that one back up. He died gardening, which is what he freaking loved. His entire family was around him and he died quickly. Tell me if you were asked right now, if you die, would you like it to be with your family surrounding you, not in pain and doing what you love? Every fucking person, excuse my friends, would say yes. That's what happened to my grandpa. So which way do you want to look at it? Do I want to look at it as I lost a mentor and somebody that I loved or do I want to look at being thankful for knowing a man that lived 80 some years and in past, which is something that's going to happen that any of us doing it the way that most of us would dream of it happening. From a personality perspective, what I've really kind of formulated myself into is just continuing to be open to everything. And what I mean by that is I've realized over the years that it is so important to be generally curious always and tie that with trust but verify, right? So I generally, when I meet somebody, I used to be very guarded because of my drug past and Iraq, I would just not trust anybody. And honestly, that was a miserable way to look at life. Now I choose to trust. As soon as you come into my life, I trust you. And then I'm just working through consistent validation all the time. And I will tell you that if you make it a couple of years and then you break my trust, there's probably a good chance we're never seeing each other again, but I also want to talk about the continual learning. I think there's some stat that says 80% of our reality is only the perception. So I can say something is green, but if I talk to a colorblind person, I can almost guarantee they will disagree. When I'm in the flavor industry, right? Sweet, bitter, tart, sour. Who's really been trained on those? So who's really there to say that there's a baseline? And I share that because when I think about anything that happens to me, I may have a very validated response, but I'm always thinking, why do I think that? Because that's the most important. And then I'm always open to hearing things. There's a huge debate, flat earth or round earth. I don't believe either, why? I haven't seen them. Why does it, and you can call me a quack, but here's the thing, whether I believe it's round or flat, why does it matter? It does not change my life on a daily basis. So I will never focus on what is right or wrong because it does not impact the way I live my life, but that leaves me open to the flat earth, there's opinion and the round earth opinion. And I can just listen and take it. Why do you believe that? Oh, well, that's interesting. And I get to understand their psyche and why they believe what they believe. And I think that has just been the most powerful thing for me for a continual guide of growth because the people who are open to have those conversations are quite frankly, in my opinion, the most fun and just helps continue to expand my knowledge because I'm open to taking in anything. ♪ Yeah, I'll be running on my life ♪ ♪ Yeah, I'll be running on my life ♪ ♪ One stop 'til I'm out of dance love ♪ ♪ On my shoulder, no sleep ♪ ♪ Under sound, I'm calling up my time ♪ ♪ I'm my job ♪ ♪ Like the song that I want ♪ I have learned to believe that every act is selfish. And what I mean by that is even if you coin yourself as selfless because it is your desire to be selfless, that makes itself. And it's very interesting when you think about things through that dynamic of clearly you need to get something out of it. But if you can retrospectively give something else, it's just really the ultimate win-win. So we talked about my angel investor and what he's done for us. I mean, even some of our high level executives do not truly understand what the money and the asset protection did for our business and I can never articulate it. But my goal is to become that man for as many people as I possibly can. And that could be financial. That could be the 15 years of crap that I've dragged myself through and learned. And so my wife and I spend a lot of time coaching entrepreneurs. So we've worked within a lot of high school organizations and they have some entrepreneurship classes. I used to teach junior achievement. I'm very much around helping the person who wants to help themself. And sometimes I get a little deeper and sometimes start trying to help people that say they want you but don't. So I've been trying to focus on my own accountability of not wasting my time and trying to create that counterability to say, I'm here to help you but you got to show me that you're willing to do it. We donate a lot and try to, you know, within our any local communities where our product is sold. But I would say mainly our focus is giving to the people who have the desire and the grit to show them. I mean, quite frankly, the life that I get to live on a daily basis, I wake up and I fucking love what I do. I love the people around me. And I think about the people I worked with 15 years ago and less than a quarter of a percent had that. So my honest to God goal is to be able to give that gift of loving your fucking life to the nth degree to another person. If I can give that to one person, I feel like I've fulfilled my life. But if I can give that to a hundred, I don't even have words for that. (upbeat music) ♪ Until I'm over, I dance now ♪ ♪ I'm a show that I'm asleep ♪ ♪ I'm a sound that got it up my turn ♪ ♪ I'm far shot like a soldier ♪ ♪ I was done getting out of my life ♪ ♪ 'Cause I am over, far the rest of time ♪ So to find the product, we're only available in 12 states. You can go to drinkcarblest.com. If you click where to buy, it's the central United States where we're available. There are 36 states that allow direct-to-consumer shipments. You can buy a right from our website. There is another company that has to fulfill it. You go to buy now products. As far as if you're interested in connecting with me or listening to me banter about other things, you can go to LinkedIn, Adam Prainer, K-R-O-E-N-E-R. And on Instagram, it is @TheRealAdamPranger. (upbeat music) - 21st Century Entrepreneurship with Martin P. Skurick. - Imagine a space where triumphs, trials, and tales of entrepreneurship come alive. Welcome to the 21st Century Entrepreneurship Podcast, a gold-awarded journey hosted by Martin P. Skurick, connecting with listeners in 95 countries, and ranking in the top 0.5% of all podcasts. Join our exclusive community. Elevate your perspective and embark on the path to success. (upbeat music)
