 Where is Ruby gonna be in a few years? I think we're gonna be across the world. I think that the Rubyverse will expand and the world will then become part of the metaverse and there will be many galaxies and universes that Ruby is a part of. No lunch. Founder and CEO of Ruby. Are you ready to answer some questions? I'm ready. What's the Ruby elevator pitch? We are a water alternative with zero sugar, zero calories, zero additives and we do not compromise on flavor. How'd you come up with the name Ruby? It's all down to the color. It's a spectral red. Ruby just rolled off the tongue. What made you want to go from Sotheby's to Beverage's? For me, hibiscus essentially solved the problem. While I was at Sotheby's, I was looking for a way to naturally remedy my sweet tooth and hibiscus is a great way to curb sugar cravings. It seems like chlorophyll is having its moment. Does hibiscus water have the same potential? Absolutely, yes. Tarte is fun. Hibiscus water seems like the subhead in Ruby's the headline. Why is that? I think that it probably has to do with brand and product. At the end of the day, we believe in both. Who did the branding and what was the brief? Ann Talmore. Maury Talmore is a genius. Fern Diaz did the brand messaging. She's a genius. The brief was that we wanted to reduce sugar consumption in America, but we wanted to be friendly, fun, and accessible. I can see you have a great understanding of brand. How do you distinguish between talking to yourself and making sure you're reaching the consumers? Our whole focus is this mentality on the Tower of Babel. So there are definitely moments where we have to take a step back and say, are we speaking Ruby's language or are we speaking the customer's language? Because at the end of the day, we want to make sure our brand is accessible to consumers. So there are plenty of times when we're in our little mood board sessions where we need to take a step back and say, we've gone too far. Can you describe your target audience to me in great detail? I would say we're after three key segments. Gen Z, we're after the millennial wellness set, and we're after what I would call the Brooklyn mother. How has your background at Sotheby's and art played into this besides the inspiration and a mood board? Well, there's definitely the visual aspect and the mood board to your point. But again, it's about creating those access points and making sure that you're speaking everyone's language. Art is a world that's often intimidating to people and so is beverage. You walk into a retail store and there is a wall of choices in front of you. So how are you going to speak the consumer's language in a way that they want to take you off the shelf? If you had one dollar to spend, where would you spend it? Well, I'm a marketer, so I'm going to ask for two dollars and I would do it on sampling and original content. I see you've created something called the Rubyverse, which feels very recessed to me. What brands are you channeling with this one? We're actually channeling more artists, I would say. Ken Price came up on our mood board a bunch and as soon as Ken Price was on there, it completely changed everything. Which Rubyverse character are you? I'm fortunate to have my own character in the Rubyverse, which is a metaverse version of me. From my vantage point, your launch has been really strong. What grade would you give yourself? It's a great question. I would give myself an A-minus, I would say. All right, we got the Flowcode flow card. So as you guys know this season, Flowcode is sponsoring on with the brand and what Flowcode is is a next generation QR technology that you just simply pull your phone out, the camera will recognize it and you create your own individual mobile flow page. Right now the viewers are going to see a custom Flowcode just for Ruby. Fantastic. So what would you love as people pull their phones out and out of scan? What would you like to do with that Flowpage? I would like that Flowpage to open up into a digital metaverse that takes them into a space, most likely galaxies and galaxies away, where they can see different aspects of the Rubyverse. That would be wonderful. It seems like you've really studied the space and have thought things out. Where is Ruby going to be in a few years? I think we're going to be across the world. I think that the Rubyverse will expand and the world will then become part of the metaverse and there will be many galaxies and universes that Ruby is a part of. What would you say to some famous beverage pioneer that exited for billions of dollars that would see what you're doing and go? Oh man, I would say that you need to let people into the brand today. That it's a different world of brand creation, especially post COVID. And I think that the prescriptive nature we've been living in, in the wellness set for the last 10 to 20 years is changing. You have to give people new experiences and a value add mentality. How do you make sure your brand resonates and doesn't just check boxes? We talk to our consumers. We listen to them every step of the way and we ask for the feedback. And a lot of the time when people ask for feedback, they are not ready to instill it into the brand. We've had to make a ton of changes within the last two months, just based on consumer feedback and it's been hugely rewarding. Can you give us one example? Basing it also in earth. The Rubyverse was a big part of the backbone and it's a lot of fun, but at the end of the day we are a beverage brand on planet earth and we need to tell that story a little bit too. What's the biggest lesson you've learned so far? Influencers can go a long way, but at the end of the day, customers go much further. Explain to me what that means. At the end of the day, we want to find our customer set. Influencers do a great job of brand amplifying, but we need our ambassadors on the street level. And we're in ancillary markets where we can't control the narrative as much. So we want to find those people who are our customer base, listen to them and ask them to spread word of mouth about us. What's been the coolest moment so far? Launching in Whole Foods. Just seeing your product on shelf from day one when you're out there on that wall was mind blowing. What keeps you up at night and what time do you wake up in the morning? Everything keeps me up at night. Lately I've been waking up at 5 a.m. because I have to be at Whole Foods to help restock the shelves at about 5.30 or 6 a.m. Work from home or office? Office. What's something popular that annoys you? Memes. Who do you aspire to be? Ian Wishengrad, someone who is content. Are your parents proud? They are and they've told me which was such a wonderful experience. I've learned that a lot of brands have a certain tribe that really helps fuel its success. Who is your tribe? The art kids. I mean it is like so far we've been going after the Lower East Side in a really big way and we've seen a lot of support from that. When will you know you've made it? I will never know. What do you worry about? I want to make sure that we're building a great company culture. We're young, we're a three person team right now. So my core focus is as we continue to grow that our team is having a wonderful time doing this and so far they are but we always want to keep everyone motivated. What's the best part of the job? Seeing people react to it. Our message is that Tarte is fun. It's an underserved flavor profile and it's kind of rascally and a little mischievous. So when that connects with people it's really great to hear. Noah Wunch, founder and CEO of Ruby. Thank you so much for coming on and answering my questions. Thank you for having me. I'm Ian Wishengrad and I'll see you next time on I'm With the Brand.