 Are you crazy? Less crazy than you. Marcus Antebi, founder of Juice Press and Good Sugar, are you ready to answer some questions? Yes, I am. And thank you so much for having me here. First off, congratulations on being a new dad. What's different this time around? As I get older, my consciousness is expanding. The experience is more meaningful to me than ever before. How much of the Juice Press brand is straight out of your veins versus a collaboration with other creative people and agencies? 2080, you know, it's an amalgam of a lot of different visions. What's the difference between building a retail business and a brand? The retail store is the vehicle. The brand is the cement. It's the thing that people are responding to. I don't think there are really two things that can be separated from each other. You told Ken Langholm, billionaire investor and founder of Home Depot that the reason he should invest in Juice Press is because Juice Press brand helps people get laid. How much of that was you being rigorously honest and how much of that was you reading the room and knowing exactly the time to demonstrate some entrepreneurial hutzpah? I knew that he was the type of person that wouldn't use academic snobbery or think of himself as a wealthy person who's better than me, which was true because he laughed at that answer and he invested money in Juice Press and then in subsequent board meetings he would get angry when I would come in a suit and tie and say, I came here to see you at tattoos. He liked to see the original me. Juice Press had a lot of press coverage. What were the things you did to make the brand so cool that was loved by celebrities? It was luck. You often say luck, I'm lucky, it's luck. But you're a workaholic, a fitness freak and an intense as a character from a glorious bastard. You seem like a guy who won't stop until you get what you want. What's lucky about that? I think everything that you just described is luck that I'm actually like that. What do you hate about yourself? Nothing. Are you ever content? Every moment. What do you love about yourself? Everything. Do you cuddle? All the time. You seem so intense that you married a Zen Yogi. What's that relationship like? I'm not intense at all. The rest of you are just lightweight. You seem like a guy that has no regrets, but what would you do over again with Juice Press if you could? Everything. A big fuck off to GMOs, detox, not Botox. Your trust fund should be this green. I love how ballsy your advertising copy was. Who did it? Me. I speak like that. It's very direct. It's not for everyone. If you know me as a person, you know that I'm not a gruff person. I'm actually really gentle, and you also know that I'm compassionate. And so if something I say comes off as being nasty, it's just because you don't like it, but that's the nature of business. You have to, you can't please everyone. Did taking on so much funding to turbocharge Juice Press' growth forced you to do things you didn't want to? Absolutely. Such as? So obviously when you have a boatload of cash, you start to make a wish list. When there's no money, you have to figure out a way to either rob a bank or create a sale. And so your savvy builds up by not having that extra juice that you need. So you gotta be very careful when you take money. You're moving on from Juice Press, so let's do the same. What is Good Sugar? Well, Good Sugar to me is a better version of Juice Press. It's 2021, and when I built a prototype store that was a pop-up, I had four months to look at it in the three-dimensional world with customers interacting with it, and I realized that I built a better widget. When did you have your aha moment? Three years ago, the name first came, actually. I realized that in the smoothie, juice, healthy snack business, obviously, is when people go in there, they wanna do something healthy that's not their decadent moment, so they're very conscientious about sugar. So I said to myself, I should lead with this problem as the business itself. Let people know that it's safe to eat an apple or a banana. Who did the branding of Good Sugar and what was the brief? The branding of Good Sugar originally happened with me by myself. The word Good Sugar was a word that I had to use all the time at Juice Press to help people consume the product without fear and worry. Now, what it's becoming, it's really between me, my friend, Brian Isaacs, and Rachel Weber, great human being, by the way. Both of them are great. What brands were on your mood board? Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. All right, we got the Flow Code, Flow Card. So this season of I'm with the brand, Flow Code is sponsoring it. Flow Code is a next-generation QR technology that makes absolutely gorgeous QR codes loaded with abilities for you to directly connect with customers. Right now, everyone's gonna be seeing a custom-made Flow Code for Good Sugar. When they pull out their phones, it will take them to a Flow Page. What would you love to put on there? I know Flow Code is great. We use it right now for a lot of the marketing things that we do in store. I would love it for our Flow Page to take people to the site where we have all these great articles and embedded in there, we're gonna have some free giveaways. A lot of creative entrepreneurs and founders are great at birthing ideas, businesses, and brands, but aren't the best at scaling it. Where do you fall on that spectrum? A great entrepreneur, someone who does something very large can see the whole vision all the way through. Are you a great entrepreneur? Not yet. Do you wanna be? Depends on what I have to give up. What are you willing to sacrifice? Not much. Good Sugar made a no-plastic promise and you did that successfully. What are the next couple trends or movements that you're betting on? The two issues that go hand-in-hand are personal health and the health of the planet. Any business that can concentrate on how to make a product healthier, they're gonna be better for it. Any company that can figure out the sustainability piece, they're gonna win. You don't seem like someone who has competitors. You seem like someone who has enemies. Who are you trying to take down with good sugar? I don't think I'm gonna share who I wanna beat, but the answer should be very obvious by the nature of the beast. When will you know you've made it? I've already made it. Who's on your Mount Rushmore? My wife, four times. What's the best part of the job? Monday morning. What's the biggest challenge you've had to date? People. What's the next milestone you're working towards? Two great stores in New York City. What's your kryptonite? Processed food. What is the key to your business? The key to my business is that there is no one key. There's 10,000 keys. You have to have them laid out in front of you, and it's a puzzle. You have to put it together every day, and you have to get it right. What's been harder than you anticipated? Finding good retail stores in New York City during and post COVID. Take me to your Syrian heritage good nose for retail spot. What is that secret sauce? There's three very important things when you think about location. Obviously, foot traffic is one of them, but the next thing that's important is it the right foot traffic. The third thing that's really hard to predict is whether that location is a lucky store. And how do you determine that? You got to stand outside the store and pray, and you have to sit there and watch it on Sunday, on Monday, on Tuesday. Maybe bring some pencils and throw them out the window, see if they bounce off. Maybe look at yourself in the mirror, go there with your kids. Don't go there with your kids. Give some change to a homeless guy outside. You have to hang out and you have to stalk that store until you can decide whether or not it's lucky. How do you make sure your brand resonates and doesn't just check boxes? You never know that until you actually see that out there. You have to rely on whether or not you have good taste and whether or not you're in line with the type of product that you're selling. How important are influencers? Influencers are everything. Undoubtedly, if you have the right influencer, connect the buyer to your product, you're going to win. Who do you want to steal market share from? Everyone. What keeps you up at night? I don't sleep, so everything keeps me up. I get like maybe 20 minutes at the end just to pay homage to the gods of sleep. What's something popular that annoys you now? Nothing annoys me. I'm happy about everything. Are you crazy? Less crazy than you. How much of your persona is 100% authentic versus Shane Smith, vice type showman who knows exactly what he's doing? I have no idea what I'm doing. I couldn't change anything about me no matter what. I've learned that a lot of brands have a certain tribe that really helps them fuel their success. Who's your tribe? The kooky people that live downtown first and foremost, I think they seem to have the right words to describe it whether it's good or bad. What's been the coolest moment so far? The coolest moment of good sugar undoubtedly is being on the show. I've been waiting for you to ask and now that I'm here, this is like, you're like my Oprah. If you had one marketing dollar to spend, where would you spend it? What I would do is I'd walk for one mile and I'd find somebody deserving to give that money as a donation. Let's say someone who had a cup in their hand and then I would ask them a marketing question and they would definitely give me the right answer. What's the biggest lesson you've learned so far? Open my parachute by 5,000 feet, have some time to fly around. If my parachute malfunctions, pull the handles, get my reserve parachute out. Very important lesson. Mark Zantevi, founder of Juice Press and Good Sugar. Thank you so much for coming on and answering some questions. Thank you. I'm Ian Wishengrad and I'll see you next time on I'm With The Brand.