Yanni Hufnagel (Lemon Perfect) - Why He Left Basketball To Founding a Lemon Water Company, Getting Beyoncé to Invest, and How He Scaled Distribution Nationally

The Consumer VC: Venture Capital I B2C Startups I Commerce | Early-Stage Investing I Brands

Thank you CJ Fowler for the introduction to our guest today, Yanni Hufnagel, Founder & CEO of Lemon Perfect. Lemon Perfect is a super-refreshing, full-flavored, hydrating lemon water with no sugar, artificial flavors, or sweeteners.

Some of the questions I ask Yanni:

1. Why did you become a coach?
2. Why did you leave college basketball to found Lemon Perfect? What was the insight that led you?
3. How did you think about the hydration category?
4. What was your first steps when you started Lemon Perfect?
5. How did you think about testing?
6. Curious as to how their omnichannel strategy started, evolved(lessons learned), and what next steps are
7. How Beyonce drinking their product has helped them grow, did it help get into retailers?
8. And more generally, his thoughts on working and taking money from celebrities.
9. How did you get into retail?
10. Moving forward what will be the best avenues to pursue for sampling ?
11. What’s the biggest change from your role going from early stage to growth stage
12. What was the most surprising part in CPG since you were an outsider?
13. How has college basketball helped shape you?
14. How did you approach raising capital? How big do you want to go?
15. Why did you go to recycled plastic? How do you think about margins?

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