WOW!
What an incredible few weeks it’s been! And for soooooo many reasons!
We will be honest, juggling a B2B industry launch event, our first mini crowdfunder, production, building up local stockists, and running vegan festivals every weekend for the last 6 weeks has not been easy peasy!
But it has been productive.
Firstly, we are delighted to celebrate hitting the £5,000 crowdfunder target – wohoooo! This will help us move forward in printed pouches across 3 other delicious flavours and to better target retail. However, it was as much about giving the new range a launch and some early exposure.
Watch out for the final stats in 4 days time!
The crowdfunder is something we have toyed with for a while, but ended up jumping in the deep-end (these things normally take a ton of groundwork!). Its not uncommon now for a ‘high growth’ start-up to go through 2,3 or 4 crowdfunders in the growth stages. From rewards (like we have run), through to equity shares in ownership. So it’s unlikely to be our last, but great to have built up some experience!
Hats a Wrap!
Our B2B launch event on the 30th April continued our ‘Gambia hat’ theme – to help connect to our Gambian co-operative communities. We had an incredible turn out over the night. From the banking sector, to retailers, café owners, distributors, researchers, university professors, vegan bloggers, social entrepreneurs – couldn’t of asked for more! It flew by waaaaaay too quickly, but there were puff-puffs, jollof rice, cassava chips, fufu, fried plantain, plenty of Baotic drinks, a touch of Gambian drumming/singing and a few snazzy hats! A picture paints a thousand words…
Drink Baotic Launch – Pic Peter Devlin
And here’s a few more…
You can view all photo’s in the gallery by Devlin Photography
Consumer Festivals
And if that wasn’t enough, we have had the privilege to be getting back out there face to face with consumers, at food and drink and vegan festivals (Glasgow, Falkirk, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool so far, and Nottingham this weekend!).
In Liverpool we stumbled across this cool chap….
There is nothing more motivating than happy customers.
So that brings us to say a formal THANK YOU, thank you, thank you to everyone that ‘gets us’! Everyone that has bought into us as a team, the love for our amazing Baotic drink products, and our business vision for healthy communities at home and in The Gambia. And to you for reading!
To all of you… You Rock!
Until the next time. Stay healthy, happy and helpful!
Isatou & Paul
#TeamBaotic
FINAL FEW DAYS to pledge for drinks on our Crowdfunder and/or VOTE to help us pitch in front of Sir Richard Branson!
