Have you ever wanted to enjoy the fresh aroma of a draft beer straight from a can? In this episode, Armand Ferranti, founder of the innovative Draft Top beverage opener, joins us to discuss his journey from a DIY party trick to a multi-million dollar business. We explore the challenges of product development, the reality of pitching on Shark Tank, and the resilience required to iterate through years of customer feedback. Armand shares his unique insights on balancing passion with business strategy, the necessity of listening to your audience, and landing significant licensing deals with major brands like Molson Coors. Whether you are an inventor or a seasoned entrepreneur, this conversation offers a masterclass in turning a simple, “barbaric” idea into a polished global beverage experience.

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From Party Trick To Multi-Million Dollar Business: The Draft Top Story With Armand Ferranti

Every single week, we bring you valuable content with lots of golden nuggets. This is going to be a very fast-paced show, so please tune in, take notes, and make sure you always go back and read again. When a student is ready, the teacher appears, I always say. We have a very special guest, Armand Ferranti. He’s going to join us. He was on Shark Tank as well. He owns a company called Draft Top. I am very excited to have you on. Welcome to the show, Armand.

Thank you. I’m excited to be here.

The Draft Top Pitch

Let’s get started. “Next up is a way to get that draft beer taste from a can.” “What’s up, Sharks? My name’s Pat.” My name’s Armand. We are seeking $300,000 in exchange for 10% of our company.” Tell me quickly. Where’s Pat?

Pat’s no longer involved in the business. He is a member of the family. As the business went on, things became more complicated, and we decided to go our own separate ways.

At least you kept him in the family. That’s the best thing.

It was an amicable separation. We all realized there’s a lot of complexity around your business, and there were things that were needed that we had to figure out on our own.

It’s always better if he can remain a friend and stay in the family. “Pat, do you know what I love more than anything? Draft beer. There’s something about it that tastes way better than beer in a can.” “It’s because you can smell the beer drinking rather than the aluminum top.” “True, but in most places, cans are the only option. They’re not going anywhere.”

“When I go camping and fishing, I only bring cans, but I usually pour them into a cup.” “Plastic cups are such a waste. There has to be a better way.” “How about this? What if we remove the entire top of the can?” “Do you mean like this? Sharks, don’t try this at home.” More importantly, children, don’t try this at home. Did you open it with your teeth?

I did. Funny enough, that was a party trick somebody taught me many years ago. That was the seed that was planted around the concept of being able to smell what you drink if you taste it. That was probably the very beginning of where it all started.

Those tricks you learn early on can be very valuable later on.

It’s a bit barbaric, so I don’t know that I would make a business out of using your teeth, but it helps the dentists.

Do you still have all your teeth?

I still got all my teeth.

Cool. “Sharks, we know there’s a better way to experience canned beverages. That’s why we created Draft Top.” What’s so great here, and what many entrepreneurs who go on Shark Tank forget to do, is make the Sharks laugh. If you can be humorous, if you can have some showmanship, sell the sizzle, and make the sharks laugh, you’re already winning.

Thank you. Our product is all about fun. More often than not, if you’re drinking from cans and you’re in social moments, that’s when you’re having fun. We had to have that energy come through in our pitch.

This is about beer. “Only patented bar tool on the market that’s designed to remove the top of your can beverage and turn it into a cup.” “Beer me. Here’s how it works. Open the handle, place Draft Top on the can, squeeze, and rotate. It’s that easy.” “Not to mention the top is removed from the inside rim, leaving no sharp edges.” “Sharks, who’s ready to drink topless?” “What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I get this to work?” “Hold on. We’re going to walk you through that.”

When a product is hard to open, hard to maneuver, or hard to use, the investors can lose interest pretty quickly. The Sharks can lose interest pretty quickly. You’ve been through this the last couple of years. Let’s let them play a little bit more. “In front of you, you got a fancy version of the customized tools for you. You can open it by pressing here on top of the handle.” “Pull it out like that?” “Yes.”

“Once in the open position, you’re going to place the tool on the can. You’re going to wiggle it a little bit. Once you get it on, you’re going to squeeze the handle slightly until the handle compresses.” “It didn’t work.” “Hold on.” “My problem is I’m crushing the can while I’m doing it.” “It usually takes a couple of beers to get the trick down.” “It’s too complicated.” “I have a question for you. It was a little challenging here for us.” “I made a mess.” Before that, let’s go ahead and demonstrate. This was in 2020, I believe, that you were on the show. We’re in 2026. You’ve been through how many variations of this?

This is the fifth iteration of the product since the show. This one was designed to take the top out. It holds onto the top here.

It’s good because nobody wants the top to be inside the drink.

The idea behind it when we did it originally was simply that it was so much easier. My six-year-old can do it. This is my six-year-old’s. Hence, the Halloween skull and crossbones. That was the concept for us at the time. An open top allows you to smell what it is you’re drinking, which affects how you taste it. Simply opening the top by pushing it in, which was a bigger version of what the tap normally does, gave you that experience. After COVID, people said, “I don’t want the top going into the drink,” which we listened to. It took a couple of years and several iterations to get to a point where not only does it take off the top, but it’s a much easier experience for the user.

I have a silly question. Why not bring a can opener?

You can cut a steak with a butter knife, but they make a steak knife for a reason. That’s always my response. You can use a can opener, but there’s a reason they make kitchen gadgets and bar tools to make the experience better.

Sales Figures And Product Evolution

Good response. I’m sure I’m not the first one to ask that question. “We’ve had the products on for eight months now, and we’ve sold $1.6 million for 70,000 units.” “Now we’re interested. Now we’re talking.” We don’t care if we can open it or not because all we care about is the $1.6 million in sales. That’s a lot of revenue for a product like this. Not everybody understands the application right away to be able to sell that many. Kudos to you guys.

Thank you. One of the reasons for that was that we launched on Kickstarter, which is a crowdfunding platform. You have a lot more of someone’s attention to convey the benefits and value of using the product. Whereas in the social media world, you have a fraction of a second to convey that value or why you would use it. It’s always a challenge.

“In December, we did crowdfunding. We did $835,000 in sales on crowdfunding.” There you go. That’s it.” This was our second time on Kickstarter. Lifetime sales are a little over $2 million.” “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid. If I’m having other troubles, what were the reviews on Kickstarter? What’s the feedback?” “We’ve had a lot of great reviews, and we’ve had others that didn’t necessarily feel as good.” “You mean they’re not so great.” “Surprisingly not as much as you would think.”

“We put out a lot of content on social media and YouTube where we have training videos and stuff.” “I can see this being a great gag gift or a great groomsmen gift, but at the end of the day, I can’t even get it to work.” “We do tell the consumer there is a bit of a learning curve, so there is an expectation.” “Listen to that. Listen to what you’re telling me. You’re asking me to waste a beer, and that is never tolerable.” “Mark, you don’t need to waste a beer. We tell people to start with empties. Collect a couple of empties.” “Practice with my empties?” “Absolutely. It works the same way.” Here’s the deal. I’m not going to beat you up here.

That’s okay.

When you go onto Shark Tank, which is one of the biggest-watched shows in the history of entrepreneurial shows out there, and you have a huge audience of millions upon millions watching, you want to make sure it’s user-friendly. You want to make sure it works. The other thing I see in this is you don’t want to have to teach people because you have 3 to 7 seconds to make a good first impression.

There were so many struggles. It’s like me with an outfit. I don’t know if this sounds right, but if an outfit is too complicated to figure out how to put on, I ditch it or donate it. My question for you, because I want entrepreneurs to read this, is why did you not perfect the product before you went on the show?

We were invited to Shark Tank in 2018 and declined because the earlier version of the product was very difficult to use. This iteration of the product finally became easier, although it was still difficult. There’s this idea that you don’t know what you don’t know until you are in the market and can get feedback from customers to learn, and then try to make those changes. At the time, this was a significant improvement over the one from 2015. We felt we could hesitate forever, or we could try. In hindsight, if we were to go back, this version is the one that would have changed how we showed up, for sure.

That took how many more years? That took another five years.

Four more years.

Four more years to come up with a new iteration. Here’s the deal, entrepreneurs. A lot of entrepreneurs and mentors wait until everything’s perfect. It’s paralysis by analysis. There are entrepreneurs who say, “It’s good enough. Let’s get it out there. Let’s see if we can gain exposure, sell more of these, and continue to improve the product.” It can be a slippery slope. It works for you.

This is a horrible analysis to make when I compare some of it to the iPhone, which is what it is, but it’s the first of anything that comes onto the market. All of a sudden, you start getting customer reviews to say, “I like the concept.” That’s huge, being able to say something like, “I love the concept, but the execution is bad,” because you can work on that. That’s something that we always took constructively.

You made the right decision. Some entrepreneurs are way too cautious, and some entrepreneurs are not cautious enough. There’s a fine line there. You want to supply a line. You said $2 million of revenue. People liked it. “$2 million worth of it. That’s serious money. My question is why? Why does the world need this? It’s a fun item, but it’s not worth $3 million.” “I’ve tried four times now. I tried it slowly. I took the thing down. I held it. I put on the thing. I can’t get it to work. I’m out.” These Sharks are having so much difficulty. What about the consumers? What percentage of consumers are having this much difficulty?

Here’s the thing, too. You’re told going into this that it’s busy. The Sharks are not reading instructions. What we built into the back of the products early on, as well as the packaging, was QR code videos. We got a large majority of people who are scanning them and following those instructions. I can’t think off the top of my head for an example of this, but you follow a simple set of instructions, and 2 or 3 cans later, even on empty ones that you’ve drunk, you figured it out. That’s how it progressed.

“Thank you, Robert.” “Thank you.” “I’ve been here, trying to work the can. I’m trying to understand the excitement about the product. I get it, but it’s such a pain in the high knee. I was going to look at it and say, ‘Do you have any flexibility on valuation?’” “Did you figure that your experience here would go like that with all of us laughing?” “No.” “I do want to talk about our sales.” “I want to talk about that, too.”

Here’s the bottom line. You can be doing great up there. You can be doing okay, and you can be doing terrible. You and your partner are very engaging. You kept it going. They’re laughing. When people are laughing, that means they’re engaged, involved, and still interested, so good job.

We have thick skin. Leading up to that show, we had a year or two years’ worth of heavy criticism in crowdfunding. You have to have thick skin. You can’t take it personally. A spilt beer is comical. It adds to show business as well. There was some seriousness in the performance that we brought to the table, and that’s what kept their attention throughout the episode.

I do like how frustrated they were and how they cannot open the cans because they think they can do everything. They could be dying of thirst, and they can’t get that can open.

Interestingly, before they opened their first can, and this didn’t make the final edit, we had served them two cans. One was closed, and one was open. They were both Blue Moon. We couldn’t show the label. We put an orange on it. The reaction that they got over that sensory experience was very interesting, even for Lori. It’s burned into my brain, but it never made the final edit of how much different this experience is for something so novel.

Going into this, and don’t say who you got a deal with or who you didn’t get to deal with, but who was your pick? Who was the number one Shark you wanted?

I’ll be honest in saying we didn’t have one. Each of them has an angle. You and your partners go through this process of like, “If it was Lori, it’s QVC. If it’s Cuban, it’s the sports and licensing route,” and so on. We were open-minded to it all. We did not have a pick. We knew each of them could bring something different to the table, and maybe that defined who we were as a brand once that happened.

Most people have a pick, so it’s good to hear the other side from them. “For you to make it? What do you sell it at?” “It’s $4.13 to make it. It’s 100% American-made. We started at $24.99 direct from the website.” “There you go. Those are good margins.” “You have a patent, right?” “We have a utility patent.” “You did it in three years.” I’ve never seen the Sharks struggle so much.

We do say that if we could go back, the version we have now is so different.

Patents And Intellectual Property Strategy

Let’s talk about patents. There are so many different stories. Should you get a patent? If you get a patent, you have to state all your stuff. You have to put it out there for the public to see. Everybody can see it. People can copy, etc. There are other people who say, “You have to have a patent because you should protect it.” Patents are much more valuable. I specialize in selling companies. The more patents we have, the more valuable the business is. When you have proprietary assets, it’s the highest multiple driver that can take you from a 4 to 5 to 10, etc. At what point did you decide to get that patent?

The one that we had for the show was filed back in 2013 or 2014 before we went public in 2015 on Kickstarter. It was issued in 2019 right before COVID and right before we launched the second Kickstarter.

That’s a long timeframe for patents. They usually don’t take that long.

You know what we were up against. We were up against little drum cutters and pipe cutters. Ours is designed to open up a beverage can, but because of how it operates and how it works, you’re comparing it to other cylindrical cutting devices that have industrial application. There was a lot of back and forth with the examiners. We ultimately ended up getting what we wanted, which was great.

It’s very interesting because people don’t always think about that. It’s a similar product to other things, but it’s unique and different.

We didn’t think about it either until we were met with rejections from the examiner.

Scaling And Commercial Business Growth

More money, more times. It was worth it in the end. “Our biggest problem is inventory. We can’t keep up through the website right now. Our sales have dropped in half in the last three weeks because we can’t make it fast enough.” That’s a great problem to have, that you can’t make it fast enough. Most inventors have the opposite problem. They can’t get rid of the inventory. These are very quick. What was your secret sauce to that? Were you selling direct-to-consumer, or were you also on Amazon?

We were direct-to-consumer. We came onto Amazon late in 2020. We also started having a lot of wholesale inquiries and resellers. For us, the idea is that because it’s novel, we showcase it much better now than we did then. Less brewing about beer and more around cocktails and things. It’s also an impulse item. Peak seasons are Q2 and Q4. It’s thousands per week. We have two sources to help with that demand, trying it in the US.

“I love when people come up with new ideas and things. People like your concept. You have proof of sales. You did amazing. My problem is we all had trouble using it. That’s not to say you can’t fix it, but for me to invest $300,000, no matter what percent on something that needs tweaking, it’s not there yet. I’m sorry. I’m out.” “Damon? Kevin?” This will be a very difficult product to sell on QVC, anyway.

We were on HSN a few years ago, and it did not perform as well on HSN. It was a newer version of the product. It’s hard to tell if it was the pitch. I don’t think it was the price point. It’s weird. We had a virality moment that was pretty significant. It all depends on how it gets pitched.

“The mistake was the $300,000.” “Kevin, we are on target to do $3.2 million conservatively. We think we’ll be at $4 million by the end of the year.” “When I first saw it, I said to myself, ‘Why?’ I’m still here looking at it, saying, ‘Why?’ I’m trying to open a can. I’m out.” How did you come up with your evaluation? When you were at $3.2 million and were about to hit $4 million, what was your EBITDA on that? Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization.

I’ll be very honest. If I were to go back and look at 2020 EBITDA, I couldn’t give you a number that I would be comfortable with and that I would remember. It was maybe in that 5%, 6%, or 7% range of a net margin at the time. The valuation was a factor of the opportunity that we believed we had based on the other sales. It was a multiple of revenue at the time. It was 2X what we had prior to going onto the show.

For all my entrepreneurs out there, most businesses are not calculated off of revenue, but calculated off of a multiple of EBITDA unless you have a SaaS company, which is Software as a Service. We get into the multiples of revenue. Most investors, including myself because I do invest, will not pay a multiple of revenue.

Let’s see what happens. “Damon?” “We’ve got 83% gross margins on the product and a 50% net margin. We’ve got about $500,000 in the bank. We need a mentor that can help us.” “There’s something missing here. We’re not seeing the pride in what you’ve accomplished. This is not a small accomplishment. Why do you want a Shark? What do you expect exactly?” “They want the $300,000.”

“We don’t need the money because we’ve got $500,000 in cash.” “If you didn’t want the money, then why did you value it so high for the opportunity?” “This is what we felt we value this company. We’re going to finish this year at $3 million. We plan to do at least $6 million next year.” “Why did you price it so high?” “It’s a starting point. It is what we are going to finish the year off on.”

“Did you price it so high because maybe you don’t want a deal?” “Not at all.” That was a good question because a lot of entrepreneurs go on Shark Tank, and it’s like, “It’s not what I want to do. I want publicity. I want sales. I want to blow up.” They use that as a marketing platform. That’s a great question he asked. You wanted a deal, and you were overpriced, but you used it as a starting point to negotiate down.

We knew it would happen. The other thing is we saw a very large potential. In those prior crowdfunding campaigns, we were selling to 50-plus countries and, at the time, tens of thousands of units. We felt like if we got the right mentor and the right guidance, that could easily become hundreds of thousands of units, and it would still be worth it for an investor to come in at that price.

You guys also said your sales decreased. I want to say you almost said it in half because you had the inventory. If you had $500,000 sitting in a bank, did you need the money for inventory? Why were you struggling because of a lack of inventory when you did have $500,000 in the bank?

Initially, it was production capacity. We are still with that small mom and pop shop that we have. They have a weekly production limit. It also did not justify then going to pay tooling to bring out another shop or go over to China. That was an element of needing the cash. At the same time, none of us are marketers. There was an element of wanting to use the funds to market to continue to push the product and get it out there in more effective means than what we were trying at the time.

As a business owner and entrepreneur, I’d be like, “How can I make sure inventory is always there so I don’t decrease?” “We came here for a partnership.” “You want $300,000 for 10%. I’m going to give you $300,000 for 20%.” “Great offer, Damon.” “We’re going to take that offer.” “Do you want me to open that for you?” “Let me try to celebrate. I’m going to try it one more time.” “Nice and slow. Get it on there. There you go.” “Go, Damon.” “We’ll figure it out. The fun part, I get it.” “Pat and Armand, cheers.” “Mazel tov.” “Cheers, Damon.” “Thank you.” “Congrats.” Good job.

Thank you.

Lessons In Organizational Business Success

We’re going to talk about beyond the Tank, but a couple of things I wanted to mention are that this isn’t just for beer. I was telling you before the show that I was having a hard time figuring out the application, so were my neighbor friends who always come over to my pool to swim, and so did my office team. We were trying to figure out the application, and we didn’t get it. You could drink beer out of a can or a bottle. I get the smell. I get the aroma. I get all that.

When we were on a boat in Pompano, I was with a bunch of younger people. Men that don’t always plan ahead. I’m like, “Bring the tequila. Bring the wine. Bring the napkins. Bring the mixers. Bring cups.” He didn’t bring cups. He could have taken your Draft Top, and he could have opened the TopoChico we were using, those seltzer waters. He could have opened it with that. You pour tequila in, and then you have a drink. It can be used a lot for mixed drinks because it can be a seltzer water or club soda. It can be any of those things other than beer.

Jack and Coke. One of our biggest selling points is that it’s very visual. You want to enjoy a Corona on a beach, but it’s impossible to get a lime put into it. It’s the same with an orange in a Blue Moon. I’ve got little kids sending them outside with cups. Those cups never come back. In the summer, you can open up a Sprite can and make a little Shirley Temple directly in a can. I don’t have to worry about them breaking glass or a whole host of things.

You didn’t talk about the entire product when you were on Shark Tank because you’ve also made these caps that you can put on when you’re not drinking so it doesn’t spill. You can also insert a straw.

We had a product like this. We had a commercial version of our product before Shark Tank, but we didn’t want to bring it on for IP issues at the time. We have a lot of bars, restaurants, stadiums, and venues that are trying to get rid of single-use plastics, or they’re serving in environments where glass becomes a safety hazard, like roof decks and pool decks. They’re big names. It’s Marriott. It’s Heineken.

As a result of these inquiries, to keep this branded experience in the hands of the consumer as opposed to a clear glass where you have no idea what’s in this, the beverage brands love the concept. Even Coca-Cola is making Coke floats directly in the can. The applications are endless. It’s how we manage the two different product lines in the business.

What has happened beyond the Tank? You were on in 2020. It’s now 2026. You made four different iterations. You’ve got one that works that nobody struggles with. What else is beyond the Tank? What did you learn? What did you gain? What lessons are you still using? Talk to us about that.

There are almost too many to share without boring you or filling up a ton of time.

Let’s pick the top three of those wow moments where you’re like, “I got to do this. I got to do that. This would catapult our business to the next level.” Let’s focus on the top three.

The three I would say are the organizational structure around operating a business. The other would be marketing. I’ll give a little bit of detail on each of these. The third was meeting demands, where our product was opening doors through iterative product development. From an organizational structure, there were four of us equal partners at the time. It was two family members and a friend.

We went into it very naively. We had no structure on how to run a business. We were making a lot of money, and we were putting it away. We didn’t structure P&Ls. We didn’t structure how we operated well. Naturally, when the faucet starts to run out, which it does throughout the year, and for us, it does in Q1 and Q3, you come into financial times that lead into arguments. It leads into, “You’re supposed to do this. I’m supposed to do that.” We made it through those.

Did you have an operating agreement?

We did. We had all the formalities, but we didn’t operate.

Did you have an org chart of who’s supposed to do what?

Yes.

Go ahead.

That leads into the next big thing, which was marketing. At the time, because we had done so well, and we had brought in so much cash, and we were only taking $60,000 salaries, we didn’t want to go into the new year with all the cash, which is profitability that’s taxed. We said, “Let’s go do some large marketing opportunities in hopes to spread.”

We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on NASCAR and Barstool Sports, thinking, “These are a no-brainer. They’re going to return tons of revenue.” When they didn’t, there was more finger-pointing. There’s more of this idea that sponsorship is not something small brands do to gain revenue. They might do it for awareness. That’s when the pressure came on to understand how to market a product in its most simplistic form.

What did you all end up doing?

We got down to focusing on digital ads. Digital ads, social media, collaborations, and getting influencers.

Did you have to pay those influencers?

Some, we have. Honestly, the ones that are the most effective are the ones that do it genuinely and naturally that you’re not paying for. It’s amazing. We will spend thousands on an influencer to trial something, but oftentimes, the small person that’s got maybe 1,500 or 2,000 followers will post something, and it’s at 7 million views. You can’t plan those things, but when you understand the impact of them versus what you’re paying for, and that there is no guarantee, it changes how you focus marketing the products.

Did you sell a lot of Draft Tops after the show?

Believe it or not, Shark Tank, and you’re probably not surprised watching that episode, was not a huge hit for us. We might have done $50,000 or $60,000 over a 2-day or 3-day period, but we had had far more success with other opportunities.

They didn’t make it easy.

It certainly didn’t convince anybody that this is what they need. How we pitched on that show was that we took the blue-collar, bro-y approach because we wanted everybody to see themselves in it at the time. Whereas now, we approach it in a more professional barware or beverage tech image. It applies to everybody in a different way. That’s one of those where it doesn’t surprise me that it didn’t do that big for us in the way of revenue after the show.

Have you figured out your marketing? You’ve nailed your marketing down. You got it down to science. What exactly are you doing? Are you still selling most direct-to-consumer, or are you still doing a lot of Amazon? What’s the split?

Eighty-five percent of the business is to the consumer through Amazon, Shopify, and TikTok, and then some wholesalers. That makes maybe another 5% between Target, Total Wine, independent liquor stores, and gift shops.

Total Wine carries it.

They have for about three years. The other part of the business is the commercial side, which is much different. It’s a tabletop machine with a tap handle. It’s global, like our handheld product is. In fact, we had a call with Wembley as one of our largest customers. They’ve got several hundred in the stadium. What’s great is the crossover.

We see people being introduced to the outcome first, which is this, and you don’t think anything of it. I got a picture from a friend at Wembley Stadium during the Harry Styles concert with a Corona and a lime on it. He takes a picture walking out. The number of referrals we’ve had came from Wembley using the commercial device. Not trying to market it has been significant. There’s a circle to how the products operate with each other.

Have you done any licensing deals?

We have. We, as of the beginning of 2026, landed a licensing deal with Molson Coors for Blue Moon, Miller Lite, Coors Light, and Miller High Life. We are slowly releasing each of those variants of the product.

That’s amazing. Tell us quickly how you were able to get that done because that’s not easy getting licensing contracts.

Ironically, Damon, who we ended up getting to deal with, was a big Miller Light sponsor and promoter in the past. He had opened a door with Molson Coors back in ‘21. That conversation continues. Blue Moon’s brand team reached out and said, “We can’t get an orange in a can. We sell more cans.” We did something, and then we kept the door open. I reached out and said, “We’re interested in a licensing deal. Would it be something you guys are interested in?”

Since it was an open door and they’d worked with us in the past, they considered it. We talked through it, and they gave us one, which was great. This will be the first year as a trial. It’s not a moneymaker for Molson Coors, even in the royalties, but what it does is bring attention to their brand so that their consumers get a better experience.

Defining Your Entrepreneurial Passion

Whenever you can attach your company to a big brand like that is more credibility for your company. Any last-minute thoughts, golden nuggets, or your wow moments that you want to leave with the audience that you’ve learned?

We’ve had some wow moments. We had Coldplay promote our product and use of all their venues from a sustainability standpoint. That was huge because they had that product in Hong Kong and Australia. The list goes on.

How did you get that Coldplay deal? Entrepreneurs that are reading are going, “That’s great for you. How do we do it?”

I would be 100% honest in saying I have no idea. Somehow, they found out. They said they don’t want any single-use plastics. They don’t want anything. They found out about it and told Live Nation. Live Nation went to all the venues and said, “We want you to bring this product in.” That was a big a-ha moment that the world is getting away from single-use plastics. This is a cup. Why pour it into another one when you can serve that?

It’s not just for beers. It’s for mixed drinks.

Even seltzer. If you’ve got a flavored seltzer, smelling it changes it. The last thing I will say as a learning and advice thing to people, especially pursuing entrepreneurship, is that it’s tough. You’ve got to be passionate about what it is you’re doing. If you are not passionate, the first obstacle you come up against, you’re going to want to tap out. I’m not wildly passionate about can openers, but I am about inventing and bringing things to market. It has helped get through some tough times. It has also helped elevate the exciting moments, which we still get all the time.

That’s the old-age question that everybody asks. Do you have to be passionate about what you’re doing, or does passion matter? Is it more about the end game? You can answer that.

It does to an extent. As an entrepreneur, you don’t know it until you know it. There’s always this American dream for the Americans reading this, but the dream is not exactly what you would think. It is that stereotypical image of a mountain where you think you’re at the peak. It still is going up, but you don’t know what the next peak is.

If you’re not passionate, you’re going to sit there. I even have old coworkers be like, “We’re looking to hire.” I could go back into the corporate world and make a healthy living without stress, but I wouldn’t feel fulfilled. That would be the thing that gets to me in the long run. Passion is maybe not for everybody. For me, it’s something that keeps me going.

That should have been my 7th P because I talk about my 6 Ps, which are People, Product, Processes, Proprietary assets, Patrons, Profits, and then Passion. Here’s the deal about passion. Here’s what I see about passion. You don’t necessarily have to be overly passionate about the product. You said, “I’m not passionate about can openers, but I am passionate about business and inventing.” You have to ask yourself what the passion is beneath all of that.

I always ask my clients, “What is your why? Why are you building a company?” If it was easy, and you could build a $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, $40 million, or $50 million company, everybody would be doing it. I always ask them, “What’s your why?” It takes a strong and powerful why to keep you in the game and to keep you fighting all the financial storms, catastrophic events, and the things that happen during business. You have to have a why of why you started it, why you’re still in the game, and why you’d want to sell it for millions or billions.

Also, how long you’re willing to go before that opportunity comes.

How long are you willing to ride the ride? That’s right. You’ve got to have passion. You got to have the why. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about the product. I have a passion for entrepreneurs. I have a passion for helping entrepreneurs exit rich. That’s my passion. Any last-minute thoughts before we wrap up?

No, but thank you for letting me share the story. One thing I’m passionate about is sharing the story with others so that you get some insight as to what it’s like to start and run a business. I am thankful for all those, yourself included, that have given me these things over the years. I take them as an opportunity to learn something and then share it with the next person. Thank you.

You’re welcome. What impressed me so much about your company and your product is you look at it and go, “It’s a gadget.” The Sharks were also saying, “It’s a gadget.” Then, Lori came back and said, “You have proof of concept.” If you’re a beer lover and you want to smell the beer when you drink it, and you don’t want a plastic cup. That’s a passion that you can turn into a lot of money. Proof of concept is always by revenue and happy fans that will brag about you and your product. Well done.

Thank you.

You’ve tuned in to another episode where I told you it’s going to be valuable content. Go back and read it. Make sure you share this. Please share this with your network, your friends, and everybody that you’re in contact with and do business with. Number one, they probably want to buy Draft Top. Number two, it’s great entrepreneur lessons. Go back, read, and share it with your network. Also, make sure that you subscribe to the show. Thank you.

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