We recently connected with Arianna Salinas and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Arianna thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

For decades, the $57B energy drink industry has been a stubborn duopoly (mainly Red Bull and Monster) forcing consumers to trade their mental and physical health in exchange for energy. And though, in the moment, these drinks may give you the energy you need, they often leave you feeling jittery, bloated and guilty.

While working in the restaurant industry, and in investment banking at Goldman Sachs, I used to be like millions of other people consuming an energy drink every day. I thought I lived a healthy lifestyle – I exercised 5-6 days per week, I primarily ate whole, unprocessed, nutrient dense foods, and I avoided sugar at all costs. But my afternoon energy drink was my Necessary Evil.

In 2020 I decided I’d had enough. Every other industry was innovating to meet the growing demand of the better-for-you, health-conscious consumer, but energy drinks were stuck in time. It’s like we’d all made a silent agreement to trade our health and well-being for small bursts of energy so we could chase our dreams. The truth is, nothing is more important than our health. And though we wish something as simple as “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” could be true, we at SOMI believe it’s less about what we put into our bodies, and more about what we refuse to let in.

That’s why we created SOMI – an all natural, zero sugar, matcha based energy drink.

Each can is packed with 170mg of natural caffeine, contains no artificial ingredients or additives, zero sugar, and is full of natural antioxidants from 2 superfoods – matcha and monk fruit.

Our mission is to break the stigma that energy drinks are a necessary evil by providing an energy drink that is free of compromise and truly good for you.

Arianna, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I would love to. I am the co-founder and CEO of SOMI. I live an overall healthy lifestyle. People who know me best will tell you that the gym and healthy eating are second nature to me, and though I love to treat myself every once in a while, especially while traveling, I like to focus on long term health over instant gratification.

I am a true believer that your health all starts and ends with the foods you do, and do not, consume.

Energy drinks became a part of my daily routine in college when I was attending classes and working in a restaurant. They would fuel my morning shift, my late night workout or my all night study sessions. I knew they were silently killing me, but those energy drinks got the job done; “the juice was worth the squeeze” as the saying goes.

But in 2020 I decided I’d had enough! I would no longer trade my health for energy. That’s when my husband and co-founder, Angel, and I decided to take matters into our own hands. We turned to MATCHA , or as we like to call it, the Queen of Caffeine. Matcha gave us the energy we needed without the crash, jitters or bloat. But if you’ve ever made matcha before, you know it isn’t convenient, and quite honestly, it’s a pain in the butt that often ends with green powder EVERYWHERE.

So we decided to can it; making matcha ready to drink and convenient.

It turns out, we weren’t the only ones looking for a better alternative. Since hitting the Austin market in January, SOMI has been picked up by over 50 local retailers wanting to provide a healthier choice for their shoppers.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

Angel and I spent over 5 years traveling the country, eating and researching donuts (a tough job, I know, but someone had to do it).

After years of planning, and hundreds of donuts consumed, we prepared to open our store in Austin in March of 2020. Unfortunately, in December of 2019, we were faced with a legal issue and decided to pull the plug and take a huge financial loss. As we know now, that turned out to be a blessing in disguise for two reasons:

1) COVID closed all business 2 weeks after our expected opening date
2) Losing our donut store allowed us to pursue SOMI which is definitely better for our health, and the health of others. We know donuts are delicious, but we truly believe the world will be a better place with a healthy energy drink combating sugar instead of another donut shop fueling the fire of sugar consumption.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

If I had to pick one book to recommend to fellow entrepreneurs, it’d absolutely be the E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber. It’s all about the philosophy of working ON your business, not IN your business. This allows you to grow and scale, rather than focus on day to day tasks holding you and your business back. In our case, this inspired us to partner with local distributors to spend less time on daily deliveries and more time engaging with our community and expanding our retail footprint to bring healthy energy to more people.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://drinksomi.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drinksomi/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drinksomi
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/drinksomi