Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Billy Fanshawe. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Billy, thanks for joining 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.

Lytos was inspired in 2010 when I was mixing vodka with sports drinks such as Gatorade or Pedialyte. Adding electrolytes to vodka seemed like a no brainer, and I was surprised no one had ever done it. At the time, I had class very early in the morning, then a landscaping job throughout the day, so something such as a sports drink mixed with vodka made sense. Fast forward to the top of 2019 I broke ground and began developing the formula. The formula took about one month. The process was no where near as complicated as expected going in. The electrolytes used are pretty standard. However, a couple of common electrolytes that had to be left out. Since those electrolytes would not make much sense for an alcoholic beverage. Lytos is now a patent pending product.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My background was almost entirely in media, marketing and advertising. I’ve done everything under the sun as it relates to those disciplines. I have roughly six to seven years of experience in media, marketing and advertising, had zero experience in the food and beverage industry, specifically, the alcohol industry. I entered this industry as someone totally new without any connections. I felt introducing the first ever distilled spirit with added electrolytes would be met with curiosity and could meet the growing demand from customers for more innovative products.

What I am most proud of is how far the brand has come. There have been some extreme challenges that I have overcome over the past year and nine months. It is incredibly hard to break into the alcohol industry. There are challenges in the beginning with label approval and state government. When you get started there are challenges with finding distribution. There are challenges working with retailers. At every step, there are challenges. For that reason, most brands in this business, particularly the ones like mine that are primarily bootstrapped, do not make it. Yet, over 370 retailers have agreed to bring in the product to date.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

During a manufacturing switch you resubmit your label to the federal government agency, the TTB. Nothing about the label had changed besides where the product was made. After the TTB reviewed the label thirteen times with no issue in regards to the logo or name, it was requested that I change the name and the logo, which effectively is a death sentence as the name and logo are the brand. This issue was also holding up a $45,000 purchase order. We were fortunate enough to speak with a very reasonable officer at the TTB who let me keep the name and continue to use the current logo a little bit longer before I have to change the logo. When we finally started production, we found the glass manufacturer had sent us roughly thirty or so bottles with glass chipped out of 3,000 bottles. One by one, we had to vet each bottle to confirm each of the damaged bottles were accounted for. We also had label application issues. Some labels had to be re-applied by hand one by one. However, we were able to get it done all before our master distributor went out of stock.

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

I found myself having to pivot with Lytos recently. Lytos has always been a 100% local brand to Maryland, however, due to a popular co-packing beverage industry in Florida the product had been made there for over a year and a half. While, several other brands can get away with being a local brand e.g. Under Armour based here but makes everything in China, it just does not work that way when it comes to spirits. Moving manufacturing to Maryland was a must, along with alternating the label to feature the Maryland flag. Manufacturing switches are not easy but it was a pivot I knew I needed to make.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.lytosvodka.com/findlytos
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lytosvodka/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LytosVodka
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lytos-vodka/?viewAsMember=true
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lytosvodka
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmq9ecQwQwe2OuRaVOF8egw
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/LytosVodka/