We were lucky to catch up with Chris Allen recently and have shared our conversation below.

Chris, appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Success isn’t a straight line – it comes after innumerable peaks and valleys. I think quality most key to success is persistence. Entrepreneurship is 99% failure and 1% success. There is much more failure than the world will ever see, and those who get to the 1% of success are those who don’t let the failure stop them.

Personally, I powered through so much skepticism about bringing spiked functional cocktails to the market – are there really enough health-conscious people who drink to support this market? It took a ridiculous amount of persistence and self-belief to get enough distributors to buy in to even get our beverage to the point where people would recognize us and know who we were.

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?

I’m Chris Allen, a beverage entrepreneur and television personality. In 2019, I started Osena Beverage Company, a functional beverage company that brought a spiked coconut water cocktail to market. After years battling it out in the spiked seltzer wars, I spun out a consulting business called Impact Beverage Consultants to help other people dreaming of bringing their own drink to market.

I also got to display my skills as an entrepreneur on the greatest stage possible when I starred in Netflix’s new hit reality show “Million Dollar Secret” where I competed with 11 other people in a game of deceit, cunning and wit for a large cash prize. The show has taken the world by storm as the #3 show in the world at its launch. With the newfound exposure from the show, I hope to connect with fellow entrepreneurs and create content to help others achieve their dreams of business ownership while maintaining their physical and mental wellness.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

Finding a good cofounder is the hardest part of starting a good business in my opinion – it can make or break everything. I met my cofounder at Wharton in 2018 as friends first, roommates second, and then business partners third. We united over a passion for better-for-you beverages, and with both of us sharing a Hispanic background we wanted to bring coconut water into the alcohol space to share what my cofounder had enjoyed growing up in a family of Uruguayan immigrants.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

The first place to look when starting your first business is to the people who believe in you most – although it’s a risky proposition, we raised a small pre-seed from family, extended family, and our closest friends. They believed in our beverage before we even had liquid to sample.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://drinkosena.com
• Instagram: @callenND
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-d-allen/
• Twitter: @callenND
• Youtube: @callenND
• Other: TikTok: @callenND

Image Credits

Netflix