We recently connected with Chris Gronkowski and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Chris thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

Naming your company is a time consuming tough decision to make. I thought about it a lot, and thought of some unique names but after listening to a podcast It helped me make my decision a lot easier. The podcast featured the CEO of 5 hour energy. He was talking about how he create the name of the company and it all just made sense. He wanted to name it something that people could read and quickly know exactly what the product is and does. You have a very short period of time to catch a customers attention and you don’t want to lose the opportunity by naming your product or company a name that is confusing.

For this reason, I wanted to name the company something that would quickly indicate what the product is and does. Our bottles at the time were only shaker bottles. And all of our bottles were insulated to keep your drinks cold for a long time. For these reason the company was named Ice Shaker.

Chris, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Ice Shaker is a premium drinkware company that provides a full line of kitchen grade insulated stainless steel bottles. As seen on ABC’s Shark Tank and invested in by Mark Cuban, Ice Shaker’s feature product is a 26oz shaker bottle that is third party tested to hold ice for over 30 hours. The patented twist is agitator is ideal for breaking up powders and straining your drinks.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Building a social media following is a challenge. Even with a verified profile, It took me years to build up a significant following. After years of being on instagram, twitter, and now Tiktok, I have learned a few things that really help you grow your audience.

First, you have to be consistent. Posting a couple times a week at the least is a must if you want to grow your profile. Once you stop posting, your following will start to go down.

Lead with value – Give your audience information that they can actually use. If they find it useful, they will most likley share your advice and knowledge with others which leads to more followers.

Show the behind the scenes – People love to see what your life is really like on a day to day basis. The more you are able to show them, the more they feel connected to you.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

We sell on Amazon and ETSY. The pros – they have enormous customers bases that are ready to purchase! Amazon has built such a strong and loyal customer base that its hard to get a lot of customers to get off Amazon and come to your website. In fact, they usually leave our website and purchase off of Amazon because of their trust factor in Amazon and Amazon 2 day shipping.

The negatives with the platform – the high fees that they take per sale is just the beginning. To compete on Amazon these days, you will have to spend on ads, ad spend and amazon fees really starts to eat into your profit quickly. And if you don’t spend on ads, you better believe that your competitor will be. The biggest negative with amazon is that you will never know who your customer is and you will never be able to contact them again. They are amazon’s customer and not yours. And when they go back to purchase again, amazon will bombard them with all kinds of competitors and other items to purchase.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.iceshaker.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/iceshaker
• Facebook: facebook.com/iceshakerbottle