We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Reed Allen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Reed below.

Hi Reed, thanks for joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

LIV as a brand and culture materialized through a combination of my personal life experiences and inspirations. The idea for the vibe of the brand actually came before I knew which direction to take our products in, but I always knew for sure that I wanted to do something with healthy, plant-based, and super delicious food.

I lost a kidney when I was 13 years old, which was traumatic, but it caused me to be very mindful of the things that go into my body and how they affect me. Given this changed perception in life, I became a Vegan as that is what felt best with my body. I opened my taste buds to all sorts of new ingredients, cuisines, foods, and flavors and learned how to cook at a pretty young age.

I didn’t have a ton of money and it’s sometimes hard to find delicious Vegan things out and about so instead I would end up making almost everything homemade. I got hooked on homemade Matcha Lattes, Vegan Hot Cocoa, Golden Milk, and many other healthy drinks.

I realized how yummy my beverages were tasting so I wanted to be able to offer them to others in a way that was convenient, cost effective and as environmentally friendly as possible. I started experimenting with the powdered versions of my favorite ingredients and after hundreds of batches and endless tinkering I found the balance with each of our Latte Blends!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Greetings Earthlings! My name is Reed Allen and I am the founder of LIV (Latte Club)!

I grew up on an old farm in the mountains of Western Maine and still live here in Maine with my wife and two daughters. I love skateboarding, basketball, art, photography, design, cooking, hiking, adding to my Nintendo collection, dabbling with Music, and living a healthy lifestyle.

LIV currently sells delicious, plant-based, Instant Superfood Latte Mixes in three flavors: Matcha Latte, Golden Milk Latte, and Cacao Maca Latte. Our mixes feature super simple ingredients, can be conveniently made wherever hot water is found, and are more cost-effective (and tastier in my opinion!) than if you were to buy the equivalent at your local coffee shop.

The intention with our brand is really to remind people to simply liv(e) and to enjoy a cozy moment in life! I am proud to offer products I can 100% stand behind and a brand vibe that is truly unique and authentic.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Before LIV, I was a co-founder of a company that raised VC money and I wanted to take a different route this time to challenge myself and see what I could do. Let’s see how scrappy I can get!

With LIV, I simply figured out how much money I would need to launch a basic version of our product on a small scale knowing that I can strategically improve X and Y as more money is available.

In our case for example, instead of jumping right in and investing in pre-printed packaging that would cost multiple thousands, I realized we could still have a great product if we bought single labels and blank bags for just a few hundred. Granted, our margins were tighter, but knowing we had a path to better margins was enough to keep things moving.

I generated enough money to start LIV by offering creative and marketing services to other food CPG clients on the side through my studio, PALMS Creative (palmscreative.com). Once we were moving and generating some revenue, I leveraged our sales growth for two working capital loans which have been extremely helpful in making strategic upgrades to our packaging and manufacturing equipment as well as to continue keeping up with purchasing larger volumes of ingredients.

Lastly, instead of outsourcing almost everything and using too much precious startup capital, given that almost everything you need to know on any subject is on the internet these days, I decided that I would try and do as much as possible by myself even if that meant spending some time learning something. You would be surprised at what you can do with that mindset! Obviously, this is not always realistic but it’s good to keep in mind!

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

We always like to treat our customers like an old friend or family member. I never want a customer to feel like we are some cold, impossible to contact brand. So just being open and committed to basic communication is a big start.

Our newsletter and social media channels are the primary ways we communicate with our customers – we also write thoughtful handwritten notes with every order!

Brand loyalty is fostered over time by a combination of great products and great customer service as well as always doing things to continually innovate and create an environment where there is always an element of surprise. We like to create lots of different stickers and other cool freebies to throw in with orders so repeat customers are always getting something new and unique with each package they receive.

One of my favorite things we have done is create custom LIV Maine Wildflower Seed Packets that we toss in for new customers. For the seeds, we worked with Fedco Seeds here in Maine and for the artwork, we collaborated with Maine-based artist, Spencer Macleod. The packets turned out great and they are just something fun and special that customers will hopefully remember LIV by!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://drinkliv.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drinkliv/

Image Credits
All photos taken by LIV or Perry Flowers.