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

Sid, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

We have been in business for over 8 years. We started brewing Wild Bay Kombucha in the side room of a juice shop in 2015, and it is now sold in over 1300 stores in 10 states including: Whole Foods, Giant, and Weis Markets. In that time, we have moved facilities twice, and now operate in a 13,000 square foot facility in Northwest Baltimore. We have averaged growth of over 50% year-over-year, which has been exciting but challenging.

Growing sales early on was all about saturating the local market. Like most small businesses, we have an extremely limited marketing budget, so we built brand awareness by focusing on specific neighborhoods/areas in Baltimore City. We partnered with multiple cafes and restaurants in those areas and were constantly pouring free samples so people could try our kombucha. Our distribution was extremely limited, but to people living in those areas we were “popping up everywhere”. This approach helped us establish a reputation and build a following. We learned early on that word-of-mouth marketing is the most effective, and this was a cost-effective way to find early adopters that would champion our products. We have used this same strategy whenever entering new markets.

Growing production has been all about balancing budgetary constraints and choosing the optimal time to upgrade equipment. We were all in our Mid-20’s when we started the business, so traditional financing was not available to us. By working with community lenders (CDFIs), like Baltimore Development Corporation and Baltimore Community Lending, we were able to get subsidized financing we would otherwise not qualify for. When purchasing fermentation tanks or other equipment, we always made sure it would pay for itself within 6 months. If it wouldn’t, we decided we were not ready for it. For this reason, we bottled everything by hand and brewed everything in 5-gallon glass jars for 2 years.

The most difficult financial situation we have had was when we moved from the side of the juice shop to our own 3400 square foot space in 2016. We completed the buildout and were prepared to move in when the state inspector informed us that we needed to build an additional room. It would cost around $30K, and we had no way of financing it in the timeframe we needed without stopping production. We entered a local pitch competition called Shore Hatchery having to win first place, and we did. We won $30,000, which allowed us to keep going. This moment taught us to always have a source of capital available to you even when you don’t need it.

From 2015-2019 we were always hyper-focused on hitting our revenue goals, but since the pandemic, we have seen our focus shift from growing top-line revenue to bottom line profitability. Triple digit growth is extremely exciting, but in our industry, it is expensive and unsustainable without outside capital. By growing between 40-50% year-over-year we can grow both the top and bottom lines simultaneously. The most cost-efficient way to grow is with your existing customers, and that is what we have done. In 2020 we launched Icaro Yerba Mate, a line of sparkling yerba mate in cans. We sell it to the majority of our Wild Bay Kombucha customers. In 2021 we started distributing beverages beyond what we make, which allows us to fill customer’s fridges, while increasing the profitability of our transportation. Diversifying our sources of revenue between Wild Bay Kombucha, Icaro Yerba Mate, and in-house distribution has also proven to be a positive when banks or investors are assessing the risk of working with us.

Beyond making delicious products, I believe the key to our success has been our leadership team and the ability to divide and conquer. Adam Bufano’s (Co-Founder) dedication to product quality, flavor development, and production improvement has kept our offerings fresh and made us more efficient as we have grown. Sergio Malarin’s (Co-Founder) obsession with customer satisfaction and willingness to fill in any position has given us incredible customer retention and flexibility. Kelly Kicherer’s (Director of Operations) ability to maintain our day-to-day operations in this constantly changing environment has established us as a reliable supplier. My focus on finance, sales, and marketing has allowed us to continue to grow our footprint while keeping up with the costs.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Sergio, Adam, and I have all been friends since we were 14 years old. Wild Bay Kombucha is inspired by the 25-year old kombucha recipe their parents would make at home while we were growing up.

Our goal has always been to have a positive impact on our community by providing high quality organic beverages. Wild Bay Kombucha is a perfectly balanced kombucha, and we give 1 percent of all sales to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation for the protection of local habitats. Icaro Yerba Mate is the only sparkling yerba mate brewed from all loose leaf ingredients. It is a great source of organic energy and we give 1 percent of all sales to Living Classrooms for arts education in Baltimore City.

I am most proud of building our company in our hometown. Baltimore, Maryland is often shown in a negative light, and we want to change that narrative. It is an incredible place to build a business, and is an awesome city filled with creatives and makers. We have been able to create 17 jobs in the city and plan to create many more.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

We manufacture both our kombucha and yerba mate in-house. We knew how to make the product since we had done so in a home kitchen, but taking it from the home to a commercial kitchen was a steep learning curve. We worked closely with the local health department to develop a process that would adhere to their rules while maintaining the quality we wanted to achieve. As we grew, we reached out to other kombucha companies and breweries for advice on equipment and fermentation tanks. The ones that responded were incredibly helpful in steering us in the right direction.

The biggest lesson we have learned is that you should expect things to go wrong in manufacturing and have a contingency plan for when it does. Something will malfunction or break on our bottling line every couple weeks and we have to pivot our staff into other tasks while we fix the problem.

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

When we were subletting the side of the juice shop in our first year, our landlord started seeing our sales grow, so she tried to increase our rent by 3x overnight. We challenged this and said we needed more notice. Instead of countering, she told us she was changing the locks and we will be locked out of our space. We had our first order scheduled to go out to Whole Foods the next day.

We rushed to the storefront as fast as possible and the locksmith was still working on the door. We walked into the space and our landlord was there. She sarcastically told us she can either lock us in our out. Adam and I looked at each other and said “lock us in.” The locksmith changed the locks so we couldn’t both leave the space without getting locked out permanently. We had my Dad bring us beer and sleeping bags because there was no way we were going to miss our shot with Whole Foods. The plan was to sleep in the juice shop and pass the cases out the fire escape the next day so we could fulfill the order.

After realizing our absurd level of dedication, the landlord gave in and was willing to negotiate a more reasonable rent increase.

Contact Info:

• Website: mobtownfermentation.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/WildBayKombucha/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WildBayKombucha/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidharth-sharma-64a87443/
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/icarotea/

Image Credits
Peter Hoblitzell