We recently connected with Zech Francis and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Zech thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I’ve had the entrepreneurial bug since I was 9 years old. From that young age I’ve been obsessed with branding, design, and creating products that consumers love. I launched my first apparel brand at 12 years old, bought my first screen printing press at 15, and by the time I was 19 I had a clothing brand that was selling in popular retail stores across the country, from Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, Buckle, and many more.

By the time I turned 30 I had already spent nearly 2 decades working as a clothing entrepreneur and was fortunate enough to exit one of my companies. At this crossroads in my life I decided to split my time between building an influencer focused apparel brand called Dibs, while also investing and advising for consumer goods companies outside of apparel.

One of the investments I made in 2018 was in a small but exciting new start-up called BeatBox, which makes “party punch” in a recyclable Tetra Pak. At that time BeatBox was doing $1.2M in revenue and was distributed in a few key accounts in select states in the US. In 2020 I was asked by my good friend and co-founder of BeatBox, Brad Schultz, to come on board as a Senior Advisor to help him develop a few key marketing programs. Fast forward to 2023 and I’m currently the VP of Global Marketing for BeatBox where we’re on track to do ~$100M in revenue and are sold in over 73,000 stores in the US.

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

– My name is Zech Francis and the best way I can sum up what I do is that I’m a creative brand builder in the consumer goods industry. I’ve had the pleasure of building several popular apparel brands in my early career, investing and advising for various consumer goods brands outside of apparel more recently, and now I’m helping to grow BeatBox, the #1 fastest growing ready-to-drink cocktail brand in the US. I currently live in Laguna Beach, California and I have 2 amazing young boys, Saxon and Liam.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

My early business mentors all stressed that the more hours a day you work, the more successful you’ll become. While I do agree that putting in the time is a huge part of being successful, what is even more important is laying out the right plan and taking the time to build the right team around you. If you’re putting in 12+ hours a day, but you have a shaky plan or a bad team, you’re going to spend more time running in circles or picking up the slack from your employees. Build your plan, build your team, and then put in the work.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The journey began in 2012 in the live music capital of the world, Austin, TX, and the energy was contagious. So much so, that BeatBox was able to secure the largest investment in SharkTank history from Mark Cuban who, “invested in BeatBox because at heart I’m a 25 year old and saw that this is going to be a party phenomenon.”

BeatBox quickly built a team of beverage leaders helping to define a new category of “Party Punch.” BeatBox has an impressive roster of famous investors in music and entertainment, including Mark Cuban, Rob Dyrdek, Party Favor, Louis The Child, Good Times Ahead, and many more.

Today, BeatBox has become one of the fastest growing brands in the alcohol industry and the drink of choice for Millennial and Gen Z drinkers. Its passion for music, and connection to its consumers, has also made it the fastest growing and most engaged alcohol brand on social media. Like Mark said, this is a company that sells fun, and if anyone ever asks what this brand is all about, tell them that “BeatBox Brings the Party!”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://beatboxbeverages.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beatboxbeverages_iu/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zech-francis