6 Beliefs We Have at Okana

We set out with the goal to bring your body and mind the healthiest, tastiest, and most efficient beverage possible to help you achieve your goals while also addressing your overall health and physiological harmony. And we couldn’t be more excited about our product.?

Now that Okana is officially available, I’d like to take a moment to tell you about the 6 core beliefs that tie us to this venture.

1. Current and future generations will not sacrifice their mental health at the altar of ambition (and for good reason)

We as a society, and especially younger generations, have begun to put a very necessary spotlight on mental health. Mental health is a critical part of overall health and happiness that has, for far too long, gone overlooked. Even mocked.?

We believe that it’s time to decorelate development and suicide rate, financial success and stress, personal achievements and depression. We believe that it’s possible to be successful and motivated without risking our mental well-being.?

It has never been so easy to become an entrepreneur, and at the same time, it’s never been so hard to stand out and be seen. It’s easy to be suffocated by stress and depression and angst in these great ventures. But it doesn’t have to be the way. It’s possible to be ambitious, creative, successful while also being healthy.?

This is the balance we want to see and encourage. We crafted a beverage that not only gets you through the day, but is packed with the best adaptogens to combine needed energy with strong mental health. This is possible because our carefully chosen ingredients soothe your adrenal glands, which are the origin of stress and anxiety.?

2. Taste matters

You might come up with the healthiest magic potion in the world. Unfortunately, if you don’t enjoy drinking it – if you don’t adore it, it’s never gonna become a thing.

This is why it’s absolutely necessary to balance health and efficiency with taste and enjoyment.?

It’s also important to remember that, if you want people to adore your product, you better have a polarising taste. If everyone likes you, no one will adore you. So, it’s okay if some people dislike Okana, as long as others adore its unique flavor profile.?

The first question that? the majority of people have about Okana is quite simple: “Som Charles, how does it taste?” This is because taste matters.?

First of all, Okana doesn't taste like coffee. Or, at the very least, it doesn’t taste like black coffee. We wanted to create something robust and intense – something with a similar flavor profile that also stands on its own, something that you can enjoy in the morning and think, “This is damn tasty!”?

Out of the 9 ingredients in Okana, three of them are largely responsible for our unique flavor: cinnamon, ginger and licorice. But we were sure to add Lucuma – a prized fruit from the Andes Mountains – for a hint of sweetness in the back of the palate.?

3. “No bulshit” is sacred – product matters more than distribution?

In the past, you could dominate a category with an average product if you had massive distribution. Take a stroll through Walmart or Target and you’ll see plenty of examples.

It’s funny how these massive companies are now trying to catch up to the “little guy” trends – getting rid of dyes, preservatives, and other chemicals they were hiding behind scientific names on their labels. Espousing the virtues of organic and sustainability. I mean, this is a great development in the end, for us and for the planet. But the “little guys” were the ones to see the market demand for such things, well before the “big guys.”?

Even now, it’s funny how many times we had to say NO to manufacturers about flavoring or chemical uses. “You should add chemical dissolvents to ensure less sediment.” No thank you. And what’s wrong with a little sediment, anyway? It’s common in natural teas, coffees, hot chocolates, and beverages of all kinds.?

As mentioned above, developing a healthy, tasty, and sustainable product is not easy. But it’s also necessary. Flavor, alone, falls short. People want added benefits.?

Having said that, Okana provides 4 core benefits: Energy, focus, wellness, and immunity support.?

The Energy and focus come from the world’s best source of caffeine (Yerba Maté) and other active substances from our 4 adaptogens (Reishi, Lion’s Mane, Ashwagandha, Ginseng).?

Wellness starts with the positive effect that adaptogens have on your stress levels. This, combined with Theobromine from the Yerba Maté, Ashwagandha’s positive influence on your sleep patterns, and licorice’s effect on healthy digestion and you’ve got a good start for overall wellness.?

Immunity support comes from all the aforementioned ingredients and the other superfoods (Cinnamon, Ginger, Licorice), which are full of antioxidants to support your immune system.?

4. A Needle goes deeper than a rake – the Single Product Strategy?

It’s become normal (and almost expected) to launch a brand with 3, 4 (sometimes 6 SKUs). Why? Shelf space in Retail Stores. But how can you build an iconic product –that requires years of iterations if you disperse your consumers around different products? Best case scenario, you have one product that rises above the rest and the others will have to be replaced by new products over and over to maintain shelf space.?

As we said, we value product over distribution.

Today, Okana is already on the 3rd version, having been adjusted based on pre-sales, feedback, and testing.?

We at Okana want to build an iconic, singular product that is recognized for its taste, efficiency, and health benefits. Eventually, we will turn this exciting powder into a more diversified product portfolio. But...first thing’s first: get known, get loved.?

5. A brand that’s just a brand doesn’t belong to the modern world?

When you pitch to VCs, very often the question of defensibility arises. In other words, can you be easily imitated? In most tech start ups, you have legal leverages and technical barriers, mostly patents. Things that will make replication difficult or impossible. So what answer do you give when you cannot actually legally patent a recipe? Did you know that the “secret” recipe behind Coca Cola is a myth? More accurately, it’s a scam, and it’s actually very easy to determine what ingredients are in a bottle of Coke.?

Sure, distribution is a way to maintain distance with competition. But, as we said, it’s not our first battle, and going this way will tear our project apart.?

Look at the luxury industry, it’s rather easy to copy the design of virtually every collection, and the fast fashion industry has deployed a lot of energy doing just that. But what makes luxury brands viable, and almost untouchable, is their ability to create, develop, and innovate. A simple change of an Artistic Director can influence a luxury brand’s stock valuation.

We put creative content at the core of what we do, and we embrace an artistic vision of what we do: We interview, we write, we draw, we cook, we code, we design, we make music, we film, we photograph – almost all of it is done in house. We build an intangible value that is hard to imitate, and will eventually become our defensibility factor.?

That’s why we are building a media alongside the product, to put the light on people who inspire us to “Explore the world, Exalt Life and Excel at disrupting the status quo”. We believe that inspiration is the healthiest energy you can put in your body. So as a coffee alternative, putting the light on inspiring people is part of the job.?

6. Ambition is not an option?

Yes, we put in a lot of care. Yes, product comes first. Yes, we like to have an artistic edge.?

But, we aren’t a non-profit, and despite all the attention and hyper care we bring to the table, we are here to grow a business, and “growth” does not have to be a dirty word.

Actually, it’s certain that not scaling will sabotage our vision. At the end of the day, you’re in a race to scale.?

While product comes first, distribution comes after. We sell exclusively on our website at this stage, because it’s the best way to connect, engage, get feedback, and to build a world class product. Our long term goal is to gear up and enter new distribution channels which we believe in because it’s always good to be where your consumers are.?

We believe that a good product becomes omnichannel, or it dies. You just have to pick the right battle, one battle at a time, and always deliver at the highest level… in harmony.?

That’s why I have one or two cups of Okana every day. To stay in harmony :)