Melanie Masarin's Building Her Empire in the 1.3TN Non-Alcoholic Beverage Industry
Melanie was the head of Retail and Offline Experiences for Glossier when she found herself cutting back on alcohol. One day she woke up and never drank again, but felt constantly frustrated by the lack of non-alcoholic options.
She found that she always felt much better without alcohol, and she unconsciously influenced her friends to sip on a non-alcoholic drink on nights out. Melanie thought there had to be a better option to her constant sparkling waters. At the time, the non-alcoholic beverage wasn't established, but Melanie thought if she built it hopefully people would come and understand.
Melanie dreamed up a non-alcoholic aperitif, and set about formulating a recipe with the help of a food scientist. After using her savings to try 55 formulations, she finally landed on a recipe for Ghia's first product.
With some small angel investments from folks like Emily Weiss at Glossier, Melanie launched Ghia in June 2020. Ghia had to rethink a launch strategy that focused on IRL and restaurants, and pivot to DTC.
"It was the most horrible time to launch. You wouldn't in your right mind want to launch your company then, you know, that was. If we had known better, we probably wouldn't have either. But we had made this product and we didn't know how long it lasted yet. And here I am with like all of my savings, and now some of my old bosses money is in those 1200 bottles of red liquid."
Getting press coverage in June 2020 was almost impossible, but Melanie had 1,200 bottles ready to sell. She set a target of $7,000 for launch day sales and went out to friends and family to spread the word. Vogue included Ghia in a small piece of coverage, and both this coverage and community support helped Ghia sell $13,000 on day one.
Two years into business, Ghia is almost 50/50 split between ecommerce and retail distribution through small businesses and restaurants.
Post- peak pandemic, offline marketing and community-building through events have been driving the brand's growth. Melanie prioritizes events for Ghia's customer community, not just press and influencers.
Ghia's current distribution is a pretty even split between ecommerce and retail, through aligned small businesses and restaurants.
Post-pandemic, IRL marketing and community building has been a huge part of building the brand.
"You can't have a drink online."
The secrets to Melanie and Ghia's success?Community. Melanie prioritizes events for her community and fans of Ghia, instead of events for select influencers or press.
She credits so much of her learnings over the last few years of building Ghia to personal coaching and building a strong network of other founders.
"I can call them with a problem and explain to them the problem and I know that they're not gonna judge me."
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