Quokka Brew: Revolutionizing the Coffee Industry, One Campus At A Time

By Jenna Movsowitz

Quokka Brew:

REVOLUTIONIZING THE COFFEE INDUSTRY, ONE CAMPUS AT A TIME

The idea for jitterless, readyto-drink coffee was first brewed in a college library. Co-founders and co-CEOs Ofek Arush and George Passantino were students at UC Berkeley who couldn’t help but notice their friends struggling to make it through finals week without increasing their caffeine consumption - and then experiencing its subsequent jitters and crash. As aspiring entrepreneurs, Ofek and George knew this problem needed a solution, but they had yet to find it on the market. So while their friends spent their summers readjusting their circadian rhythms, Ofek and George got to work on researching a crashless solution to fuel finals.

IDEATION + CREATION

The co-founders knew that this product couldn’t just be any crash-free coffee; it had to come in a ready-to-drink format. The on-the-go college student or young professional was their target market: the same people clutching bottled Starbucks frappuccinos on their way to class or work. Not only were these existing products contributing caffeine jitters, but they also were loaded with sugar, which only worsened afternoon crashes. The student team concluded that the true solution to the college caffeine crisis would be conveniently packaged, low sugar, and jitter free coffee.

“We worked with food scientists and chemists for five months and created our patent-pending blend of organic amino acids and nootropics which we infused into cold brew,” Ofek says. With the help of many different food scientists, they discovered that caffeine constricts blood vessels, which often causes jitters. The addition of specific amino acids can be used to counteract this effect by dilating blood vessels and relaxing the caffeine consumer. “We conducted a double blind study to prove its efficacy. The study proved that this blend eliminates the jitters and crash from caffeine without sacrificing any of the energy or focus. When the results came back, we immediately sprung into action.” The team added almond milk to the blend for a low-sugar, low-calorie hint of sweetness, and bottled the resulting product. Just like that, Quokka Brew was born.

BUILDING THE QUOKKA COMMUNITY

Unlike other CPG brands who spend months working on branding or packaging, Ofek and George knew that their product required education. Confident that their product’s effects would speak for themselves, they took 4-oz bottles with a mockup Quokka Brew label straight to the UC Berkeley’s plaza to start sampling immediately. This effort worked twofold: it exposed potential consumers to this category disrupting product and also acted as an exercise in market research for the co-founders. “In real time, people would ask questions like ‘what are coffee jitters?’ and ‘is this product decaf?’” George recalls. “This helped us pivot our marketing and rapidly iterate our copy to answer these questions upfront.”

The most valuable asset they gained from this initial sampling, though, was the community they built around the product. “What seemed like overnight, we built an ambassador program of 40 students at UC Berkeley alone. We knew we could replicate this at other universities, so we packed George’s car to the brim and drove to universities all around the area. This first effort in sampling led to our expansion to 15 universities with over 230 student ambassadors,” Ofek says. “Students would sample one day, and then come back the next to say how blown away they were that the product actually worked. They joined the ambassador program because they were passionate about the product, but they stayed involved because of the community we created.” For Ofek and George, this meant building relationships within the Quokka community through regular social events and establishing campus partners. They took the lack of natural college socializing during COVID as an opportunity to make virtual Quokka events the main place where college students could meet one another. Rather than pushing the ambassadors to make sales, they rooted the program in a strong communal mission to “revolutionize the coffee industry.” Ofek and George believe that much of Quokka Brew’s success can be attributed to this larger-than-thyself mission adopted by all campus ambassadors and team members.

This community-oriented culture doesn’t stop at their ambassador program. “We’re always communicating with our customers,” Ofek says. “Our whole team takes on a customer service role. We each text a group of customers at the end of each month, saying ‘This is so-and-so from Quokka, we’d love to hear what you think of your order!’ This personal touch connects us to our customers and provides us with continuous, genuine feedback.” Feedback received from the Quokka Brew community has led to several reformulations of the product. And their strong customer connection proved to be the single most important asset in their crowdfunding.

NAVIGATING CHANGE + CROWDFUNDING

Throughout Quokka’s early stages, the focus was never on numbers. But as the team grew and its mission spread across California college campuses, Ofek and George knew it was time to start crowdfunding to get this product off sampling tables and onto shelves. But they never could have anticipated this phase to be the most challenging phase thus far; while the Quokka team came into crowdfunding on Kickstarter with an almond milk latte, they ended up launching on Indiegogo a month later with an entirely different product.

Just four days before their highly-anticipated Kickstarter launched, the team got a call from their formulator. For six months, the formulator and Quokka team had been working on perfecting a canned almond milk latte - and the promotional materials all boasted this product. But when the formulator called days before the Kickstarter launch, they said this product could not be made. The taste was far off from the product that the co-founder team had bottled and sampled, and the can format was not working for the formulator. With a countdown to crowdfunding ticking away on Quokka’s socials, they had no product to offer. Immediately, the team pivoted. They pushed the campaign back one month, cut ties with the formulator, and sourced a new one: one who was able to bring their true original vision of an oat milk latte to life. But where one problem was solved, another arose. Two days before their new campaign was supposed to launch, the Kickstarter

team reached out to say that they could not launch the product on their platform. Because the product was a category disruptor (a coffee with added amino acids), Kickstarter mislisted it as an energy drink and would not permit them to launch. Again, the team had to pivot. This time, they reached out to the founders of Indiegogo to see if it was possible to launch the campaign on their platform in two days. Not only did Indiegogo set up the campaign for them, but the team also allowed them to take over the Indiegogo Instagram account for a day to promote the product on the new platform. On Quokka’s Instagram, Ofek and George remained transparent about the pivot and used this challenge as an opportunity to show the behind-the-scenes stressors of being entrepreneurs.

When the Indiegogo went live, the Quokka team and ambassadors immediately did what they do best: texted everyone they knew. And though the customer base had never tried the new formulation, they had faith in the team that was “revolutionizing the coffee industry”- and they demonstrated their faith with their wallets. Less than 24 hours into their crowdfunding campaign, Quokka Brew surpassed their fundraising goal for the entire month -- by $10,000. By the end of the campaign, they were one of the highest crowdfunded beverages in the industry.

THE FUTURE OF QUOKKA BREW

An ever-adapting team, the crew is currently working on two new SKUs: black jitterless coffee and their chocolate flavor of the latte. They just launched at Erewhon and are continuing to expand in retailers across California and through direct-to-consumer. As for their ambassador team, aka their secret to success, they plan to continue fostering meaningful relationships through working closely with ambassador presidents to make the most out of their return to campus.

You can try Quokka Brew at https:// www.quokkabrew.com/ and follow along with Ofek, George, and their team of incredible ambassadors @quokkabrew on Instagram.

WWW.QUOKKABREW.COM