How to engage investors, aligning business goals with social values, and identifying overlooked resources and transforming them into valuable products with Linda Klunder from Kumasi Drinks.

What is an unusual thing you do to wow investors? Be myself. I think you put on Beyonce, right? You put on penalty. I put on, before I go in, I put on Beyonce, so I have a little bit of the Beyonce vibe hopefully to it. You do have to be confident. Being yourself really helps, but the Beyonce vibe gives the extra confidence.

That's Linda Klunder, co-founder of Kumasi Drinks, a delicious tropical cocoa fruit juice made from the flesh surrounding a cocoa bean. That's right, a cocoa bean. Previously, the outside of the cocoa bean was never used. It was just thrown away. But Linda and the team at Kamasi, they took something. That normally goes to waste and made it into a soft drink while also helping cocoa farmers earn a little extra cash.

In this episode, we learned the origin story of Kamasi drinks, tips on grant writing since Linda mostly oversees the financial side of things over there at Kamasi and what it's like setting up operations on the Ivory Coast. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. As you listen, you can find me on LinkedIn.

At Eric Milour, tag me, say hello. Let me know that you're listening. And now let's talk with Linda. Hi, Linda. This is Beyonce. Energy is the name of the song, and I gotta say, I had never heard this song before. As I told you, I'm, I'm listening to like, you know, baby Shark and things like that. So this is one of your favorite songs recently.

Definitely. Yeah, so I'm, I'm really happy I introduced you to it. It brought me a lot of energy and fun for the past couple of years while working on, on our startup, so I hope it's gonna do the same for you while I'm not taking care of the kids. Do you get the music going in the background in the office for you and the team?

You try to get the motivated and inspired you? Do you play Beyonce in the background? Yeah, we do. So we play music every day in the office. We play all kinds of music, but I think this Beyonce song is really for me. When I'm like, I really do have to concentrate, or I really have to wrap a pitch deck and I really have to finalize something, I just put my airports in and I just start, I, I really put it very loud and then I just go, okay, energy.

And sometimes I stand up, start dancing. So it really helps me to, I. To come in the right vibe. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I work out, I've got a playlist. That's when I listen to my music. I think I will add this song to my workout playlist. It does have, it does get the bunny little bit the energy fluided.

Alright, well the first question that I have for you is, and this is something you thought I should ask you, should we stop eating chocolate? Yeah, what is your think on this, Linda? So, definitely not, but what you recently have been seeing is that there is a movement going towards artificial chocolate. So quite a lot of research is going into ways to create chocolate without cocoa, and there a few reasons to think that's a great idea.

Environmental impact of cocoa is quite large with deforestation. Being a major driver of a negative environmental impact of the chocolate industry. Right. But also the fact that there are a lot of human rights issues with the chocolate. So you see this movement going on that researchers are trying to find ways to create chocolate without the actual component.

The core component is cocoa beans. Yeah. But I, I think we just really have to focus on doing technology and technological innovations where these problems are happening. Without taking away the people who need the extra income or the technological innovations, the most, the people who are making our foods.

But I, I, I was seeing this, this competition this morning on LinkedIn, and I really thought, I, I, it's, it's just not a, not the right thing to do, to cut out the people who are making the foods and then try of innovative technological solutions to still be able to eat what we want, but without. The, the cure negative effects.

I don't think it's eco-friendly when it's only better for the environment, but we're neglecting the people making it. So, yeah. Now, I'd love to hear more about this because I know this is impacts you personally as the thunder of Kamasi drinks, and I know a lot of it has to do with chocolate and the tropical fruit.

But before we get into that, I, I, I wanna talk a little bit about your, your background. So I know you're from the Netherlands, but I think you speak Arabic. Is that correct? That it's correct? Yeah. Okay. So how did that happen? So before diving go, going into West Africa and chocolate, I studied international relations and Arabic in, which is in the north of the Netherlands.

And I just fell in love with the language and lived in Egypt for quite a while. So my Arabic isn't what it used to be, but I I, I spend a lot of my time on learning the letters, reading it, talking, so it's, it's really one of my biggest passions. Alright. Do you still get to practice it with anybody over there in the Netherlands?

Currently not too much. I'm focusing more on French, but I am for work quite a lot in Ivory Coast, and you have a lot of Lebanese in Ivory Coast. So I was there just last week and I tried to order my, my Kafta in Arabic still while I'm in Ivory Coast. So try to to practice a little bit. Okay. No, no, that's great.

That's great. I love chatting with people that are trying to learn a language. Obviously you said you, you did Arabic, now you're learning French. I try to learn Romanian right now. I am trying to learn Romanian. So it's always cool. I think it it, I think it keeps the mind and the brain like just, it prevents it from like decaying.

That's just my personal opinion. Yeah, and I think when you're, when you're living or studying or working in a country, you do have to. Take the efforts to try to communicate. Oh yeah. Give the people in their mother tongue. Absolutely. And so the Romania is really cool. One of our interns, he's Romanian.

But it always sounds when he's working and something doesn't work out, he starts to swear every Romanian. And it sounds very funny. It's funny. Isn't that funny? Funny. When people swear they always go back to their native tongue. Yeah, yeah. It's true. Yeah, it's true. It goes to very deep emotions. Yeah. I think I've only sworn one time in like the past five years and it was with this other driver here in Raz and I, of course, I swore in English and I, I could tell by the look on his face that he was shocked.

Because he didn't expect that, and then it took him a couple of seconds for him to like respond. Okay English. Of course, most people understand it when it's another language. It could have, you could have said, oh, what a beautiful tree. Yeah, but ing that's not what you're saying, but it is. Everybody understands.

Yeah, no, he understood it, but he just didn't know I was an English speaking driver. I think he thought I was another Romanian driver, so it just took him a couple of seconds to like did his cross. Okay. Alright. So listen, I was reading about Kamasi drinks. This sounds really, really interesting because.

It's a different, it's a different approach. A different perspective. And so cocoa beans, you're saying that a lot of people tend to throw out the pulp and nobody's using that. But what you're saying is that you can actually use the pulp and you are using the pulp to create these, these tropical drinks and I think they taste like per, so how did this, what was the inspiration for this?

What was the opportunity? The light bulb moment that said, Hey, there's an opportunity here to help the farmers, but then also to bring something new to the market. Yeah, the, so my co-founder Lar Feld, he was making a documentary about cocoa with the question, why are cocoa farmers still living in poverty?

And while making this documentary, he tasted the pulp of the cocoa fruit for the first time. So he was sitting on a farm and some farmers, they offered him the pulp. So when you have a cocoa fruit, it's like a rugby ball and it has beans in it, and also pulp. And yeah, we just as a consumer, never taste the bowl, but he was offered a bowl by a farmer Uhhuh, just as a snack.

And he, he tasted the, the pulp. It was like, this is so delicious. It's like a combination of leche, mango, lime. Why do I not know this flavor? And that was really the start of, of Kumasi drinks. Okay. And so he came back here and he mentioned this to you and he is like, Hey, there's something that nobody knows about here.

We could actually. Take this and produce it and, and bring it to market? Or, or what happened? Well, yeah. Based fast forward. Yeah. Or, or that is around what happened. But I think it really started with indeed being amazed that this is there and like, well, we are talking about food waste. We're talking about, we're always talking about poverty in cocoa supply chains.

It's amazing that nothing has been happening with this fall. And starting from that amazement, We, we came together and we're like, okay, let's, let's do something with this and start fighting food loss and income loss at the same time. By, by let letting people know that this is a delicious fruit as well.

Now, distribution when it comes to retail can be one of the toughest things. How did you guys get this thing on the market in shelves and various retail locations over there in the Netherlands? What was your approach to this? So first of all, our team, we we're three founders. So we have large, who is the storyteller and like the founder.

Then I do the impact and the finance, and then we have Boje Power, that is his surname who does the sales? So Mr. Power goes out to all these sales locations. First of all, when that's your surname, Yeah. That, that's the best way to, to, to have an entrance at. Oh, yeah. I, I, I wouldn't say I, I wouldn't say, you know, I'm Mr.

Power, I would, I would actually take my time. Yeah. And when somebody asked me, what is your name? Power, you know? Yeah. You say it a little bit slower, maybe even a little bit deeper. Make sure they understand that it's truly power and power. Like power. No, that's what he does. That is what he does. So what we basically did is that in 2020, the documentary that Lar Fos making was on television on Dutch television.

So it was brought, brought broadcasted on television, and that was literally the kickoff of our company. Okay. And that really helped in getting attention. Because people were able to see it on television, they were amazed about the story as well, and people started to approach us. So I think the first year we were just really market testing based on sending out our bottles to consumers, getting their feedback in and improving the recipe.

So the first year we didn't reach Alex to. Didn't really reach out to restaurants or distributors. We just had to test our products. Mm-hmm. How do you market such a new product? You have to understand why people like it. Do people like it? Why do they like it? What do they like about it and how can we improve it?

So that was first your focus. When people drink it now, what do they like about it? When people drink it, the, the tro, so the, the tropical surprise like different, different flavors, like, is just, is just like, is there anything comparable to it? No, well, not really the, the most, what we hear most is that it's like leche kind of taste.

Yeah. Leche line. Okay. But the fun thing is, is we really put on our bottles, like quite large cocoa fruit, cocoa fruits for soft drink. Okay. So already the engagement with our bottles or with our cans is fun. You look at it, it's very colorful. You've seen our website. It's very colorful. Yeah. So you see it.

Then you see Coco Fruit. They're like, huh, wait, what? That's how it starts. Who came up with the name Kumasi? It is. We decided to name the company Kumasi, because it's the city where we started. It's the second largest city in Ghana. Gotcha. Okay. And it's with attributes to where cocoa comes from and the branding of the packaging of the bottle and Kamasi, is that, did you guys work with an agency or did you guys put that together?

Yeah, no, we definitely worked with an agency. Friends for brands especially. Also our creative director was when we worked there was Vart and he gave us basically two options. You either go minimalistic. Okay. Which was quite trendy at that time, three years ago when we started. Or you go full out African funk.

Style. And that's what we went for. Like when he presented it, it was we were immediately blown away by the look and few of it. Yeah, no, it definitely pops out. So for anybody listening here, you can, you can check out the website and we'll have images of the product on the website, of course, with links to the website.

Now you said there's three founders. One of them is a storyteller. Yeah. And I think you said one is like the sales Mr. Power. Yeah. Right, right. And then you're more like in the in invest investment side. Is that correct? Yeah. So what does your day-to-day look like, Linda? Ooh, yeah. So I do impact and investments.

Which is an interesting combination 'cause of the one side I wanna spend money on the people with whom we work. And on the other side, I have to earn money so we can keep on working. Yeah. My day-to-day is very focused on our, the, the financial, so that means having investor conversations, making new pitch decks for upcoming funding rounds and working on our, on our cash flow and paying our bills.

Yeah. And at the same time I work on our impact reporting. So we do bi-annually, we do a impact survey and we use these inputs to also come up with new impact ideas and currently, for instance, working on something that we call Pui Connects, which means that we want to start producing juice with local communities as well.

Okay. So it's a very diverse job. We do, yeah. Yeah. Basically everything, of course. Yeah. Do you primarily focus funds, investment funds that are focused on sustainability or impact is, I mean, is that like a hundred percent of your attention? Pretty much, yeah. It's a combination of grants, so we have a, it's grants debt funding and impact impacts investors.

I think most of my attention goes to. Get creating the network within the impact investor scene. Okay. And then writing grants at the same time. So they, they're very different approaches and they need very different types of attention, but currently building the right network within the impact investment scene.

It stay takes quite a lot of my time. Yeah. And the writing of brands is just very time consuming. So that's more sitting behind your laptop looking for the right grants and writing them actually. Oh yeah. Where getting into the investment network is more going to drinks, bringing your kumasi and. Talking to all kinds of people, so it's a, it's quite a nice balance, like working at daytime on your grant proposals and in the evening.

Yeah, just with your kumasi bottles. Go to drinks and Yeah. Let people taste it because Yeah. Improving the coupon. Oh, man, I, I sucked at grit writing. I used to write a nonprofit back in Houston, and so I submitted so many grants and I think my success rate was something like, oh, it was awful. Maybe like four or 5% of the grants that I submitted.

Actually, you know, I, I got something for it. What, what is, I, I have no idea. Like, do you wanna share like what your success rate is more or less? That's a good question. So I think when it comes to grant writing, what I try, what I try to do is first get the personal contact at the grant that you're writing for.

Then you get a feeling on the possible success. And when they've already said, no way you're gonna get it, just don't start. Okay. Don't even start, because then it takes too much time. Yeah. Overall, for the bigger grants that take a lot of time, I first do sort of my own due diligence, reach out to them, and that really increases the success rates.

Amazing. Because you just know if it's gonna be successful or not. Yeah. We have some smaller grants and there is, I think hopefully one out of five that you would get in. Okay. That we're talking about the smaller grants, that might take a little bit less of our time. But for the big brands, first folks, personal relationships and get a feeling if it's gonna be successful.

Otherwise, indeed, if you do not do that one out of 10 Yeah. Is probably, What, what you can expect to get. Yeah. See, that was, that was my mistake. I didn't reach out to try to get to know the person beforehand. So I spent so many hours, you know, researching and putting together a grant and submitting it. So that was, that's, that was my mistake.

So for anybody listening, I. That does any sort of grant writing. You heard it from Linda. It pays to actually connect with a person first, get to know them because when you do meet somebody face to face, you just have like that sort of instinct whether or not that they're open to this or you should even move forward with submitting your grant.

You just kind of get that, that feeling right, Linda network. Exactly, and it does not always work. Some grants are very closed off and they just say, submit it. Then it's really up to you. Read the website really well. Really try to understand do we fit and yeah, you only submit it when you really can't find a clear fit.

Otherwise, it's just time lost. After a quick break, Linda and I talk about what investors look for when deciding which projects to fund. Hey, in case you didn't know, the Innovators Can Laugh, newsletter comes out. Every Thursday you find out which startup founders are coming on the show, along with links to posts I found interesting on the web.

My best dad jokes, quotes from Napoleon to Chris Rock, and my thoughts and strategies on what I am doing to live a rich life filled with happiness as a Texas expat living in Europe. Sign up for the newsletter@innovatorscanlaugh.com. Welcome back to my conversation with Linda. Let's hear how she approaches fundraising and her tips when it comes to grant writing.

Yeah. I'm curious to know what investors look for when you're submitting like a pitch deck. Obviously they wanna know about the potential growth and revenue and things like that, but is there anything else that they're looking for, considering that this is more of a, this is more of an impact type business?

Yeah, so first of all, I think it really depends on the face. So during our previous round, it was really a seat round, and I think it's all about team, team, team. There's not much chills that you can show yet. It's really about what do you wanna, which story do you wanna convey and with whom are you doing it?

So we just really, we had our plans, but we all know four go. Yeah, you don't know. Yeah, you make four go. You do your best to, to write a, a very sounds business proposal. But in the end I think it's all about the people that you have on board. Investors have to trust that you guys are going to put all the efforts and work into it and have the right capacities and capabilities within the team to make it work.

Because you, you, you are not gonna have loads of funds. You're not gonna have loads of marketing budgets to make it work. It's gonna be the three of you that people are investing in, in our case. And I think that that's bottom line, present your team very well. Make sure everybody of your team is also present during important meanings.

So you, you convey the message, Hey, this is us, we're doing this together. And I think that's really, especially in the seats and maybe even a little bit afterwards, that's mainly what the investors are looking for. Do they trust the people who are behind the business? Yeah. Your team, how long have you guys known each other?

Where, how, where did you meet? So Lar, they've known each other for years. They have been friends, they were roommates before, so they go way back. I am a little bit the, the newbie in this triangle. So I met Larsh while I was doing my master's at VA University and we met at a cocoa panel and yeah, we immediately hit it off.

It was really, we had very interesting discussions and based on that connection, I think within nine months Lar said, Hey, maybe you wanna, shall we start this together and, and see what we can make out of this, this delicious pulp. So it was really personal connection that that made us three come together.

Okay, so where is the product at currently? Like, like approximate number of retail locations? Can you share any information about that? Definitely. So first year was that market testing. Then quickly we reached out to restaurants. So the second year we really focused on getting our products in restaurants.

We're around 300, 350 locations currently selling our products, but based on that, we're able to attract the attention of the big retail in the Netherlands. So currently we are having all these restaurants in locations, but we're also in around 800 retail locations. So we're in the, which is the biggest reseller in the Netherlands, but also the hamma.

Which is very, very known here in the Netherlands and also abroad. So we, our distribution currently looks like 40% of our revenue comes via. Restaurants and a little bit of of Christmas packages, for instance. Yeah. And then 60% is big retail currently. Alright, interesting. Interesting. So what are you guys excited about in the next 12 months?

What's cooking? Ooh, so many things. So we are really excited about looking into new possible products with cocoa fruit. So the pulp, we have just got, we just got started with what you can do with cocoa. We have our Kui soi, which is non-carbonated, which is a carbonated soft drink. But these are just the first two products with cocoa that we want to focus on in the future.

So we really want to get the consumer known with the whole potential of the cocoa fruit. Okay. And we'll work on launching very cool, funky products with, with that tropical taste. Okay. Also curious about logistics. So you have these farmers that are producing this and how does that work? I mean, do they put the pull up like in plastic bags and then you have people that go and collect these bags and then they're shipped over there to the Netherlands and you guys do the packaging there.

What does this look like, look like? Yeah, logistics is a nightmare. So we have, luckily, luckily we have currently supplier that we work with, which is called coa, who takes the logistics side out of our hands. So the farmers we work with, they are connected to the factory that's called coa, and they are a cocoa juice producer.

And we buy the juice then from them knowing where it comes from. But we buy the juice produced from them and then we make our product. So we are basically now really focusing on making cocoa juice known. And putting our products on the market, and they help us with taking all of the logistic part out of our hands.

Cocoa juice is such, it's so new. It demands a lot of investments. In on farm site, which we love. That's where we think that the investment should go. And not to art artificial chocolate, I said in the beginning. But we sort of splitted it like this. We work on consumer awareness and really getting the, the name out there and they really work on getting a sounds safe, stable products in Ghana.

So it's, it's, and, and I think that's great. You, you really have to collaborate if you wanna. Change things in, in, in, in our worlds. Yeah, absolutely. What about go to market? You guys do any sort of marketing or promotions? Are you spending money on any, any sort of advertising? We do, yeah. I think next to people, marketing is the biggest chunk of our budget, right?

So marketing is just being in such a competitive market landscape. Competing with other softwares, you do have to invest in marketing. So quite a lot of our budgets go into marketing, which is at the one side be present at events, developing good, good marketing strategies, but also developing, especially our branding and building upon that branding with marketing outings on social media, on other, other, via other channels.

So marketing is extremely, extremely important for the the competitive landscape in which we're acting. All right. Well listen, I gotta tell you, I have a guilty pleasure, Linda. That guilty pleasure is most nights my wife and I, after the kids go to bed and after we told them they can't have any candy, We actually get some chocolate and do we have a piece of chocolate as we watch something on, you know, Netflix or whatever.

So that is my a piece or a bar, usually. A bar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it. Yeah, no, I, I love chocolate. I, I don't think I eat any artificial chocolate, but I may be wrong. Are there things that are artificial and maybe most people don't know? For example, I love Peanut M and msm. And I love chocolate bars that usually have like almonds in them, but mm-hmm.

When I get this from the store, I'm assuming that it's all natural, but maybe I'm wrong. No, currently everything is like natural in the sense that there is going to be a component of cocoa in it. Either cocoa, cocoa, butter, there, there will be a component of of cocoa in it, but then a new movement is going on where people are looking into if it's possible to make.

Cocoa chocolate products without putting cocoa in it, but it's not really on the market yet. Got you, got you. Okay. Let's jump to our rapid fire question here, segment. So I'm gonna ask you quick questions. Just gimme the first answer that pops into your head. You ready? 2020 $5,000 cash or dinner with Richard Branson.

What is it, Linda? $25,000 cash. Okay, now, all right. What's a favorite now what? What's a favorite TV show you can watch again and again? I. Indian Matchmaker. Okay. Okay. Hey, for, I've never heard of the show, but I can understand for a while my wife and my wife and I loved this reality show called 90 Day Fiance and we to watch that's like that, it's a little bit like that.

It is. It's really fun. And I could, it's just don't think about anything. You sit on the couch. Yeah. It's even more fun when you're, when you're, when you're on Twitter and watching it at the same time and seeing, like, I can imagine. Definitely. Okay. The most interesting thing you did in the last 26 days, I went to ivory ghosts and went on a night field trip there, which wasn't a great idea.

No. What happened? We thought we could go to one of the cooperatives. After seven because our program just got delayed a little bit that we said, well, it's pro, it's fine. We can go. It's seven. It's already really dark and ivory goes, it's only an hour drive, but obviously an hour and ivory goes, becomes two and a half hours.

And after two and a half hours, it was still 10 minutes. The driver set, but it was already has been 10 minutes for one and a half hours. So it was like, no. We just turned around. It was a nice try, but what you think? It's never gonna be a hour. It is never going to be a hour, so, but it was fun. It was really interesting experience.

Okay. What is an unusual thing you do to wow investors? Be myself. I think you put on Beyonce, right? You put on pillow. I put on, before I go in, I put on Beyonce. So I have a little bit of the Beyonce vibe hopefully to it. You do have to be confident. Being yourself really helps. But the Beyonce five gives the extra confidence.

Cool. Cool. Last question for you. Every Friday your team does blank to build comradery in the workplace. Drink kumasi with gin. Oh. Which is so, it does go well with alcoholic beverages. It goes amazing with alcohol. There you go. Yeah. Alright, so you'll be watching us for hopefully couple 12 months and maybe something with alcohol.

Alright. There you have it folks. Kamasi, it's not just a health drink, it's also a social drink that you can add gin and maybe some other liquor to it. Linda, thank you so much for coming on. Innovators can laugh. Thank you, Eric. All right, everybody listening. Until next week, we'll have another Dutch entrepreneur startup founder on the show.

This is Eric signing off. I had a great time chatting with Linda. She's filled with enthusiasm and adventure in shared some valuable tips when it comes to seeking funding. If you wanna learn more about Linda, go to kamasi drinks.com. Links to all of this are in the show notes. Thank you to Linda for being on the show.

If you like this episode, send me a note on LinkedIn and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. Cheers.