Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Founders ship faster on Deal. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone, anywhere, and get visas handled fast. So you stay focused on scaling. Deal takes care of onboarding, HR, IT, EOR, benefits and compliance, so your team can grow without borders. It's why more than 40,000 fast growing companies trust Deal to move fast. Visit deal.com/mos. That's deel.com/mos.

**Jeff Berman** (0:31)
Hey, folks, Jeff Berman here, exciting news. Applications are now open for the Masters of Scale Summit. It's happening October 20th through October 22nd in San Francisco, and it is a really special event. Please join our curated community of founders, innovators and leaders shaping the future. Expect ideas that challenge your assumptions and connections that move your business and maybe even your life forward. It's an experience that can change literally everything. Apply now at mastersofscale.com/apply26.
That's mastersofscale.com/apply26.

**Bob** (1:15)
Hey, listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show, because every Friday we release a second Rapid Response episode exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator, to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find. Just search Rapid Response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there.

**Rohan Oza** (1:57)
I started looking around to see who could help make Vitamin Water cool and broad, because the product was great, package was great, but didn't have that zeitgeist.

**Jeff Berman** (2:04)
Rohan Oza's new job was to make Vitamin Water stand out in a crowded beverage landscape.

**Rohan Oza** (2:10)
So, 2004 year, right? The two guys at the height of the game in music were 50 and J.

**Jeff Berman** (2:16)
If you know, you know, but if you don't, that's rappers 50 Cent and Jay-Z. But Vitamin Water was a scrappy young brand. How could they possibly afford a global superstar as their spokesperson?

**Rohan Oza** (2:29)
And the vision was to get 50 in the room and how fifth could be the face of the brand. I'm like, I said to Fifa, I can't afford you. But I have an idea. I said, we can do an equity game. I'll give you skin in the game if you want to do this.
And he's like, I'm in.

**Jeff Berman** (2:52)
This is Masters of Scale. I'm Jeff Berman, your host. This week on the show, Rohan Oza.
If we were erecting the Mount Rushmore of consumer marketing for the 21st century, there is no question that our guest today would have a spot on that monument. The mastermind behind 8 billion plus in exits, the guy who brought 50 cent into vitamin water with an equity deal that changed the way not only that brand grew, but changed the way celebrities and influencers ultimately play in the world of brand. Recently, the co-founder of Poppi, which had a $2 billion exit to Pepsi, the co-founder of Kavu, which is a consumer brands investment fund, where also you're partnering with founders. Rohan, thrilled to welcome you to Masters of Scale.

**Rohan Oza** (3:39)
Thank you. It's quite the intro.

**Jeff Berman** (3:43)
Really excited to dive in with you on the journey that you've had. Just take us back at the stage. Where do your entrepreneurial roots come from?

**Rohan Oza** (3:49)
Probably my family. I'm originally Indian, born and raised in Africa, educated in England, and now I'm American. So I'm like the immigrant American dream story, and my family was all a bunch of businessmen. It's in the blood, it's in the culture.
Initially, the thought was I joined my father's business. Now Indian families, dad starts or the granddad starts to join it.

**Jeff Berman** (4:11)
What kind of business was that?

**Rohan Oza** (4:13)
That's the problem. It was in agricultural equipment, hardware, things that I was one terrible at and two had no interest.
And one of the things I push for is be passionate about what you're doing if you're allowed to do that. Sometimes you have to just work to get a paycheck, but if you're blessed people to be passionate about it, I think you can be a lot more successful. So I realized that if I did this, I would do okay with my dad, but I would never do really well. And so I kind of transitioned into consumer products via engineering, meaning I started in manufacturing with Mars M&M's and then I went from there to Coca-Cola.

**Jeff Berman** (4:46)
Why manufacturing with Mars M&M's?

**Rohan Oza** (4:48)
Mars has created probably some of the most iconic consumer brands in the world. The power of brand is one thing that I espouse a lot and Mars is a great place to understand that. Like how have you created such legacy brands that a hundred years later are still massive?