How 2 Corporate Dropouts Outsold Patrón with £0 Marketing Budget | Co-Founder of Pimentae Drinks

Wynter Karo quit her corporate grad scheme at Sky at 24, called her co-founder Alice, and asked a question nobody had answered yet: why hasn't anyone made a pre-batched spicy margarita?

Two months later, Pimentae was on Companies House.

Wynter gets into the full story, from product development during lockdown, nearly losing their first Waitrose listing to a blending disaster worth £25k, outselling Patrón at Taste London, landing Diageo's Distl Ventures backing, and building a festival activation model that now makes up 25% of their total revenue.

Chapters:

00:00 Wynter's Background & The Corporate Grind

02:47 How Pimentae Was Born on a Balcony

05:42 Why University Didn't Prepare Her For This

07:07 Why Alice Was the Right Co-Founder

10:18 Early Product Development & The MVP

14:47 Going Full-Time & Week One

18:26 When People Started Having Opinions

22:27 The Operational Reality Nobody Warns You About

25:20 What She'd Do Differently

27:06 The Co-Founder Relationship

29:32 The Waitrose Blending Disaster

35:49 Why Festivals Changed Everything

38:23 How They Made Festivals Profitable

41:04 The First Festival — £10k, An Amex & A Prayer

43:28 Distl Ventures & The Diageo Pitch

47:17 Pitching 20 Diageo Execs at 25 Years Old

51:30 The Entrepreneur's Curse

54:24 Celebrating Wins (Or Not)

56:01 Raising £580k & What It Unlocked

58:48 Making Their First Hires

01:03:21 Developing a Leadership Style

01:06:14 How She Thinks About Competition

01:08:37 What's Driving Pimentae's Growth

01:11:39 What the Future Looks Like

01:13:49 What It Actually Takes

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