today on Celebrity Lemonade Stand
television star and businessman Kyle Cooke,
you know him as one of the founding cast members of bravo's summer house and
now he is bringing his keen business sense to his new startup Lover boy,
Kyle Cooke, Welcome to the Celebrity Lemonade stand
always because you bring the party
brought the lemonade and bring the party.
Not only are you doing a great job being the coach and creator of Lover boy,
but you also have a huge successful career and reality television bravo is really
jumping off with summerhouse winter house you
and also always have a business going.
So always hustling. I like that. But let's start to the very beginning.
Well, I'm backing all the way up, talk to us about your very first job.
I mean look, I I've done kind of everything. It feels like lands,
I mean shoot obviously had a lemonade stand back in the day,
my first true sales job where I like kind of cut my teeth and
understood that whole process and made some
quick money was actually selling cutlery,
like knives.
Yeah, a lot of people,
yeah,
it was called cut coat still around still phenomenal product
and like that was the first time where you're like,
you really need to be a believer in the product to sell it
and man, I sold like $10,000 worth of knives in like a week.
Well what is the secret to creating a
startup because you've done it several times now,
Some have worked, some haven't worked.
So what's the secret to making a successful startup,
you have to be passionate about it,
you need to be intimately familiar with whatever problem you're trying to solve,
you can't just put something out there.
I mean, and I'm guilty of this at times you, you know,
what's the latest trend Uber for this Uber for that.
Okay, so back in 20
14, I,
I kind of threw my hat in there and I did
an uber for beauty turns out that was another marketplace,
very challenging.
I think my biggest takeaway along, you know,
various learning lessons is just the drive, the commitment timing, right?
You need a little luck on your side, but at the end of the day
it's about passion that's entrepreneurship in a nutshell before
loverboy was actually working on a nutrition coaching app,
we saw that little little bits and pieces.
Yeah, and that was incredibly challenging.
I still believe in that business, but you only, I mean, unless you're Elon musk,
you gotta pick and choose what you're going to focus in on this was calling my name.
Well you're definitely getting a win in the reality space why reality tv for you,
you know, I admittedly was not a reality tv viewer.
Um,
but what I think is unique about it,
it's relatable when you watch someone on a reality show,
you're seeing some form of themselves, right?
It might be like an edited condensed version,
but when you watch a movie or you go see a concert,
who knows what those celebrities are actually like and I think the relatability
of reality television is what makes it so successful and so factor in that
bravo has basically the best network among women.
And again when you think about if you're trying
to get people to part ways with their money,
well women usually control most disposable income.
So how did you get it started?
Like lead us through the process like how did you
even get funding a lot of times for businesses?
The hardest part is getting the funding. Exactly.
So I've been down that road where you have, you know,
a power point and you're trying to get people to like buy in, you know,
your friends and family and what I've, what I realized is like the only people,
the only way I'll get people to believe me
is to get as far along as I personally could.
So I self funded the first year of development of the brand, the formulation,
the packaging, all that stuff.
I was writing personal checks and so when I turned to
my friends and family to try to try to raise,
I think I was basically told hey beverage brand
you want to raise at least a million dollars,
I was like a million dollars.
Holy he's my french um you know, and so you're like how am I gonna get people
to buy into this?
Well I'm gonna get it to a point where like I had product and cans,
I'd integrated onto the T.
V.
Show already I was basically ready to launch and
so my friends and family were like wow Kyle's got
this to a point where it's ready and that's when I could get people to sign a check.
So how would you say the show has helped Lover Boy be a successful company?
I mean look part of the reason I did reality
in the first place was it's an incredible platform,
right?
It's relatable people eat it up. You know I've probably integrated this brand
into the tv show more so than any other brand ever has.
I mean it's practically its own cast member at this point,
you know and it's but it's done in a way that's organic like at the end of the day like
you like no one else can drink anything. I mean
at times I'm like how dare you gonna bring my competitor in
that you know has $100 million war chest to spend on marketing and
you know it's kind of like come on,
there's a lot of those brands don't even have a story behind them,
they're just like facades and so I think what what summer
house has allowed me to do is tap this like captive
audience and look people want great tasting products and they want
better for you products and if we can make it accessible
and it checks all the boxes then it's a win and and summer houses allow me to
truly leverage that platform in a way that I could only dream of.
So I have four high profile celebrities in my hand,
I'm gonna ask you some rapid fire questions and you're gonna use one
of these cards to answer and tell us why are you ready?
Okay, so we have rapper Snoop Dogg, actor and aviation Gin founder Ryan Reynolds.
Then we have Khloe Kardashian, another reality tv star and Queer eye star,
Jonathan Van ness.
So are you ready for?
I'm ready. All right. Who would you want to grab an after work drink with?
I gotta go with Ryan Reynolds.
I mean drink his drink or your drink.
I'd force in the drink my drink because it is better. But you know, I do love gin.
Actually, gin would go nice in our white tea peach,
who would you want to collaborate with for your new project, your next business?
Well listen, um
obviously she has a huge platform,
but what I think is unique about alcohol is it's still run mostly by men.
It's like men making products, you know, by men for men when whereas women,
I feel like I have a much better sense of what consumers really
want and Chloe knows how to say and Chloe knows how to sell.
So I'm going with Chloe, who would you want to run your social media for the day
Alright, just to mix it up,
but also like at the end of the day humor is
what sells and if this guy can make like a nat geo
like narration hysterical. I'm going with Snoop Dogg.
I mean the guy is absolutely, he's like relentlessly funny without even trying,
who would make the best sales higher?
I've watched a fair amount of queer eye with, with my wife and Jonathan. I feel like
he can sell
like he can sell me on changing my mullet.
I mean maybe he can sell some lover. Are you sure about that?
We need to have a, I feel like he would actually embrace it.
You're embracing it.
Is this uh this just your trademark or you're gonna keep keep it?
I for the longest time would would wear a mullet
and embrace my alter ego and then I just decided,
why don't I just become my alter ego,
who would you want to start on your next ad for lover boy?
Yes, he has dabbled in alcohol, successfully sold aviation,
but I mean this guy is a marketing genius, I'd love to
shoot the ship with him and make a funny ad,
who would you want to be the next new cast member on summer house?
Oh man, you know,
I feel like if you're on reality tv you can appreciate what others go through.
I'm gonna go with Chloe on this one.
Um I mean why not get her into the summer house
and show her what a real party is all about.
That sounds like a challenge. I like that,
you know, this show is called Celebrity Lemonade stand,
but a lot of those lemonade stands,
they start out by being run by kids,
so we want to let our kid Preneurs ask you a few questions to help them out.
All right, we'll take the hard stuff off the shelf for the moment. I don't see that.
Just regular lemonade.
All right, So the first question comes from 11 year old Delilah,
So tell me,
how do you handle setbacks? Like bad grades?
That's a great question. I think you have to look at everything
as a learning lesson, right?
Like, you know, there's gonna be failures, there's gonna be losses.
Um and it's really about like what you take from that experience.
So without setbacks,
I don't think you'd actually have a chance to really grow as an entrepreneur,
so you have to look at them for the silver lining.
So what setback helped you grow in the past? You know, trying to
build, you know, an app to kind of check the box from, you know, a trends perspective,
but I wasn't necessarily passionate about, right?
So that was a big setback where you're like, hey,
I'm just not the right person to be running this
company or taking this idea and bring it to fruition.
Um
you know,
and I think that that learning lesson helped me identify something
that I was passionate about and could actually um you know,
I had the makings of what was needed to bring this thing to life.
So, you're very passionate about alcohol, you're saying, you know, I guess so,
I was I was a consumer first.
You need to,
you need to be a consumer of your own product. There you go.
All right, next up,
we have 10 year old chris what advice do you have for working in groups with friends?
Uh it sounds
obvious, but patience
and respect. You know, at the end of the day, uh
you have to enjoy what you're doing to succeed at it and you want to enjoy,
you know who you're working with, so, if you're working with friends,
you have to treat them with patience and respect.
Okay, next up, we have nine year old Kylie,
I wanted to start a business. What is the first thing I should do?
Listen, you can spend a lot of time looking at possible competitors,
but if you're really passionate about a very, you know,
an idea or a service or a product, um
you have to be ready to go all in.
Now, if you gotta pay the bills.
Um that doesn't necessarily mean quitting your job right away.
You want to put in the work to get that business ready
and um that's my advice for all early entrepreneurs is
don't think going all in means quitting your job.
We're not going to look for a job because you don't
wanna be stressing out about how to pay the bills,
so put in the prep, put in the,
put in the grind
and get it to a place where it actually has a chance of succeeding.
Then the real work begins a little moonlighting, never hurt little moonlighting.
Exactly.
You gotta,
if you're not willing to moonlight then you're not going
to be an entrepreneur in the first place because it's,
it's a grind
like that. We'll keep on grinding. Give up the great work.
I
appreciate you stopping by the celebrity lemonade. Thank you. Thank you.