Meet Kavayn. The new kava extract kid on the block

Over two years ago, I caught up with my good friend and former work colleague, Brad Tabone, to check in and talk about what he was up to.

Before I tell this whole story, here's a little background you should know first. Brad and I worked together at a tech start-up years prior. Brad was one of the co-founders of the tech company. Working with Brad was amazing and difficult, and it was the start of a true friendship. We went through a lot of tough times as you often do in startups, and our friendship grew quickly out of respect and love. 

From what I fondly call a "dumpster fire" of an experience, we grew personal trust and a fondness for our unique visions and capabilities. Brad is who I lovingly call, "little big head" because frankly, he can hold more information in his noggin than most people I know, and he has a grasp on business unlike anyone I have worked with prior. 

Now, about me, I have been in marketing, sales and education for decades. What I brought to the table in the former company was marketing and sales knowledge, plus a rigor to help an Australian company reach into the US market. What we both did not know at the time was that our experiences would end at the startup years later, but be rekindled in what we now call Kavayn.

Okay, so back to the story at hand. Brad and I caught up one late afternoon two years ago. It went something like this:

Me: Okay, little big head, what in the heck are you up to now? [actual terms redacted for safe viewing]

Brad: Well, I traveled to Fiji and I came across a drink called kava. 

Me: WTF are you talking about?

Brad: I'm trying to tell you, shut up. [LOL, this is actually how our convos go]

Brad had stumbled upon kava and having really enjoyed the experience, dug into the drink as he often does and uncovered everything he could about the drink, its origins, the farmers, the people, and how the kava plant is planted, farmed, processed and produced. If you know Brad, his mind, and his aptitude for business, you know that when he does this, he's going all in and he's not going to stop until he builds a company and tries to right any wrongs he sees happening. 

So back to our conversation.

Brad: I am building a kava business and I want to sell noble kava products in the US.

Me: Ok?

Brad: Are you in?

Me: Yes.

Why? Because knowing Brad meant we were going to do something fun, but difficult, and he needed someone here in the states he could trust and had GTM experience to help him do it.

He asked me to learn everything I could about kava, sent me information, and asked me to create a research document on kava in the US.

A few weeks later I sent him a 175 page research document from top to bottom on all things kava, the NA movement in the US and the market opportunity, and that's where we started to build Kavayn in the US.

He sent me kava resin samples and we started the process of building products that we could bring to the US market to introduce to consumers. 

Of course, I am skipping over all the trials and errors of our approaches, but to summarize the discovery stage, I *might have* made my husband the research rat (lovingly called the Zucker Rat) and our trials produced some disgusting drinks and edibles. 

But we had a plan, we knew that kava was a traditional ceremonial drink that we did not want to "white wash" or reduce the importance of this ceremonial beverage. 

To honor the tradition, and at the same time make more approachable to the US market, we knew we had to use extracts and provide the market with beverages and edibles that would be more palatable. 

Both Brad and I had a few rules we put in place together:

1. We will honor the Pacific Islanders and this drink.

2. We will call our drinks and edibles kava-extracts to preserve the name "kava" for the ceremonial drink from the Islands.

3. We will DO NO HARM to the Islands and Islanders. Meaning, everything we do has to have benefit to the people and the land kava comes from.

4. We will serve premium products with purity, potency, and good taste (in all meanings of the term).

5. We will operate with transparency and honesty.

Now, I will leave Brad's side of the story with the other co-founders (which is really great and will soon be placed in The Circle as well) to let him tell - and it's quite a story! From setting up direct farmer relationships, to starting the Fiji operations and more, the team has grown since the early days to add a Head of Pacific Operations, a Fiji Director, KavaPay microfinancing, a CTO, and US ops and logistics. 

When working on the GTM with Brad, I knew we had to approach our products from the end-consumer point of view. The NA beverage movement was showing tremendous growth and with that, we needed to step into the market with different pricing tiers, and with varying product types to meet people where they are. We needed at home service products, portable products, and shareable products. And above all, they needed to taste good and people needed to feel the effects. 

For those who are new to kava extracts, or kava itself, the kava plant is complex with a peppery, earthy flavor that needs to be softly coaxed into playing nicely with other flavors and gently massaged into other forms. She's not easily integrated and will bite you back if you don't treat her right.

Skipping to current day, we've been hard at work bringing these ideas and products to life. We have started with our premium spirits, serving 350mg of kavalactones per serving, in unique flavor profiles: unflavored (which is harder than you think) and pineapple-coconut.

And we have several new product lines coming to market soon as well:

Snap packs, portable kava-extract drinks you can pop into your pockets to take with you anywhere, in unflavored and vanilla-hazelnut AND we are producing five delicious flavors of gummies (Raz-peach, orange-raz, guava, dragonfruit, citrus).

Each of these has taken a long road to produce because as our internal rules dictate - we will not settle. 

Our company was started amongst friends, and it's our desire to extend that feeling to our customers. While we continue to grow, we want to be sure we do so with care, never compromising our beliefs, and honoring what kava is truly about, coming together, community and calmness. We had adapted these pillars to create our own:

• Community
• Connectivity
• Calmness

We truly hope you enjoy our products as much as we enjoy making them. And if you ever meet us, remember that Brad is the brainy one, I am the emotional one, and this growing team is the only reason our company and brand exists at all. 

Bula!

Virginia Chere Lucett