What Are The VYBES?
What Are The VYBES?
An Interview with Jonathan Eppers, CEO of VYBES
GM everyone. If you’re reading this, you probably drink too much caffeine. This is a realization I had at the end of 2023 that was leading to some health anxiety. I would bring up how much caffeine I was consuming on a daily basis with friends at dinner and they would be shocked. Let me break my old routine down—
5am: Ladder preworkout (200mg)
9am: Pour Over Coffee (95mg)
12pm: Double Espresso (128mg)
3pm: Chameleon Cold Brew (260mg)
6pm: Celsius (200mg)
That’s 883mg of caffeine a day, nearly double the recommended amount, 400mg. So I am cutting back severely. The other day I saw a post on LinkedIn from a beverage brand founder about this very topic, the over caffeination of drinks. Jonathan Eppers is the founder and CEO of VYBES, an LA based wellness drink brand. I reached out and we chopped it up about the brand’s core mission, their expansion into low caffeine energy drinks, and the challenges of running a CPG brand in a crowded space.
First, some headlines—
News
Tiger Woods and Nike have broken up. After 27 years of Tiger rocking with the swoosh, the two have agreed to part ways. Their last 10-year deal was valued at $200M so I am going to presume Nike was not wiling to offer more cash for Woods who is in the back nine of his career. With golf surging in popularity, that endorsement money is probably better spent elsewhere.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has announced a release date for the Apple Vision Pro. The VR/AR headset drops Feb 2nd. I am usually very bullish on Apple, but I realistically do not see this headset doing well. With a price point of over $3,000, and the VR/AR category experiencing a 24% sales slump in ‘23, the novelty of this category seems to be wearing off. Most normal people want to live in the real world and are actively working on limiting screen time.
HBO Max is going all-in on the 25th anniversary of The Sopranos, announcing they will upload each episode in a shortened format on TikTok. This made me actually LOL thinking about watching the life of Tony Soprano on short form video. But the reality, is consumer viewing trends are changing, and I anecdotally hear about a lot of people watching entire movies or shows in 60s increments on TikTok, sometimes even with the split screen GTA V clips overlaid. So kudos to Max’s social team for this idea, I am sure it will perform well. Our attention spans are so f*cked.
J. Crew’s store on Bowery is SHUT DOWN! I really liked this ‘concept’ store, and found the location convenient. I once purchased a belt here on the way to a date. I wrote about J. Crew’s rebrand a few months back, but to me this indicates that the brand may not be selling well despite all of the changes. Uh oh.
There is major lost dog drama on the Upper East Side, as recounted by this girl on TikTok. As an Upper East Sider, I have seen these flyers around the neighborhood. Hoping this gets resolved soon.
Okay let’s get into my interview—
What are the VYBES?
Founded in 2016, VYBES was one of the first CBD infused wellness drinks to hit shelves. I really appreciate their subtle branding and health focus, and I have been looking for a low-caffeine energy drink alternative to kick my bad Celsius habit. My interview with their CEO Jonathan Eppers was enlightening—
Can you provide some background on VYBES. What went into creating the first beverage formulation and what space in the market needed addressing?
Seven years ago I lost my tech startup to a lawsuit, leaving me in one of the worst mental spaces I had ever been. For the first time in my life, I had to confront my mental health because I was in a pretty bad place. Around this time, a close friend introduced me to CBD oil. This was 2016 before anyone had heard of CBD, but I was pretty desperate and willing to try almost anything.
CBD worked. Within days, I was starting to feel less anxious, and was able to focus better. I became obsessed with CBD, learning everything that I could.
That led me to the conclusion that CBD could help others if in a format that was more acceptable, so I started thinking about what that could look like, and I kept coming back to beverage. Six month later, VYBES was born and Peach Ginger & Blueberry Mint flavors started hitting stores in Los Angeles.
VYBES was never just a beverage, it was and is supposed to be a lifestyle brand for mental health. I tried to incorporate design, taste, and science into the product, hoping that people would find it, understand it & want it.
The branding and art direction of VYBES is spot on. Talk to me a bit about the creative choices behind the branding of the product and company.
A friend in the design world introduced me to a very talented packaging designer named Steve Reinmuth of Some Days. Steve brought my vision to life.
It was a big design challenge. We were creating a brand in a new beverage category that didn't exist. VYBES was the first CBD beverage to come out. How do you communicate to someone what something is in a split second when they're in a store? Design played a big part of it.
Beverage packaging uses imagery, colors and big fonts to yell at you and get your attention. We went the opposite direction - Steve designed a label that was subtle and minimal. The VYBES logo on the front of the label is small, has a ton of empty space around it, and uses color and copy to communicate what we are. A design like this was the antithesis of everything else on the shelf.
The design has to communicate:
+ Premium / Quality
+ Healthy
+ Holistic / medicinal
+ Trust
The entire aesthetic of VYBES originated from this idea of how to communicate "Los Angeles" as the epicenter of health and wellness, while introducing a visual aesthetic that felt timeless and approachable. Steve was influenced by Ed Ruscha, a photographer who came to popularity in the 1970's. I can see Ed's influence across our brand.
Your new caffeinated beverage aims to offer a lower-caffeine alternative to other energy drinks on the market. Tell me a bit about the background of this new product.
Two years ago I noticed our customers using our CBD supplement power in their morning coffee as a way to counter the effects of too much caffeine - anxiety, mood fluctuations, and trouble thinking clearly. More and more of my friends were also limiting their caffeine intake; some were abstaining from caffeine entirely. This puzzled me. The energy category is driven by brands who make extremely caffeinated beverages - some as high as 300mg of caffeine per serving! That's nuts, and maybe part of the reason many people feel so unwell today.
When I go into a store and look at the energy drinks, there's nothing on the shelf that's gentle the body; in fact, all energy drinks are actually hard on the body.
I believe caffeine is on the same path as sugar and alcohol; meaning more and more consumers are understanding how too much caffeine affects their mood, sleep, and everything else. I think this trend will accelerate this year, and consumers will look for lower-caffeinated beverages that deliver on energy, but without the side effects.
This is why we made Gentle Energy.
What has been the biggest challenge and the biggest success when founding a CPG beverage company?
It's incredibly easy to make a beverage, launch a brand and bring it to market. It's insanely hard to get people to buy it. Today's beverage market is oversaturated in every category, and that's made it even tougher to succeed. It's incredibly hard to make money in beverage because so many people are helping you get your drink to the consumer, and everyone touching the drink along the way is taking a big cut of the drink. By the time you get paid, most of your sales revenues are going to pay everyone else.
What is next for the brand?
Today, VYBES is known as a CBD brand, which makes sense since our only products have been CBD. But we're expanding our product offering with the launch of our Gentle Energy drinks, which don't have CBD them. It's going to be interesting to evolve people's perception of VYBES beyond CBD, which I know we can, but it's going to take time and a lot of hard work.
VYBES now occupies two places within a beverage shelf: the CBD set and the energy set. I'm incredibly excited to have two functional drinks, both addressing mental health but with very different ingredients. As a brand, VYBES is growing out of its adolescent years and into its teens, and it's going to be really fun to be part of helping to make that to happen this year.
Product Testing
Jonathan is sending over some VYBES to NYC so I’ll be trying to products in the coming days. I am looking forward to sharing some results, so stay tuned.
I love getting a behind the scenes look at what goes into a founder’s mindset when launching a new product or service. If you are a founder or know of any interesting brands that I should talk to, send me an email: jake@jb.studio
Talk to you all tomorrow!
About the Writer
Jake Bell is a content marketing and creative strategist based in NYC. He specializes in content creation, branding, art direction, creative strategy, and making things cool.
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