2009 really does add it up to two 1 JUANS..

2009 Achievements of a Frost Group Brand

As 2009 comes to a close I cant help but to look back and see all the achievements the World Frost team has accpmplished this year. As a beginning with a growing beverage company to the evolution of a true FrostShot Team. It was great year, a year of growing, learning, overcoming obstacles, and eventually learning how to move on to find greener pastures.. In 2009 I never stopped learning how to be better businessman and human being, the individuals I met this year carved and continue to carve the road to my future.
It was a year of ups and downs, a year of sales and acquisitions a year of love/Hate relationships.
When Bev-Co was purchased in January 2008 noone could imagine it would grow into the distribution powerhouse we turned it into. 24 month later we look back and see all the we conquered, the friendships that will last a life time and the business contacts that were acquired, which you can never put a price on.
Through Bev-Co we learned distribution and point of sale knowledge, we learned how to introduce and market a new brand into the already saturated beverage market. No matter how big the brand was, the same methods were used. RedBull launched there Rebull Cola in the same way Redux Beverages launched the ever popular energy drink “Cocaine.” Everyday at Bev-Co was an experience working side by side to huge Beverage houses and applying their methods along to our brand.
In the first quarter of FrostShot, we prepped, we studied our markets, learned Laws and Regulation and built a team, that would make the brand bigger than any new emerging brand the market had ever seen. The brand had a past, had a buzz, but nothing to what the world was about to see in its official launch in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas came, Canada Went. We launched in Alberta Canada in the second half of 2009, automatically it was a huge success. Our Distributor Spyder Beverages had launched us in 240 stores, where the product could not stay on the shelves. The question now became should we continue to conquer N. America or should we cross the pond and see what opportunities lie in Europe.
June 2009, spending my birthday in London paid off and it paid off big, we signed Ultimate Brands to distribute FrostShot in the U.K. This is also where we signed our first European Rep, he would be based in Holland but would represent us in Europe. Our first Brand Ambassador.
Coming back to the U.S we wanted to realign our strategy and see which markets we would launch next. Would a strategic partnership in the U.S be right move? It seemed like we were becoming an international company just by the demand of our consumer, we had no choice but to continue exploring the international market and sign a partnership that would prove extremely beneficial not only in terms of business but also in terms of the knowledge that we acquired from our new partners. We began to prep a launch in 2010 with our new U.S group, they being the experts they were in their field would handle logistics and marketing in the U.S. with us backing them and supporting the brand nationally.
While our wine partners continued to labor with label regulations and market studies, World Frosts continued to open international market. FrostShot signed an exclusive agreement with what is now Ownhold invst. our South African Partners. Ownhold plans a launch at the 2010 FIFA World Cup, our incredible brand on the world stage in Cape Town. Not only were we in another country but also another Continent.
Mexico a market that we had coveted so much had also been signed by a group led by U.S investors aggressively investing in the Mexican Market. A planned Mexico City, Baja Peninsula, Cancun Roll out in the works for 2010.
Late 2009, World Frost signed a group from Slovenia to have FrostShot in the small yet infuential Eastern European Country. The market has been studied and a planned launch is inevitable for early 2010.
With a vast number of countries under the FrosT umbrella the brand continues to gain power. Colombia, Costa Rica, Barbados, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Dominica, Grenada, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Bahamas and Jamaica, are all inline to launch in the early months of 2010.
Having the Brand in 20 countries by end of 2010 is our ultimate goal. Manufacturing , Launching, distributing, marketing, delivering, those are only a few things we do in a day, building a brand is our ultimate goal, and it’s a goal that every day in 2009 we came closer to reaching. To all of our FrostShot Teams world wide, and future FrostShot team members, THANK YOU, it was a great year…..Let’s surpass all of our goals and expectations in 2010, and make it another year to remember…..

Yours truly,

JFE

Ice Age…..The Meltdown…..FrostShot Style….

“Bring out the FrostShots!!” yelled a friend of mine……”Nah, their not frozen” I replied…..”JUST BRING THEM OUT!” this was at 9 pm at a small gathering a friend of mine held at his house, we had 20 people 100 Frostshots and 1L of Aguardiente (colombias traditional spirit) ………Fast forward 3 hours =---à>> is it now past midnight and I look around and see twenty glasses full of Ice and FrostShot. The FrostShot phenomenon has begun, I realized that if people don’t have the time to freeze the product they consume it over ICE…..It became a game, what flavors to mix, the color changes when the FrostShot hit the ice, people sharing mixes, Cherry Lime. Passion Pineapple, etc... People all around sharing drinks and then taking it to the extreme by actually mixing is with Aguardiente, this drink became known as “The Challenger” because it was going to take you to the moon, as the night progressed they began calling it “The Apollo 13” because you were a disaster after you drank it…..3 am rolled by and their was FrostShot everywhere, just one thing,,,,they were all empty, sitting ½ full was the Aguardiente bottle… Could FrostShot actually compete against titans, the first head to head experiment had proven to be very promising.

I love my product, I believe in my product, I live for my product, but the product I envisioned was a frozen shot, this is what the major appeal of FrostShot is, it a frozen liquor shot. With that said, I could not be happier with the evolution the product is taking. It broadens our market so much more, FrostShot is proving to be not only a novel appeal in a specific niche market, but it is also sneaking into a much more commercialized spirit market. If consumers like the taste of the product this much then they will find a way to consume it, FrostShot in such an infant state has managed to break the barrier of the Frozen Shot, consumers are enjoying the product chilled, frozen, frapped; in cups, in shots, and in its sleeve. The fact that it is a frozen shot has opened so many doors, but the taste has created an evolution of a product that can be consumed under any and all circumstances.

The Coca-Cola Company mastered this concept by not only selling packaging but also taste, by putting its products in icee machines, coke floats, cans, bottles, Pet Liters and the ever so popular dispenser, Coke had broaden its market to every environment. Consumers are buying the brand, the taste and the enjoyment they get when consuming the product.

With the FrostShot phenomenom the same is happening, so next time you tear open a FrostShot enjoy it Frozen…..or chilled…..

Mr FrostShot

History of FrostShot

Due to the enormous success of FrostShot, I have decided to start a blog and tell you a little of updates regarding the company and my day to day activities within the Frozen World of FrostShot. My name is Juan Felipe Echeverri, I am the proud President and owner of FrostShot - The Frozen Liquor Shot. it has been a long road hard road to get the process off the ground. the number one question regarding FrostShot is: "how did you come up with the idea?" In order to answer this I must first tell you about my business past and how I got into the business world. I grew up in a household with a single mother and a beautiful little sister, we moved to Miami after my father lost his life during the political turmoil that was going in in Colombia in the 1980's. I had a special talent for business starting at a very young age; as a child I would sell anything that i could get ahold of to make a profit on. At 10 years old the family took a trip to New York, this is where I discovered China Town, a ten year old boy negotiating dollar store goods to bring back to Miami and sell at a garage sale I would hold every Saturday and Sunday. Before long I had saved up enough to start buying and selling Film equipment online, I would buy and sell all types of Cameras at 13. From then on I would start small business, buying and selling Domain names, photo machines, tickets etc..... HighSchool came around and I had a small fortune for a 15 year old kid, I decided to start the first real business, JFE Vending, a part of JFE Inc 2000. I decided to buy 15 candy/gum ball machines and strategically place them around South Florida, on Saturdays my mother would drive me around and we would refill the machines and collect the cash. When Senior year of highschool came around I had over 180 machines working from Key Largo to WPB. I was a earning a very good living at the age of 17 but my drive did not allow me to stop there. I decided to sell JFE Vending and put all my money into a BankRupt Airline Supply company named Apollo Airline Support Group. I was a Freshmen in college at the time and wold attend classes from 6:15 am until 8:50am. I would then go to our small wharehouse in Doral and conduct airline business. We grew so much as a business but this is where I learned my first real lesson in business, two words Account Receivables.....I would sell sell sell not realizing that it was not a real sale until I actually got paid for it. The A/R just grew and grew......At that time my number one customer was an Airline out of Colombia named West Caribbean Airways, I would do millions of dollars with this company profits were great money was great, I decided to Start a Non-Profit organizations to help single mothers in Colombia. We opened our first factory in 2004, the concept was to supply the mothers pre packaged ice pops and have them sell them in the schools where their sons/daughters attended. With the money they earned they could put them through school and also have a job. Life was great that year, I had a great company making money and I was doing something good for the city which I was living in..... but like everything all good things must come to an end. The year was 2005, 16 August 2005. West Caribbean Airways Flight 708, a chartered West Caribbean Airways McDonnell Douglas MD-82 aircraft heading from Panama to Martinique in the Caribbean, crashes in remote western Venezuela, killing all 160 aboard, mostly French nationals. This was to date the worst day of my life, I was getting calls from all types of news outlets asking me about what happened to the aircraft, Apollo operated about 2 months after that and then had to close our doors. I was devastated all my youths work was now gone. At that point I wanted nothing to do with business. I had to close my factory which could no longer be funded by Apollo. It took a little while but I finally got back on my feet, I wanted to start something that would never jut rely on one or a few clients, I wanted something for mass consumption; at this point my only assets were my ice pop factory. I came down to Colombia and started to brainstorm; one night I saw one of my products being mixed with Alcohol, thats where the initial Idea of FrostShot came to life. Now the easy part, how do you freeze alcohol and make it stable at the same time. I met with two freelance engineers, who discovered how to modify and freeze the molecules. They also had to raise the percentage of alcohol so it could compete with other beverages, like beer, sold in bars. The idea for a new product began to take shape, but then I realized that I didn’t know anything about the beverage industry. So, I bought into a small beverage distributorship in Doral, Florida and my journey with Bev-Co began. Even while Bev-Co expanded, I realized there was more growth potential. That’s when I re-connected with an old friend and former business associate, Fermin Perez, Jr., to help me grow the business. Bev-Co annual sales now exceed $6 Million. In 2005, I entered a business plan contest for one of Florida’s major newspapers. My business plan won a Gold Medal but, more importantly, the plan became the template for World Frost, Inc., and its fabulous new product… FROSTSHOT, The Frozen Liquor Shot… the breakout spirits product in the USA and Europe.. Fermin and the team kept growing Bev-Co’s business with a dogged and relentless pursuit. Fermin earned product authorizations with larger chains such as Walgreen’s and Sedano’s. Before long, the dynamic duo Juan and Fermin were selling products into the Caribbean and South American Markets, negotiating territory rights in Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic, Bermuda Islands and Antigua. Word began to travel and brands like, Perrier, San Pellegrino, Aqua Panna, Rockstar Energy, Red Bull, Coke and Pepsi all wanted to be in the Bev-Co House of Distribution. I finally completed FrostShot to be released unto the masses and the reception was overwhelming. However, I needed more help to smooth out the road to success. As Fermin took the wheel as Chief Operations Officer for FROSTSHOT, there was much to accomplish. While coordinating all of the components that help to make a new company successful, Fermin began to reach out to industry contacts/friends for assistance. I continued to improve upon FROSTSHOT and refine it to the product it is now, bursting with flavor and color. In order to better handle the rapid growth of two dynamic companies, I, as President and Fermin, as COO, realized it was time to mature WFI’s organizational team. As I concentrated on FROSTSHOT product development, Fermin focused on building the operations team. Fermin quickly reached out to two former business associates, Roger Nottestad to handle Product Packaging Design, Marketing and Media Relations and Fred Cohen to handle Logistics and Systems. Roger came into fold in the beginning designing Point of Sale items, equipment graphics and print media. Soon the job of spearheading the marketing of FROSTSHOT was taken on as well. With a newly created website and ALL new 4-shot box designs underway, Roger has had his hands full. Roger continues to use his various industry experience to enhance and increase the visibility of FROSTSHOT at all possible levels. With years of sales/marketing/design experience with companies like Specialized Bicycles, Rockstar Energy Drink, HyperTel Communications and Road Ready, Roger knows what it takes to get a product in the hands of early-adopters and consumers alike. As with all companies, Information Technology and legal issues became a priority and Fred Cohen was earmarked for the task. The technical brains behind the brawn of FROSTSHOT; Fred’s years of experience in Systems, High-Tech, Hospitality, and Management Consulting for companies such as, Computer Controls, Honeywell, Marriott’s Frenchman’s Reef & Morningstar Beach Resorts, Pearl River Resorts, and Peak Leadership Group bring years of MIS and a process-oriented leadership to the World Frost Inc./FROSTSHOT team. The recent attendance of FROSTSHOT at industry tradeshows in the US, Mexico, and United Kingdom has brought some amazing opportunities for FROSTSHOT. Both domestic and international distributors/resellers have joined WFI as business partners to handle the explosive expansion and demand for FROSTSHOT. Exclusive agreements are now in place for the USA, Canada, Mexico, and South Africa. Negotiations are moving forward for Greece, Malta, Australia and Dominican Republic. And this is where we are now, we are a much better company than we were four years ago, even 4 days ago actually, we continue to expand our team has gotten bigger and stronger, and today you will see our products all over the world. And with this blog you can be updated daily on how the Frozen World is going, Follow me into making this the worlds next great brand. Thanks for your time and patience, JFE