Neel Premkumar of Dyla Brands: How Strategic Celebrity Partnerships and Personal Passion Built a Multi-Million-Dollar Beverage Empire

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Neel Premkumar.

Neel Premkumar is the Founder and CEO of Dyla Brands, where he has built the #2 drink mix portfolio in America. Since founding Dyla Brands in 2012, the company has introduced better-for-you, innovative brands to the market: Stur natural water enhancers, FORTO bottled coffees, and Happy Viking plant-based protein shakes. Neel is an EY Entrepreneur of the Year award winner, a Board Committee member of Human Rights Watch, and a startup investor and judge at Georgetown University, NYU, EOY, and various industry business plan competitions. Previously, Neel founded CreativeHub (a creative agency with clients including Unilever, General Mills, and Samsung), and he was a marketing executive at Nestle and Pfizer. Dyla Brands’ better-for-you beverages are sold in over 50,000 retail stores and generate over $100 million in annual revenue.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I initially created Dyla’s first brand, Stur, for my wife, so that she could drink the recommended 8 glasses of water per day while pregnant with our twins. From there, it continued to spark my passion to help others live healthier lives, and that has been the guiding force for our entire portfolio of products in the hydration, energy and plant-protein space.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Dyla makes beverages that help people increase water consumption, reduce sugar in our diets, and fuel daily activity — our vision is to improve everyone’s health and ultimately reverse the obesity epidemic. This year, we’re going to help customers drink over 600 million glasses of water. While there are many better-for-you beverage companies out there, we’ve disrupted the space by creating authentic, unique partnerships with celebrity household names. Rather than bringing on spokespeople, we have helped people like world tennis champion Venus Williams share her personal story and journey with Sjogren’s Syndrome through the creation of Happy Viking, which she co-founded with us. In 2019, Hall of Famer and businessman Shaquille O’Neal became a co-owner FORTO and the new face of the FORTO brand. The coffee shots fit into his busy lifestyle and he was eager to get deeply involved with a brand that could help people on the go get the best out of their days with a product they could feel good about consuming.

At Dyla Brands, we’re disrupting the industry by being the leading better-for-you beverage company that is helping curate truly unique and personal partnerships with some of the biggest celebrities and athletes out there that are looking for healthy options, just like me and you.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I first launched the Stur brand, I designed the initial label myself. I’m definitely not an artist, so I chose simple colors and then for some personality, I included a frog like character that I drew on the label that I thought helped humanize the design. Most consumers, however, thought it was gross! So I quickly removed it in follow-on production runs.

I learned to find experts in every area that can really help guide you in their specialty. Don’t be afraid to know when you’re out of your area of expertise — we’re not made to be rockstars at every single industry! You also never know where those connections will go. Early on, I brought on a brilliant artist who designed all of our packaging, and he has since become a close friend and investor in the brand.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I’ve had several! My father has been one of my mentors since I was little; he is the smartest person I know and his thoughtful approach to considering all sides of the business has really helped develop my thinking over the years. My wife has been a fantastic mentor in terms of understanding the consumer, as she is really the target consumer for most of our products and has a terrific pulse and taste on what they might want. My former boss at Nestle, Phil, has been a mentor and sounding board on the business since the beginning, and he has really made an impact in focusing on developing people and helping to create our wonderful and supportive culture at Dyla.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Interestingly, I was just thinking about this point while listening to a podcast about Uber and its evolution. I think they have a fantastically disruptive business, really changing the way people commute and travel. In so many ways, that disruption is a wonderful positive for consumers, enabling people to go places via a simpler process, in a shorter time, and at a lower cost than was possible before. On the other hand, Uber has viewed their human drivers as commodities and have continually squeezed their fees and avoided paying their benefits — and that aspect of their disruption has not been so positive.

At Dyla Brands, we’re disrupting the industry by being the leading better-for-you beverage company that is helping curate truly unique and personal partnerships with some of the biggest celebrities and athletes out there that are looking for healthy options, just like me and you.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Hard to pick just 3! To synthesize all of the wonderful advice I’ve gotten over the years, I’d probably have to say —

1. Start a business based on a personal passion or need you have that you feel many others will share;
2. Start with a clear, big, and bold mission and vision from the start on how you can help change the world in a positive way;
3. Create products are that not incrementally better but truly better and different than the others in the market;
4. Focus deeply on the hiring process, prioritizing talent and passion over experience;
5. Spend slowly, test everything, be flexible to take advantage of opportunities that come up!

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

We just launched Happy Viking so it’s been all systems go surrounding the huge success of the brand — it sold out on launch day within 24 hours! For all of Dyla Brands? We have several great innovations coming out later this year — cannot wait to share them!

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

I love listening to business podcasts, and reading business biographies — they really motivate me and help educate me on different folks’ experiences in the world of business and entrepreneurship. I’m currently listening to Business Wars, How I Built This, and Business Movers podcasts. I’ve just most recently read “It’s Better To Be Lucky Than Good” by Dick Heckmann, and “Everything is Possible” by Dan Abraham — both terrific and inspiring.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“You only have one life” by Steve Jobs — it helps remind me to make every interaction and everything I do count, and to really try and live in the moment.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Our vision is to reverse the obesity epidemic. In 2020, 72% of Americans were overweight or obese (up from 40% a few decades ago). The CDC says this is one of the biggest health crises facing our generation, and is a leading contributor to deaths associated with heart disease, diabetes and stroke. I would love to inspire a movement that motivates people to eat and drink healthier, and stay active.

How can our readers follow you online?

At any of our Dyla Brand product websites or social media accounts!

www.drinkhappyviking.com

www.sturdrinks.com

www.fortocoffee.com

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!