YouSaid · the spoken record

Rohan Oza

lines on the record: 44
first: 2026-06-04
most recent: 2026-06-04
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I don't think there was one piece. I think it's an amalgamation of me learning by watching. And so I looked at a lot of guys and how they did it and what they built. And to this day, right? Like whether it's from Coke when I learned from a Darrell Cobb on how to do cool marketing or learning from Micropolet at Vitamort or how to create the right corporature. Even today from a Chris Hall, like how do you actually operate and run a tight ship? Like I'm constantly learning. So I think for me you should never feel like you know it. Should always be a student. And that's actually a phrase I got from Darius who's like, always be a student of the industry because it's a continual learning exercise. And as the world evolves, you have to keep learning.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that changed it. Usually, every single investor reupped. We were blocked out And that would have been about a six, seven bagger on a big check.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah. And a little bit broader than our spectrum, but it was adjacent to what we're doing. And we had a deal ready to go and found us ready to sign. That day they announced Roger”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a beautiful product. I love the founder. Rest in peace, poor guy. He and I bonded. It was our first fund. It was a big check, and he was a hot, we fair, high risk, high reward guy. And I think we got two cor We got too nervous because we're like, if this doesn't work, we're out of the game. Right, like because it was a third of the fund that you”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It varies like in some brands, like in Bai, for example, the face of Brown became Justin Timberley. Not every founder wants to be in the face of the brand. They want to be recognized and get credit for, obviously, as they should for the brand they create. But like in Poppy's case, Allison was front center as well, right? There were a bunch of influences, but she was the founding influencer face on the brand. So it works in some circumstances. It doesn't. In this case, it did. Like in Vita Coco, Michael's an incredible operator, Mike Kirby, but Madonna was the face of the rants. And I think he recognized Madonna is probably a better face than he was.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're walk Correct, and they love it. And so that's when we went for the call it the mega influencer. And to be fair, She took a risk on us, we took a risk on her, but Alex saw the vision. Alex saw the vision really early. Stevie, Allison, team all loved Alex. In fact, to be fair, I was being educated on Alex at the time. So I can't take credit there. But she wanted the first influencers that did an equity strategy the same way 50 had done it as an artist back in the day in Vitamort. And that's what changed the game. And now every influencer wants an equity plan, the same way that artists and celebs wanted it back in the day.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because of COVID, we had to go digital first and it forced us to become a modern digital marketing company off the bat. And so the first thing that happened was Allison created a TikTok that went viral. So immediately you go to founder who's creating a TikTok. It goes viral. You got Buzz off it. Then we have an incredible team that we hired who are all young dynamic women that live the brand. So we're not using an agency. We're not going external. We're doing it all within. So Stevie's right at the DNA. You've got an incredible team around that that's actually executing it. And what happened is that resulted in an incredible community. And Alison, the rest of the team all worked on building this incredible poppy community, which exists today, by the way. And I think then it started laddering up to the point that big names like Haley Bieber and Kyrie Jeno all like were just drinking the product.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Something went wrong. It was a big thing. Two weeks later, retailers called me and said, sorry, we're not carrying you. The world shut down. So suddenly we're pivoting and are forced to pivot. So we've got the influencer strategy. We become digital first, Amazon only, and take the old school inflow strategy and make it modern. That was an amazing team that pulled that together. So immediately there was a zeitgeist to the brand.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Long and I The world has changed, right? It's all very digital. So Allison, Stevie, the team all went into full digital mode. And I think that was exacerbated by the fact we launched Poppy in March of 2020.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the company wasn't big. But for them, it's still a lot of money. And so that trust, I give them that. Basically, Allison, Stephen, me, and Stevie sat down and with Carvu's backing, basically co founded Poppy. And so we got a bunch of packages and designs. And to be fair, I actually picked a different package to this. It was very similar, but it was reverse knockout. The name was Stevie. Package we did together I went in as a shock because I had to invest myself. And then I spoke with Brett and he said, look, if you're doing a beverage, Car Vu's in. So we'll back it. And so as a team, we co-founded Poppy, which is like, it's a unique and different scenario, right? So you take the original founders who had a great idea product.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, and I give Allison and Steve a lot of credit. I say, guys, we're shutting the company down and we are going to create a new company together. And I think that's a lot of faith on their”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Husband wife found her. She's like seven months pregnant. I'm like, that's commitment. You know, she's on a show. She's about to give birth. So they make the pitch. So I like the founders and mother. Tried the product, I like to. And the one I liked the most was the orange one. Still my favorite today. And the reason for me it was a cross between Phanta and Orangina. I'm like, oh my God, those are two drinks that I drank as a kid. I can now drink it every day and not feel bad. It's got fiber. It's got low sugar. Natural ingredients. There's zero guilt. It's what I call permissible guilt. It's completely permissible. It's all good. And so I said, I'm in. But what am I in for? I'm in for a brand that has no scalability in a package that's terrible.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Every deal on ShockTank, I lost money, basically. And then this one deal comes on. I'm like, here we go again, another beverage. It's called mother beverage. First of all, I don't like the name. It's a terrible package. It's in a glass bottle, which is no one can carry around because it breaks and no dice. But the entrepreneurs seem cool. Great vibe, good looking couple, like straight out of central casting.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we're blessed. I mean, Bodley's like for me, I wake up every day. I'm like, I'm blessed to have been able to do this. So I go on a shark tank, pay it forward. And sometimes you don't know, but when you do that, it actually got paid back to me, which is crazy. So I'm sitting there. And I had always had this vision. Because I understand, I started my career as a soda guy. I love soda, but I stopped drinking it because, you know, I'm like, do you want sugar? I don't want the artificial sweeteners. And I always wanted a soda that I could just feel good about.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I mean, step back a little bit. So I went on a shock tank. So I was a shock and shock tank. And the funny thing is I did that as a pay it forward because I'm blessed. I'm living the American dream, right? I'm an immigrant. I've come to America. I'm an American now. I've been very successful. And my personal belief, I don't care what side of the aisle you sit on, this is the greatest country in the world to be an entrepreneur. Hands down. Almost nowhere else on earth can you create products from scratch and in five years be worth $2 billion, 3 billion, five billion.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think part of it is also having a real combo of the founders. Are they willing to work together? Again, not my show, their show. And they should run at 80%, 90%. But if they should be willing to maybe work a little bit on the stuff that we can provide value on. And I think 90% of the time the founders have.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Unfortunately for me, no one ever just walks at the door and is, hey guys, I'm here, I'm brilliant, to find the best, you really have to go find. It's a hunt. So we have a great team that goes out there and there's a hunt. And so we've got to find the best brands. And then you bond with the founders. It's their company. We're not running it, let's be clear. We just become the wingman or wingwoman to them on their branding journey. And by the way, think of our Swiss army knife, right? I'd have to fix everything on your brand. Like you pick, you want packaging? I got you. Influencer, Amazon, DTC, billboards. Like we've got all these things in the mix where we can offer you either great pricing, great relationships. We do it ourselves. It really varies. And so they love it because they're like, oh, I'm getting money. Oh, and you guys can help me with the brand. And brand is king. Like brand is king. If you don't have that brand moat, what do you have?”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To companies we invest in. So we create a Kavu. Kavu stands for ceiling and visibility unlimited. It's a flying term. I never knew that. But what it means that we help entrepreneurs guide, assuming they're flying, they're flying their brands through turbulent times to clear skies. So when you get on a plane and a pilot say it's Cavu, great. That's going to be a nice flight. We create a carvoo against his vision, which was how do we leverage what you and Steve have been doing and now do it in a much bigger scale. So that's why I pivoted, because before I was writing much smaller checks, now as a fund, we can really go disrupt the landscape. And the mission for Cavu was like, okay, it's to democratize better living for all humans and their families. That was our scenario.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My business partner, Brett, saw it. He was a hedge fund guy. He wanted to pivot into private equity. And he's like, but I've got to do it differently because he's a hedge fund guy. So hedge fund guys always want an edge, right? What's the edge? And in his opinion, like him raising a fund to deploy, there's no edge. He saw what I was doing. And he's like, ooh, this is a vision. And so he approached me and said, look, let's go create a fund where we can provide real value add.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Listeners, Bob, here, if you listen to Response on masters of scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday we release a second round. Response exclusively in the Response feed the guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford's CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from the Devilware's Prada. It takes about ten seconds to find just certain Wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode, I hope to see you there.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I also didn't think the company would sell a $4 billion. And Fifth got fully behind it. And so that was a big part of, and he owned it. And funny, when he actually met Darius, the founder, Darius walked up to him and said, by the way, I'm the real founder of item water. And 50 cracked up because Fifth basically just put on his back and said, I'm Vitam Ward.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Actually, I think the product and package did the work for me. A big way because he saw it. And then I painted the vision. And the vision was to get 50 in the room and how fifth could be the face of the brand. And he beforehand had never done that. He had been like with sports and rebock and this and that music, but actually the face of a beverage brand was the first time. Here's a problem though. I said to Fifth, I can't afford you. But I have an idea. I said, we can do an equity game. I'll give you skin in the game if you wanted to do this. And he's like, I'm in. That quickly. Shocked. He's a very smart individual. So he understands business cold and he knew what he was capable of. More than I did because I had a number in my mind of what I thought 50 could make and I think he made 10 times that.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Friend of mine, Seth Rodsky, actually had 50s number or Chris Lighties. I had neither. I was a nobody. So he goes, I can cut you to Chris Lighting. And Chris and I bonded. Remember, I told you the importance of building relationships. He and I became good friends. And incredible guy, super smart, came from the streets. Hard life, he had a hard life.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. Of its time So I took that same thing and I started going radio DJ And so I did partnerships across the country. I hired a whole set of field marketers that were cool, that felt the brand, young, hip, dynamic. They knew the Radio DJs. They knew the hot bartenders. But it was a lot of street marketing because the digital world didn't exist there. And so I started looking around to see who can help make. Vitamater cool and broad because the product was great, package is great, but didn't have that zeitge So I looked at two guys. They took about 2004 here, right? The two guys at the height of the game in music were 50 and J.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“60 markets in the country into Vegas for a recording session and every artist around our ward show. And so every artist could hit 20 cities in an hour and a half.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it was an incredible product of the time. But the biggest problem was no one knew about it. And how do you do that? So at the time I took my Spide experience, which was very much an influencer strategy with Sprite, I used to, you and I old enough on this. The influences back then, by the way, were radio DJs.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At the same time, a guy called Micropole had reached out to me. Mike's a super successful entrepreneur himself. He was the number two guy at Vitam Water. He'd come in super early and they needed a CMO. And he's like, this is the guy. And Mike's also a gunslinger himself, so we kind of got along very well. And so I'd receive that offer. And I'm like, you know what? Things happen for a reason. I went to Vitamater and became the CMO and started what was the next and probably most important chapter of my life to lay the foundation for my future.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Corporate America, a lot of chess moves, they get nervous. When you move very fast, I was too entrepreneurial in my approach, which is difficult to do within the confines of corporate America.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So Brandt's rocky and rolling. This is the high risk part. I'm kind of probably a little too cocky at this point because my team is one running the show. And instead of Coke moving me up the ranks, which I felt I deserved, they put someone above me.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's all about relationships. First, make sure you have a good relationship with the agent because you can't go around the agent. The agent's their go-to person. So there's no going direct to artists. So foster that direct relationship with the agent. And I've done that a lot over time. And that was number one, right? With 50, it was Chris Lighty. It was Rick Young with Justin. Like I established the relationships because then they trust you. And they know you're not going to try and do a side-swipe pitch on the artist. And then a core part of the final negotiation is I'd like to sit with the artist. Because in the end, they're representing our brand. So all the upfront negotiation, you're never going to get there. But, you know, it's almost a house before you write the check. You've got to do a final inspection.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think a lot of it is the interaction. I sat with 50 on Vitam Water and Justin Timberlake on Bai. We sat with Alex Earle on Poppy. And you can see how they react to the brand. Big difference. You have to sit with, because a lot of times if you just go through the agent and you don't connect with the actual artist, you have no idea how they react to your brand.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think what I started learning about power and I took it forward with me is the importance of engaging celebrities or influences because celebrities were the influencer at that time who felt your brand. Sometimes people just signed on a celeb because, hey, let's pay the money and get it done. They didn't feel the brand. And I think it's important for them to feel the brand because when they do, they go above and beyond. And when we go forward, and I'll talk about other brands, it makes a massive difference, especially on entrepreneurial brands.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Funny you bring that up. My wife gets very upset when I go to the grocery store because it takes me two hours because I spend so much time going up and down looking at product package. And she's like, I just sent you for four things. Can you get back here quicker? But yes, I think it depends on the brand and the need. The key thing is you have to stand out. So the product has to pop. There's no one thing. I think it's one. You have to have a vision. Then you got to put a strong creative team together. And then at the end, there's a gut feel. Because if it's just research, then everyone's going to have great packaging. Right. Because you have the same research agency, you'll show them 10 designs. I think finding the right designer and going with your gut is a big part of what makes packaging cool.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First of all, packaging and redesign. Your package is the brand you walk around with. So we redesign the brand, the packaging. I brought an influencer strategy to the mix. So we brought in different athletes into the mix because I think at the time PowerAid was just picking what Gatorade didn't want. I'm like, that's not a strategy. Picking up leftovers isn't a strategy. Go find people you want and drive forward. And so with new product, new packaging, and an influencer strategy, I was able to get the Coke bottlers who are critical to Coke success to actually get behind the brand again.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the next step was I ended up on the Brant Sprite, which I loved. And that's where I kind of learnt what became one of my mantras, which influenced the influencer. Because Sprite had suddenly become the super cool brand we did stuff with, Kobe Bryant and Miss Elliott and Tim Duncan. And in the African community, Sprite became super cool because of all the hip-hop that we were doing, which, by the way, I had to learn whilst doing. And I learned from super smart, creative people. And then after that, I got onto power raid. And I redefined power rate because no one really cared about the brand. It was like a dying brand. And so it was like, sure, what harm can Rohan do? So I put an excellent team together, revamped the whole thing, and the brand took off.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This was the Olympics year. So they didn't do a full summer internship. It was like an abbreviated internship. And one of the guys, a guy called Carls, who had actually ended up becoming one of my mentors there, was like, look, this guy is high-risk, high reward. We don't know if he's going to be a brilliant or a train wreck. He's going to be one of the two. He's not middle of the road. Let's just take the gamble on him. So I was like the last man picked from gym class.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I gravitate towards iconic brands, and that's why I think in my career I've tried to build iconic brands because my foundational learning, other than Mars, the other company that has probably some of the most iconic brands in the world was Coke at the time, right?”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not for everyone, by the way, but for me, it gave me intellectual maturity, which I think what I needed, it allowed me to shape where I wanted to go.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because they fired me. So I went there and I started manufacturing and I wanted to pivot to marketing. And so I'm like, what do I do? I came to the States, went to Michigan.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Moz has created probably some of the most iconic consumer brands in the world. The power of brand is one thing that I espouse a lot, and Mars is a great place to understand that. Like, how have you created such legacy brands that 100 years later are still massive?”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's the problem. It was in agricultural equipment, hardware, things that I was one terrible at and two had no interest. And one of the things I pushed for is be passionate about what you're doing if you're allowed to do that. Sometimes you have to just work to get a paycheck, but if you're blessed people to be passionate about it, I think you can be a lot more successful. So I realized that if I did this, I would do okay with my dad, but I would never do really well. And so I kind of transitioned into consumer products via engineering, meaning I started in manufacturing with Mars M&Ms. And then I went from there to Coca-Cola.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“probably my family who originally Indian born and raised in Africa educated in England and now I'm American something like the sort of the immigrant American dream story and my family was all a bunch of businessmen it's in the blood it's in the culture and initially the thought was I'd join my father's business you know Indian families dad starts or the granddad starts or join it”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the vision was to get 50 in the room and how fifth could be the face of the brand. I'm like, I said to fifth, I can't afford you. But I have an idea. I said, we can do an equity game. I'll give you skin in the game if you wanted to do this. And he's like, I'm in.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thought of looking around to see who could help make vitamater cool and broad because the product was great, packaged was great, but didn't have that zeitgeist.”
2026-06-04 · Masters of Scale · Rohan Oza: The playbook for building billion-dollar consumer brands · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT