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Welcome back to the Launch Key 🚀

Not all the products you might add to your career portfolio are digital.

Sure, the premise of Launch Key is that we all can create late-career products from our knowledge. And the digital ones have never been easier or less expensive to launch.

But a food or beverage product? More complex, but can be just as rewarding.

Let's get into it.

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Table of Contents

• Pull to Eject

  • Subscriber Stories: Chris Jones

• Modern Tools

• Free Knowledge

• Recommendations

• Visual Crapshoot

Pull to Eject

Sometimes you just need a fresh perspective on an old faithful.

Take the Bloody Mary cocktail for example.

Folklore has it that a bartender named “Pete” Petiot invented the Bloody Mary in 1921 at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris. At that time, Harry’s was a hangout for US expats seeking the familiarity of an American style bar during prohibition. Harry’s was popular with stars of the day including Rita Hayworth, Humphrey Bogart and Ernest Hemingway.

In the early 1920s, Russians escaping the Revolution were arriving in Paris and bringing vodka with them. The Americans brought canned tomato juice which was sold on menus during Prohibition under the name ‘tomato juice cocktail’. And from that unique combination of imported flavours, plus Petiot’s addition of spices, lemon juice and seasoning, the Bloody Mary was born.

Good enough for a 100 years.

Subscriber Stories: Chris Jones

This career portfolio case is about applying your skills to new industries not known for your expertise.

Chris Jones spent two-and-a-half decades creating and implementing advertising, marketing, and digital strategies for some of the largest consumer brands in America; names like Baskin-Robbins, Coca-Cola, Dunkin’ Donuts, Ernst & Young, FedEx, Levi's, MTV, National Grid, PWC ,7-Eleven, Taco Bell, Tyco, and Wells Fargo. His ideas, designs, developments, and implementations created millions of dollars of value as digital customers interacted with his work.

But on the weekends, he sailed. On a 40+ foot sailboat out of Southport, NC. Nobody has a cooler hobby.

And it was out there that he built a better mousetrap. Chris didn’t love any of the available Bloody Mary mixes, so he tested recipes while he was on the boat. He wanted to create something easy drinking, lighter that worked in hot temperatures. His solution became the non-digital product – Shipyard Mary.

Friends who visited loved it. They asked for the recipe. They said they’d buy it. He edited and improved until he created his first small batch of bottles. And that recipe success, gave him a reason to use his skills to build the rest of the brand.

Chris created the story, messaging, and visual identity depicting the coastal elements he loved as a North Carolinian and a sailor. His eastern NC family tree crossed paths with legendary blockade running ships and that theme is strongly visible on the label.

Despite having a digital career, Chris focused on old school in-person sales effort to launch his new brand. I caught up with him this summer at a weekly Southport waterfront market building local awareness. Everyone who tasted it loved it.

Chris had his product recipe evaluated by NC State’s Agriculture Department, sought production process recommendations, and fine-tuned necessary activities. Earlier this year, Shipyard Mary was admitted into the GotToBeNC program, promoting North Carolina-based products. Now, he works with his local bottler to handle production needs, prebuild inventory levels, and prepare for future order scale.

He gave away hundreds of samples as he talked to potential customers. He watched and listened during taste tests. The feedback allowed him to make small course corrections and fine-tune his market approach. Word-of-mouth led to a few key retailers showcasing the product in Southport. Chris worked down the coast, introducing the product one shop at a time. Customers loved the product, the brand story and his personal touch.

Today Chris has a rapidly growing network of more than 20 locations selling Shipyard Mary in the Carolinas. A sampling of the outlets are listed below:

• Kudzu Bakery - Charlotte, Litchfield

• Southport Marina - Southport

• Momentum Distillery - Wilmington

• Seaview Crab Company - Wilmington

• Roberts Grocery - Wrightsville Beach

• Holden’s Seafood - Holden Beach

• Bill’s Seafood - Sunset Beach

He also has a handful of restaurants from the coast to the North Carolina mountains starting to carry his mix. With direct-to-consumer sales growing, buyers can also purchase Shipyard Mary online or connect on Instagram and Meta.

Is a non-digital product right for your late-career side hustle?

That might depend on what type of cool hobbies you’re working on this weekend.

Now go launch something 🚀 

Crash Expert: “This Looks Like 1929” → 70,000 Hedging Here

Mark Spitznagel, who made $1B in a single day during the 2015 flash crash, warns markets are mimicking 1929. Yeah, just another oracle spouting gloom and doom, right?

Vanguard and Goldman Sachs forecast just 5% and 3% annual S&P returns respectively for the next decade (2024-2034).

Bonds? Not much better.

Enough warning signals—what’s something investors can actually do to diversify this week?

Almost no one knows this, but postwar and contemporary art appreciated 11.2% annually with near-zero correlation to equities from 1995–2024, according to Masterworks Data.

And sure… billionaires like Bezos and Gates can make headlines at auction, but what about the rest of us?

Masterworks makes it possible to invest in legendary artworks by Banksy, Basquiat, Picasso, and more – without spending millions.

23 exits. Net annualized returns like 17.6%, 17.8%, and 21.5%. $1.2 billion invested.

Shares in new offerings can sell quickly but…

👉 [My subscribers skip the waitlist].*

_{*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd.}

Modern Tools

One of the biggest sticking points for would-be entrepreneurs is health care. Small businesses have traditionally not had great benefits.

Enter CrowdHealth. Only pay for the health care you need.

After years of paying premiums for health care that I never used - plus a very high deductible - I left for CrowdHealth. Your mileage may vary, but it’s worth your research.

Free Knowledge

Is it easier to create digital products? Yes.

Do you need some guidance? Here is one example. Use the free version of Canva to design an ebook.

Find your customers on Roku this Black Friday

As with any digital ad campaign, the important thing is to reach streaming audiences who will convert. To that end, Roku’s self-service Ads Manager stands ready with powerful segmentation and targeting options. After all, you know your customers, and we know our streaming audience.

Worried it’s too late to spin up new Black Friday creative? With Roku Ads Manager, you can easily import and augment existing creative assets from your social channels. We also have AI-assisted upscaling, so every ad is primed for CTV.

Once you’ve done this, then you can easily set up A/B tests to flight different creative variants and Black Friday offers. If you’re a Shopify brand, you can even run shoppable ads directly on-screen so viewers can purchase with just a click of their Roku remote.

Bonus: we’re gifting you $5K in ad credits when you spend your first $5K on Roku Ads Manager. Just sign up and use code GET5K. Terms apply.

Use code GET5K now

Recommendations

💼 Thriving Freelance - Gigs and Growth : Hundreds of job opportunities sent directly to your inbox each week, plus timely resources to support you as you grow and evolve.

📕 MGMT Playbook : Practical management insights straight to your inbox every Wednesday.

🗃️ Dealroom Business Success Uncovered : Learn directly from billionaire entrepreneurs on how to grow a business. Join a community of 2,000+ innovators.

Visual Crapshoot