#280: David Lekach Sells Dream Water for $34.5 Million (Part 1: the Growth Story)

David Lekach is an entrepreneur from Miami, Florida and he got the entrepreneurial itch in the early 2000s when he was working as an investment banker in NYC and couldn’t fall asleep. To solve his own problem, David founded Dream Water - water-shot that is best described as the opposite of a five hour energy - and managed to get his products into big box stores like Duane Reed, Walmart, CVS, Publix and Safeway. After 8 years of being the owner and operator of DreamWater, David sold the company to One Harvest, a Canadian cannabis company for $34.5 Million in 2018.

In this part one of our two part series, David talks about how he grew the company and his mindset along the way. In part two, we talk about what triggered him to sell the business. We dive into the nitty gritty of all the details of the process and how he structured the sale.

What You Will Learn

• David’s thoughts on whether you are born an entrepreneur or whether you choose to be one
• Why David founded Dream Water and what it meant to him personally
• How understanding what “business you are really in” is crucial to scaling a company
• Why David did not invest heavily into manufacturing - even though his business was a product - and how that impacted his grow strategy
• How the impact on the world you are having with the business can be the thing that keeps you going even when things are hard
• How David got into some of the biggest box retail shops like WalMart, CVS and Duane Reed
• David’s thoughts on the importance of stopping to celebrate the wins
• Why David prioritized data management from day one and how he leveraged it to help him scale the company
• How David was able to keep the company lean while scaling the business

// USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment

Bio:

David Lekach is an entrepreneur from Miami, Florida. Once working as an investment banker, David had the entrepreneurial itch. In the early 2000’s David started DreamWater and managed to get his products into big box stores like Walmart, CVS, Publix and Safeway. After 8 years of being the owner and operator of DreamWater, David sold his company to One Harvest, a Canadian cannabis company for $34.5 Million in 2018.

Since the sale of Dream Water in May 2018, he has helped several organizations across the CPG, cannabis, direct to consumer and Amazon platforms, and travel retail spaces with innovation, executive team building, legal and deal structuring, usually while taking on a variety of strategic development initiatives.

Before its sale, David, founded and served as the Chief Executive Officer of Dream Products, LLC, which manufactures and markets Dream Water, a natural, 0-calorie 2.5oz liquid sleep shot that is also available in a powder format that you can take with or without water. As the architect of the company’s growth strategy, David was responsible for managing all aspects of the business including sales, marketing, manufacturing, and finance.

Quotes:

03:56 - “I don’t like to publicize the JD part because I like to say that, ‘If you think I’m an ***hole, I should earn it. Not just because I told you I’m an attorney.” - David Lekach

08:21 - “[Entrepreneurs] don’t really know what we signed up for. And even if you’re a serial entrepreneur, every experience is different.” - David Lekach

09:48 - “I think, for everyone’s own individual entrepreneurial journey, there’s external factors that impact that, sort of, three-pronged analysis. Because, to me, it depends on where you are in life.” - David Lekach

20:11 - “I didn’t have a dedicated customer service department. A lot of it, and as much as it could, I wanted it to route through me because I wanted to be able to hear from people (good, bad, or indifferent).” - David Lekach  

20:32 - “More days than not suck in this process, in this journey, at least it did for me.” - David Lekach

20:44 - “But when you take a prong like, “What is the impact that you are making.” That’s what kept me in the game. That’s what kept me going.” - David Lekach

21:16 - “When the money’s not there, what makes you go to the office the next day?” - David Lekach

29:59 - “What do we do with this? Where do we launch? What does this look like?” - David Lekach

46:58 - “I never wanted to be beholden to anybody.” - David Lekach

49:22 - “Let me or the retailer make the money, not FedEx.” - David Lekach

Links and Resources:

Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course

ARKONA Boot Camp

Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!

You can also reach out to me via email at [email protected], or on my LinkedIn.