Meet Nigel Smith

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nigel Smith a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Nigel, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
My work ethic stems from multiple sources.

The first is my country of birth, Trinidad & Tobago, which is one of the most diverse cultures in the world. One that has magically infused the best of Native Caribbean, West African, Asian, Middle Eastern, South American and European cultures. This culture taught me how to appreciate diversity, individualism, and respect for others, and to always be my authentic self.

In the early days of Zurena product development, I had a decision to make. I could follow the precedent of other drink mixer companies and create multiple versions of Zurena – each for a singular drink creation. Or I could create a universal mixer, one product that could mix with a variety of bases to create unlimited cocktails and mocktails. Because of my appreciation for diversity, individualism and authenticity, I decided to pursue the path of a universal mixer that can empower anyone to create a drink that speaks to who they are, what they like and what they want at any given moment. Why confine myself to limited options when I can get creative and invent something just for me. Our tagline “Be you. Love you. Enjoy the Zurena life” accentuates this belief in self-discovery and self-celebration through beverage. This has admittedly been a more challenging path to execute as we are effectively introducing a new concept to consumers, but a path that we are betting will win in the long run.

Another source of my work ethic is my lived experience during my formative years in Trinidad & Tobago. Quite simply, I grew up poor in a feared, misunderstood and marginalized community where making lemonade out of lemons was a day-to-day reality. Back then, I learned to exude positive energy at all times in spite of the circumstance, to be resilient, and to always look at the glass as half full.

The Zurena startup journey has been extremely challenging for the team, with limited financial resources and the consistent risk of burnout. I have made it a priority to create lemonade out of lemons on an ongoing basis. I have empowered my team to be co-owners through an employee equity pool, provided leadership opportunities with major initiatives, instituted “brags” in our weekly team meetings for team members who uplift each other – a practice I borrowed from a former career, and we celebrate like there is no tomorrow for every single win – from landing local independent retail accounts to getting served at the White House. In spite of the roller coaster ride of entrepreneurship, we do all that we can every single day to enjoy the journey.

My family is another source of my work ethic. They taught me to work hard, take pride in my work, deliver on commitments and to always have faith. Throughout my formative years, I was surrounded by family members who gave 200% all the time, and regardless of what the job was, dressed with pride, went to work with a positive attitude and got the job done at all costs. There was always a sense of privilege in having a job and the financial security that a job brings.

With Zurena, the clock seems to never turn off. I am constantly working, hustling, selling, connecting dots and imagining all the different ways we can change the world and be a disruptive solution with our different customers. Being 100% all-in is fine as long as I can compartmentalize and set boundaries where I can allocate committed time for family, sleep, “me” and some of my other obligations such as board commitments and volunteer engagements. Achieving balance and turning off the clock in this “all-in” reality has been my biggest challenge to-date. To keep myself in check, I have joined entrepreneurship support groups, have asked my team to keep me in check, and have asked my family to also do the same.

Finally, along my life journey, I developed relationships with mentors and angels who were willing to lift me as they climbed. These individuals shared perspectives that I embraced and contributed to my work ethic, such as always assuming positive intent, being open to constructive criticism and not taking the easy route of jumping to conclusions that criticism may not be from a point of sincerity, and being accountable for decisions and results.

This work ethic shows up in how I engage with my investors informally and through our cadence of quarterly updates. The “stand up and face the music” time every three months has forced the team to be proactive with achieving our goals and milestones, and to have that discipline of doing what we say we are going to do. Our amazing investors have been very transparent about expectations, and they hold me accountable for results. But they have also been very understanding of the marathon we are on and do what they can to support our audacious ambitions.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am the proud Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Zurena, and we create simple and versatile, all-natural Caribbean-inspired drink mixers of the highest quality. Our drink mixers are magic. When added to any dark or white spirit, wine, beer, bubbly or non-alcoholic base, they create delicious cocktails or mocktails in seconds. We have two all-natural flavors in market today – Tropical and Ginger – and they were each rated 89 points by The Tasting Panel Magazine. We are aggressively growing our presence in DC, MD, TX, GA and the Caribbean through regional distribution relationships, and are also available on Amazon.

Consumers love our products because of the versatility and ease of use in making a high-quality cocktail or mocktail in seconds. They also value the guilt-free experience of using a product that is all-natural, sodium-free, gluten-free and fat-free. With restaurants, bars and other on-premise locations, we address the needs for speed, consistency, creativity in the cocktail and mocktail making process, pre-batching efficiencies and margins.

In 2023, we were served at Audi Field as a proud partner of the XFL DC Defenders. We were also served at the White House during Caribbean American Heritage Month. To all restaurant, bar, hotel, event space and retail owners in any of our markets, we would love to explore fit with your establishment. To all corporate managers looking for that perfect gift for your staff this holiday season, look no further.

Zurena is not just producing a product, but instead we are developing a platform that impacts lives in a positive way. We have engaged in numerous virtual and in-person community activations where we facilitate the creation of mocktails as a path of self-discovery, self-expression, legacy creation and community building. We have incorporated some of the best practices in cognitive vitality in these efforts. We have written checks to community organizers, donated product, volunteered time and even facilitated an audacious “share your story of how you are uplifting spirits” campaign during the pandemic.

I am loving a few things about my evolving journey. I feel like I started Zurena for the right reasons. To honor my late Grandpa, Carlton Smith – whose secret recipe I am taking to the world, to inspire my daughters Zuri and Rena who I have named my platform after, and to set an example for others who come from similar marginalized backgrounds that you can create a world class product with an authentic brand that is reflective of you and achieve global commercial success. I have been blessed to have an amazing and dedicated leadership team in Hubert Braithwaite and Milton B. Yates, as well as a village of supporters – family and friends who have lifted me up with guidance, financial investments and amazing connections to their own networks. This journey has brought me closer to my wife and my daughters; yes, I am working harder than ever before, but I am also spending more productive, quality time at home than ever before. Finally, I am so proud and excited about our product – there really isn’t another mixer in the world that matches the quality and versatility of Zurena.

In addition to Zurena, I serve as a Board Director of Trinidad and Tobago Insurance Limited and Tatil Life Assurance Limited, international general and life insurance companies. I am also a principal at Value Exchange Catalysts, an independent consulting company that I founded with expertise in industry assessments, research projects, qualitative and quantitative assessments. Last year, I authored “Tech-Enabled Home-Based Medical Care Service Providers” in collaboration with California Health Care Foundation. In the past, I have held a variety of primarily strategy and innovation roles at some of the most admired companies in the world. I am considered a pioneer of the age-tech industry, and presented the age-tech use case to the United Nations, Brussel’s Forum and Japan’s inaugural “Well Aging Society” Summit.

My life journey has been blessed, and every experience-date has been preparing me for the here-and-now.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The first for me has been an appreciation that I cannot separate work from life, and that the adage “it’s not personal, it’s business” is not aligned with who I am. I have made career decisions based upon perceived alignment with my life purpose, and have made sure that the way I engage with colleagues is aligned with personal values and how I would want people to treat my daughters in the future. Not perfect science. Because of certain values, such as assuming positive intent when it wasn’t there, and being loyal to colleagues who were not loyal in return, I have been burned in the past and it was hurtful. But I am proud of always living my values and driving as much alignment as possible with what matters most to me.

With Zurena, we review our shared values on an annual basis, and everyone is encouraged to share values that they would like to see us all live as we push ahead. As a precursor, I encourage team members to share their “why” for Zurena and we poke and prod to ensure that are we living up to our ideals. I model the behaviors I want to see, and take risks by being brutally honest in these discussions. And we hold ourselves accountable to each other on a continuous basis and even in our performance management.

The second is continuous learning. It is so important that as a growth company with limited financial resources trying to do the impossible that we learn from everything we do and seek to continuously improve. We are consistently taking calculated risks, and as a team have gotten comfortable with acknowledging mistakes, admitting failures, pivoting and being agile with strategic execution. Knowing when to stay the course and have that executional discipline vs being agile to either jump on opportunities or mitigate losses is challenging, but one we are getting better at every day.

One of the ways that we have institutionalized learning at Zurena is through After Action Reviews. We do a lot of these. Every week in team meetings, at least one team member conducts an After Action Review for an initiative that s/he is leading where 5 questions are asked: (1) What’s the context, (2) what did we attempt to do, (3) what happened, (4) what are our lessons learned and (5) what input does the team offer for continuous learning and improvement. This has been critical in forcing us to think through intended outputs before we begin the execution of an initiative. It has provided a rich repository of best practices to inform how we execute in the future. And it takes the defensiveness out when we declare “everything we do is a path for learning and improvement.”

The third is deliberately fostering an ambidexterous culture. One that has equal emphasis on operational execution as well as innovation. This is something that I have attempted to foster in multiple organizations, but it gets exponentially more difficult the bigger the organization for a variety of reasons. Start-ups, like every organization, have to execute to meet short-term goals, but we have one key advantage in the ability to make fast decisions and re-allocate resources to take advantage of marketplace and regulatory developments.

Zurena belongs to several trade associations, which provides access to insights and other organizations in and adjacent to our industry for collaboration. We are consistently bringing interns on board, empowering them, and challenging them to bring fresh thinking to the table. Our current interns from the University of Maryland recently launched our TikTok channel (go Krystal Taveras) and pushed the needle on SEO (go Robel Tatek). We attend select trade conferences each year for exposure to the latest innovations and regulatory developments, and we carve out time in each of our weekly meetings to discuss new opportunities that are evolving. We have invested in a CRM platform and have taken advantage of LinkedIn and other social platforms to aggressively explore opportunities with varying degrees of success. This is a challenging industry and we are daring to dream big and be a David in a land dominated by incumbent Goliaths. Every single advantage helps.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
Today, our biggest hurdle is how to exert influence in an industry where we represent a tiny percentage of sales vis-à-vis major incumbents. This challenge is true throughout our value chain – manufacturing, distribution, and with existing and prospective accounts. We have approached this challenge using different strategies and tactics; some have worked, some haven’t and others the verdict is still out on.

The most effective path to-date has been leveraging personal networks. This has resulted in relationships being established throughout our value chain. Each stakeholder gets overwhelmed each year by thousands of requests and sales pitches, and it is understandably challenging to break through the noise. These warm introductions provide amazing access, but it is then up to us to execute and maintain the relationship. Each member of Team Zurena has been charged with business development and sales responsibilities in assigned geographical regions – with results tied to compensation and incentives. We are all responsible for leveraging our personal networks to build the business.

Another path with mixed results has been paying for access through brokers. We have engaged several who have relationships in specific regions. There is a trust element that we are getting the time and attention that we are paying for vis-à-vis other clients of the broker. We have had to monitor progress and make timely decisions on whether value is happening or not. We have realized that the type of compensation influences outcomes, and that a hybrid model of fixed fee plus commission works best.

We have attempted to create our own luck by being in the right place at the right time to get in front of key decision makers in different markets. For example, exhibiting at, sponsoring or attending trade conferences, trade missions and themed events – each of which has yielded mixed results. These are expensive paths, and especially when exhibiting or sponsoring, and the ROI is always a resounding yes or a resounding no depending on whether we get that “one person” to sample your product, get wowed, and have a transaction. Some lessons learned include taking calculated risks and sometimes “bending” the rules by having open bottles of product in our possession for the right folks to sample. Another lesson learned is to differentiate ourselves as much and as authentically as possible to stand out. For trade shows where we are exhibiting, standard set-up is a “light-up” Zurena bar, wearing Zurena t-shirts, wearing fedora hats and playing sweet soca music to bring a differentiated vibe. We engage with folks – not just sell product – take photos and capture memorable notes that could be used with follow-up emails. Timely follow-up is painful yet so critical. Beyond 48 hours, chances of a response goes from 10% to almost 0%.

Finally, we are doing all that we can to standout and differentiate ourselves vis-à-vis fragmented competition in a few ways. We have positioned our brand as one of Caribbeanization – that anyone can create a Caribbean cocktail or mocktail with a splash of our elixirs. The bet we are taking is that many Americans have visited the Caribbean at some point in their life and that this experience was a positive and happy one. If we can manifest those feel-good emotions through our product, PR, web presence and social media, we can differentiate with key decision makers. We have also shone the light on the intersects of family with Zurena to emotionally resonate – that this product is my late Grandpa’s being taken to the world, and that it is named after my beautiful daughters Zuri and Rena. The bet here is that decision makers would want to be aligned with a positive brand with a positive message. Yet another way has been to highlight how we are leading with service. We have led so many virtual and in-community activations to connect the dots between beverage, cognitive vitality and community, and we own the trademarks UpliftingSpirits and UpliftingCommunities. We believe to our core that we can help companies in our value chain have better community impact by sharing our wins and lessons learned.

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Image Credits
Ken Sambury

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