But as with so many businesses, the Covid-19 pandemic presented a roadblock for emerging recap sales.
“People weren’t drinking the same way, the bars were closed, everything was closed,” said Gamache. “There was a big push on fitness and wellness. I revamped Recap as a clean hydration product. I decided to push all of our marketing away from drinking and more toward wellness.”
This was the first of several major pivots Gamache made to keep his company alive, analyzing the market and trying to find a way to reach his desired audience. The next change came when the company decided to abandon cans of liquid in favour of selling electrolyte hydration powders.
“It became a saturated market. It’s hard to compete against big players,” he said. “The hydration business is one of the hardest to do because it can be very competitive.”
The company embarked on a rebrand and switched to online-only sales which helped it to better understand their customer base and provide more competitive prices.
“Selling electrolytes online, it’s the best decision we’ve made so far. It’s zero grams of sugar, it’s healthy, you just put it in your water. It’s not like the beverage game where you go in the grocery and it’s really hard to stand out.”
On a practical level, removing the water and plastic bottles from the equation made a big difference for the bottom line: “The powder bags, they weigh nothing. A pack of 24 cans, it was like $34 of shipping.”
For Gamache, being able to take a step back, analyze the market and be flexible led to the company’s best year yet.
“It’s a lot of trial and error but now we are in a really good position,” he said. “We want to be the top hydration powder in Quebec.”
Over the years, it hasn’t always been easy to balance the books and come out in the positive.
“I’ve had almost two bankruptcies with recap — it was very difficult, but I never gave up,” he said. In those lean periods, Gamache managed to stay afloat by reaching out to potential investors and searching for new funding avenues.
“Two times I thought of giving up. But I knew I had to find investors. I reached out to people, I wrote on LinkedIn, I did what I had to do.”
Now Recap is doing better than ever, launching new flavours, expanding sales beyond Quebec and eyeing new packaging that will make it stand out.
“The sales we have in Quebec, we want to have in the rest of Canada. Then we can present our product to Walmart or Costco,” he said.
“It’s nine years already and a lot of ups and downs, a lot of mistakes I learned from. I take every day as a lesson learned.”
Gamache’s advice for current students and recent grads: “We want a perfect product and a perfect business but just launch something raw and see what the comments are. Sometimes we wait a year trying to launch the perfect product, but we don’t even know if it works. Put it out there and see how it goes instead of losing time. Being afraid is the biggest thing that keeps people from realizing their dreams. Speak to people who have succeeded in business or also failed so you don’t feel alone. Listen to people who have done it, have a role model in the industry you want to be in. Surround yourself with positive people and get support from friends and family.”
