Reinvent, Don't Invent: Building in a Category the Trade Wrote Off
From The MAFFEO DRINKS Podcast: you do not invent the drinks that scale, you reinvent what people already order, and a listing means nothing until it rotates. Jean-Robert Bellanger on building Amaretto Adriatico in a category the trade wrote off.
The drinks that scale are almost never invented.
Every founder wants the new thing. A serve nobody has seen, a category to own outright, clean white space on the shelf. It looks like the safe bet because nothing else is there.
The problem is that a drink with no competition usually has no demand either. Somebody has to teach the world to want it, and that lesson costs more than a young brand will ever have. The drinks that actually move are the ones people already know how to order. You do not invent the occasion. You reinvent the liquid inside one that already exists.
Jean-Robert Bellanger did not come from drinks. He worked in music, television, energy drinks and luxury before he and his partner Thomas launched Amaretto Adriatico in late 2019, a few weeks before the world shut. Six years later the brand sells in more than forty countries, built from outside the industry in a category most of the trade had written off as a dusty cabinet bottle.
He puts the whole approach in one line.
You need to reinvent or put your own twist on something which is already successful.
Most founders do the opposite. They invent, they launch, and they wait for a market that never learned to want them. That is where the money burns.
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