She 'Reverse-Engineered' Her First Company's Failure Into a Sober-Curious Brand Making $25 Million a Year Shizu Okusa ran her first company for eight years but never made enough money. When she founded Apothékary, she knew what she had to do differently.

When Shizu Okusa decided to start a new business, she knew where to find the best guidance. "I wanted to reverse engineer everything I did wrong in my last company," she says.

Raised on a farm in Vancouver by Japanese immigrants, she'd founded a cold-pressed juice brand called JRINK after feeling burned out at Goldman Sachs. It had nine shops and sold in two Whole Foods stores. But it was hard to make a lot of money. So in 2020, Okusa took all the lessons she learned and created Apothékary — an herbal remedy business that's now profitable, and drove roughly $25 million in revenue last year. Here's what Okusa saw go wrong, and how she made it right.

Don't Give it a short shelf life.

Do Make it scalable.

JRINK launched when cold-pressed juices were in demand, but the product's three-day shelf life made it nearly impossible to grow beyond a local business. In her next company, she chose a product built for scale. "I wanted very high gross margins, a shelf life of 18 months or more, and a category-defining opportunity," she says.

Related: Why Learning From Mistakes Is an Invaluable Experience for Business Owners

Don't Move fast and grab any investors you can.

Do Move slow and find the right investors.

With JRINK, Okusa took whatever investors she could — only to discover that some were not so helpful. "People don't talk about this," she says, "but once you have an investor, you can't just get rid of them — and it can be very expensive or sometimes impossible to buy one out who turns out not to be a good fit." This time around, she's looking for relationships, not just dollars. "We've raised roughly $13 million, but mostly from angels and family offices that share a more patient, long-term view. We've also looked for founder funders who have operational experience and relationships to offer."

Don't Go all in on one sales channel.

Do Try everything!

Okusa focused on foot traffic to drive business at JRINK — using pop-ups in gyms and yoga studios to increase brand awareness, so people would buy more at their local store. "But that's a very capped audience," she says. With Apothékary, she's trying everything she can think of: affiliate, social media, paid advertising, free consultations, pop-ups. "Recently, we partnered with Truemed to get our products qualified so people can buy them with their HSA and FSA funds. We've seen so many new customers come in with very large ticket sizes."

Related: Knowing When — and How — to Pivot Is Key to Your Business' Survival. Here's What You Need to Do.

Don't Keep trying to make it work.

Do Pivot fast.

"JRINK was an eight-year journey that I should have ended sooner," she admits. "With Apothékary, my whole team is constantly thinking ahead." They saw the rise of "sober curiosity" coming and in 2023, did a major rebrand including new refillable jars and tincture products, which she estimates will be 70% to 80% of its business this year. The rebrand also added phone consultations — a new sales tool with a 50% conversion rate. "Consumers want to be taken with the company ahead of the game," she says.