Robert Neuner: How a Beer Distributor Built a Global Oxygen Brand | DSH #1630

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Boxing were banned and MMA were banned. And tennis were banned.
And the USTA bans the use of oxygen. I lived with one guy, Winder Bill, had only one lung.

And he had to get special dispensation from the USTA to use our oxygen. Wow.
And people are like, you know, why are you selling air? And it's like, it's not air. It's pure oxygen.

I'll be honest, that was my first reaction when I first saw it.

Okay, guys, we got Rob from Boost Oxygen here. What a cool product, man.
He made these custom bottles right here. Thanks, they did.
Yeah, it was all Bill Banks, my

social media guy.

These are sick. And I took a couple of, what would you call it, hits or forces?

Inhalations. Yeah, you could call it what you will.
Yeah. Can you explain the process of inhaling oxygen, what that does for the body? Yeah, so

oxygen will do essentially nothing for you if you're uh not depleted uh so if your spbo2 levels are low uh if you're short of breath uh if you are at altitude and you're short of oxygen you breathe it in you feel better got it and and as you get older you lose some oxygen levels too right you do yeah exactly um i think what's it the two percent of your lung capacity every year after you after the age of 50.

wow um so people who are older or hiking and stuff uh um really really appreciate having a little extra oxygen yeah was that why you created this on a hike nah so um uh kind of long story but we uh i was in the beer business before yeah uh i imported beer from the czech republic and distributed beer in connecticut uh sold that back in 2006 and uh a friend of mine said well what are you gonna do now and i said i have no idea and uh his father was an executive at precision valve and he had seen me use oxygen cans in germany i had seen them in the czech republic And he said, well, we could do oxygen cans because we have the background for it.

So one thing led to another. We experimented and

Mr. Mourneau Daminogue took me by the hand, showed me all the

spliers, where to get it filled and just learned as we went along. What a big change from the beer company.
A little bit, yeah.

So I tell people, I spent 10 years getting people drunk and the next 20 years getting people sober. I love it.
So it's fun. So this was taken off in Europe? Yes, we have an office in Prague still.

And actually my partner from the beer business is still doing the boost auction for us as well. And yes,

it's worked out really well. We We sell a lot more in the UK and Germany, but quite a bit in Czechia too.
Interesting.

So 20 years you've been doing this. Did it take off right away? Yeah, almost no.
So

oxygen is considered to be a drug, a prescription drug. We sell it without a prescription.
And we knew that we were selling it legally because it's not 99.2% or above.

It's aviators breathing oxygen, which you could buy without a prescription. But still, we were selling oxygen.
So the first five, six years, we sort of dabbled along, kind of sold it

not under the radar, but weren't really sure about investing a lot in it. It made some money, some contract manufacturers.
And

then, you know, after about five, six years, the FDA came to visit me. Oh, yeah.
And yeah, officially, I bet that was pleasant. It was surprising.

But they showed up at my door in Bridgeport, Connecticut. And they stayed there for a week.

And at the end of the week, they said, okay, well, as long as you don't make medical claims, we'll allow you to continue to sell this.

And that's when I

went all in and said, okay, now I can invest money

in a bigger way. So that was a big hurdle.
It was. And it wasn't like we were going to call the FDA and ask them for permission because they usually don't give that.

So we were sort of waiting for that knock on the door

and it came. Finally.
We were selling their radar. We did.
We were selling at Sports Authority at the time. It was a big sporting goods distributor, a store.

I remember that one, yeah. Yeah.
You guys crushing in retail. That's how I found you.
I think, what grocery store were you in? It might have been. It's Walmart or CVS.
Are you in Target? Not yet.

We're working on it.

Might have been Walmart then. Yeah, Walmart, Walgreens.
Yeah. We're in all the Walgreens.

Natural Grocers,

a lot of independent pharmacies. Yeah.
Not to try at the right distribution from the beer industry. Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, know how to get into stores and brick and mortar places. Amazon, too.

Amazon's been big. Yeah.
Yeah. It's kind of a weird.
dynamic with you know Amazon and online sales versus brick and mortar. Yeah, how that's involved.
How do you choose what to focus on?

We focus more on Amazon with the advent of the online marketplace.

But initially,

men still do focus a lot on retailers, especially in the mountain regions. Right.
Because people probably need to walk in and grab it real quick. Yeah, big time for Amazon.
Right, right.

And also, like, you know, with oxygen, people are out of breath. And they're out of breath, they want oxygen now.

And so having it locally is very advantageous. Was there a lot of psychology pushback at first? 'Cause people are like, why do I need to buy this?

Yeah.

See,'cause because we were like the first movers on it um and uh people are like you know why are you selling air it's like no it's it's not air it's uh it's it's pure oxygen and uh you know it's the same stuff that you get in a hospital or the back of an ambulance um but this uh you know people was like well no it's just you know they think the air is 100 oxygen uh and it's only 21 oxygen so i'll have and just a little bit more or a little less oxygen um you really feel it uh i'll be honest that was my first reaction when i first saw it i was a little skeptical but then I did some more research and I was like, okay, I could see the benefits.

Yeah. Well, here at Las Vegas, they pump oxygen into the

sphere as well.

I learned, yeah, yeah. So they're pumping oxygen into the sphere, many casinos to help keep you sober, alert, obviously gambling, awake.

So it's not, it's not nicotine or it's not caffeine. It's not going to really give you a charge.
It's not a narcotic, but it's just, it's healthy. That is interesting.
Yeah, it's very natural.

Need some oxygen in your life.

Exactly, exactly. Uh, so Shark Tank 2019, walk me through that experience.
Yeah, so uh, they called us, which was interesting. Um, and at first, I didn't really believe it, but then I looked up Mr.

Burnett on the internet and found out he was the executive producer. Um,

and you know, I spoke to my COO, Mike Grice, and my best friend, Mike Minogue, and we said because there was disadvantages, you know, they could skewer you, you can go on and they could be really highly critical of your business plan, of your business

direction.

So, but we decided that the uh the benefits outweighed the risk. And one thing led to another.
We went out to California and taped. And it was a really, really cool experience.

I don't know if you've had other sharks on here, I think. Yeah, Damon's been on trying to get Kevin on.
Yeah. No.
Let's see if I can make that happen. Yep.

So we went out and first you have to pitch to the producers. You got to clear that hurdle.

And then you have to pitch to the sharks. They don't air every single episode that

they actually tape. So you got to clear that hurdle as well.
You got to be interesting, right? Yeah, kind of. It's just reality TV.

It's got to be someone engaging. So

we were up there for an hour, over like an hour and 15 minutes, and they condensed it down to seven minutes. Jeez.
Yeah.

It was a fun experience. The sharks at ABC, Sony, were great from top to bottom, the way they treated all, well, at least us as entrepreneurs.
Yeah.

And actually, the sharks, too, were really fun, too.

So it was a good give and take. Now, obviously, you got investment, but was there a plan going into it on who you wanted to target? Yeah, sort of.

You know, we knew that there would be four sharks that we, like Lori, Kevin, Barbara, and Mark. And it was always a sort of surprise, fifth judge.

Thought it might have been Robert or Damon, but it turned out to be Rohan.

And so we weren't really prepared for that. But with Mark,

we're leaning towards Mark or Kevin with the most business experience. Lori also with Bed Bath and Beyond, but that was a shrinking.

I went out of business. Yeah, yeah.
That was a shrinking retailer. But she was really, really nice.
Barbara, not so much because of the retail experience that she didn't have.

And as we went along, Mark also doesn't like to get into sort of supplements and found that out. So, but Kevin was really engaged from the time we walked down that aisle.

And we sort of focused on him as we went along. That's interesting that Mark isn't because you think you want to have your athletes take the best stuff, right?

You think, yeah, and actually, the Mavericks used us. Oh, they do.
Yeah. And during the taping, you know, Mark said, hey, you know,

the Mavericks use us. And so, but he's like, he said he wasn't really into the supplement.
Kevin was really interested as we went along. So I think everyone sort of deferred to him.

I guess Kevin had blood in the water, but it was fun. It was really good.
And Kevin's been great. I'm going to have to start bringing this to my basketball men's league games.

If you're out of breath, it's going to help. I guarantee.
Is that quick? Oh, yeah, no. So if it takes you, you know, 10 to 20 seconds to gain your breath back, it cuts it in half.
Maybe. Yeah.

That's a hack right there. So a lot of hockey is really important.
So in terms of people short burst,

aerobic, anaerobic type of movements and efforts. And so they don't have much time between shifts and getting, and then actually, if you lose your breath once and you become anaerobic,

you get your, you go back into aerobic respiration faster. That's

which is cool. That's super brilliant because recovery takes a while depending on the sport, right? Right, right.
Especially like the endurance. Yeah, but we're banned actually.
And the boxing.

Boxing were banned and MMA were banned. No way.
And tennis were banned. Do you take that as a compliment?

It's just oxygen in general, not just me. Oh, okay.
Yeah.

But it's, yeah, because we, tennis is, because a lot of older people play tennis as well. Right.
And they're competitively. And the USTA bans the use of oxygen.
I read with one guy, Winder Bill.

He had only one lung, and he had to get special dispensation from the USTA to use our oxygen. Wow.
And it helped him out. So he was able to continue playing into his 80s.

Well, that to me shows how powerful oxygen is that it's because they're banning it. Right, right.
So it's, yeah. So, and actually boxing bans it, but

it's mandated to be at every single bout because if someone gets knocked out, they need oxygen.

Um, but you cannot use it in between rounds. What about like marathon runners? No, that's legal.
It's legal. Uh, yeah, we sell at the Boston Marathon.
Uh, there's a heartbreak kill.

There's a Walgreens at the top of the heart, and they sell copious amounts. They find

people passing out. Well, yeah, but also like, you know, once they get into that anaerobic respiration,

it really helps people, especially older people who have trouble breathing. Yeah, I'm sure for biking, it's good too.
Yeah, biking is really good.

We're on The Simpsons. And do you hear that story? No, we'll have it.
So there's a biker bar in The Simpsons. And

the biker bar, it wasn't a biker biker bar. It was

exercise. You know, it was the healthy bikers.
And they were, you know, drinking wheat grass and all this stuff and using our oxygen. So the guy crushed the oxygen against his head.

It was kind of funny.

But yeah, it was a... Wow.
That's an iconic show. It's really fun.
It was kind of a nice little bump after the beating. You didn't know that was coming.
No, I had no idea. Holy crap.
No idea.

All of a sudden, the oxygen showed up on the show, and

it was cool. No way.
Simpsons. That's legendary, dude.
It was fun. And now you guys are doing some big commercials, too, right? We are.
We're with Tatari. Wonder Ads.

It's a company actually that's backed by Kevin O'Leary. And it's remnant TV advertising.
So

there's excess

TV space every day on like three million channels.

And we clear on those and they track where we are, where we appear. Mostly it's Kevin O'Leary ads, but we've got other, well, Kevin O'Leary is in the ad for us.
Got it. Which is kind of cool.

I'm very curious how effective those are because TV is dying, right? It is. Yeah.
Yeah. But our demographic is older and older people are still watching TV.

So yeah, it's and but Tatari also does streaming and programmatic. So we're more on that as well.
So it's pretty neat. Yeah.
What have been the most effective marketing channels for you?

Because I'm assuming word of mouth is pretty big, right? Yeah, no, no, word of mouth is very big.

You know, Fox has been great.

Fox has been very, very good. CNN, BN Sports has been great.

Those are the big ones. We've done some radio and actually airline, I'm sorry, airport advertising.
So if you're going to Denver, our ads are all over the place.

Again, getting people before they go to the Denver's a great

one. Yeah.
So it's successful there. And just in store.
We do a lot of

signs as you walk into a building. And

it's been

our salespeople are great in terms of merchandising and stuff. So it's,

yeah,

the marketing mix is something that we work on constantly. Well done.
Any new product launch ideas or anything, anything? Yeah, we've got a hydration packet coming out. Hydration? Electrolytes?

Electrolytes, yeah. Sort of like liquid V, but different.
It's using bicarbonate,

baking soda, essentially, as the source of... the electrolyte.
Interesting. I take electrolytes every day.
Yeah, you do. Especially in Vegas.

Okay. So dehydrated if you don't.
Big time, big time. And actually, but this is, you know, like you probably take some of the sodium chloride and potassium chloride.
Yeah. That's the source.

All of them use, but we're potassium and sodium bicarbonate, which helps with your pH levels of your blood.

So which helps with the oxygenation of your cells. Wow.
I'll have to try yours done. Yeah.
I'll send you some. It's going to be out probably mid-August.

It's also really great for altitude acclimation and also just working out. If you Google bicarbonate and sports, there's a whole bunch of research as to it.
It really helps with the

limitation of lactic acid. That's pretty nice.
So it's kind of exciting.

So it's a little different than liquid IV. It's not,

it's, we're kind of

charting out a new course. Is that the first time you're branching off from the oxygen ball? Yes.
Yeah. So it's, it's different.

Oxygen, we're growing. We're up 30% this year.
Holy crap. Yeah.
And still grow.

It's been great. You guys are 20 years in and you're still growing.
Still growing. Yeah.

And a lot of that's because of the TV advertising that we started. Yeah.
And a lot of the Amazon actually do a lot of work on Amazon in terms of advertising there, too. Nice.

And just like snowballing effect. You know, we built up a trust with our customers.
We were very highly ranked.

Great branding. Yeah, nice.
Very recognizable. Yeah, we manufacture ourselves and we do a private labeling like you saw with theater.

Which is pretty cool, like hotels and sports teams and weddings, you know, people do for a while. Yeah.
People come out to Vegas, buy some as well. So

it's a challenge,

but we thought that the electrolyte packet, especially for out to acclimation, because it really, really helps with hemoglobin affinity for oxygen, helps release the oxygen into the bloodstream. And

we're excited about it as a compliment to the cancer. Well done, man.
So you like working with Kevin Alaire? I do. He's fun.
Call him Uncle Kevin. And he's very opinionated, but

he's got great opinions. I love how direct he is.
He is. He's not going to mince worse.
Which is in business is good, in my opinion. He's good.

And he'll call me up and say, hey, Rob, you got to go after this retailer or you really got to get more money from this source or whatever.

But yeah,

he's pro-tariff, as you know,

which is sort of concerning.

Has that messed up your margins? It is. Yeah, I know.
Cause, yeah, it's just everything because it's stealing aluminum. It's an aluminum can.

And even if you buy it in the United States, like we do in Pittsburgh, they're still buying their aluminum from Canada or China. so the markups are still there.

But we've actually held the line on price increases, which is great.

And hopefully, you know, the tariffs will come down again and our costs will get under control. But you're not.
You're holding strong like the $1.50 hot dog at Costco. That's right.
Exactly.

But no, because a lot of senior citizens rely on us.

And

they're budget constrained. So we really try to keep the price.
lower for them. Respect.
Respect. Any other sharks you're working with or talking to? Damon.
Yeah, he's been great.

He launched a product called Shark Jevity.

A lot, a bunch of supplements, some of their products that goes out to his influencers.

And he would just actually, Sue Asmonte

started showing us on his social channels. Like he would use it as part of his writer wherever he goes.
He needs boost oxygen

just to help him acclimate to places. That's cool.
And yeah, so he reached out and said, hey, I'm doing this sharkgevity thing. Can you do a private label for us? And we said, sure.

So that's, we're starting that actually like September 1st. I think think it goes into all those boxes yeah so yeah but he he's also great he's a great

advocate and terrific guy as well great health journey right having cancer and then battling through that and now he's super healthy yeah exactly well not for our product but actually you know cancer can't live in oxygen environments oh really yeah so not not for oxygen but just shows you the efficacy of oxygen

yeah I think I saw Gary Breco say that yeah they use the people use hyperbaric chambers and things to really get rid of it but I started using that oh really yeah I don't like it I think it's good.

I need to use it more. But do you use it? I have, I've tried it once.
I'm looking. I probably need to with this.
Exactly. No, it's different, though.
I get a little claustrophobic. Oh, you do.

Oh, yeah. So it's

very tall, so you need a big one. I know.
But yeah, Jokovich uses one. Yeah.

That's my favorite tennis player. Yeah, me too.
Big time. Yeah, dude's a legend.
Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if he uses this, too.
I hope so.

Before it got banned. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Was that a recent ban or it's always been bad? It's always been bad.
Okay.

It's only, you know, oxygen is always, it's it's actually,

since the

turn of the century, has been available, but it's also by prescription only.

So we haven't really done anything different than other than provide it without a prescription. Got it.

So we try to just make it accessible and affordable to people who could use it, would benefit by it. And we're very, you know, we're not for medical purposes.

It's not, you know, it's not going to save your life. It's not going to cure anything.

But it can help. It can help with shortness of breath.
It could help you perform better. It could help you at altitude.
Just breathe better. I can't wait to use this on the basketball court.

There you go. What's the difference with the prescription oxygen? It's just stronger or? So it's 99.5% or above.

It has humidity added, and it's also a minimum of six liters per minute of continuous use for 10 minutes. Got it.
Which we don't.

We don't. This is like a quick hit.
It's a quick hit, yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. That makes sense, dude.
Well, I can't wait to see what you do, man. Anything else you want to close off with here?

No. Just, you know, I appreciate you've shown your buffs here and

love what you do. And yeah, that's

to anyone who's looking for a quick hit of oxygen and access to oxygen, look for a boost. Yeah, look for boost, retail, Amazon.
If you got a website too. Hey, yeah, boostauction.com.
Perfect.

Check them out, guys. I'm going to be using this.
I'll document on Instagram how I feel. Yeah.
Cool. Show me next now.
Yeah. Appreciate it.

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