Dirty Lemon CEO Zak Normandin on Conversational Commerce

Dirty Lemon is a direct-to-consumer beverage brand that sells its products exclusively via text message. Founded  in 2015, the brand has created a “conversational commerce” platform, or a text message based e-commerce platform that allows the brand to speak directly with its customers – at scale. The platform allows allows Dirty Lemon to bypass distribution inefficiencies and improve the customer experience.

Since its launch, the company has built a distribution and logistics infrastructure around the U.S. that allows for same day or next day deliveries in all 50 states. By doing so, it is matching or providing faster service than Amazon Prime. While 98 percent of the company’s sales take place over SMS, it has begun selling on Amazon.

In addition to owning its distribution channel, Dirty Lemon’s conversational commerce platform enables the brand to own its customer relationships. It collects data on its consumers’ consumption behavior, which it is using to inform the development of new brands and products.

In May 2018, Dirty Lemon acquired Poncho, aweather app and chatbot, to strengthen its development team and further improve its commerce interface. The launch of the company’s +CBD beverage became its first venture into the cannabis space. Recently, it opened a cashierless brick-and-mortar called Drug Store in New York, where customers pay for their drinks via text.

Co-founder and CEO Zak Normandin joined us at our Rethinking CPG Meetup this past August to speak about his technology, business strategies and launch of the company’s recent venture into the CBD space.

You can see videos of other presenters at our Food+Tech Meetups here.