Mélanie Masarin is the co-founder & CEO of Ghia, the acclaimed non-alcoholic apértif beverage. Prior to starting Ghia, she served as Glossier’s Head of Retail & Offline Experiences, where she led experiential strategy and brought life to physical showrooms, permanent spaces, and pop-ups. Before Glossier, she served as Creative Director and Head of Brand & Marketing at Dig Inn.
Mélanie chats with Blaine & Ramon about building Ghia. Some topics include how to create a new beverage category, production considerations for a new beverage type, early-stage funding advice and key supporters along the way, customer-led product iteration, building a culinary first brand, design and branding insight, leveraging restaurants and retail as a distribution strategy, Ghia’s focus on retail channels, and much more.
2:35 - 7:11 Melanie’s career before Ghia
9:39 - 11:56 Selling the idea of Ghia
12:57 - 14:09 Adapting to COVID
18:12 - 21:42 Formulating Ghia
22:52 - 24:35 Fundraising
27:04 - 32:47 Creating the branding
35:23 - 37:47 Developing new products
38:15 - 40:44 Fostering relationships while scaling