And drop his las vegas show facade. Vinny how we doing, guys . Im the coconut man. Ukulele and the hat and the coat and the beads. Hey, its not just some schtick. Lemonis are you aware that some people see it as that . Im marcus lemonis, and i risk my own money to help businesses. I love investing in american businesses. These people are here because they care. Its not always easy, but i do it to create jobs, and i do it to make money. Do we have a deal . Vinny we have a deal. Lemonis lets rock and roll. Man yeah lemonis this is the profit. Vinny fresh coconut we got fresh coconuts right here lemonis in 2016, Vinny Zaldivar launched cocotaps, pioneering a new way to get the juice out of a coconut. Its extremely popular with the las vegas vacation crowd, including me. Vinny open it. Drink it. Its really good for you. Lemonis but i want to see if this is a product that will appeal to the mass market. The coconutwater craze is huge, and if i can tap into this, well, i can make a ton of money. Vinny life can be a tough nut to crack cocotaps will get you right on track to great taste and less waste, too Coconut Water just flows right through woo lemonis oh, hi. Vinny hi. Lemonis im marcus. Vinny marcus, cocovinny, nice to meet you. Lemonis how are you . Vinny great. Good to meet you. Lemonis cocovinny, is that your actual name . Vinny legally changing it this this year, yeah. Allin. Lemonis for real . Vinny full on, cococommitting. Lemonis you got the beads going. You live this lifestyle. Vinny this is it. So this is cocotaps hq. Lemonis im marcus. Rob im rob. Vinny thats cocorob. Lemonis cocorob . Rob yeah. Lemonis are you changing your name, also . Dannyj hi, im dannyj. Lemonis see, thank you, youre not cocodannyj. Dannyj well, cocodj here. Lemonis okay. Okay, listen, right now youre coconuts. Vinny thats cocojoe by the way. Joe nice to meet you. Lemonis joe, how are you . What is your actual name, joe . Joe joe cantino. Lemonis are you also changing your name legally like him . Joe no. Lemonis okay. Good. Wow, this is big. Vinny we sublease from another produce company. This is our inventory up top. Were all coconuts. We all share the space. Its kind of like a working facility. Lemonis all coconuts meaning that youre all nuts . Vinny were nuts. Were coconuts. This is our taproom, so this is where the magic happens. When we unwrap the coconuts. These come from thailand. Lemonis so how does it come into you, like this . Vinny this just came off the boat. Lemonis so can you take me through the tapping process . Vinny tap crew, set them up, cocojoe. Lemonis lets go. Whats up, tap crew . Vinny show him how to tap the case. Michael so we have a branding iron, and we just slowly roll it across to put the logo on. Lemonis thats cool. Vinny we do 108 to 130 coconuts an hour. Brand and tap, ship. Lemonis okay. Michael it goes in here. Pass it down there. Take one of these. It goes into a drill bit that fits perfectly around the plastic part. Lemonis then it gets wiped down, then packed. Vinny right . Thats the freshest Coconut Water youre gonna ever drink. Lemonis this Coconut Water tasted different than anything else that ive ever had. It felt so pure and so clean and so refreshing that i know that consumers who like Coconut Water are going to love this, and i like the fact that vinny is bright, and hes bold, and hes a salesman, and hes got a good idea because the tapping process is clever and actually looks like hes put some thought into it. Im fascinated. Okay, im gonna. Are there differentsized coconuts . Vinny yeah. Lemonis because this is a lot to drink. Vinny well, and thats why we made it resealable. Lemonis you can put it back in your refrigerator . Vinny yes, sir. This cap system keeps it fresh for up to 3, 4 weeks in the fridge. Lemonis i want to go out into the. Vinny yeah, its getting cold in here. Lemonis . Warehouse. Its getting cold. And so talk to me about the nutritional benefits. Vinny okay, so this has every electrolyte that your body needs to produce energy magnesium, potassium, calcium, phosphorous, iron, sodium. Lemonis do you only sell in las vegas . Vinny right now, were just focusing on las vegas. Lemonis isnt cocotap this . Vinny cocotaps. Man 2 yes. Lemonis this Coconut Water tastes delicious, but what im not sure of is exactly what product he was making and what he was selling, and is he a coconut importer . Is he a coconut distributor . Is he a tap manufacturer . What is cocovinny selling thats actually proprietary . In my mind, thats the only way to make money. You buy these from a distributor . Vinny yes. We have a produce provider. Lemonis and how much do you pay for a case . Vinny nine to a case right now. Lemonis puts the cost of one of these at what . Vinny 1. 55 on average. Plus we add our tap, our labor, our stuff, so were in at about 2. 22 allin. Lemonis and then what do you wholesale it for . Vinny right now were at 5. 55. Lemonis at wholesale, 5. 55 . Vinny yeah, and theyre going for 12 bucks on the strip, so they double, triple them from there. Were very successful in. Lemonis so youre the only one with a tapping system for a coconut . Vinny yeah, theyre only made in usa. Weve got utility patents on the tap. We have a whole bunch of International Patents were gonna be filing for the systems and the procedures. Lemonis a patent is the best way to protect your product and, more importantly, make investors comfortable. If you think about a castle, the reason that the king and the queen are safe is because theres a giant ditch that goes all the way around it. Anytime you can have something that protects you from other people copying it, then it gives you Real Security that the idea is not only scalable, but, man, you can make a ton of money. So what prompted you to get in this business . Vinny i hated my life before. I was the c. E. O. Of a gaming company. I was overweight, overworked, unhappy, so i took a step back, and i set my mission to. The next thing that i was going to do had to be good for people, good for the planet and good for me, fun. Lemonis start over. Vinny start. Reset. Lemonis wow, that takes a lot of guts. Vinny i wanted to get healthy. I lost 60 pounds, and all these athletes are drinking packaged, processed Coconut Water. It tastes like crap. Lemonis yeah. Vinny and its very polluting to the environment, so 90 of everything that goes into recycle ends up in the ground or in the ocean again, so thats why were about zero waste. Lemonis i like the fact that vinny is very focused on his business being zero waste, which means everything essentially is biodegradable. Vinny this is the tap. Lemonis but its plastic. You told me that your whole thing was about not having waste. Vinny its just costs. I mean, we got to figure that one out. Lemonis yeah. What you have to be careful of is when you have a philosophy about who the company is and what it stands for, youve got to have no instances where people can be, like, ah i got you vinny nobody is perfect. Lemonis nobody is, but dont let costs compromise the edict, right . Vinny yeah. Lemonis the manifest of the business. Then cocovinny is like cocoscammy. Vinny i dont know about that. Lemonis no, but im not saying that, but you just dont want to let anybody say it. Vinny right, right. Lemonis he told me earlier that he wanted a zerowaste company, and im not sure as i stand here, is that a goal in the future, or are you trying to sell me something and trying to convince me that its correct now . And im a pretty good judge of character, but im having a very difficult time trying to decipher vinnys real person from this character hes playing. Vinny so you take the tap out. You just turn. If you have a spoon, just spoon out all that meat. Lemonis so i can just. Whoa. I thought itd be harder. Vinny no, its soft, beautiful. Thats a young coconut, and thats the fat. Thats the fat. Youre not feeling it. So hes not a meat fan, we know that. Lemonis i dont even know how to describe it. Dont ever make me eat that again. Look, im all for trying things, and i know that i probably seem narrowminded in saying, never, but i tried it, so he cant say that i didnt try it but never again, ever. I want to go sit down, and well go over the financials, and well talk about the business. Vinny okay. Lemonis hey, bud. Vinny hey. Lemonis so walk me through. Im struggling with the concept, to be totally honest with you. Vinny okay. Lemonis theres nothing that stops any of these people from getting a coconut and putting a hole in them. Vinny if you put a hole in this and put it on the shelf, its dead in a day. If you put a tap in it, its good for 3 weeks. Lemonis do you have your financials . Vinny yes. I just had my guys pull the p l for yeartodate and then balance sheet, you know . Lemonis well, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, where are those . Vinny i didnt give last years. I just gave you current. Lemonis you dont have them . Vinny i have them, but i have to get them sent to me. Lemonis did you think i was gonna ask you for them . Vinny i brought current. I wanted to paint the picture where its at now. Lemonis so this is yeartodate . Vinny yeah. Lemonis so this is a half a year . Vinny yeah. Lemonis so, so far for the year, 261,000 in revenue, 171,000 in gross profit, which means the margins are pretty decent. Vinny theyre good margins. Lemonis youve done 261,000. Vinny yeah. Lemonis how many units did you sell . Vinny we sold. God, why am i drawing a blank all of a sudden . Lemonis by the way, vinny knew i was coming, and he shows up with no historical financials, and what he has for the year basically is a little bit of revenue. I would say that after seeing that, its clear to me that he may have come up with a good idea, but the rest of his business doesnt seem to be airtight. Cocovinny at cocotaps should know how many coconuts he sold. The quality of your Financial Information and your grasp of the numbers, how would you rate it . Vinny im an 8 1 2. Lemonis when it comes to your grasp of the numbers, i wouldnt give you 8 1 2. Vinny thats fair. Lemonis thats troubling. Vinny when you want to sit me in a room and hammer numbers, we can do that, but thats not my strength. I embody a whole different skill set of cocosoul and cocovinny. Im the Colonel Sanders of coconuts. Lemonis im not comfortable yet, and because i dont have the financials, and i dont have a balance sheet, i cant even see how the puzzle would be put together, and what i dont like about vinny is that hes now becoming slightly dismissive about the facts that are in front of me. Hes almost like, dont Pay Attention to the numbers. Look at the shiny object over here how many of these will you sell a year in vegas . Vinny couple hundred thousand. Lemonis if you can sell 200,000 in vegas, in my mind, thats proof of concept in a very tight radius. Pick one market outside of vegas where youd say, okay, im going to do proof of concept somewhere else. Vinny id say between orlando, and between miami and Fort Lauderdale where you have the resorts, the cruise ships and all the theme parks. Lemonis and would you think about the keys as part of that element . Vinny yeah. Lemonis tourism. Vinny tourism. Lemonis okay. So ill tell you what im willing to do to move forward. Im willing to put you through cocoboot camp. Vinny how we doing, guys . Im the coconut man. Lemonis you didnt follow the task. Vinny you told me to sell coconuts. Thats what im doing lemonis in this box. You showed up late. Youre out there walking all over town, and that wasnt the task. Its velveeta shells cheese versus the other guys. Clearly, velveeta melts creamier. And my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. Ahh no, come on. I saw you eating poop earlier. Hey my focus is on the road, and thats saving me cash with drivewise. Whos the dummy now . Whoof whoof so get allstate where good drivers save 40 for avoiding mayhem, like me. Sorry hes a baby lobster fan like wild caught lobster, butter poached, creamy and roasted. Or try lobster sauteed with crab, shrimp and more. So hurry in and lets lobsterfest. Or get it to go at red lobster dot com ncan it one up spaghetti night . Cleaning power of liquid. So hurry in and lets lobsterfest. It sure can. Really . Can it one up breakfast in bed . Yeah, for sure. Thanks, boys. What about that . Uhh, yep it can . Yeah, even that i would very much like to see that. Me too. Introducing new tide power pods. One up the toughest stains with 50 more cleaning power than liquid detergent. Any further questions . Uh uh nope one up the power of liquid with new tide power pods. Introducing oreida potato pay. Where oreida golden crinkles are your crispy currency to pay for bites of this. With this. When kids wont eat dinner, potato pay them to. Oreida. Win at mealtime. Lemonis vinny okay. To put you through cocoboot camp. Potato pay them to. Lemonis . Before i can determine what kind of investment im gonna make. And so what i would rather do is go into a new market and understand, is the market viable . Does the consumer accept it . So the way that i want to do that is to hit the ground in key west, and were gonna see what thats gonna look like. So normally, at this point, i would understand whether i wanted to or didnt want to do a deal. If i wanted to do a deal, i would start negotiating, but im not comfortable yet. Vinny doesnt have the basic disciplines required to be a business owner, and i dont understand exactly what hes asking me to invest in. So im willing to continue to work with him, to try to help him, and so im gonna put him through the paces, but in terms of writing a check right now . No way. Vinny okay, well figure it out. Lemonis no, no, theres nothing to figure out. Next weekend. Vinny its gonna have to be the next one. Lemonis im going next weekend. Vinny i wont be there. Lemonis you got a wedding or something . Vinny i have a very important. Ive got to travel. Weve got a lot of work to do now to get all that stuff there and everything, so i would rather do it in 2 weeks, so. Lemonis i cant. Vinny youre already ready to go, huh . Lemonis im going. Vinny thats good. Lemonis okay, brother. Ill see you there. Vinny appreciate it. Lemonis whats up, guys . Joe and rob good morning. Lemonis on time. How you doing, brother . Joe doing good. Rob how you doing . Lemonis how you doing . Welcome to key west rob thank you. Joe thanks for having us. Lemonis you guys ready to get started . Joe and rob yes. Lemonis wheres vinny at . Joe vinny is inbound. I think he gets here probably about 10 minutes. Lemonis alright. Alright. Lets get started, i guess. In order for this business to be anything interesting to invest in, im gonna want to understand the scalability of it outside of the vegas market, so i came up with this idea to set up at my Key Lime Pie Company shop. It was a business that i invested in years ago. Hi. Joe im joe, with cocotaps. Stephanie nice to meet you. Rob im rob. Stephanie rob, stephanie. Lemonis stephanie, whos the manager of that location, is a very successful businessperson, and she can teach vinny a lot about business, but im here. Rob is here. Joe is here. Wheres vinny . So they are from cocotaps in vegas. One problem the owner is not here. Stephanie well, we can wait, or we can get started. Joe im down to get started. Rob lets get started. Stephanie lets do it. Lemonis i want to get feedback from customers. I want to understand what people think of the product. I want to understand what people think of the price. I want stephanie to understand what the process is like to tap, and i really want to get my head around, is this a coconut business, or is it a tap business . [ cellphone rings ] vinny this is your captain, cocovinny. Please leave me your name and number, and ill return your call faster than we can tap a fresh coconut. Make it a great day. Im sending you cocolove. Lemonis hey, cocolove, we are here in key west trying this figure out where you are, so when you land, please call me on my phone. Thanks. So do you guys have training modules for all of that . Rob there are bits and pieces of a lot of that documented. Lemonis yeah. Because, like, if stephanie wanted to have these in her company, youd have to walk her through this is the cost. These are the elements. This is the labor. This is the process. This is the suggested retail. Heres what your margins are gonna be. Heres where the distributor is. Joe yes. Lemonis heres how you buy the taps. You got to go in almost and put things. Stephanie as simple as possible for me because im gonna get all of these questions, and im gonna have more. Lemonis have them all. Come on down, folks you want to try a real coconut with a tap on it . Here we go. Lets go. Coconuts. Man 3 over here lemonis how you doing, sir . Enjoy the coconut. Well see you guys later. Thank you. How you doing, folks . Vinny you guys enjoying the coconuts . Woman ah, oh, yeah. Lemonis oh, hey. So just out of curiosity, why are you here at 11 00 . Because these guys all got here. Vinny yeah, well they came from vegas. I came from seattle. Lemonis so im just gonna tell you. Vinny okay. Lemonis . Being totally honest with you, you look like a bit of an ass showing up after they were here. Vinny okay. Lemonis when Business Owners dont show up to a scheduled meeting, its rude and irresponsible. This is not a good start, vinny. Were here to work. His other teammates flew in. My team is there, and its a sign of disrespect to the other people that youre working with. Look, everybody thinks that running your own business is gonna be easy. News flash its actually harder. Were starting at noon. This is a standalone product that we think has a lot of merit. And so were gonna want to understand where the price points are. Vinny got it. Lemonis so at any moment where you feel like you need to change prices. Vinny change it up. Well change it. Lemonis . You talk to katie and stephanie about it before. Vinny i think id like to start it at 12. 99. Lemonis how many do you think you could sell a day . Vinny 500 a day. Stephanie alright. You feel good where were starting . Lemonis its. This is. I feel good for you because i know youre fine. Stephanie okay. Lemonis its him that im worried about. Stephanie alright. Vinny ill go sell coconuts. Im good at that. Lemonis any time youre launching a product in a new market, its good to understand what the elasticity of a price is. When you test it, youll see where the volume works, and where it doesnt, and youll land on the right price. If you sell 5 at 12. 99, 15 at 11. 99 and 100 at 10. 99, the data has shown you that 10. 99 is the most optimum price. Start your day with the fresh coconut tap vinny fresh coconuts, guys, fresh cocos. Lemonis do you like to dance . Just shake it. Vinny i got to learn how to juggle. Lemonis would you like to try a coconut . Claudia i would lemonis okay. Have you ever tried one before . Claudia no, i havent. Vinny this is claudia. Claudia hi. Lemonis how are you . Do you work at the company . Claudia parttime. Lemonis awesome. And whats your guys relatio