Welcome to Ignition Law’s ‘Igniting The Spark‘ series where we spend five minutes with inspiring entrepreneurs, talking about the key moments that defined their careers.
To celebrate International Women’s Day on the 8th March we wanted to champion some of our many female founders so, this month, we caught up with Meeta Gournay, the co-founder of Three Spirit Drinks, a functional, healthier alternative to booze. Made entirely by plants, their drinks’ ingredients are chosen to give you genuine feelings of bliss alongside a great taste.
The moment that ignited the spark in me to start a business was…
Realising that there was a third path to go down besides ‘drinking’ and ‘not-drinking.’ This third way is what inspired the name of our brand, Three Spirit Drinks! We have seen a huge boom in the functional wellness industry with smoothies, supplements and energy drinks. Alcohol and socialising is a space that deserves this kind of innovation too.
The toughest challenge I’ve faced is (and how I overcame it)…
The pandemic has been tough on everyone, but we’ve been so lucky to have a fantastic production team and courier; we were able to keep things running well even under lockdown! Even working remotely wasn’t too difficult for the team as we are scattered across the continents, so we’re used to online meetings! Brexit has definitely been more of a challenge though as we’ve been working hard to keep orders open for our European fans.
The biggest success has been…
Launching in the US has been really exciting for us, we’ve wanted to tap into the market for ages and are delighted to have opened a production site. Right now most of the team are based in the UK, so it’s really cool to have customers on my side of the pond too! I’m also really proud of the product; I think we’ve created something really unique and have done so much research into sustainable and ethical resourcing.
I’m very good at..…
Getting stuff done. I’m good at making decisions and moving forward. My mind moves really quickly and I can be pretty analytical. I think an important quality for an entrepreneur is to be vocal, you can’t expect people to read your mind and I certainly don’t! It goes both ways too; I like people being open and direct with me.
The type of person I look to recruit is…
Someone with a team attitude. Strong communication and organisational skills are integral to a good startup environment. I also really value what I’m less good at, so working with more creative people is really interesting.
The part of my day I most look forward to is…
Socialising! Whether that’s with my family, friends or colleagues, connecting with others is so great, especially as a change-up to being laser focused on our operations and finance, as much as I enjoy handling those aspects.
If I could give fellow entrepreneurs one piece of advice it would be…
Make sure you understand the problem you are solving quite clearly – it helps understand why people care. Are you doing something that people need, want and are struggling to find? How many of those people are there out there? And importantly, do you know where to find them and how to cut through all the other stuff they are seeing. In the end, your gut feeling about your idea is a big one.
Outside of work I can be found…
Spending time with my family. I also like reading a wide range of books. I really do read a lot, I’ve been in a book club for over fifteen years!
My philosophy on life is…
Just Do It. Oh wait -that’s Nike. But if they didn’t have it, that would probably be MY slogan! Okay, my philosophy is: if you’re bringing problems to the table, you should be bringing solutions. Things will go wrong in life and in business, and that’s okay. As long as you take control and keep your eye on the bigger picture, then you’ll come out the other side feeling good about it.
Client story
What was your business challenge? Most recently, we realised we had to provide a different set of terms for our wholesale customers vs our online customers.
How did you work with Ignition Law on this? What support did we provide you with? Ignition took time to understand our different processes for accepting our wholesale orders to provide an encompassing TOS. We have worked with Ignition on lots of things. HR, fundraising, our terms of service and more. What’s terrific is they have subject matter experts in lots of areas and they pull in the experts on each when required.
What did you enjoy most about working with the team at Ignition? Generally, the timeliness and thoughtfulness of their responses are amazing. In addition, they are talented lawyers at affordable prices so it’s a win win!
Instagram: @threespiritdrinks
Twitter: @threespirit_
