Tios was co-founded by Cecilia, Segolenne and Mark back in June 2020 (Mark and Segolenne were particularly inspired by the range of tea based drinks and Kombucha after their trip to Australia). Tios hard tea is the natural alternative to sugary, calorific, pre-mixed drinks and sometimes uninspiring hard seltzers.

Tell us about the founders behind the brand?

To sum us and our year up: 

Two sisters, one couple, two countries, an idea, a global pandemic, Brexit. 

We are a team of three, two sisters Cecilia and Segolenne (half French, half English), her Danish fiancé Mark and a love for tea and cocktails. Segolenne met Mark while working at the same company in Copenhagen, Denmark, where they both still live and Cecilia is currently based in London. All three of us have a corporate background. Cecilia has a marketing background in brand management for a global spirits and wine company. Mark has worked his way up in the supply chain and procurement field and Segolenne is well versed in account and project management roles within the Pharmaceutical industry. 

What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?

Mark and Segolenne got intrigued by an alcoholic kombucha (fermented tea) they discovered in Australia during a 4 month trip around the world they’d been planning for months.They had to cut their travels short due to Covid so when they got back they thought about starting their own drinks venture. Cecilia came on board and then we started trying out different recipes in our kitchens. We tried to make kombucha at first. We bought a book about it and watched lots of Youtube videos but Cecilia still managed to make two glass bottles explode in the kitchen.

That made us realise the fermentation process was beyond our skills but we still liked the idea of a tea-based drink. And then we thought why not combine our favourite cocktails with tea to make a guilt-free drink (no sugar, low calories), that’s a little more exciting than just a flavoured alcoholic sparkling water. The more we thought about it, the more we realised our complementary skill sets made this idea not so unrealistic after all. It was also the best time to do it because we were all working from home, with no social activities. The three of us also wanted to break away from working for huge corporations where we just felt like a drop in the ocean in terms of our say and tangible impact. Why 'Tios'? Tios (like 'Tea-ose'). The name inspiration comes from the Spanish 'Tíos' meaning 'uncles' and is in honour of our family tradition of Margarita night, started off by our aunt and uncle. They both passed away from cancer within a couple of years of each other so we thought this would be a lovely way to honour them. 

How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?

We don’t consider Tios to be a classic canned cocktail or a hard seltzer, we’re a hard tea, inspired by our favourite cocktails. There are a lot of alcoholic drinks out there that don’t specify what alcohol is used in their products. We only wanted to use premium spirits like tequila and rum that we enjoy in cocktails with no unpleasant alcohol after taste. 

Tea time? Cocktail time? Why not both. It's tasty, refreshing and a not-so guilty pleasure. Too early to get the shaker out? Not in the mood for a glass of wine or a beer but want something a bit more exciting than a hard seltzer? You can just grab a Tios from the fridge. Tios is for the mindful pleasure-seeker, people like us who want to find a good balance in what we consume without compromising on taste. Low sugar, low calories and low alcohol content but high in flavour with full transparency on the ingredients we use. 

What are your thoughts on failure? (biggest lesson?)

Our mindset if everything fails is ‘at least we gave it a go’. It would be worse if 10 years down the line we’re still stuck in our jobs and the ship has sailed, thinking why didn’t we just go for it. ‘Mieux vaut des remords que des regrets’ according to the french saying, we said to ourselves we’d rather regret trying than not have tried at all. 

Failure is obviously a possibility but we hope for the best and prepare for the worse. We are trying to have realistic expectations. We don’t expect it to take off overnight and be the next guests on Below Deck (reality show reference - guests on super yachts). I think we’ve tried to have some perspective on it and know that if Tios fails then it doesn’t mean that we are failures. That takes the pressure off. We’re realistic in knowing it’s not going to be plain sailing so when challenges arise, and we’ve had a few already, we try to ride the wave and hopefully laugh about it later. It would feel suspicious if everything went too smoothly. 

Do you have a morning routine or ritual to get your day started on the right foot?

Segolenne loves to stay in bed, grab her laptop and get straight into it, maybe then goes for a lunch time run and gets back into it. Never underestimate the power of working horizontally. 

Mark is the more typical - I need a coffee before I can function type of approach, and then he’s on the phone all day. Why email when you can call? 

Cecilia is the cliche of the person who’s read one too many self-help books this year. A little gratitude meditation, reads a little, a few downward facing dogs and hot water and lemon and she’s finally ready to be in the same room as her phone. This routine was quite different a year ago when I was commuting over an hour and half in London. 

What are your top tips for entrepreneurs wanting to get their business out there?

Just go for it. There’s no point in talking about it forever if you don’t think deep down you’ll take the plunge. Obviously do your research first but thankfully we had inspiration from the US where we could see similar products taking off. We also made a product based on what we would want to drink. Our approach, if we actually would buy this drink, then surely others out there will too.

Do something you can manage. You will learn along the way but play on your skill sets. Our initial idea was around Kombucha but we quickly realised that none of us were fermentation experts. After the glass bottles explosion incident we thought “Let’s not do that, someone could have been injured”. As soon as we modified our initial idea to something that was more within our skill sets, everything became more manageable and exciting. I’ve learned more about marketing in the last year in practical terms, than I have in any other job (Cecilia). It’s by doing that we’re learning. We proactively spoke to people within our network to seek advice and get feedback from friends and family to not get caught up in our own ideas.

What plans do you have for Tios over the next two years?

Once we’re a bit more established in the UK and Denmark and have learnt some valuable lessons, we would love to expand into new markets in Europe and France in particular as that’s where Cecilia and Segolenne are originally from. Selling a physical product is challenging in terms of production logistics and transport. Then we have the added difficulty of dealing with individual alcohol tax laws for each country which we underestimated in the beginning. And then of course Brexit was a curveball. We want to make sure we’re not biting off more than we can chew and do everything the right way in the UK and Denmark first. 

We have a few new ideas on drinks and merchandise and we’re hoping to also continue improving from a sustainability perspective, allowing customers like us to make more informed decisions on what we purchase.

We want our brand to reflect our personalities and feel inclusive and down to earth, a brand we would want to buy ourselves. Patagonia, Mad Happy are brands that are more about the feeling they create around the product. Our ambition is that you feel good when you have a Tios in your hand. We’d love to create some merchandise but we don’t want to just do it for the sake of having our name on a pen or a T-shirt. So we’re looking into sustainable companies that we can work with to try and make the right choices without cutting any corners even if it means more expensive alternatives. We don’t want to just use the ‘sustainability’ buzzword and not actually follow through on all aspects.

How did you conquer those moments of doubt that so often affect entrepreneurs or stop many with great ideas – what pushes you through?

Thankfully we have each other for support and to make the big decisions. We have so much respect for people who start their businesses by themselves. As a three, we are able to split the financial burden and share the pressure and responsibilities. We can use our different strengths to divide and conquer. We had to deal with a production site in the start that didn’t respond at all after financially dissolving. We were left in the dark and had no idea what was going on with our production. The fact that we could rely on each other to put together a plan of action was very helpful. 

Three is a good number because there’s always one of us to tip the scales if we can’t reach a decision. Most often Mark takes on that role and is good at remaining impartial. Our Whatsapp group is called ‘The Frogs and Prince’, Cecilia and Segolenne are half French hence the frogs, and we thought Mark deserved a royal title for having to put up with working with two sisters. It’s definitely been a learning curve to adapt to each others’ different working styles that we weren’t necessarily aware of. I think our personalities balance each other out quite well but we’re planning on doing a personality test so we can learn how to work even better together and know how to separate work from personal.We have a great little team and I think together we can hopefully turn Tios into a drink everyone knows about.