I recently went one-on-one with John Celenza, founder and CEO of Cizzle Brands.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks, or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
John: I’ve spent my entire career focused on creating better-for-you functional products that actually solve real problems for athletes and consumers. Many people know me as the co-founder and former CEO of BioSteel, where we built a modern, athlete-driven brand around clean hydration. Today, as CEO of Cizzle Brands, I’m taking that exact playbook and executing it at a much larger scale, backed by domestic manufacturing.
When it comes to setbacks, the CPG and beverage industries are notorious for supply chain disruptions and margin pressures. Early on, you learn that simply having a great product isn’t enough. If you scale too quickly without controlling your production, or if you rely entirely on third-party manufacturers, a single supply bottleneck can completely stall your growth.
The most instrumental lesson for me was realizing that long-term success requires owning your infrastructure. At Cizzle, we created a best-in-class product, CWENCH Hydration, and acquired a 110,000-square-foot Tetra Pak manufacturing facility. Shifting from just building brands to actually owning the supply chain platform behind them was a big turning point in my career.
Adam: How did you come up with your business ideas? What advice do you have for others on how to come up with great ideas?
John: Great business ideas rarely come from sitting in a boardroom trying to invent something out of thin air. They come from listening to experts and spotting massive gaps in the market.
With CWENCH Hydration, the idea came directly from looking at legacy sports drinks packed with 30 or 40 grams of sugar and artificial colors. We talked to top strength coaches, like our Chief Product Formulator Andy O’Brien, as well as performance dietitians. They were actively telling elite athletes to avoid the legacy drinks sponsoring their leagues because of all the sugar. The market was practically screaming for a clean, zero-sugar, high-electrolyte alternative packaged in an eco-friendly carton.
If you want to come up with great ideas, look for spaces dominated by legacy brands that haven’t truly innovated in decades. When consumer habits shift toward healthier and more sustainable choices, but the legacy players refuse to adapt, that is where your opportunity sits.
Adam: How did you know your business ideas were worth pursuing? What advice do you have on how to best test a business idea?
John: You know an idea is worth pursuing when you get unprompted validation from the toughest critics in your industry. For us, it was what I call the locker room test. Before launching CWENCH at scale, we put the product directly into the hands of elite strength coaches, performance dietitians, and professional athletes. When those experts start using your product voluntarily because it genuinely improves performance, you know you have something special. Today, CWENCH is used in over half of the locker rooms across the four major professional sports leagues, not because we bought our way in, but because the formula works.
My advice for testing an idea is to skip focus groups and friends who tell you what you want to hear. Get your product in front of power users at the point of sweat or the point of actual use. If they keep asking for more after the trial ends, you have a business.
Adam: What are the key steps you have taken to grow your businesses? What advice do you have for others on how to take their businesses to the next level?
John: To scale a consumer brand effectively, we focus on three core steps. First, build grassroots credibility with the experts who live and breathe the space. Second, drive physical retail distribution where immediate consumption happens, like training facilities and gyms. Third, control your supply chain so you can scale efficiently as mass retail begins to list the products.
My main piece of advice for taking a business to the next level is to protect your margins and secure your manufacturing early. Emerging beverage brands often struggle during rapid scaling because they are at the mercy of third-party co-packers. By owning our manufacturing plant, The CWENCH Hydration Factory, we keep full control over our inventory, protect our bottom line, and create a strong secondary revenue stream by co-manufacturing for other global brands.
Adam: What are your best sales and marketing tips?
John: Prioritize authentic partnerships. Don’t just pay a celebrity to hold a bottle. Build products alongside the experts who actually use them. Real third-party validation creates long-term trust that paid ads simply can’t buy.
Focus on high-traffic retail placement. Placement matters just as much as marketing. Get into grab-and-go coolers at convenience stores and fueling networks where people make quick purchase decisions.
Align with macro consumer trends. Make sure your story connects with broader cultural conversations and consumers’ lifestyles. We are helping families reduce sugar and step away from single-use plastics through eco-friendly packaging.
Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
John: An effective leader needs vision, adaptability, and real humility. In the early stages, leadership is mostly about hustle and momentum. As you scale, leadership shifts toward alignment and empowering your team.
To level up as a leader, you need to surround yourself with people who are experts in their fields, and then trust them to do what they do best. At Cizzle Brands, many of our key leaders worked alongside me at BioSteel. We already have a battle-tested rapport, which allows us to execute quickly without slowing each other down.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading, and managing teams?
John: Hire for resilience and alignment. You can teach specific technical skills, but you can’t teach a strong work ethic or the ability to handle the fast-paced nature of a high-growth company.
When managing teams, keep goals simple and transparent. Every person should clearly understand how their day-to-day work moves our main goals forward, whether that is retail sales, factory output, or athlete partnerships. Give people true ownership over their work, celebrate wins together, and address mistakes openly so you can fix them quickly and keep moving.
Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives, and civic leaders?
John: Solve a genuine problem. Make sure your business or mission addresses a real pain point, whether that is improving nutrition for families or building resilient local manufacturing.
Build an unshakeable foundation. Don’t rely on quick fixes. Invest in operational infrastructure and strong capabilities that can withstand shifting markets.
Combine long-term vision with fast execution. Keep your long-term goals high, but execute every single day with real urgency.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
John: Focus on controlling what you can control. In business, and especially in manufacturing and CPG, there are endless variables out of your hands, like inflation, supply chain shocks, or changing retailer schedules. Worrying about market noise just distracts you. Put your energy into product quality, operational efficiency, your team, and your customer relationships. The rest tends to take care of itself.
Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?
John: We are seeing a major changing of the guard in consumer packaged goods. Today’s consumers are informed; they read labels, they care about sustainability, and they expect products that deliver real results. Building Cizzle Brands to combine clean nutrition with eco-friendly domestic manufacturing has been incredibly rewarding, and we are really just getting started.
