[NE Coffee Chat] Generation Z Gathered, Captivated the Boss... Alcohol B2B Solution 'LIPIZ'

70% Reduction in Cocktail Preparation Time
Lowering Entry Barriers for New Alcoholic Beverages, Gaining Word-of-Mouth Among Small Business Owners
7% Monthly Growth on Average... Partnership with Over 210 Stores Nationwide
"Aiming to Provide Integrated Store Management Solutions"

Representatives and team members of Generation Z (born 1997?2006) gathered to capture the hearts of self-employed business owners. They provided a simple alcoholic beverage manufacturing and sales solution to help self-employed owners keep up with the rapidly changing alcohol consumption culture.

Ripiz is a startup that offers a simple alcoholic beverage manufacturing and sales solution tailored for self-employed business owners, keeping pace with the increasing demand for diverse and delicious alcoholic drinks. While consumer demands for highballs, cocktails, and more are growing, self-employed owners often have to sell only soju and beer due to a lack of information and the complicated manufacturing processes related to alcohol. Ripiz provides services to address these challenges.

Song Jeong-su, CEO of Reprise. (Photo by Lee Seung-jin)

On the 27th, Song Jeong-su, CEO of Ripiz, said, “Many business owners wanted to introduce highballs and cocktails but felt overwhelmed and unsure how to start. Since adopting Ripiz’s service, they have found it very convenient, and some have reported a 50% increase in sales per table,” adding, “Although we are not currently engaging in any significant marketing activities, word of mouth from business owners using our service has led to an average monthly growth rate of 7%.”

Ripiz produces and sells syrups for highballs and cocktails. The typical cocktail-making process involves 11 steps and takes about 2 minutes and 30 seconds, but using Ripiz’s products, cocktails can be made in 5 steps within 45 seconds. This reduces the manufacturing time by 70%. The service drastically cuts down the time and costs involved in introducing new alcoholic beverages. Since its launch in November last year, Ripiz has partnered with over 210 stores nationwide.

Ripiz’s strength lies in its young team, which is sensitive to market changes and can respond quickly. CEO Song is about 25 years old, and the team members are also in their mid-20s. They also bring experience. Although young, Song is not a first-time entrepreneur. He started a tech startup in his first year of university and later served as the head of the research and development (R&D) team at a startup for two years. He founded Ripiz in June 2022 and has been leading it for three years.

Appearance of Lipiz's 'Cocktail Potion' product. (Photo by Lipiz)

Ripiz initially started as a B2C alcoholic beverage subscription service targeting general consumers. CEO Song said, “During the COVID-19 period, we targeted the increasing number of consumers making cocktails at home by providing home cocktail kits,” adding, “Later, to expand the business, we planned the current core service, a B2B service for self-employed business owners.”

He expanded the service to B2B because he was confident in the market’s potential value. According to the ‘2022 Alcohol Market Analysis Report,’ the domestic alcohol shipment volume reached 8.8 trillion KRW, but 81.1% of this was soju and beer produced by large corporations.

On the other hand, the remaining 20% market, consisting of highballs and cocktails, had no unicorn companies (privately held startups valued at over 1 trillion KRW), making it a market without strong competitors. Moreover, this market experienced rapid growth after COVID-19, driven by the MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z), with a sharp increase in demand for highballs. CEO Song saw potential here.

CEO Song said, “We expect to achieve monthly sales of 200 million KRW by December this year,” and added, “Our goal is to partner with over 3,000 businesses in the fourth quarter of this year and more than 10,000 by the third quarter of next year.”

Going forward, Ripiz’s ultimate goal is to provide an integrated store management solution. To this end, they plan to utilize a table order service that allows customers to place orders and make payments using electronic devices such as tablets placed at the tables. CEO Song explained, “Using table order services enables us to collect on-site user data without privacy infringement issues,” adding, “We will be able to gather data on how many customers used which menu items and for how long, as well as table turnover rates.”

He continued, “One of the biggest challenges for business owners is that they have to handle practical tasks such as kitchen and serving work themselves, making management difficult,” emphasizing, “If Ripiz provides solutions using data, it will help improve the high closure rates and operational difficulties faced by self-employed business owners.”

He added, “Currently, consulting services for self-employed business owners cost hundreds of thousands to millions of KRW,” and confidently stated, “However, by utilizing data and artificial intelligence (AI), all of this can be resolved affordably with just the push of a button within the Ripiz platform.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.