Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
All great company ideas start with a problem. For Jo Weinand, the problem was that she loved Nesquik but hated how it made her feel.
“I grew up addicted to the stuff,” she says. “But once I started reading labels, I realized I shouldn’t be drinking it anymore.”
Stuck inside during Canada’s COVID lockdowns, Weinand got bored enough to Google how to make her own milk. She threw cashews, cocoa powder, dates, and water into her Vitamix and hoped for something half decent. “I didn’t expect it to work or taste good,” she recalls. But one sip changed everything.
What happened next is a wild startup story that combines poker, chocolate milk, star power, and a new kind of reality show. She breaks it all down on the latest episode of One Day with Jon Bier.
From Vitamix to Vegas
Weinand already owned a restaurant, so she bottled the cashew-based milk, slapped on a sticker that read “Nutcase Milk,” and put a few on the shelf. “I didn’t know what to expect,” she says. “We just printed some labels and kept making more batches.”
They sold out almost immediately.
“The coolest thing was seeing grown men walk in, see chocolate milk on the shelf, light up, and just chug it,” she says. “And most of them weren’t your typical nut milk drinkers.”
Other retailers started asking where they were sourcing the product. That’s when the lightbulb went off. “I thought, okay, we might be onto something here.”
Scaling a fresh product was a challenge. The shelf life was only about a week, and Weinand couldn’t find a co-packer willing to take them on. After a year of dead ends, she was close to giving up.
Then she went to Vegas.
Over brunch, she told some friends about the milk she’d been making. Turned out they had just launched a venture fund for CPG companies. “I knew them from poker. Had no idea they were doing that,” she says.
They invested $500,000 at a $5 million cap, even though she had no prototype.
Related: Seeking VC Funding? Make Sure You Have the Answers to These 5 Questions
Influencer power
Weinand’s husband taught her how to play poker, and they’d become friends with pros over the years. One of them was Phil Hellmuth, one of the biggest names in the game.
When Weinand told him about Nutcase Milk, he tried some and went all in, becoming an investor. Next, he said: “You need to talk to Ninja.”
For the uninitiated, Ninja is a gaming icon with millions of followers and a personal brand built on clean energy, massive Twitch streams, and a loyal Gen Z fanbase.
Weinand sent him samples. “He tried it and said, ‘I’m in,'” she recalls. The two bonded over chocolate milk, Pokémon, and health. “He wanted to promote something he could actually feel good about.”
She made him a co-founder.
Next came Steve Aoki. Weinand sent the EDM icon samples of Nutcase’s new strawberry flavor—now a cult favorite. “He tried the chocolate and didn’t love it,” she says. “But the strawberry? He said, ‘This is my jam.'”
He joined the team, too.
Related: Don’t Collaborate With Just Any Influencer — Here’s How to Make Sure You Pick the Right One
X marks the spot
With Ninja and Aoki onboard, the opportunities snowballed, including Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, greenlighting Weinand’s appearance on a brand-new reality show airing on the platform.
“It’s a docuseries that follows our startup journey—but the viewers can actually invest in the company as the show airs,” Weinand explains. “It’s kind of like Shark Tank meets The Apprentice, but with a twist.”
The first episode drops May 6 on X, with a finale in June that culminates in a live-streamed equity crowdfunding campaign. “We have a wait list live right now. If you get on there, you’ll get early access.”
The Nutcase team will be the “poster child” of the new series. “They wanted a female founder, a CPG brand, a creator-led company—we checked all the boxes.”
Don’t call it luck
If all this sounds too easy, Weinand’s quick to say the story didn’t start with Ninja, Vegas, or a reality show.
“I’ve been doing this for over a decade,” she says. “This network, this credibility—it was built long before Nutcase. And there’s been a struggle, too. The beverage industry is tough. We’ve made mistakes. We’ve been screwed over. It’s not all rainbows.”
The difference this time is the team surrounding her. “The best part of building this business is the people I get to meet and to share this journey with,” Weinand says. “There’s no point in partying alone at the end.”
