BusinessHippie Podcast: Harmonious Success - The GUYA Vision

GUYA founder Sebastian Freidank was a guest on Ferdinand Otto's BusinessHippie Podcast.

The two talk about how big a vision has to be in order not to lose motivation even when bureaucratic obstacles put in your way as the founder of Germany and even the EU.

What vision drove Sebastian to found his startup GUYA, how did he realize it and what is "harmonious success" for him today?

The beginnings of Guayusa Startup GUYA

GUYA's journey begins with studying Japanology, which at first glance doesn't seem to fit the Ecuadorian guayusa plant at all.

At second glance, somehow not either, Sebastian must have thought, because he dropped out of his studies. It made him unhappy, but at least found out what he didn't want. A long phase of self-discovery followed with numerous ideas about what to do, but nothing that he really wanted to implement.

The idea of ​​his own startup developed while he devoured one book after the other. Plants have always fascinated Sebastian, so he read a lot about them too. He contacted companies that produce plant extracts. However, he didn't get very far.

Leonardo DiCaprio and fundraising project as a catalyst for Guayusa

Luckily, as he says today, because that's when he heard about Guayusa. Sebastian read an article about Leonardo DiCaprio's fundraising project for Ecuadorian natives. This article briefly discussed a crop that the Kichwa Indians have been growing in chakras (so-called forest gardens) for thousands of years in harmony with the rainforest and usually drink as tea.

From that point on there was no going back. For some time now, Sebastian has been looking for a plant that is more efficient than coffee, mate, green tea or guarana.

Sebastian had to order the first pack of guayusa tea in the USA, in Europe there was no one who had guayusa in their range.

The effect of the super plant convinced him immediately, because in addition to the natural caffeine, guayusa combines a number of other positive properties, so guayusa tea does not become bitter even after several hours of infusion.

Sebastian made his first contacts to Ecuador through a Kichwa Indian woman who had emigrated. In addition to chocolate from her home country, she also sells guayusa.

Bureaucratic hurdles in the EU

However, before GUYA was allowed to sell Guayusa for the first time, there were still a few hurdles to overcome.

There is a regulation in the EU (novel food) that states that food that was not sold in the EU before 1997 - and Guayusa falls under this - may not simply be sold as is.

Together with 8 other companies (from the USA, Ecuador, Italy, Spain and Germany) and a university in Ecuador, Sebastian then decided to submit the novel food application.

The application alone can quickly amount to 100,000 euros. Fortunately, most of the analyzes were carried out by the university in Ecuador. It had to be analyzed which ingredients occur in the plant, whether there are any negative side effects and so on. Despite everything, the application was only accepted on the second attempt.

A great vision is necessary in order not to lose sight of the goal

"In order to survive this period, the vision behind it for me had to be correspondingly large, otherwise you lose motivation." But what vision does Sebastian have for GUYA?

“I want to create a food company that deals with the sustainable production of food that comes from the rainforest but does not affect the biodiversity of the rainforest. That means growing food in permaculture, which is what the indigenous people have been doing for thousands of years, they call it chakras or forest gardens. They integrate crops into the normal rainforest. And when you're standing in a chakra, you think you're in the rainforest, even though you see bananas, yucca and sugar cane grown all over the place."

To internalize his vision, Sebastian wrote down his goals and said them every day for a year. Because if thoughts only revolve around why something doesn't work, it can't work either. It is therefore necessary to change the perspective and to become aware of why something is possible. This is the first step in the right direction to make visions come true.

"You like doing it when you know what you're doing it for."

Since then, Sebastian's way of life and work has changed a lot. While there are still things that he doesn't enjoy doing, he still enjoys doing them because he knows what he's doing it for. "There are enough things I don't feel like doing, bureaucracy, etc. But I do them because they get GUYA where we want to go."

Especially from the initial phase, Sebastian still knows the feeling of renunciation. He has put all his money and every free minute into building his Guayusa startup, but the feeling is very different than in an employee relationship. "It feels different energetically!"

Since then, he has learned that a healthy diet and exercise are not only good for your own body, but also for your business. Because only those who listen to themselves and appreciate their bodies will have enough energy for their company in the long term.

That means “harmonious success” for Sebastian and his startup GUYA

“That everything is right from start to finish:

For me, that means on the one hand that everything fits in Ecuador, i.e. no rainforest is cut down under any circumstances, that the farmers are paid fairly and that as much of the processing steps as possible remains in the hands of the farmers.

On the other hand, that the product that we are bringing to the market here is seen in the same way it is seen in Ecuador.

And what is also very important for harmonious success for me are the people who work for GUYA. They should be able to identify with the product and not just chase after a hype, in case there might be a hype about Guayusa."