Instead of trying to be like Celsius or Red Bull with massive sponsorships and spectacles behind their brand, the student-made No Consequence was designed to be an energy drink that anyone can drink and enjoy at the core of its identity.
Braeden Riley, an Operations and Supply Chain student at the University of Utah and the founder of No Consequence, said other energy drinks made him feel like he was “on the outside looking in.”
“Energy drinks are kind of dramatic in general. Celsius sponsors these massive fights like the Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight. Red Bull has these awesome skiing competitions and all this stuff,” he said, “ No Consequence is designed to be kind of for everyone. That’s our tagline: energy for everyone. It’s for people who are more so just looking for a little boost to get through the day and not have to worry about staying up until 4 a.m. just because they had an energy drink or two.”
Riley has been a student entrepreneur at the Lassonde Studios for three years, and Homebrew has been a way to test and apply entrepreneurial skills in a real-world setting using the studio’s resources and events to leverage opportunities on campus.
Homebrew is a startup that focuses on small-business consulting and custom software products.
“Homebrew’s been kind of a business version of everything that I wanted to explore on campus. And I realized as a very service-oriented business model, I never really got the opportunity to do hands-on product work,” Riley said, speaking on the beginning of No Consequence.
Riley added that No Consequence officially started around last September and the energy drink received a $1,500 funding boost from Get Seeded, a grant program at the U that helps students test their business ideas.
Building a business involves a lot of components to make work using the opportunities afforded by Lassonde Studios and networking.
Leah Breyer, the chief brand officer of No Consequence and the designer of its logo, said working as the branding director has been an amazing opportunity to execute her skills in a real-world situation.
“As someone who has been a student for 3 years and works on campus, it’s a great feeling to create a product I think will resonate with the needs of students,” Breyer said.
Maintaining a steady growth with the product, No Consequence aims to expand its market on the University campus and continue to be an example of practical student application in the real world.
“Once we had a distribution area, and once we started to get the word out, it’s been selling really quickly,” Riley said. “We’re looking to expand to a few more stores, get up to 90, 120 [cans a week] max, and that will be awesome for us because that’s good distribution. That’s allowing us to kind of get our product on campus. Miller Cafe and Epicenter are our two main avenues. We’re opening very soon, hopefully, in the campus store, we’re trying to be on Marriott by the end of the year.”
