The daughter of former National Football League wide receiver Jerry Rice has relocated to Dallas from Los Angeles with her husband. Jaqui and Trevion Gold moved to Plano earlier this year to launch an energy drink called G.O.A.T. Fuel.
“It was a personal decision but also it was a business decision,” said Jaqui Rice Gold, who is co-founder and CEO of G.O.A.T. Fuel. “The Dallas Fort Worth area generally has a lot of beverage legacy companies and so we thought it would be a great location for us to build out our startup in a place that has so much talent in the beverage space.”
According to a press release, G.O.A.T. Fuel is different from other energy drinks on the market because its ingredients include cordyceps mushrooms.
“It actually helps the way your body utilizes oxygen,” said Trevion Gold, Jaqui’s husband. “It energizes you but you’re very relaxed and focused at the same time. We love mushrooms and doing research on mushrooms for the past few years, we realize how important medicinal mushrooms are for immune health and all different types of things.”
G.O.A.T. is an acronym for ‘Greatest of All Time.’ The phrase, ‘The G.O.A.T.,’ is used heavily in the sports world to describe the victor, or the best competitor, whether in a single game or overall within their sport. Consequently, it was also Jerry Rice’s nickname in the NFL.
“We believe that anyone can be a G.O.A.T. if they’ve got the mindset,” Mrs. Gold told The Dallas Express. “My father played for the San Francisco 49ers. I know Dallas is ‘Cowboys Country’ but his mission has always been to create a G.O.A.T. family.”
In addition to playing for the 49ers for 16 years, Rice also played football with the Oakland Raiders, the Seattle Seahawks, and the Denver Broncos.
“Whatever he puts his mind to in whatever he’s doing, he does it 200% and I think that naturally, his attitude influences what we’re doing with G.O.A.T. fuel and the team that we’re building,” Mrs. Gold said in an interview. “We all have that same drive. It’s a lot of pressure but it’s also very rewarding at the same time.”
Prior to launching G.O.A.T. Fuel with her father and husband, Mrs. Gold pursued a singing career in the music business.
“I had a recording studio in Chatsworth,” Mr. Gold told The Dallas Express. “I’m a songwriter-producer and I met Jaqui doing music. We were writing songs. Once we met and started creating together, we just never left each other after that.”
Although they live in Texas now, the Golds plan to continue their music careers while building the G.O.A.T. Fuel brand in Dallas.
“Nowadays, everything is digital,” Mr. Gold said in an interview. “You can do songs and email them. People are all connected through social media and just through so many different platforms. So, it’s a lot easier nowadays to still work and connect with people and not have to be in the studio all the time.”
Like the surge of other entrepreneurs flowing into Texas from various parts of the US, the Golds considered relocating to Austin, but the couple landed in Plano instead.
“I love being in an area that’s family-focused and it’s refreshing to be able to move out of an apartment in LA to a home in Texas so that’s been great,” Mrs. Gold said. “I’m finding that people really do it ‘big’ out here. It’s either ‘big’ hospitality or ‘big’ business. A lot of startups move to Austin but I think that Dallas is certainly next for startups because Austin doesn’t quite have the capacity to handle it all. I’m excited to be a part of the starter culture in this area.”
G.O.A.T. Fuel ® is sold online at goatfuel.com and at some Safeway locations in 8 different flavors, including blueberry lemonade, tropical berry, peach pineapple, pink candy, watermelon fruit punch, gummy bear, mango passion fruit, and acai berry.
“My father was our first angel investor to get us going and off the ground but by February 2020, a month after launching, we were fortunate enough to raise a seed round with two angel investors,” Mrs. Gold said. “We raised $3.1 million and that really was the funds that we needed to launch.”
One of the other angel investors is Marc Lore, who co-owns the Minnesota Timberwolves NBA team with retired professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez. Lore is also the former CEO of Walmart eCommerce and a serial entrepreneur.
Because of COVID-19, the launch of G.O.A.T. Fuel appeared to be hindered.
“We actually launched just on digital,” Mrs. Gold said. “So, we were online for the first six months of 2020 selling directly to the consumer, which is not really the way that you go about entering the beverage space. You want distribution and chain authorization. We had some of that early on but then the world shut down.”
The pandemic, however, turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the Golds and G.O.A.T. Fuel.
“It has given us a real advantage,” Mrs. Gold said. “With going direct initially we were able to learn a lot about our customer, to grow on social media and to leverage the digital landscape and communicate what makes G.O.A.T. Fuel different. We convinced more than 4,000 people during a pandemic to buy a case of a drink that they had never tried before for $40. That was due to our digital efforts and having my dad involved.”
Since then, G.O.A.T. Fuel has forged a partnership with the Miami Heat’s Tyler Herro and named San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Trey Lance as its first NFL Ambassador. Before joining the 49ers, Lance was named the STATS FCS Jerry Rice Award winner in December 2019 as the national freshman of the year in the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision while at North Dakota State.
G.O.A.T. Fuel ® has also been named the Official Energy Drink of the Los Angeles Lakers.
“It’s interesting because California is our backyard and that’s where we moved from,” Mrs. Gold added. “We’re looking for our Texas ambassador here in Dallas. Maybe it will be a Maverick or a Cowboy. We’ll see.”