Pod Insights How I Built This with Guy Raz Hydro Flask: Travis Rosbach. How a thirsty surfer changed the water bottle industry About this episode What if the idea that changes your life… starts with something as ordinary as being thirsty?
In 2007, Travis Rosbach walked into a sporting goods store looking for a water bottle—and stumbled onto a problem no one had solved. Plastic, BPA-lined bottles dominated the market. Metal alternatives leaked, dented, or couldn’t keep drinks cold enough.
Travis’s solution? A double-walled, vacuum-insulated, stainless steel bottle. His expertise? Non-existent.
This is the improbable story of how Hydro Flask was built—from scavenging metal parts in China, to selling bottles at outdoor markets, to getting into Whole Foods by sheer timing and luck, to a last-minute investor who walked in on the day Travis planned to shut the company down.
Hydro Flask would go on to become one of the most recognizable and popular bottles in the country.
This is the story behind it.
What You'll Learn
How paying attention to trends can lead to new business ideasHow a novice learns the ropes by obsessively comparing existing products How the lessons from past ventures can fuel future success Why perseverance and timing can be just as important as know-how
Timestamps:
05:46 - Building a fence, and a first business: “I had no clue.” 09:33 - A one-way trip to Hawaii : The surprising detour that leads Travis to his biggest invention15:13 - How Travis gets inspired—then obsessed—after trying to buy a water bottle 22:08 - Searching for a manufacturer: a here-goes-nothing trip to China31:58 - The first prototype: two colors, sharp edges35:43 - Bootstrapping Hydro Flask: moving in with mom, storing bottles in grandpa’s garage 37:14 - Farmer’s markets, ice tests and the first buyers52:27 - The crisis that almost kills the company56:30 - An eleventh-hour visitor: “I might want to invest”58:34 - Leaving the company he built: why Travis walked away1:06:07 - Small Business Spotlight
This episode was produced by Chris Maccini, with music by Ramtin Arablouei.
Edited by Neva Grant, with research help from Claire Murashima.
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Transcript 12,614 words · 6 speakers
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5:20 Speaker 01 We ran out of money. I had about 10 employees at that point. And so I write this letter that says, you know, "Dear employees, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to close down the business." And Friday morning, I call everybody into the office to tell them that we're closing down. And the phone rings, and the lady at the front desk says, "There's this guy here who wants to see you." And he says, "Travis, I'm here to talk to you." And I said, "I'm sorry, I'm not hiring, and I'm not even interested. Thank you." And he says, "Well, I might want to invest."
6:05 Speaker 00 Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
6:16 Speaker 00 I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how an obsession with finding the perfect water bottle led Travis Rosbach to invent a new one, Hydro Flask, which became one of the most popular metal bottles in the country.
6:35 Speaker 00 Around 2007, Travis Rosbach walked into a sporting goods store looking for something pretty simple: a water bottle, a reusable container that he could take to the beach to keep cold water cold. And that purchase, or should I say attempted purchase, changed his life. Because in that store, Travis could not find the bottle he was looking for. So he started looking deeper. And when he realized the product he wanted wasn't on the market, he decided to make it himself. People told him it couldn't be done, or that it would be too expensive, or that he didn't have the right background. And to be fair, he didn't. Travis wasn't a design engineer, he wasn't a materials expert,
7:19 Speaker 00 but he had an idea and a stubborn belief that it should exist. And so this is the story of how Travis basically proved the skeptics wrong. But it's also a story about how much time and effort it took to do that. Because this conversation really gets into the mechanics of building something: the painstaking hours of research and reverse engineering, the risky trip to China to find just the right manufacturer, the improvising and jerry-rigging that went into making a first prototype. The company Travis eventually built became Hydro Flask. And in just a few years, he and his then-girlfriend would go from selling bottles at farmer's
8:01 Speaker 00 markets in Portland to seeing Hydro Flask become one of the most popular water bottle brands in the country. Travis Rossbeck grew up in the 1980s and 90s in Salem, Oregon. After high school, he joined his dad in the Virgin Islands, where he got certified to become a dive instructor and later, a private pilot. And as cool as those jobs were, Travis was restless. He wanted to start his own business. And eventually, he moved back to the Pacific Northwest and settled in Bend, Oregon.
8:31 Speaker 01 I had a girlfriend at that time, and we rented a place. And one of the first nights we were there, we were sitting, watching a movie and drinking a bottle of wine, and a guy walked into the backyard. And so I jumped up and ran out back, and he was building a fence at the rental house. And I thought, well, that's an idea. I'd never even thought about people building fences before. How do you do this? And he showed me, he's using metal pipes and clear cedar. There's no knots. And Bend was really starting to grow about 2005 or so. And so the fences and the houses were going in everywhere. And I asked him, I said, well, are you doing the subdivisions?
9:15 Speaker 01 And he said, no, I just like to do one house at a time. I said, well, why don't you do the subdivisions? Because that's, you know, 200 houses in one go. And he said, no, I'm not interested. And I said, well, do you mind if I do that? And he said, I don't care what you do. I said, I'm going to do that. So I went back in the house, and I told my girlfriend, I said, I want to start a fence company. So we started Bend fencing.
9:38 Speaker 00 All right, this is important because she will factor in later. Your girlfriend's name is Cindy, because she will, you will be together for a while and start other businesses. But let's talk about the fence business. What did you know about, like, did you know how to build a fence?
9:52 Speaker 01 Not at all. I had no clue. I didn't know a postal digger from a pry bar. So I got on Craigslist and found a guy who worked at the number one fence company in town, Mike's Fence Center. And he was ready to leave there. And I said, Well, come on, come work with me and I'll make you the head guy. And he said, Okay. And so we went out and bought a truck and bought all the tools that the supply company told us that we would need. And the day before our first project, he got arrested. And so we were
10:32 Speaker 01 supposed to show up in Sun River and put in the first fence. And instead, I ended up going to the homeless shelter and found a couple of guys that said they knew how to do fences and went down and learned how to build a fence on site.
10:48 Speaker 00 All right. So you start this fence business and who, you know, how are you like competing against established fence companies? But I have to assume you were you were charging less.
11:00 Speaker 01 Well, a lot of the fence companies were still using wood. And they would say, Oh, pressurized wood lasts forever and it's going to be here forever. Well, no, actually not. It rots and it breaks. So we were using stainless steel pipes and then building wooden boxes around it. And then we're also doing clear cedar, which had no knots. And it just looks beautiful. It's a very high end looking fence. And so we were going in to a lot of the high end subdivisions.
11:32 Speaker 00 And how would you, given that you had no experience, and I have to imagine you're in Ben, right? That there are established fence companies who are working with developers who are trusted, like, how does a guy like you, who has no contacts or connections in that world, like, gain the trust of developers to hire you?
11:52 Speaker 01 Well, we called it Bend Fencing, which actually went quite a ways. A lot of our customers just thought we had been around forever. And why would we not be? We had the name Bend Fencing and hired a lot of good people who taught me a lot. And it's a high turnover rate. And so I had to learn pretty quick how to build a fence myself and drill holes in the rock and get through the ice and stuff.
12:19 Speaker 00 So, all right, so you run this business. I think you would end up running it for almost two years. Is that right?
12:25 Speaker 01 Yes.
12:26 Speaker 00 And from what I understand, you you're getting burned out doing this. It's just a grind. It's like seven days a week, you know, 14 hour days, no breaks. Is that a fair description?
12:39 Speaker 01 It exactly was. Yeah, I tried to take off a couple hours on Sunday, but typically that wouldn't work. And I did, I got burnt out and I called the office and I told her, I said, look, I'm gonna kill myself or kill somebody else. I have to get out of here. And it was it was cold and I was in pain. And I said, either Mexico or Hawaii, but I need to go somewhere warm and I need to go quick. And she called back and said, all right.
13:08 Speaker 00 And when you say she, you're talking about Cindy, your partner.
13:10 Speaker 01 Yeah. And she says, all right, come home and grab your bag. And I took off to Oahu. And I remember landing in Oahu. And as soon as the door opened, I could just feel the aloha. And I called her and I said, you can keep the company or you can sell it, but either way, I live here now. And she said, where are you? Are you at the bar? Are you drunk? I said, no, I'm still on the airplane. I haven't got off yet, but I live here. And I spent about nine days on vacation in Oahu and went back to Bend and said, I'm done. I'm completely out of this. And we put it on Craigslist and sold a couple of weeks later.
13:52 Speaker 00 Yeah, I mean, I understand that impulse of landing in Hawaii and just thinking, I'm not ever leaving that place, uh, cause I have been there and it's absolutely incredible. And I felt that before, by the way, um, but you left behind your fence company, right? So now you had to figure out something else to do. And I guess, I guess you decided to start like a sign making company in Oahu?
14:14 Speaker 01 I did, yeah. So I, uh, there was sign shops in, in Oahu and there was a lot of them. Every couple of blocks, you'd see a sign on the corner that said sign company or banners or something like that. And there was a huge amount of competition for it. But I wanted to, I wanted to try that. I had a fascination with embellishing a substrate and making it different and beautiful. So I thought, well, let's just buy a plotter and start a sign company.
14:47 Speaker 00 A plotter is basically like a large printer?
14:49 Speaker 01 It's, it's a, like a razor blade that's computerized and so it cuts vinyl.
14:55 Speaker 00 Okay. Yeah. All right. So here's what, what I understand. You said that you, you noticed a lot of sign shops in, in Hawaii, like, you know, all over the place, like every street corner had a sign shop, right? And so why would you get into that business if it was already super competitive?
15:15 Speaker 01 Well, technically what I would see were signs advertising for signs. And so there were very few actual brick and mortar sign shops. It was that a lot of people owned a plotter and so they would make banners and call themselves a sign company.
15:37 Speaker 00 I see. Okay.
15:38 Speaker 01 And I thought, well, if the best you can do is cut blue and black vinyl and put it on a white banner. I bet we could figure out a way to do it different and or better than what you're doing.
15:52 Speaker 00 And you're in In Oahu, you're living there with Cindy at this point?
15:56 Speaker 01 Yes, yes.
15:57 Speaker 00 What was her reaction when you said, why don't we buy a plotter and make signs?
16:02 Speaker 01 She was down. She's she thought that, yeah, that's a wild idea, but why not? And sure enough, there's a sign show in Orlando and it's like it was in a couple weeks. And so we bought tickets to fly to Florida and at this big convention, I saw this one booth called Fellers and there was one guy Frank, who's the owner. And so I went up and said, hey, Frank, I want to start a sign company. He goes, well, what do you need? I said, I don't know. Could you tell me? And he thought I was crazy, but they told us what we needed and what we should buy and shipped it out to Oahu.
16:47 Speaker 01 And the guy showed up and installed the printer and it was a 64 inch printer. So we could print banners as opposed to just putting vinyl on top of them. So we could do full color photographic image banners.
17:01 Speaker 00 And where did you, did you get a shop in Oahu?
17:05 Speaker 01 We did. Yeah, we just got the biggest lease that we could find and afford, which was right downtown, right by the Blaisdell Center, right by the big Coliseum. And we did screen printing and embroidery and hats and tablecloths and table throws. We ended up doing big outdoor signs and we did a lot of like business development, branding, marketing.
17:33 Speaker 00 All right. So this sounds like a pretty good business, but I'm trying to understand. What happened to it? Why, I mean, why am I not talking to a guy who ended up, you know, starting a chain of sign stores? Like, I mean, you've got a business going. Was, were you making money?
17:51 Speaker 01 Yes, we were breaking even and slightly pulling ahead. So we were bringing in a couple hundred thousand a year. I'd say, yes.
17:59 Speaker 00 All right. So you're, so you're doing that job and you like it. But what's going on?
18:05 Speaker 01 Well, one day I was out and I was running errands and I was thirsty. I'm tired of seeing the plastic wash up on the beaches. I want to get a non-single-use bottle to drink water. And so I thought, well, I'll just get an Algen and then I can reuse it. So I go into the sporting goods store thinking it's pretty simple. 20 bucks, I got a bottle and I'm back to work and tomorrow's another day. And there was some employees up front and I said, hey, where are the water bottles?
18:41 Speaker 00 Right.
18:41 Speaker 01 And the guy takes me back and he shows me this wall that was completely empty. There were only two bottles left on it. And I said, what happened here? And he said, well, the owner's French and she just got back from France and her dad is a doctor and he says there's this stuff called BPA. And we don't know what it is. It's probably not going to be anything. But as a precautionary measure, she decided that she wanted us to take all these bottles off the shelf.
19:14 Speaker 00 Okay, but the Nalgene's, I don't think, at least today, they're BPA-free.
19:18 Speaker 01 Now they are, yes.
19:19 Speaker 00 I see. Okay. I, now I see. Nalgene stopped using BPA in 2008. So at that time, it's possible that they did have BPA. And I remember this because my, my first child was born 2009 and the BPA thing was, was hardcore. Nobody, you know, everything was like, no, BPA-free, BPA-free and, and a baby. And I was like, oh, my God, I should be really careful about this. So, okay, yeah.
19:43 Speaker 01 And I said, well, who's going to refill this shelf? And he said, nobody, there's nobody else doing water bottles. And it hit me right in the back of my head and it came right out my mouth. And I said, I will, I will do that. And decided I was doing water bottles.
20:01 Speaker 00 Hang on, hang on. Okay, so right there in the store, you get struck with this idea, a new idea for business, maybe, but but meantime, you were still running a sign business, right?
20:13 Speaker 01 Right, yeah. So I get back to the sign company and I asked one of the employees, I said, what do you know about water bottles? And she said, oh, it's Sig. You gotta go at this company called Sig.
20:26 Speaker 00 They're metal.
20:27 Speaker 01 They were aluminum, yes.
20:29 Speaker 00 Aluminum, I remember those bottles, yeah.
20:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, and I was like, oh, this is great. I don't have to do bottles. I can just stick with signs. This is fantastic. And so I went to Patagonia and I bought one and it was expensive. It was like 20 bucks, you know, for a water bottle. That was a lot of money.
20:45 Speaker 00 Yeah, but they're good. They're good bottles. I mean, they, right? I remember them. They had like that little, I think they still make them like that small screw top where the, you could like hook it on a, it looked like it was made for climbers, like you could hook it on a carabiner or something.
20:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, and it had real nice powder coating on it. It was really gritty and I really enjoyed it for about a week. And I realized I couldn't put ice cubes in it. I couldn't put it in the freezer.
21:09 Speaker 00 It has a small, uh, opening.
21:11 Speaker 01 Right, yeah. And they were aluminum, so you couldn't put them in the freezer.
21:15 Speaker 00 Wait, why is that? I don't know that. Why can't you?
21:17 Speaker 01 It would expand and, and crack. They basically rip open.
21:21 Speaker 00 All right.
21:22 Speaker 01 I kinda like putting a pop can in the freezer.
21:24 Speaker 00 Right, right, right.
21:25 Speaker 01 And I was walking up the stairs and it fell off some books and it dented almost like catastrophically. It just looked terrible.
21:35 Speaker 00 Cause it was thin. It was like thinner aluminum.
21:37 Speaker 01 Yeah.
21:38 Speaker 00 Yeah.
21:38 Speaker 01 And I, I thought, well, that's too bad. You know, I just paid a lot of money for it. Now it doesn't look great. Couple of days later, I'm filling it up and I look inside and some of that gold had flaked off. There was a gold liner.
21:52 Speaker 00 Inside the bottle.
21:53 Speaker 01 Yeah. And so I said, okay, well, I guess I really am doing water bottles now.
22:00 Speaker 01 And I called my brother Jeff, who just started working at REI and Bend. And I said, Hey Jeff, I need a water bottle. And he goes, Clean Canteen, they just started.
22:11 Speaker 00 Good brand, good product.
22:13 Speaker 01 Great product. And so he sends me a Clean Canteen. And it just wasn't ergonomically correct for my lip. And every time I'd take a sip, it'd dribble down my shirt.
22:26 Speaker 00 And was it a screw top at that time? I mean, now they've got all kinds of flip tops. So was it just a screw top, like wide mouthed bottle?
22:33 Speaker 01 It was, and it was big enough that I could put ice cubes in it, which was huge. You know, to take to the beach and have cold water on the way there was, was awesome. And then I'd put it in the sand, I'd go surf and I'd come back and it'd be too hot to drink. And, and then I came home and I'd hike a mountain and I'd get to the top and it'd be too cold to drink. And so I thought, my grandpa had an old school coffee thermos, one of the big old heavy thermoses.
23:02 Speaker 00 I remember those.
23:04 Speaker 01 And I thought, well, why can't we take that same technology and make it in a normal sized water bottle? That we could actually drink water out of.
23:14 Speaker 00 Well, let's talk about the thermos for a moment because that's been around for a long time. Right. And so it's not like the technology didn't exist.
23:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was vacuum insulation. They came up, I can't remember exact year. I almost want to say it was like in the, in the 1900s or even late 1800s. They came up with a vacuum insulation technology.
23:34 Speaker 00 Basically, it's like the, between the inner wall and the outer wall, the air has been completely taken out. The, the part in between those two walls is where they've sucked out all the air.
23:49 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, it would provide a vacuum space that no temperature air molecules could transfer between. So anything on the inside, whatever temperature it is, it's going to remain that temperature because it doesn't have outside influences affecting it. And it doesn't release, like if you have hot liquids, the hot doesn't release through the vacuum.
24:12 Speaker 00 Okay. This experience gets you thinking, like you get a clean canteen. Again, it doesn't do the trick. It's not keeping your drink cold. It's not keeping your drink hot. It's not doing what the thermos did. But there is no thermos. You could buy a thermos, but the thermos was like a big thing. And you know, you had like the top and you unscrew the top and then you pour the coffee in there and then you drink out of that. And, and so you're thinking, wait a minute. Why isn't there a thermos but for water bottles?
24:41 Speaker 01 Exactly. And I wanted metal on the inside. I knew I didn't want plastic. And so I figured, and, and I knew I didn't want aluminum. So I figured, well, why can't we just make them out of double wall vacuum insulated stainless steel?
24:54 Speaker 00 All right. So you, you have this itch that you want to scratch. So what, so what, like, are you still working in the sign shop every day? Are you going in there every day at that point?
25:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, every day was, was long days. Our printer was broken and so it would take us hours and hours to fix it and keep running it. And it was just, it was like I was completely overwhelmed with having to do bottles. And we had a client who would go to the Canton Fair in China. And he would help his customers find factories to build their products. I really knew that I had to find a factory and it was probably going to be in China. So started doing Google and found a factory that said, yes, we'll, we'll do that.
25:48 Speaker 01 Come on over and check it out.
25:50 Speaker 00 Okay. But did you have a design in mind or did you just think, all I know is I want this to be double walled and I want it to be steel. That's all I know for now. I don't know what, and I know, I know I want it to be a wide enough mouth where I could put ice in it, like unscrew it and put ice in it. Is that all you knew?
26:06 Speaker 01 It was, and I kind of still figured that somebody was doing it. Surely there must be somebody who's doing this. I can't be the first person who's thought of this. But I knew that I wasn't able to physically stop until I found that.
26:21 Speaker 00 So when you decided to pursue this? What was your first step? Because I would think if it was me, I would be looking online. I would make contact. I'd get in touch with them and then maybe I would fly out there.
26:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, I found one that said, yes, we will do that. That's what we do.
26:38 Speaker 00 Okay.
26:39 Speaker 01 So I sold a surfboard. I sold a moped and I took off to Shanghai in May of 2007. And found this factory and I get there and I go in and it's all plastic water bottles. And they show me around. We go through the tea ceremony and everything. And I said, well, where are the insulated and where's the stainless? And he said, oh no, we don't do that. Nobody does that. I said, well, surely somebody. And he said, no, there's nobody. And I thought, well, I've sold my surfboard. I've sold my moped. I'm starting to run out of money.
27:19 Speaker 01 I guess I'll just fly back early. And so I start leaving the factory and this guy came up and he grabbed my arm. And he said, I have a cousin in Hangzhou that might be able to help you. Why don't you talk to him? And so he gave me two pieces of paper. One was to get to the train station. One was to get to Hangzhou. And I show up in Hangzhou and I realized I don't know anybody. I don't know where I am. I don't know who I'm looking for. I don't know what's going on here. And I'm going down the escalator and luckily I hear Travis. And I said, yeah. And her name was Natalie and she takes me to this office and I met her husband, Michael.
27:59 Speaker 00 Who was Michael?
28:00 Speaker 01 Michael was the guy who was the cousin of the guy I met in Shanghai.
28:05 Speaker 00 Okay. Oh, he was. He was a Chinese man.
28:07 Speaker 01 He was, yeah.
28:07 Speaker 00 And Michael was his English name.
28:09 Speaker 01 Correct.
28:10 Speaker 00 And he spoke enough English where he could help you?
28:12 Speaker 01 A little bit, right. And then the next day we get on the train and we're heading south again. And we show up at a actual water bottle factory where they're doing metal water bottles. And we go in and Michael says, hey, you know, Travis wants to do these vacuum insulated bottles. And the guy just laughed. He said, no, there's no way. Nobody does that. We're not doing that. And so we spent three days going from factory to factory, trying to find out if they do double wall vacuum insulated bottles.
28:42 Speaker 00 Because a double wall means it's like you make a metal bottle and then you basically, I guess they insert it into another bottle and then connect them together or something?
28:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's a lot like if you think of a metal fence post, you have two different sized fence posts and one's inside of the other one. And then there's a little copper tube that vacuums out the air in between the two walls.
29:08 Speaker 00 And that requires, I guess, a certain technology on their, on their assembly line that presumably they didn't have because I'm imagining if they could do it, they want to make money, they'd be like, yeah, we could do this.
29:19 Speaker 01 Right. There was no market. Nobody had asked them for it. So finally, on the very second to last day, we find a factory that had a vacuum and it wasn't very big. It was kind of the size of a motorcycle, which isn't huge for the vacuum world. And they were doing these little vacuum insulated Japanese milk bottles.
29:42 Speaker 00 So wait, like bottles of milk that you buy in the grocery store?
29:46 Speaker 01 It was more for like kids' milk and maybe formula and breast milk.
29:50 Speaker 00 I see for their like lunches or something.
29:52 Speaker 01 Right. Yeah. But they were real small. They were cute. They were, you know, they were Japanese. And so they were just beautiful little containers. And I said, hey, you know, let's, let's just make them bigger and do water bottles. And he laughed and he looked at me and I wasn't laughing. I was serious. And he said, fine, we'll try it.
30:16 Speaker 00 When we come back in just a moment, how Travis finally gets some samples made and winds up walking into his local Whole Foods at exactly the right moment. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This.
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34:14 Speaker 00 Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2007, and Travis is in China, where he's finally found a factory that might be able to make him a vacuum-insulated water bottle. But he and his local guide, Michael, they still have a lot to figure out.
34:32 Speaker 01 We didn't have the molds and the machine. The vacuum wasn't quite big enough to do it. And so Michael and I spent the next two weeks going from factory to factory, and we'd buy two kilos of screws, and we'd go buy metal plates, and we'd go buy all these parts to build all these machines, to build more parts and more machines.
34:56 Speaker 00 What were you, sorry, what did you need to build?
34:58 Speaker 01 Well, we had to modify the inside of the vacuum to hold bigger-sized bottles. So not only did we have to get the molds made for the actual bottles, but we had to modify the vacuum to get the molds inside of it.
35:16 Speaker 00 Why were you guys doing it? Why, why, why, why didn't the factory do it?
35:19 Speaker 01 They said we could rent time, but that was it. They weren't going to do anything else to help us. They didn't believe in it. They didn't think it would work and they, they thought, well-
35:27 Speaker 00 They said you could rent time on our line and, you know, try it out.
35:31 Speaker 01 Correct. Yeah.
35:32 Speaker 00 But you had to build the adapters to make this work. How did you even know what to do? How'd you know to build that?
35:38 Speaker 01 They showed us. They said, you know, here's, here's what we have, but it's not going to work and we're not willing to work with you to do this because this is a dumb idea. Nobody wants a vacuum insulated water bottle, so we're not putting forth any effort. That's how we came up with all the modifications and everything. And then I took off, I come back to Oahu and about six months later, we got a call that the samples were ready. And what name do you want to put on it? Do you have a logo? Do you have a name? And we didn't. And so all hands on deck, all friends and family, what should we call this water bottle company?
36:21 Speaker 01 And my brother came up with the name Hydro Flask. And I hated it. I thought it was a terrible idea. I didn't like the word flask, but we had to have something printed on the bottles. So we went with it and we got the first two samples in November of 2007.
36:40 Speaker 00 And, and how much sort of input did you have in the design? You just said, was it just a, I don't know, what it was a cylinder with a wide opening that screwed on and off and it was double walled? Like, did you give them any specs about colors, about powder coating, like, or did they just kind of make it based on what they thought you wanted?
37:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, I had drove all over the island, buying as many bottles as I possibly could. And I bought calipers and I was measuring thicknesses of mouth sizes of bottles and which one was the most ergonomic size to drink out of and put an ice cube in. And so I, I drew it all out and I'm kind of embarrassed to say, but- About five years ago, somebody pointed out that I'd basically just drawn a scuba tank and it was the first ones just looked like a scuba tank.
37:32 Speaker 00 And it's interesting, you buy calipers to measure the width of the bottle and the width of the metal, which is interesting because there is, I mean, there's like a lip feel, right? When you're putting a water bottle to your lips, and we don't think about this consciously, but it's like when you, when you have a beautiful wine glass, it's just very thin glass, it just, it's a better way to drink wine. And I think it's the same with a water bottle. Like if it's the right thickness, not too thin, not too thick, but did you give the factory in China those specs? Or did they just kind of make something and send it to you?
38:10 Speaker 01 Well, both. I gave them the specs. I, you know, Minute Maid I liked better than Pepsi, but Coke I liked better than Sprite.
38:20 Speaker 00 Oh, you're talking about, these are plastic bottles though.
38:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, I was measuring like, how big is my lip? How big is the drinking size out of each of these bottles? Budweiser bottles versus Corona bottles versus milk jugs. And once I found what I really liked, I gave them the specs and then they, they made it the best that they could, but the very first samples, the lip was real sharp and I didn't like it, but everybody else liked it and they were insulated. It worked.
38:52 Speaker 00 And it worked?
38:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, we got two. There was a red one and a blue one, 18 and 21 ounces. And went down to Waikiki Beach and put ice cubes in it and started just handing them to people. And they would get out of the water from surfing and they would see the ice and they'd say, wow, yes, this is, this is something we would buy.
39:16 Speaker 00 Did you, and by the way, how roughly, how much did it cost to get the samples done?
39:21 Speaker 01 It was about $10,000.
39:23 Speaker 00 And, and was there a commitment that you would have to make an order after that?
39:27 Speaker 01 Well, we didn't know that at first. I hadn't thought to ask about a minimum order quantity. I didn't, I don't have an MBA. I don't know these things, you know, I didn't know these things. And we found out later that the first MOQ was 3,000.
39:42 Speaker 00 And how much would that cost you?
39:44 Speaker 01 About $17,000.
39:48 Speaker 00 Okay, so did you have that cash?
39:50 Speaker 01 No, no, we ran out of money. And so I negotiated 1,500 instead.
39:56 Speaker 00 Okay, so how did you finance that?
40:00 Speaker 01 Sold everything we had. We sold all of our clothes and furniture and that's where we-
40:04 Speaker 00 And when you say we, it's this is you and your girlfriend Cindy, right?
40:07 Speaker 01 Correct, correct.
40:08 Speaker 00 She's on board too. She's, you guys are both selling all your stuff to get the cash that you can pay for this order.
40:15 Speaker 01 Right. And then in March of 2008, we moved back to Bend and moved in with my mom.
40:21 Speaker 00 Why not stay in Hawaii?
40:24 Speaker 01 It was expensive. And I knew that we needed to have, you know, closer access to airports and, and big trade shows and things. And Bend has kind of been an outdoor mecca for Oregon for quite a while. And it was, it was just kind of really starting to take off as, as an outdoor place to be.
40:46 Speaker 00 Got it. Okay. And this is 2008, financial crisis about to be in full swing, right? This is the beginning of, I think Bear Stearns happens and then, you know, and this is going to leave in brothers and this is going to go, this is all going to go, going to all go crazy. But you go back to Bend and you, and to save money, you, did you say you moved with your mom?
41:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. And my brother had just moved back in and my sister had just moved back in and had a baby and it was, it was a full house.
41:16 Speaker 00 Wow. So he gets a bed and the idea is you're going to get this order of bottles and, and then what? What were we, what were you going to do at that point?
41:24 Speaker 01 That part I wasn't quite so sure about. I knew that we had a Portland Saturday market that sold, you could go and sell your, your wares. And so I figured, well, we'll start at the Portland Saturday market and see how it goes.
41:39 Speaker 00 Okay, but when the shipment of 2,500 bottles arrived, were they like individually packaged in boxes?
41:45 Speaker 01 They were in boxes of 12.
41:47 Speaker 00 Okay. And, and where did you store all of it?
41:50 Speaker 01 My grandparents have a two-car garage and my grandpa said we could have one of the two cars until the summer. And so we started out in Salem in the garage.
42:01 Speaker 00 All right. So you've got, they arrive in March of 2008. And the idea was let's start selling this at the farmer's market. Let's set up a table. And by the way, I'm assuming you have a pretty kick-ass sign because you were in the sign business. Your sign is saying, it says hydro flask water bottles, right? Am I right?
42:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, kinda. Like, we, we knew the difference between a table throw and a table cloth, you know? And so we had a table throw that said hydro flask and we put it up on the Rubbermaid table and we had a little pop-up banner. We had our shirts that said hydro flask and hats and stickers.
42:37 Speaker 00 You knew what to do because you had a sign company.
42:39 Speaker 01 Exactly. And it was hot. It was middle of, I think it was July. And people came and they'd say, what is this? And it's a water bottle. And they'd say, why would I need a water bottle? Well, because it's not plastic. You can reuse it and it's insulated. And we'd put ice cubes inside of them. And I'd put ice cubes in on Friday night and I'd write 8:00 PM Friday. And then by Sunday, there's still ice cubes in it. And, and people would freak out.
43:14 Speaker 00 And the farmer's market was on Saturday or Sunday?
43:17 Speaker 01 It was on Saturdays and Sundays. Yeah. Saturday market's a bit of a misnomer. It's really on Sundays also.
43:23 Speaker 00 Right. So you would, you would have a piece of tape on it and it would say, Friday, 8:00 PM ice. And then on Sunday, people are like, wait, you put the icing on Friday and it's still this cold?
43:32 Speaker 01 Yeah. And it was 100 degrees outside.
43:34 Speaker 00 That's a great idea. I love that idea. And how much were you selling the bottles for?
43:40 Speaker 01 We had, we had an 18 ounce that was $19.99 and we had a 21 ounce that was $24.99.
43:47 Speaker 00 Okay. And this is 2008. It's the financial crisis is starting. And, and this is the summer of 2008. So people are starting to get, I mean, it's not totally crashed yet, but it's about to. And, and again, like, I'm thinking 20 bucks, 24 bucks, what a great deal. But, but again, I have to go back to 2008. And from a 2008 perspective, that was probably kind of pricey for people. People were probably like, wait, what? 20 bucks for a bottle? For a metal bottle?
44:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, it was, it was tough because oftentimes what they would do is they'd come by, they'd meet us first and then they'd go shop the whole market. And then if they had any money left over, they would take a chance on us. So we're selling anywhere from 20 to 50 bottles a day at that plant for the two days. And then we'd leave the Saturday market, we'd head back to Bend and start doing what's called munching music at Drake Park where they show a movie and have a bit of a Thursday afternoon get together.
44:49 Speaker 00 And when you sold them, and obviously people had seen how, how, you know, it was keeping this ice water cold. Did you offer any kind of warranty or return? Like, what'd you say to people? Like, how, how did you convince them to, to part with their money for this water bottle? Because in 2008, the idea of having a, a permanent water bottle was not like what it is now, where everyone's like, what do you mean? Like, in my, I can go in my pantry now, we have too many of these things. We've got hydro flasks and swell bottles and Yetis and we got all, we got the whole thing. We had every brand in there. And I'm sure a lot of people listening are like, oh, yeah, I got a closet full of these things now. But then it wasn't like that. People just bought
45:30 Speaker 00 a plastic bottle, drank it and threw it away. Or, you know, like, only, only like, really environmentally conscious people were doing this in 2008.
45:40 Speaker 01 Right. Which was a bit of a benefit being in Oregon, because we do have a lot of environmentally friendly folks here in, in the state. But we gave a, a lifetime warranty and said that if anything happens, we'll take care of it. We'll replace your bottle for you. And that helped a lot.
46:00 Speaker 00 So how were you financing the, I mean, were you, you know, you were selling them, they were, how much they're probably roughly about $5 a bottle? That's what it was costing you to manufacture them and have them shipped?
46:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, about 525, 550, yes.
46:14 Speaker 00 Okay, so, so you were making 15, you know, $17 per bottle, which is pretty good. And that was enough money, I have to imagine, to, to be able to finance the next order?
46:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, we just bootstrapped it all.
46:28 Speaker 00 And it was just you and Cindy?
46:30 Speaker 01 Yes. And, and then what happened was we were at the Munch and Music here in Bend and a guy came up and he says, hey, I'm with, I work with the Bend Bulletin Newspaper. Can we do an article on you? Yeah, sure. Fine. So we were on the front page of the business newspaper, Bend Bulletin. And the following Thursday, a guy comes up and he says, hey, I'm a sales rep and I want to rep Hydro Flask.
47:01 Speaker 00 Wow.
47:02 Speaker 01 Yeah. His name is Brent and he lives in Bend and he's a sales rep. And he wanted to rep the bottles in, in sporting goods stores throughout the Northwest.
47:14 Speaker 00 And what was he selling at the time? What was his other main product?
47:17 Speaker 01 I think he had like skis and socks and other outdoor products.
47:24 Speaker 00 So he was like, hey, I like this product. I want to work with you. How did you even, how did you know he wasn't a scammer?
47:29 Speaker 01 I didn't.
47:31 Speaker 00 You didn't?
47:31 Speaker 01 Yeah, no, he, I said, okay, well, what do you need? And he said, I need 48 bottles. And at that point, we were down to less than a thousand. And I was like, I don't know, man. I don't, I don't, I'm not going to just give you free bottles.
47:46 Speaker 00 He wanted the bottles so he could go around and offer them as samples to retailers.
47:50 Speaker 01 Right. And I said, I just don't feel comfortable giving you 48. I said, I'll give you a 24 and then you tell me how you did with the 24. And he sold 22 of the 24 doors and opened them up.
48:06 Speaker 00 He sold them to where? To like individual sporting goods stores?
48:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
48:10 Speaker 00 Just like around in, in Oregon mainly?
48:13 Speaker 01 Oregon, Idaho, Washington.
48:16 Speaker 00 And what were these like, these are bomb and pop stores, presumably many of them. So they were probably ordering no more than a hundred of these bottles at a time.
48:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, we started out with, our, our minimum was 12 and then we bumped it up to 24.
48:31 Speaker 00 12 bottle minimum.
48:32 Speaker 01 Yeah. Cause they came in 12 bottle boxes. And as soon as we figured that, okay, people are buying 12 and they're starting to reorder, we, we bumped it up to 24 per case. And the accounts started getting bigger and bigger. And so we picked up a couple more sales reps on the East Coast and a couple in the Midwest. And pretty soon we started getting more sales reps and opening bigger and bigger accounts.
49:00 Speaker 00 And meantime, you get into Whole Foods and then to Dick's Sporting Goods, but that's not nationally. That's just in Oregon initially.
49:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, when we got the first 1,500 bottles in and brought them from Salem over to Bend, because my grandpa kicked us out of the garage. I thought, well, we just got a Whole Foods in Bend. What if I just go check it out and see what they say? And so I walked into Whole Foods and I said, hey, I'm here to sell water bottles. And they sent me back to the lady who buys water. And she said, where's the water? I said, there's no water. It's just the bottle. And she's like, ah, that doesn't make any sense. I said, well, it's a water bottle. And she goes, yeah, go talk to Evan. And so I go back and I, there's a man laying on the floor and he's pulling water bottles out of the bottom shelf. And they were SIG and they had BPA in them.
49:53 Speaker 01 And I said, hey, good news. I'm Travis from Hydro Flask. I got these water bottles to replace those. And he says, is there BPA? I said, nope, it's all metal. He goes, okay, fine. How many do you have? We had about six colors and he says, fine, I'll take a case of each. And so, once we got the Whole Foods order, just for that one Bend location, I basically used that all across town.
50:18 Speaker 00 You would say, hey, we're in Whole Foods.
50:19 Speaker 01 Yeah. And people are like, oh, good enough for Whole Foods, good enough for us.
50:23 Speaker 00 And I think it's changed now that Amazon owns it, but Whole Foods, like stores, had a lot of autonomy to do that. Now, you still see that, like local and stuff, but now it's more regional. So you could actually sell into one Whole Foods. And so they, this one Whole Foods in Bend starts to sell them.
50:40 Speaker 01 Yeah.
50:40 Speaker 00 And, but how does, then as you, as this product is kind of gaining some traction, right?
50:50 Speaker 00 Then what's the next step? I mean, was there like a trade show that you could go to? Did you start to cold call or was Brent cold call? I mean, he had connections. Was he going to bigger retailers? Like what? Tell me a little bit about how you start to expand this this out into other stores.
51:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, luckily Brent said, hey, you got to go to this thing called the Outdoor Retail Show in Salt Lake City, and it's where all of the outdoor product companies come to show what's new for the season. We couldn't afford a actual proper booth, but we paid to get in and we took a bunch of bamboo and kind of laced and wrapped together a hut to put up our banners. And we were the only water bottle company there. And pretty soon the buyers started coming and seeing who's who's selling water bottles. And and then with that, we had other sales reps that would come to the booth and they'd say, hey, I
51:51 Speaker 01 have this little tiny region in this area or this massive region in this country. And we're sales reps and we want to sell the bottles.
51:59 Speaker 00 So this really was, and again, I can't, I don't know for sure, but it was probably one of the first brands that was doing this, right? My question is for you, and this might be a sensitive question, was your design patented? Did you have this protected?
52:15 Speaker 01 Well, what we did was we ended up getting design patents. And so there's utility patents that are like for the insulation and we couldn't get that because that had already existed.
52:26 Speaker 00 You could not patent the vacuum technology?
52:28 Speaker 01 Correct. And so what we did was we designed patented the design, the shapes and the sizes of the bottles and made sure that it was on the packaging, front and center, patent pending or patented. And what I found was that a lot of people who maybe would have been competitors saw patented and they figured, oh, well, they've got the vacuum insulated market, we'll just leave them be. And it helped for about six or eight months that people just kind of left us alone and weren't really doing double all vacuum insulated bottles until, oh, wait, it's just design patent. And then they started designing around it.
53:10 Speaker 00 Right. Because I would imagine as people saw how effective these were. You've got a lot of companies out there that are like, okay, we could do this. We can do this. This technology, they don't own this technology.
53:23 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think Clean Canteen was the first. And when I found out that they were doing vacuum insulation, I thought, oh, man, it's over. You know, we're, we're out of business because they're selling the single wall so well. I'm sure they're going to sell the double wall. And they used the different vacuum technique. They used one that was a little bit easier, a little bit less expensive, and it didn't, didn't look as good. And it ended up not working as well. So that that gave us a bit more of a runway to run with it.
53:54 Speaker 00 Okay. And so I have to imagine you've got no cash, because if the demand is high, and you've got to constantly, the money's got to constantly be recycled out, you've no money, for example, for marketing.
54:08 Speaker 01 Yeah, luckily, we had a friend who was a banker. And so she could help us find different banks that would give us a line of credit and credit cards. My grandparents took out a second mortgage on their house, and we borrowed and sold everything that we could just to keep buying more bottles.
54:28 Speaker 00 When we come back in just a moment, money problems bring the business to the brink, until Travis gets a visit from an unexpected investor. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.
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56:28 Speaker 00 Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2009 and Travis is gearing up for his biggest shipment of water bottles yet, 40,000 of them. He spends all of November in China watching them being made, but when he gets home, he's in for a shock.
56:47 Speaker 01 I get home and the bottles show up and we found that they had rusted and they were not insulated. So I ended up going right back to the factory in December of '09 and said, hey, what happened? And we found the machine and we figured out what was wrong. And I negotiated another 40,000 bottles to replace the rusted 40,000 and a 120-day payment after they arrived. And so they said, okay, yep, we'll do that. I come home and in February,
57:27 Speaker 01 we get a call that we owed for the second 40,000 bottles, you know, about $250,000. And I said, no, no, I have a net 120 after they land. And they said, no, you owe us for another 40,000. And so I had a, I had a kind of a list of people who had always said they wanted to help us if they could. And I called the list and, and finally I found a local banker who was a big hydro flask fan and he really believed in it. And he said, all right, yeah, I'll, I'll lend you the 250 to get the second 40,000.
58:05 Speaker 00 All right. So you've got now, you've got this good problem and a bad problem, which is there's, you, you have very little access to cash, but you're selling a lot. And meantime, I think on a personal front, things are kind of breaking down at the company. So let's start, first of all, I think your relationship with Cindy, who you started this business with is, is, is falling apart. Is that right?
58:29 Speaker 01 Yes. When it got too hard with the rest of bottles, she took off back to Hawaii.
58:34 Speaker 00 But it sounds like you were probably on the way to splitting up anyway, because I can't imagine that the water bottles alone was the reason why she left.
58:42 Speaker 01 We had been on and off for quite a while. And, and I think that just the sheer overwhelm of the situation was enough to send her on her way.
58:55 Speaker 00 All right. Travis, I want to, I want to acknowledge something for a moment here because I, I know that your perspective during this time was that you felt blindsided and you, you've talked about before and in other interviews about feeling betrayed, not just by Cindy, but by some of the other people that, that were working in the business. And, and I can't independently verify all of this here, right? This isn't a documentary or, or like investigative report, but I am, I'm curious about something, right? Cause you're obviously smart, you're a smart guy. You came up with this idea, you built it, you pushed it forward with a ton of conviction. But when it came to judging the character of the people around you,
59:34 Speaker 00 do you feel like that was an area where you struggled or, or maybe you just didn't have the tools to do that?
59:42 Speaker 01 I don't really like HR. I'm not great. I trust people. I just, I take people at face value. It always surprises me still to this day when people are dishonest or they have ulterior motives. And I'm probably not a real good judge of that. You're right, Guy.
59:59 Speaker 00 But you were lucky, I guess, with this guy Brent because he, he sounds like he, he really helped you expand and sell.
1:00:05 Speaker 01 He was awesome and he brought in other sales reps. Unfortunately, what happened was he said that we were not going to be able to get into REI within a year. And I knew that we probably could. And he was adamant that he wasn't even going to try. And so we had to let him go and replace him with a larger firm, but he was, he was instrumental in getting us up and going.
1:00:31 Speaker 00 Okay. So now you've got this complicated situation, which is you've broken up with Cindy, who, who technically started this with you. Whether you feel like you did 90% of the work or not, doesn't matter. She still owns half the shares or part of the company. So you guys are splitting apart, but you do have this potentially growing business here. Approaching, you know, $12 million in sales by 2011. And I guess you get approached or both of you get approached by somebody who wants to basically buy you guys out, buy this company from you, an investor named Jim Collis. Tell me what the story is.
1:01:09 Speaker 01 Well, so after she left and I started hiring new employees, that second 40,000 bottles came in and we ran out of money. We had about 10 employees at that point. And had no more money in the bank on a, on a Wednesday night, I remember. And so I write this letter that says, you know, dear employees, I'm sorry, but I'm, I'm going to have to close down the business. And I was going to read it to him Friday morning and Friday morning I call everybody into the office to tell them that we're closing down and the phone rings and the lady at the
1:01:51 Speaker 01 front desk says, there's this guy here who wants to see you. And he says, Travis, I'm here to talk to you. And I said, I'm sorry, I'm not hiring and I'm not even interested. Thank you. And he says, well, I might want to invest. So I call off the meeting and I tell him, yeah, you know, we need 80,000 bottles. And he goes, okay, how much money? I said, how about a million dollars? And he says, okay, you know, of course, he looked at the books and he did some due diligence and things. It wasn't quite that easy. But he wrote us a check and I was able to buy more bottles. And that's when he came in as an investor and started helping inside the office even with the books. And we hired a CFO at that point and grew.
1:02:35 Speaker 00 So this was in 2011, right? And, and so now you've got some capital behind you. And I mean, look, the story, at least from your perspective, ends not that long after. I mean, you were going to exit in 2012 and sell your shares. And at that point, you know, it's doing well. It's not what it is today. It's not as huge of a brand today, but I think you're doing about 12 million in sales. Tell me when you start to think to yourself, I just want out. I'm done.
1:03:08 Speaker 01 I got to a point where we got REI, we had Whole Foods, we were an international company, we were all over Europe and Asia and starting in on the South Pacific. And I was a little tired of being on the road and living in hotels and in the factories. And I felt like that season was just drawing to an end. I was tired. And then when the investor bought out my partner.
1:03:38 Speaker 00 Cindy?
1:03:38 Speaker 01 Right, yeah. It put him to 51% and I was at 49. And he brought in the corporate playbook and said, here's what we're going to do. And this is what it's going to look like. And I took a look at it and I said, no, I don't, I don't want to do that. So negotiated my way out.
1:03:57 Speaker 00 Okay. 2012 is when you're out. And so it's, it's growing. There's potential there. By this point, there's already competitors. There's lots of competitors in 2012. But Hydro Flask is one of the brands out there. One of the first, if not the first, double walled insulated water bottle. I'm curious, and again, I understand why you would want to be out. It's just, it's a grind. But a lot of people would also stay. They would say, okay, I got this investor. Now we can scale. And maybe I'm not really a CEO type. Maybe I'm more of a creative visionary type and I need a professional operations guy.
1:04:40 Speaker 00 I need professional people to really scale this and I'll kind of just focus on branding, you know, or something like that. And this happens a lot. So I'm curious if, if any of those ever crossed your mind.
1:04:53 Speaker 01 I felt like I'd accomplished everything that I'd really set out to accomplish. And I didn't want to continue down the path of the corporate route. My original goal was to sell 2,500 bottles. You know, I wasn't looking to, to retire and, and move out into a castle. And I remember I woke up with just a whole weight that had lifted from my body. And I realized, oh, wait, you're not the Hydro Flask guy anymore. And that, I did, I separated from them and they changed the quality. They changed the price.
1:05:36 Speaker 01 They've changed some of the manufacturing techniques. I don't even really drink out of the bottles anymore. After some of their ad campaigns and things, I, I've separated myself even further with them.
1:05:49 Speaker 00 So eventually they Hydro Flask was acquired by Helen of Troy, which is a, you know, they own a bunch of different brands for over $200 million. That was in 2016. And I think they still own it. And it's an international brand. And, and you, I think you, you sort of started in a different business of consulting business, right? For some time. Are you still, are you still doing that? Like helping small businesses get into, into manufacturing and things like that?
1:06:22 Speaker 01 I do. I help do advising for companies that are looking for building their products in factories in the States or in China. But I'm also looking to do another bottle company as well.
1:06:33 Speaker 00 What kind of, yeah, tell me a little bit more about how you would improve on it? Because now it seems like this is a pretty, you know, it's a pretty competitive space, right? There's some, there's some heavy hitters in the, in the bottle business. And how do you differentiate something and make it better and make it competitive?
1:06:54 Speaker 01 I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment. It's a lot like when I saw this sign saying, hey, I have a banner company. I have a sign company. And I thought, huh, I bet I could do that better. And basically, I, I found a way to print on the entire bottle. And so there it's typically the best way to embellish a bottle right now is with the laser engraver. And we started doing that early 2009. We started laser engraving on bottles. And it was great. It was cool technology back in 2009. But this is 2025. We're going into 2026, and it's time that somebody steps up and does something a little bit different.
1:07:37 Speaker 00 When you think about, you know, whether you have criticisms and challenges, issues with what Hydro Flask is today, you can still look at that product wherever you go around the world and say, I invented this. I created this brand. As, as wild as the story is, as implausible as it is, as weird as it is at times.
1:07:59 Speaker 00 You still can say that, and that's pretty amazing. And that's going to be, you know, very likely a big part of your story, right? When your, when your time comes to an end. But when you think about this thing that you built and, and, you know, what, what you were able to build out of it, how much of, of, of that do you attribute to luck? And how much do you think has to do with just the grind you put in and incredible hard work and, you know, what seemed like endless hours?
1:08:30 Speaker 01 I think that it was a lot of hard work. I think the luck comes in that it hadn't happened yet and the world was ready for it. People were ready to start carrying water bottles with them everywhere they went. And, and so as far as luck goes, I think that that was maybe where the luck was, but I'll always take the good luck when I can get it. It's just sometimes I've had to really look for that luck.
1:09:01 Speaker 00 That's Travis Rosbach, co-founder of Hydro Flask. By the way, Hydro Flask is now the official sponsor of the US National Snowboard Team. It's actually only the second time they've partnered with a major sports program. They also sponsor the US Surfing Team, which kind of makes sense, right? Snow and surf, cold and warm, same bottle, same idea, keep the outside, outside. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And as always, it's free. And if you're interested in insights, ideas and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, sign up for my newsletter at guyross.com or on Substack.
1:09:46 Speaker 00 This episode was produced by Chris Messini with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Claire Murashima. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keely. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Casey Herman, J.C. Howard, Sam Paulson, Catherine Seifer, Kerry Thompson, Andrea Bruce, Ramel Wood and Elaine Coats. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This, and don't stop the podcast just yet because right now, you're about to hear an amazing small business story that you don't want to miss. This segment is presented by American Express. With a business platinum membership, the best just got even better.
1:10:30 Speaker 00 So a few years ago, on a bright sunny day, Brie Van Luen was on vacation with her husband and kids, celebrating a special milestone.
1:10:39 Speaker 05 My little girl, who was turning one, had a cake smash on the beach in Seaside, Florida.
1:10:43 Speaker 00 But right after Brie put some sunscreen on her daughter, the party was cut short.
1:10:48 Speaker 05 In real time, on a video, you can see her having a terrible reaction to the sunscreen. So she got welts and blisters. She was, had a runny nose, itchy, watery eyes.
1:10:57 Speaker 00 This had never happened before, but this brand of sunscreen was new to her.
1:11:03 Speaker 05 And it turned out that this sunscreen had an ingredient called butyl octo silicite.
1:11:07 Speaker 00 It's a chemical added to some commercial sunscreens to help boost sun protection. And after testing dozens of other brands and consulting an allergist, Brie realized that her child's skin was sensitive to this specific chemical.
1:11:22 Speaker 05 And it's a problem for a lot of children.
1:11:24 Speaker 00 There are sunscreens Brie could have used without that chemical, like zinc oxide. You know, the thick, pasty, white stuff that you can't really rub in? Her kids were not having any of it.
1:11:36 Speaker 05 The older your child gets, the more they're, "Oh, don't put that on, I look white, don't put that on me." And the truth is, I wouldn't put white, cakey sunscreen on myself and expect to go out and do my day. And yet I was expecting my little girl to go out and go to school and walk out the door looking like ridiculous.
1:11:55 Speaker 00 The alternative was to skip sunscreen altogether, but that was not an option.
1:12:00 Speaker 05 Melanoma runs in my family on both sides. My mom's side and my dad's side. I have aunts and uncles and cousins. It's everywhere in my gene pool.
1:12:08 Speaker 00 So Bree decided to take matters into her own hands. She set out to make a mineral-based sunscreen that didn't leave a ghostly white film, and that didn't include the chemical that affected her daughter either.
1:12:21 Speaker 05 I think the best inventor is desperation, and I was a desperate mom that needed something.
1:12:26 Speaker 00 She found a chemist to prototype formulas, and it took them weeks to create each new batch. And then they'd send it off to an independent facility for testing.
1:12:37 Speaker 05 We failed our SPF test over and over and over again.
1:12:41 Speaker 00 Every round took months.
1:12:43 Speaker 05 And at some point, I realized, oh, this is why companies do this. This is why companies compromise and they put these ingredients in. One is to save money, and two is to save formulation time.
1:12:54 Speaker 00 But Bree persevered, and finally, after four years of trial and error, she hit on the right formula. So in 2024, she launched her new brand to the public: Daily Shade Sunscreen.
1:13:09 Speaker 05 Standing in the manufacturing lab, watching it be produced, was one of the coolest moments of my entire life. When I thought, if this is what being an entrepreneur is, and this is what being an inventor is, sign me up, because I've never had a feeling like this in my entire life. And then to see my children recognize, "My mom made this for me," topped it.
1:13:30 Speaker 00 Today, putting on Daily Shade Sunscreen is an important part of the morning routine in Bree's household.
1:13:36 Speaker 05 It's almost funny at this point, because my kids will come in the kitchen. "Did you brush your teeth?" "No." "Did you buy the sunscreen?" "Yes."
1:13:42 Speaker 00 And after years of hard work, Bree didn't more than create a product for her children. She gave them a role model.
1:13:50 Speaker 05 When I ask my daughters, "What do you picture yourself doing when you grow up?" Their answer is, "I want to own my own company and change the world."
1:13:57 Speaker 00 That's Bree Van Leeuwen of Daily Shade Sunscreen. And that's our Small Business Spotlight, presented by American Express. To build a business like no other, you need a card like no other. There's nothing like Business Platinum.
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