while shifting gears can Water company liquid death raising 70
million in a series D round led by Science inc
company founded in 2017 offered a wide selection of flavored
still and sparkling water packed in a 16.9 ounce aluminum
can. Well, the Tallboy drinks sold in at
least 60,000 stores all over the country, including in
chains like 7, 11 whole foods and others.
And the company claiming that you can quote murder your
thirst okay with his products, which are also the
top selling steel water brand in the US Mike,
Cesario, co founder and Ceo of liquid death did
joined me earlier to discuss, you know, we
started off selling still water in a can. Um
, and that started beating some of the big players
in the retailers where, where we were being sold
. And then a year after that we launched a
premium sparkling water that started out selling other big premium
sparkling brands where we were being sold. And then
just this past january, we launched the first flavored
sparkling and it's a little bit different than Lacroix or
waterloo or these other brands, ours is 20 calories
, has three g of sugar from agave nectar.
So it's got a lot more flavor than the typical
zero cow, zero sweetener, sparkling. And it's
been insanely successful and it's a big reason why we
raised the round. Um, now that we've sort
of proven that this brand is a lot bigger than
just kind of water in a can. We've been
kind of able to win across every category so far
. I think this is so aptly timed, of
course, Halloween around the corner as well. The
product line called liquid death, Again, extremely popular
on Tiktok Mike. How did you come up with
the name? Well, when you're launching a new
product, especially in beverage that's highly competitive where the
big guys like coke and Pepsi literally own everything.
Your only chance to survive is the product itself has
to be insanely share a ble, you need everybody
to naturally talk about it, post photos of it
in order to spread awareness about the brand without you
having to pay for every eyeball. So when we
really took that seriously when developing the packaging and the
name, you know, you had to find something
that was truly going to be terrible and drive a
lot of awareness without us having to pay for all
the away. So I think a lot of people
will look at this, right? And this is
maybe semantics, but that water actually gives us life
, not death. So is there any further meaning
behind liquid death other than it is pretty catchy.
Right. And the branding obviously is pretty catchy that
we see, especially on social. Yeah, at
the end of the day, all we're really doing
is sort of making fun of all the extreme,
you know, unhealthy marketing that's out there. The
whole point of the brand is how can you take
healthy beverages, the healthiest thing you can drink like
water or a low calorie, you know, soda
and market it in the same way that all the
unhealthy brands market, why can't healthy products have just
as much fun irreverence humor as beer companies. Energy
drink companies. Candy companies. So that's kind of
what it is. It's about having fun. It's
about comedy and humor. We don't take ourselves too
seriously. And I think that's why people sustainability such
a hot topic these days mike, especially when we
talk about items that can actually be recycled. Right
? I assume like some of these cans is sustainability
of focus for your company. Yeah, I mean
, we have a big death to plastic mission,
you know, that's a big part of the name
to why is it liquid death? Well, we're
helping to bring death to plastic bottles because aluminum cans
are infinitely recyclable and it's really one of the only
materials that actually gets recycled. Plastic doesn't actually get
recycled. When you put it in your blue bin
, it goes to recycling facility, they send it
to a landfill because they go out of business trying
to recycle it. There's no real economy for recycled
plastic. And there never really has been. But
yeah, that's a big part of it. So
recently raising a round of funding. How are you
going to grow this brand? And how important is
social for the next phase. I mean, we
look at social media, it's really just a slang
term for the Internet. I mean when people are
saying I'm going on the Internet nine times out of
10, you're going on some social platform and scrolling
to find your entertainment, your news, your friends
, family, all of that. So to say
, social isn't important in today's day and age is
essentially saying that the Internet doesn't matter. Um,
so social is a key part of how we communicate
with people where our content lives and, and and
all of that. Alright, thanks again to the
co founder and Ceo of liquid death mike Cesario.