Kara Goldin | Founder of Hint Water | Pizza & 40s

We're gonna get this thing started. This is Cara from Hint Water. I'm gonna let her kind of kick things off by just describing her company, a little bit about her background, and then we'll kind of get into some more specific questions. And how it's gonna work is I'm gonna ask her some questions, kind of COVID the beverage industry, what's going on, how she started this company, why she started this company, and then we're gonna open up for Q&A at the end. So if you have some questions, hang on to those to the end. We'll pass mics around and we'll make sure we get those answered for for you. So to start off, Kara, just a little background and introduce yourself.

Great. OK, so thanks, you guys. So how many have had Hint before? So, yay, so awesome. I'm going to stand up, actually. So that's really exciting because when I started this company, I used to ask that question and there'd be like 2 people in the audience. And it was really depressing. So it's really, really great to know that more and more people— and I guess we're the largest beverage today in tech firms throughout Silicon Valley, so it's been really, really exciting to see the support of the tech firms really support a San Francisco born and bred brand too, which is really, really awesome. So thanks for having me. And basically, just a little bit about the Hint background and my story. So I never dreamed of starting a beverage company. I wasn't that little girl laying in bed saying, one day I'm going to start the next Red Bull. I basically started in media and started actually in magazines and wanted, always dreamt of being a writer and couldn't get hired at Fortune magazine and so I ended up working in circulation, which is probably the most boring department within magazines, but I did it and then very soon thereafter I went in to work for a guy named Ted Turner at CNN when you guys are in airports across the country. I wrote the original business plan for the CNN Airport Channel and launched it into airports in a time when nobody sort of knew what that business could ultimately be. And I moved out to Silicon Valley with my husband, almost, we were engaged at that point, from New York. And he wanted to be in technology law. And I said, OK, sure, San Francisco sounds great. I grew up in Arizona, so it was getting me from New York back to the West Coast. And while I was planning my wedding, a guy named Walt Mossberg— do you guys know who Walt Mossberg is? He writes a lot of technology stuff. So I was reading an article that he wrote in the Wall Street Journal about a guy named Steve Jobs who was doing a really, really interesting thing— I found it really interesting— which was taking content and putting it on a CD-ROM and sticking it in the machine. And basically the average consumer, when baud modem speeds were like maybe 9600 baud modem speeds, you would stick this disc in and the average consumer would think that their computer was doing a lot more than it actually was just by reading the CD. And so he had started a project inside Apple, basically wasn't gonna continue that project within Apple. And so 3 guys that worked at Apple started this company called 2Market way back when, 1994, just dating exactly when this was all going on. And so I just called up the guy in the Walt Mossberg article who was the head of marketing for this company 2Market. And I said, I'd love to come and hear not only about the company, but how you guys are actually going to make money. And he said, sure, come down for lunch. We're in San Mateo. You live in San Francisco. It's not too far away. So I go down for lunch and meet with this head of marketing, Mike Minigan. And he said, do you mind if this other guy Steve joins us for lunch? And I said, no, not at all. Hey Steve, how are you? So he's like, hey, I'm Steve Case. I'm like, awesome. Nice to meet you. What's your company? And he's like— America Online, and I was like, American Online? Like, why do you call it America Online? And so we sat there at lunch and I sort of poked holes in his business a little bit, and I think he thought I was, he called me spunky, I think, when we were sitting there at lunch, and I was like, I don't know, I'm just curious how you, like, how this company actually makes money. And so it ended up that he had invested in this company and he owned part of the company and Steve Jobs, or Apple, owned part of the company. And by the end of lunch, he hired me to go and run the business development for this thing called 2Market. 6 months later, they— AOL actually acquired this company. And he sat me down with this other guy, Ted Leonsis, and said, OK, you run shopping. And this other guy runs news. And this other guy runs sports. And so I am all of a sudden running this channel called Shopping. And nobody thought that shopping was actually going to be anything. And suddenly lots of commerce companies were actually selling stuff online. And I thought, wow, this is super fun and really awesome. And nobody's giving me any P&L or anything to be responsible for. So how awesome. And so I'm running this company, this little company within the larger company AOL. I think I was employee 74 at AOL. And finally, by the time I ended up leaving in 2001, I was traveling about 300,000 miles per year, was running $1 billion in revenue for AOL, and was just like, I was the first, actually, first vice president, female vice president at AOL, and also the youngest vice president at AOL. So, it was a lot. I should have been super happy and thought, you know, I've accomplished a lot and it was really, you know, I was super happy with what I had accomplished, but I couldn't really figure out why I wasn't super fulfilled with what I was doing. And as I was telling some members of my team earlier that it wasn't anything that Steve or Ted or anybody was doing at AOL, it was really a matter of, you know, me just sort of finding myself and kind of trying to understand what was really gonna make me happy. And I had just had my second child when I was leaving AOL and decided I'm gonna take a little break. We redid a house in San Francisco. My husband was at Netscape and was an attorney over there. And I just thought, like, I don't know what I really, really wanna do with my life. And while I'm trying to figure it out, Actually had another baby, so baby number 3, and then lost the baby weight and looked in the mirror, and for the first time in my life, I had adult acne. I was 50 pounds overweight beyond the baby weight, and I had no energy. I wanted to go to bed, like, for most of the day, and I had no desire to actually go out and find a job. And I went to a number of different doctors in San Francisco, traveled to New York, traveled to LA. Was looking for the best doctors throughout the country to sort of help me fix this problem that I was having. And a bunch of doctors said to me, like, this is what happens when you have babies close to one another, and as you get older, your hormones adjust, and all this stuff that just seemed like yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, and I didn't really understand what they were talking about. And so I basically found this guy in New York that I really liked a lot and said, Okay, I really like wanna believe you and I really think like of all the doctors that I saw, like you seem to make the most sense. And so what should I do to get this weight off, to get rid of this acne and get my energy back? And his response was, take these injections, take these pills and you'll be better. And I was like, okay, I'm in my early 30s at that point and I'm, like, what am I, how long am I gonna be on this medication? Like, why am I on this medication? Do I have something that I'm reading about called type 2 diabetes, or what exactly is going on? And nobody could really give me the answer. So I got the prescriptions and I came back to San Francisco, and I went home and sort of cried and just thought like, here I've like, you know, been pretty successful, I'm not very happy, and I've got these great kids, and like everything's supposed to be super great, and I just don't feel well, and maybe I should take the medication. And while I was really thinking about it, I looked down at what I was drinking, which was my favorite friend, my Diet Coke. And I drank so much Diet Coke. And I was a competitive gymnast growing up in Arizona. I should have been drinking lots of water, and instead I was drinking Diet Coke my whole life. And so I started reading the label one day and thought, what am I drinking? Like, what am I putting into my body? My stomach didn't feel that great. I just thought, like, if I'm really going to go and start taking medication, maybe I should really understand what I'm putting into my body and figure this out. And so I just decided, I'm going to throw it in the garbage and see what happens. I told my husband, I'm not gonna drink this Diet Coke anymore and see what happens. And he was like, so you've been drinking Diet Coke for a long time. Like, this isn't just gonna happen. Like, you're gonna be a nightmare. Like, how are you gonna do this? And like, you've got babies and like, how is this all gonna work? And I was like, nope. I'm like, I'm not gonna drink one. I'm just gonna like throw it in the garbage and see what happens. And so day 1 went by and I was like, this is not really fun at all. Day 2 went by, I felt horrible. I felt like I had the flu. Day 3 went by and I'm like, okay, like I've got a really bad headache, but I've got a really bad stomachache. Maybe I do have the flu. So 2 weeks went by and I'm just like, how much longer is this gonna last? I was exhausted. I was just like, wow, how is this? 'cause how am I actually gonna start to feel normal again? And a friend came over and she said, "Wow, you look like your skin, I don't know what you're doing with your skin, but your skin, you just look clearer and you look like you've lost a little bit of weight." And I'm like, "I feel like shit. I'm trying to get off the Diet Coke and I feel terrible and whatever." And so I got on the scale 2.5 weeks later And I had lost, and this isn't normal at all, but I had lost 24 pounds in 2.5 weeks. It was crazy. So no more acne, 24 pounds later, and I'm like, just by changing the Diet Coke. And so that was really the point where I really thought like, God, I thought diet was really good for me. Like, why am I, I'm a smart person. I'm a marketer. Like, how could I have been so fooled for so many years? Like, this is really disturbing that I was so dumb about it. And then I went in my refrigerator and I saw that I was filling up my kids' sippy cups with fresh-squeezed Atwala juice. And I thought, all I'm doing every day is starting my kids' life with sugar. Like, how stupid is this that we're living in a society where we're just tricked by these little words like diet and fresh and vitamin and all this stuff, and we sort of take it for granted that these things are actually better for them, or at least I did. So I started to preach to my friends, as many of them would say, and I'd go out to lunch with them and I'd say, you know, like, how do you really know things are healthy? Like, how do you know, like, when you're having a chicken, like, does it have hormones in it? Does it not have hormones in it? And I was way ahead. Like, today, especially in San Francisco, people talk about this stuff. But I was like, I was just focused on this and really, really excited about this whole thing that I couldn't exactly define exactly what it was. And so in the meantime, I was interviewing. I was interviewing at Google and almost took a job at Google. Probably shoulda, coulda, didn't. But anyway, I really was just so passionate about just looking at the food environment and was so disturbed by, again, how I had been tricked and thought, I really need to do something about this and really, you know, figure out a way to sort of, you know, make this, make this something that I should do even as a hobby. So for the next 6 months, I, I continued on my journey and really researching food and beverages and really understanding really what was in a lot of our food and it just really sickened me. And one day I went to Whole Foods on California and Franklin Street and walked in and just started chatting with the guy. Poor guy, he thought, "This woman has way too much time on her hands." And I'm like, "Hey, I'm really interested in the beverage business and I really wanna find water that just has a little bit of flavor in it 'cause I've never I've never been a water drinker and I just want something with a little bit of flavor. And the guy was like, oh, well, there's this product, great product called Vitaminwater. And I'm like, okay, well, let's look at the ingredients together. And so we sat there and looked at the ingredients together. And at that time, Vitaminwater had more sugar in it than a can of Coke. And so we were having a moment where he was like, wow, Wow, it's crazy, they sell it in Whole Foods. It's not really healthy at all. I'm like, I know, isn't this crazy? So we were having a moment of going back and forth on this. Anyway, I walked out of the store and I came back a couple of days later and I said, where would I find this product that I'm talking to you about? He's like, I don't think it exists. Something with just real fruit in it that doesn't have sugar and sweeteners in it. And I'm like, I don't wanna go back to really being hooked on sweeteners, so I gotta find this product. And there's another market in San Francisco called Rainbow Market. I went to Rainbow Market, and then I went and checked out all the Korean delis in New York. And I searched this whole country for this product and really didn't wanna launch Hint. I mean, I was like, this is not what I should be doing, and someone else should be doing this company. And so finally I went back to my buddy at Whole Foods and I said, listen, I'm going to launch this product and you're going to put it on the shelf. And his response was like, okay, lady, whatever. And I'm like, seriously, like, I'm going to go do it and just you wait, I'll be back. So probably more information and details than you guys need to hear, but a week later I found out that I was pregnant with my fourth child. So I went home to tell my husband that I was— I sat him down and I said, so I'm launching a beverage company. Remember, I've never done this before, but I'm going to do it. And I've talked to the guy at Whole Foods and he's going to put it on the shelf. And, you know, he is sitting there looking at me like, Is there some hormonal imbalance? Like, what is she talking about? And I was like, okay, so before you say anything more, like, there's more. And he said, what is it? And I said, I'm pregnant with our fourth child, which wasn't planned, I know, but I am. And we're gonna do all of this all together. And he walked out of the room. And if you know Theo, I mean, it was, It was, he's sort of a Seinfeld number 2, but he walks out of the room and just shaking his head and said nothing. And I wasn't sure if he was gonna come back actually after that. Like he was just like, what is she talking about? And so anyway, my timeline for launching this Hint product was before my son Justin was born. I was having a planned C-section at Cal Pacific. And I said, I'm going to get this product on the shelf at Whole Foods before my son is born. And anyone who's been in the beverage industry, I was actually 3 months pregnant. And so I had a little less than 6 months to actually do all of this. So the people at Coke and Pepsi have all phoned me and said how impressed they were with how I actually got a product to market in 6 months. 'cause it typically takes them a couple of years. And I of course never knew that 'cause I had never worked in the beverage company to sort of know what timelines were for these different products. So I, on actually, we were running a little behind and on the day that I actually launched the product, I was going at 2 o'clock in the afternoon to Cal Pacific to deliver my baby. And I had not been in Whole Foods talking to this guy. Since I had actually had the last conversation when he promised me that he was going to put it on the shelf. So I showed up giant, and my husband was carrying the cases, and he's like, are you sure this guy's going to do it? And I'm like, oh, he's going to do it for sure. And he's like, I don't, I don't think he's going to do it. I'm like, I don't know, he's going to do it. And I'm like, going to have the baby in the store right now if he doesn't do it. And so I went up to him and I said, do you remember me? And he's like, you weren't that pregnant when you walked in. And I was like, I know, it like sort of happened. Like, I was pregnant, but it sort of happened. And, and, uh, yeah. And so anyway, I really need you to put this product on the shelf. And he was like, well, I don't know. I mean, you know, like, I sort of might have said that. But I was like, no, no, you can't back out now. Like, I have to be at Cal Pacific in 90 minutes. Like, my doctor is waiting there right now. And so I really, really need you guys to do this. And so he's like, okay, fine, I'll put it on the shelf. And I really didn't know when I went to the hospital to deliver Justin whether or not he was actually going to do it. And so I go and deliver Justin and everything was fine. And then the next day the phone rings while I'm in the hospital and my husband picks up the phone and he's talking to somebody on the phone and I'm like, who is it? And he's like, it's the guy from Whole Foods. And I'm like, oh, what's he saying? And he said, he said that the product is gone. And I was like, give me the phone. And so I get him on the phone and I'm like, what do you mean the product is gone? Who took it? And he was like, lady, it's gone. It sold. You sold 10 cases overnight. And I'm like, wow. Crazy, right? I got some water. Cheers. My first beer. So anyway, we get out of the hospital. This is going too long? This is my health? No, we got plenty. So we get out of the hospital, and we go home, and I start making product in the kitchen, which was how I started making this product. So how we made Pint then and how we make it today We make it in larger kitchens now, but we take the skins and oils of fruit and we boil it down and we, it's just a lot of skins and oil inside of a saucepan and we take, I took a medicine dropper and put 2 to 3 drops inside of a bottle. And so initially, 11 years ago now, Whole Foods actually allowed me to make this product in my kitchen and deliver it to Whole Foods, which was super crazy, especially being in the tech industry. I was like, super nuts, but whatever, I'm going with it and it's happening and that's all good. And but it was crazy. So we made some more cases and then, and then we ended up pretty soon after that getting a a co-packer out in Chicago, and I dragged my husband with me when we had our first co-packing partnership out there. And it was interesting when the bottles were rolling off the line, I'll never forget, 'cause he said, "I get it now. Like, you're so excited about this product because you can actually hold a bottle now. Like, for so many years working in tech, you couldn't actually hold a bottle." hold anything. Like, it's like your tactile, you know, fascination or whatever, like, of having to hold it. And I'm like, that's not it at all. Like, what I'm trying to do is actually help people drink water. And if we can actually convert people to— from drinking soda or drinking something that's not that great for them to something that is as close to water as water with just a little bit of fruit in it, then I believe we can change health in America. I believe we can change health in the world. 'Cause what I figured out is that I had an addiction to sweet. And I, a longer conversation, but I believe that the world is divided in two between people who are pretty much addicted to sweet or addicted to salt. And sometimes when you have both in combination, then you're really sick, right? But the world is, it's pretty simple. And when you look at a lot of the diseases around the world, a lot of roads lead back to sort of having an issue with one of those two things. So I really thought if we could actually get people to drink our product, or like I said, drink water, whether it's from the tap or from bottled water, and move away from this whole craze of drinking soda, then we could actually do a lot to really help improve health in America. And so after he delivered our second load of cases to Whole Foods, because I really couldn't lift the cases, he came back and said, can I actually have a job? And I was like, and he was like, you know, I've been an attorney, an intellectual property attorney for years, and I love it, but I think what you're doing is is really, really important, and I don't want to be your hubby who's like delivering cases to Whole Foods. Like, can I actually have a role within the company? And I was like, sure, like, what do you want to be? And so I just got out of the hospital and I'm like launching this and I got 4 kids, so you just be whatever you want to be. I don't really care. And so he's like, I would like to be the chief operating officer. I'm like, you got it, you're the chief operating officer. And so, and today he's still the chief operating officer and we work together and torture our whole office with our antics and it's been really, really fun. But it's also, you know, sort of a separate topic too, but it's been a great way, I think, to raise a family too where, you know, you really have a partner that you trust and that you're, able to, you know, have, you know, things that are important to you and your family and things that are important to you and your work. And it's a mission that we both truly believe in, in sort of helping people to just get healthier. So that's the core story of Hintz.

Awesome. First question, you mentioned mission a lot. I know we talked earlier, you mentioned mission a lot. You want to change health, or you want to make the world healthier. And you had mentioned like some people always ask you, well, what happens when Coke makes a knockoff? And you basically said, that's great. That would be a win for you because you ignited change. How important do you think it is to have a mission that you stick to like that as a company? I think a lot of companies lose sight of that. Does that make like hiring easier? Or does that kind of make everything work better when you have that mission that everybody's committed to?

I think it's just part of the authentic story, right, where people can connect to it. And it's interesting because we don't run around the company policing like, are people drinking Red Bull or Diet Coke? It's just not what people do within the company. And I think people are all getting healthier in their own way. I mean, we've got a handful of people who have had— type 2 diabetes, who have had addiction issues, who have had a couple with cancer, a few that had found our product and lost a lot of weight. And I think it's, you know, people are just trying to get healthier in their own way. And like today, I think especially in San Francisco, you have a choice, right? Like you have a choice of what companies you want to work for and what do you want to get up and do every single day. And do you want to be doing something that makes a difference, whether it's in the beverage industry or in tech or in a nonprofit or whatever, like something that you can actually make sense of, that you feel like you're contributing to. So I'm super jazzed every day. I mean, I work, I used to complain about traveling 300,000 miles every year. I probably only traveled 200,000 last year, but it's, You know, still a lot, but it's very rewarding to know that I'm doing something that, you know, frankly has gotten the attention of Coke and Pepsi. And, you know, as we were talking earlier, it's, you know, when these guys are calling me and arguing with me about sweeteners don't actually contribute to type 2 diabetes, and I'm like, really, you're like talking to me? Like, I just live in San Francisco. I'm messing with you. Like, don't— like, it's no big deal. But it's really— I'm proud of what we're doing. And I really think if you're working with a product of any kind that really helps to contribute to society in some way for a positive response, that that's pretty awesome.

I also think it's interesting. I mean, you're coming from a tech background into the beverage industry. Are there things you took with you from working in tech for so long? I know you mentioned like the build the airplane while flying it kind of mentality that you got from working in tech and brought that over. Are there any other kind of things that you learned that helped you? Was it helpful being an outsider?

Yeah, I think particularly, I mean, I look back on two jobs in particular that were amazing. One was actually working for Ted Turner at CNN. CNN, and you guys all heard of Ted Turner? So, okay, not too old. But it's just, he was very much about building the airplane while flying it, as we were talking about, and basically it's okay to make mistakes. And so many things that he said along the way still come back to me. Like if somebody starts talking about price at any point, you've got them at that point. That it's, whether it's a job negotiation or whether it's a sale of a product or whatever, then they actually want the product. So things like that always came back. But it's fascinating. And then at AOL too, I mean, being at AOL when employee 70-something and then managing a group of 200, when then there were thousands of people in the company. I've always worked on sort of the underdog kind of products within these companies. I mean, there was CNN general network sales when I was there, and I wasn't really interested in doing that. I was interested in doing these new projects, and especially if I could work for like really smart people. So I've always felt like that's the most important thing. But it's, you know, this was the first time when I launched my own company, And I can't say that I ever thought I was gonna be an entrepreneur. I didn't say like, one day I'm gonna go be an entrepreneur. But when I look back, I was always an entrepreneur working in these large companies, just trying to do things a little bit differently that not my mates at work were doing. And I think it's just really, it's important to sort of look at just the disruption that I was creating and the, really positive impact that I had on those businesses and creating something that was really cool. When I look back on even when we launched Hint initially, people were saying like, wait, what are you doing? I mean, we have some of our, I don't know how many of you know Jeff Ralston, who was the first product officer at Yahoo, really good guy. And anyway, Jeff was our first investor in Hint, and he was in our office the other day, and he was like, I still remember looking at you saying, why the hell are you guys launching a beverage company? You could do so many other things. And I just really wanted to do something that made me happy and that I could actually create some kind of change with, which looking back on all these companies, that's what I was doing the whole time.

Did you guys know that 18 of Coca-Cola's 30 lobbyists used to work at work for Philip Morris. Like, it's just crazy. Like, I guess I wasn't even like, I'm just so confused as to how, like, there's this whole movement to find out who makes our clothes, where our clothes come from. We want to know everything about that, but we don't really care, or we just have misinformation about what we're putting in our bodies. Like, how are these companies associated with the, like, how is Coca-Cola associated with the Olympics but not with or at least to as much of an extent with diabetes?

Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, it's sugar. So, and it's really, you know, large public companies when you look at sort of what is the backbone of these companies, and it really boils down to, you know, sugar. And if Coke goes down, then the rest of, you know, the company goes down, because that's when the stock gets hit the most. So in the last 11 years since I started this company, soda sales are in the toilet. They have looked at figuring out ways, and smartly figured out ways, to grow their businesses, both Pepsi and Coke, and sort of going into other countries. So this is a really interesting statistic. When I started Hint, 2% of the population, according to the Center for Centers for Disease Control had Type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. And today 40% of the population in the US has Type 2 diabetes or prediabetes. And a research study on Type 2 diabetes has actually not come out in the last couple of years. And I think, you know, there's a lot of fear around what does that mean, you know, for consumers if that kind of data is really Middle East. But what's even scarier is if you look at markets where, you know, I'll pick on Coke. Coke went into, when their soda sales were declining, they went into Asia. And so today Beijing is one of the largest consumers of Coca-Cola products in the world. And today in Beijing, 50% of the population under the age of 18 has type 2 diabetes. It's the fastest growing country for type 2 diabetes. And remember, this is a country where only until recently you could have more than one child. So I look at companies also that are US companies that are going abroad and ultimately causing world issues as not really doing the right thing either. So it's pretty— it's frightening.

But it's a little scary. Yeah. To kind of like a, back to kind of running the business, you guys transitioned or added selling direct to consumer at one point. What was that decision about? What went into that? How has that worked for you guys?

Yeah, so when we launched Hint, we had no idea that, like basically the first 2 years of running this business, we really like got our MBA in beverage distribution and really understanding like how to actually produce this product. And what we learned was that grocery stores like, you know, Safeway and Publix and Target and some of the larger grocery stores, not the specialty stores like the Whole Foods, but the large grocery stores actually take something called slotting, or yeah, slotting fees from the large beverage companies as well as consumer packaged goods companies, chips companies, ice cream companies, whatever. So, so they do this so that the soda companies will actually stock the shelves so that they don't have to have as many employees in the stores. So for example, in Target, 60% of the shelf today is actually run— decisions are made by Pepsi. Inside of Target. So if Pepsi has their products in there, if you walk into Target and you look at, you know, Pepsi products inside, inside of Target, they have the biggest chunk. And then there's also, you know, a little bit of space for other products like ours. But in the end, they're really running the show within a lot of these stores, and they're called category captains. And so what I realized is that consumers actually don't really have a choice because you walk into stores thinking that the one, you know, the product with the biggest displays or, you know, the most visible products or the one in the cold case or whatever. And what's scary is, is that those products are typically not that great for you. They're really the leaders within whether it's, you know, the, you know, kettle chips or the large products within those portfolios or whatever. And so basically, I looked at this over the years and thought, you know, I used to do e-commerce and why aren't we just going direct and selling our product direct to consumers? We've already built up a loyal audience. And frankly, our investors, we have a lot of investors, and our investors really didn't believe that grocery was actually going to happen online. And so I think in many ways I bet my job on the fact that I really thought that the, that the consumers was ready for this. Amazon had started doing a little bit with direct-to-consumer, so we tested there a little bit and did pretty well and then decided let's just go ahead and launch our own an e-commerce business. And today our e-commerce business is about 35% of our overall business in 2 years, 2 and change. And pretty big subscription business as well with that. So, and what's important to me is that I'm able to have the dialogue with the consumer where if you look at companies not just companies like Publix or Safeway or Whole Foods or even Amazon, you don't own that data. And so I don't really know who's buying my product. I can go back to, at Amazon for example, and buy data to say that my consumer is 25 to 54 and female and lives in Chicago or whatever, but I don't actually get the name. So I can't go back and retarget them. I can't really understand who this consumer is. Do they have health issues? Are they pregnant? Are they, you know, all of these things? So over the last 2 years, we've, um, you know, been really excited to learn that there's a lot of consumers that are affected by sweeteners, just like me, and that people really were having a hard time just drinking plain water because they thought it was boring. And, you know, I could never get that data from a Whole Foods or you know, from any of these conventional markets. So it's been really, really exciting to sort of build that business.

Awesome. Um, last question for me and then we're gonna open up to you guys. So if you have questions, start getting those ready. Um, but yeah, last one for me is, um, I guess the, the question you hear a lot of young people always asking is, um, how do you know it's the right time to start a company? Or how, like, how do I know I should like do this? And I think the frequent answer is you, you don't, you just do it. But from your perspective, somebody coming from, not only like did you work in tech and then started a tech business from tech to the beverage industry, such a big jump. Like how did you, what was your mindset and how did you kind of feel comfortable taking that risk, I guess?

So I tell entrepreneurs all the time that it's like, look around you and figure out what you like doing and what problem seems most obvious to you. That you think you can solve that maybe your friends kind of look at you like, really? Like, you think that's really interesting? And figure out like, is that yours, right? Is that your card to sort of take a look at and actually spend time on and figure out is there a business around it? Because I look at, you know, I had a story back from when I launched Hint, 6 months into it, I really, looked at the business and we hadn't figured out how to get a shelf life on the beverage. And, you know, we were like really, really not sure whether or not we would actually be able to scale this business because of the fruit and the bottle and the shelf life. And I didn't want to use preservatives, etc. And I actually called an executive at Coke that a friend of mine introduced me to, and really nice guy. But I told him, I said, listen, I'm in San Francisco, I've never done beverages before I worked in tech, and you can just have this company. Like, I've launched it and we're in like 10 markets around the Bay Area, and it's doing pretty well. And he interrupted me and said, "Sweetie, Americans love sweet." And I was like, did he just call me sweetie? And I just like put the phone down for a second and I lost him for like 5 minutes 'cause I was just like, you know, what an asshole. Like he just called me a sweetie, and then I was like, well, maybe he's from the South, like, I don't know, like, maybe, I don't know, like a lot of things were going through my head. And then finally, I, it was interesting, my reaction, because I came back to the phone and I was like, a light bulb went off, and I was like, see, he doesn't think the same way that I think. Like, he really thinks that Americans love sweet, and so I have runway. To go and launch this company because he's not focused on a company with no sweeteners. And so actually, 18 months later, a friend of mine who worked at Coke was in a meeting and there was a deck and it had me in the deck and I was a mom in Marin and I had overalls and he photoshopped me with braids and I was like this really backass thing that I was like launching this company and he was like, we can't like let Hint get to the point where Vitaminwater got to and we had to pay $4.2 billion for that company. And so, you know, it's just, it's amazing what you can learn when you actually listen to the naysayers. And I think it's, So, you know, it's an important thing that I've always been able to, you know, I'll listen for a minute and then, you know, I don't wanna be around the naysayers, but I think you can actually learn, especially when you think like people are on a different path.

Absolutely, that's awesome advice. All right, so we're gonna do questions. Do we have mics in the back? Okay, here, you guys can just call them out. There we go, all right. Uh, here, right here. There's some lights.

I have a question regarding, uh, your containers. I see that you only use plastic containers, and I like the mission that you're going against Coke and any kind of soda. Why are you not using cans as a way of containing your product?

Because it's kind of like the smarter way, you know, like you—

cans are environmentally much easier to recycle and they're more, what's that called, based on soda.

So it's kind of like if someone were to go to the grocery market and buy soda, they would be choosing your site or thinking about it at least.

So that's just my question. Yeah, so it's a great question and I actually did an article on LinkedIn about this about a year ago. And so it's very rare that I actually drink out of cans because 100% of the cans today are lined with BPA. And so you may see cans on them that say no BPA because the definition of a can is the cylinder. And so the BPA is actually put in the top of the can. So soda and beer manufacturers are actually getting around it by putting the BPA in the can. And the BPA is a preservative. So, and BPA was actually taken out of all plastic bottles, not just Hint, but Coke bottles. And it was a big soda war years ago to actually, you know, should we remove all the BPA or not? And for some reason, the FDA never pulled it out of cans. And so I have chosen not to produce a product that is lined with BPA, and that is why we aren't in camps. So I think that the most important thing that I've done is never left the business. So, and by that I mean I know every single aspect of producing this product. I know how to go out and sell this product. I'm embarrassing when I go into Whole Foods when the guy says like we don't have any stock on the shelf, I walk into the back room. My kids are like horrified. And the guy's like, "Lady, you can't go in the back room." I'm like, "Oh no, no, no, I work here. Don't worry about me. I just do it." And so it's really just staying connected to your business. And I've never stopped doing that. I look at a lot of founders who sit in there office off and not really understanding what's going on. I mean, sometimes it's annoying. We have no walls in our office. Everybody knows what's going on. I mean, my team knows what's going on when we're raising money, when we're developing a new product, when we're doing lots of different things. 'Cause I think it's really, it's the transparency aspect, but it's also like just never moving away from understanding the product. I watch founders and CEOs and cringe when I hear them in like press interviews and they can't actually answer like, you know, what actually happens in your plant? Like, how do you guys actually produce this product? Because the consumer can tell when you're actually hearing somebody talk about it, whether or not they really are being authentic or not and understanding it. So I think that's the most important thing. And, um, you know, I won't, leave this business. So yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, go ahead. You were having health problems. I'm curious how much you looked at food-based nutrition as well and how much research you did, if you've ever considered expanding into food again.

Yeah, um, I have. I've looked at a lot of different food products, and I think the best part about my job is actually having doctors call me, like over the last 11 years and talk to me and all different doctors talking to me about what we're doing and how we're helping. So I have doctors and not just oncologists who are trying to help their patients understand how exactly insulin plays into tumors, Parkinson's. There's a lot of studies going on that actually there's a study at Stanford that Hinna's been a part of that when somebody actually shows that they have Parkinson's genetically but aren't showing signs before the age of 40, then it actually is showing that oftentimes those people are not having a diet high in sugar and sweeteners. So I feel like I've studied a lot sort of on, clearly on the sugar and sweeteners aspect of it, but I don't know, a lot of people have said, would you ever develop food product. And I don't know that I would develop a food product because I think that it's complicated to not have a food product without either some level of sweeteners in it or some level of sodium in it. And so we actually talked earlier about— I am a creator, and that's what I love to do. And I started tinkering a few years ago with sunscreen. So I'm a redhead, I grew up in Arizona, I've had little bouts of precancer stuff, I have older brothers and sisters who have had worse than me, and so I started realizing that ingredients in sunscreens, I started questioning, should I actually wear sunscreen or not wear sunscreen, and what's better for me? And what I found was when I wore sunscreens or any type of foundation or lotions with this chemical called oxybenzone in it or parabens in it that my precancer stuff would grow. So I started having this conversation with my dermatologist here in San Francisco and saying, you know, why is it that this happens? And she was like, well, I don't know, but you just shouldn't like wear oxybenzone anymore. And then I started looking in CVS and Walgreens at sunscreens and realized that Lots of sunscreens have oxybenzone and parabens in it. And so I did a little more research on it, and 95% of the sunscreens on the market have oxybenzone and parabens in it. So I started— I went back to the kitchen and started tinkering and created my own sunscreen. And using the hint essences from the water, we started scenting the sunscreens. I have to stop saying flavoring the sunscreens. Scenting the sunscreens with our scents. So I've had lots of industry analysts say, wait a minute, you went from water to sunscreen, like what are you doing there? And my response was, I didn't do this for you guys. Like that's not what I'm doing at all. Like I don't care if it makes sense at all. Like, I work for the consumer and I'm developing products that I think have holes in the market that no one else is doing that I care about. And I don't want products to have oxybenzone and parabens in them. And I could go the route, a very expensive route, of going to the FDA and hiring lobbyists to go and fight the L'Oréals and all the rest of them that have these products in it. But instead I thought, I just throw my product in and see if I could get FDA approval and see what happens. And so 14 months later, I got the FDA approval to launch it. And, uh, and it's amazing. And we just launched it a few weeks ago online. And it's so, it's super, super exciting. So, um, so, you know, our sort of mission again is, um, you know, I'm sure there's some people in our team that are, looking like, wait a minute, I thought I came to work for a beverage company. Now I'm like doing sunscreen, and like, where is this all coming from? But I think it really goes back to the mission of, you know, can we actually help the consumer to figure out like what are the things that we think they should be having and not having? And, you know, in a lot of our newsletters, we do talk about things in food and, you know, be careful for too much sugar and You know, bars and that are out there, do they have more sugar in it than, you know, a candy bar? A lot of them do. You know, we're still injecting a lot of our meats with hormones, which is just disturbing on so many levels. So, so I don't know if that'll ever be our business to do those, but you never know. You never know. I don't know, whatever the consumer is sort of telling us, you know, they're anxious to sort of you know, have, we're open to like taking a look at it.

Thank you for giving your presentation here.

It's been really awesome.

This is also my first time at this event. It's been great. I wanted to also kind of hear your take on, you know, what was the rationale and, you know, was it all intuition when you just decided to come out with your first product and like you designed it whether it goes from the packaging to the way it tastes, or how do you decide those facts?

Yeah, so when I originally decided on this product, I had sort of had this thought that it would be called, I think I was sort of in mama mode at that point and giving my kids sippy cups and I said, oh, it'd be really great if I called it Wawa. Because a lot of crazy parents like me were like, here, have your Wawa and whatever. I don't know. And so my husband being the attorney and said, I said, yeah, and the product is gonna be called Wawa. And he was like, so there's this little company in Pennsylvania that is really big and they will kick your ass if you end up really being successful. So you don't have to listen to anything else that I'm saying, but that's a really bad idea. And I was like, well, then what's the name? And he was like, I have no idea. Like, this is your company. I have like nothing to do with this and I have no idea what you're doing. And he's like, just keep talking to me about it. And then somewhere along the way I kept saying, well, it's just a hint of flavor in the product. And I'm like, hint, that's the name. And he's like, so there's 4 letters and you're never gonna get the trademark. On a 4-letter word. It's like not gonna happen, such a waste of time. And I'm like, okay, well just humor me and put it in 'cause you're the lawyer and you know how to do that stuff. And so he's like, okay, fine, you're never gonna get it, keep talking. And I was like, no, let's just see what happens. And I was like, while you're at it, like put it in for drink water, not sugar. And he's like, too descriptive, not gonna get it, like whatever. And then came back worldwide trademarks on Hint and Drink Water Not Sugar. So it just goes to show you, if you don't try, you'll never know. And so yeah, that's the true story of the name. Thanks for the talk, Kara.

Yeah.

I've been following Hint for a while, so it's cool to hear from you. Yay. My question is also around sustainability. Sustainability. So I'm just wondering how you think about that overall. Um, as much as I love it and the whole health story, I guess I just get concerned because I think I've read that only 25% of plastic bottled, uh, water containers get recycled in America. So I'm just wondering if you thought about other business models for distribution, like, um, cups or something like that. So, okay, where do I go on this one? So basically, we talked about cans. So the plastic bottles, this was actually our second bottle that we came out with. I don't know if you guys are longtime fans. There was a smaller one that kind of looked like a cute English medicine bottle. That was our original bottle. And then we came out with this bottle. And then we actually just came out with this bottle, and some major fans of Hint wrote to us shortly after this came out and were very upset that we changed the bottle opening because it was smaller. And we did this because we actually took 30% of the plastic out of this bottle, the larger bottle. And this bottle— yeah.

Same way.

Yeah, so it's, and it ends up that a lot of the plastic actually lives in the top of the bottle. Interesting story, the other reason why we decided to make the top of the closure a little bit smaller is we ended up talking to some people who are very environmental people, about fish in the ocean and caps and, you know, plastic bottles, etc. And the key thing that I learned from some of those people was that these closures, the larger closures, are actually the bigger issue versus the smaller closures because fish can't actually— they end up choking on these larger closures versus the smaller closures. So that was you know, the other reason why we ended up changing it. I have to say this about all packaging. Nothing's perfect, right? And we have probably, for our size company, put so much thought into— look, I have 4 kids. I want this world to be a better place too. But I'll tell you, we not only research cans extensively, but we launched for our fizz product glass bottles a few years ago. And when, you know, it sounds easy, go and launch your product in glass. I actually like drinking fizz, a carbonated product out of glass. It's cold, especially if it's cold, it's really nice. And we launched it in glass and we found, we figured out a couple of things. Number one, that most of the glass in America today, especially the green bottles that are out there, have lead in them. And again, I don't want to drink out of lead. I don't trust it. I don't like the research on lead. I don't— I try and eliminate as much lead from my house as possible. So, So we decided to actually blow our own bottles in the US, 'cause we thought a lot of the glass bottles, they have lead. A lot of them were coming from Mexico. Some of them were coming from China. I'm probably the only one that I know besides my husband that has a lead meter typically in my purse where I go through Whole Foods and I can actually entertain my friends with like, look at this. This is really interesting. So we started blowing our own bottles, and then we figured out that not only do stores not take glass bottles back anymore— so gone are the days where you return the glass bottles and they wash the bottles. No store does that anymore. And so what they do is they crush the bottles into sand again. And so it actually takes 3 times more energy to create a glass bottle, and it's heavier, so we can hold 2 less pallets on a truck with the glass, and it takes more gas because it's heavier. And so, it's like, again, nothing's perfect, but actually this, not this bottle, but this bottle is, I think the best environmental solution, and in terms of recycling, so in San Francisco, 95% of the plastic bottles are actually recycled. You get into like Des Moines, Iowa, it's not so good. It's, New York, all major cities is pretty good, and especially the coast is pretty good, But you get into the South, you get into Middle America, it's not great. And so, but also we, you know, we've looked at beyond the plastic bottles. I think the biggest, two big scams that are running today besides the cans that are out there that really, really are disturbing is the plant-based bottles. So, you know, we're all on this system of like, let's go buy plant-based bottles versus plastic bottles. So you throw a plant-based bottle into a recycling system, and our systems in California don't know how to separate those bottles out. So if it runs into a plant-based bottle in the recycling system, then it's like basically ruins the system. So you have to like throw out any bottles around it, and it takes like a lot of work. So it's not you know, that great. And then also we're taking plants out of the environment in order to create these bottles. Or, you know, a few years ago we were taking corn from Mexico, which was their food supply, and putting it into, you know, these bottles. So I thought, you know, that's another big marketing scam. And I think that the most recent one that I've heard is these milk cartons, these water cartons that are milk cartons. So very few recycling centers in the US do any of these Tetra Pak bottles. A lot of the coconut waters are in them, and then the larger bottles. So they're coated with plastic, and so you can't actually recycle them. So they're turned flat. And then, you know those pretty hills on 80 as you're going north, those rolling hills, and you think, oh, that's so pretty? If you ever, just for kicks, like go off to the right and drive, you'll see piles and piles of those. No one knows what to do with them. And if you look at the tiny prints, they say, oh, this is so much better than plastic bottles. These are getting turned into t-shirts. They're getting turned into park benches. They're getting turned into lots of stuff. So I feel good about this versus a lot of other packaging that's out there. Hey guys, we just have a few more minutes left, so we're gonna do 2 more questions. Sorry, this didn't pull back.

Hey, Carrie, you mentioned that your revenue, 35% of your revenue is driven by e-commerce. I was wondering if you could speak to your mobile marketing strategy or performance marketing strategy in order to drive subscriptions or continue that growth.

So, So basically, I mean, I have to say that we've barely scratched the surface on e-commerce and sort of mobile marketing. If you look at our mobile marketing app today, it's not really there. It needs to be there. So it's definitely something that we're looking to get better at. But overall, customer acquisition strategy has been typical of sort of lots of other companies with retargeting and Facebook and Google and lots of other stuff. What I think is really interesting now—

is it—

what I think is really interesting is that our offline business has grown 200% since we've launched the online business. So it's You know, it's absolutely supporting one another. It's not cannibalizing any business. It's really, again, going back to the consumer choice of actually how they want to receive the product, whether it's, you know, grabbing a bottle at Google or, you know, going to Safeway or actually, you know, ordering it direct online. So, yeah.

Um, good question. So, a book you probably know, Salt, Sugar, Fat, for those in the room. Great book on the food industry and what sugar has done to us. Just a couple questions on future growth. So, I reached out to someone, she's in Louisiana, Rhea. How do you fight the Cokes and Pepsis to get into those channels? And second question, Juice boxes, juice patches, when are they coming?

Oh, when are the children's packs? Yeah, so first of all, you know, stadiums, I mean, it's very similar to the story of buying space at grocery stores. So our stadiums all have deals. AT&T Park has a deal with Coke. They have a nice huge bottle out on the, you know, field. And, um, and I think at the end of the day, it really boils down to, uh, to them really understanding, um, that their consumers want something different. And, and also, you know, how else can they get that revenue? So I think that that's the, the big thing. What's really interesting though, that, that a couple of people have brought up to us is that some, uh, stadiums, like I think it's It's Met Stadium in New York was actually funded by taxpayer dollars. 49ers Stadium was funded by taxpayer dollars. So the fact that it didn't actually go out for a bid of any sort is questionable. And this has happened across America. So I think, I wouldn't be surprised, it won't be coming from me, but I wouldn't be surprised if there could be class action lawsuits coming in the next few years around these issues. And the more consumers really try and take back control, especially if it's their taxpayer dollars are involved, it's an interesting conversation.

And Jill versus?

Yeah, so again, it goes back to the box. So we have not launched the box because we do not think, that they are good for the environment. So I would more— I would launch a small bottle before we launched a box. And the more that I know about, you know, these boxes, I think it's, you know, it's just— it's really, really criminal, you know, that we're even allowing something to not actually having, you know, we're not able to actually look at kind of what is actually going to happen to that packaging and that product. I mean, when you look at plastic bottle, like everybody sees the park benches, they see, you know, that the stuff being created with it. I mean, what is actually created with, you know, these paper bags or the potato chip bags or the juice boxes? Nothing. I mean, they just go into a landfill and that's it. So it's a frightening thing that I think consumers are gonna wanna, you know, they're gonna want change as well. We just haven't gotten there yet.

All right, that wraps it up. Everybody, a round of applause for Kara, please.