The Money Behind Drink Brands (And How You Can Create One)

April 11, 2022

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The Money Behind Drink Brands (And How Creators Could Build Their Own)

When you were growing up, what was your favorite drink?

Capri Sun? Sunny D? Kool-Aid? Nesquik?

I don't know what it is, but I can recall a lot of memories from my childhood when I think about certain drinks. For example, milk reminds me of Sunday morning family breakfast and Capri Sun reminds me of going to the lake and sitting around the fire.

Aside from the nostalgia, drink companies can be highly profitable. The industry as a whole is expected to reach $899 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow ~5% annually through 2026.

With 8 billion people existing on earth and everyone needing some sort of hydration, there's an obvious demand for drinks. In America, we're lucky enough to have a wide variety of choices and where there's demand, there's business opportunities.

Some creators have taken notice and launched their own beverage brands and experienced massive success:

Christian Guzman

• 3D Energy, estimated $5.1 million in annual revenue

Emma Chamberlain

• Chamberlain Coffee, estimated $12 million annual profit

Nelk Boys

• Happy Dad Hard Seltzer, no known sales numbers but they reportedly made $70 million from merch

Logan Paul + KSI

• Prime Energy, sold 10 million bottles in less than 4 months

Cole Bennett

• Lyrical Lemonade, more of an exclusive product, no sales numbers known

Celebrities have joined the beverage brigade as The Rock broke sales records with 600,000 cases of his tequila flying off the shelf in one year.

For context, George Clooney's tequila brand was selling roughly 170,000 cases and the brand sold for $1 billion...

Conor McGregor stated that his whiskey brand is worth $700 million.

There's a lot of potential upside but the beverage industry is known for its fairly high barrier to entry, so how could a lesser-known creator without prior financial success start a drink brand?

I was listening to an episode of My First Million where they were talking with David Friedberg, the founder of Cana, which is an in-home beverage machine that contains an unlimited combination of drinks.

It's essentially a modern-day soda fountain as you can order ingredient cartridges, have them shipped to your door, and placed in the machine to create any kind of drink you can imagine.

Now, where it gets interesting is who gets to create these drinks.

In the episode, he mentioned that anyone can create a beverage brand, Cana creates the mixtures and handles the distribution, and the creator can profit from the sales.

Because of the business & product model, a creator wouldn't have to figure out production, packaging, and delivery. They could focus on the two things that would drive sales: building an authentic brand tied to their creations and growing their engaged audience.

While I don't know if this exact product will take off and be adopted, I just think it's cool that things like this are even a possibility nowadays. As more consumers build relationships with creators instead of celebrities & brands, I believe we're going to see more tangible creator businesses formed (Dylan Lemay's ice cream shop for example).

I wonder what the creator-product market is going to look like in a decade.