Spindrift: Bill Creelman

How I Built This · 13 Jan 2020 · 1h 04m

What this episode covers

Bill Creelman, founder of Spindrift, explains how he pivoted from a failed mail-order smoked fish business and a successful cocktail mixer brand (Stirrings) sold to Diageo, to creating a sparkling water made with fresh-squeezed fruit. He details the immense technical challenges of preserving fresh juice without refrigeration, the struggle to find bottlers willing to handle pulp, and the strategic decision to drop a profitable soda line to focus entirely on the sparkling water brand. The episode also covers the five-year development of Chime, an automatic chai brewing machine by Gaurav Chawla, highlighting the difficulties of hardware prototyping and supply chain management for physical products.

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