The Rise of Liquid Death

Genius is to take an almost free and abundantly available product, water, and build a billion dollar business out of it.

That's what CEO Mike Cessario, has done with Liquid Death.

Here's the story of Liquid Death.

1. Prior Relevant Experience

Mike is an ex-employee of

- Vaynermedia owned by the legend, Gary Vaynerchuk.

- Porter and Bogusky, the agency that successfully launched "I'm a PC" campaign for Microsoft. It made Windows 7 one of Microsoft's most successful products ever.

2. Market Opportunity

Mike is a rock music fan.

Rock musicians and concert goers need lots and lots of water, much more than beer and sugary sodas.

So, beverage companies put water into their product cans for musicians to drink during concerts.

Mike saw this.

3. Ideation time

1-2 years

4. From 0 - 1

To test his hunch, Mike created uploaded an edgy video to a fake Facebook page.

It earned millions of views and messages.

5. Branding

Until then, water was considered a totally safe drink. It was the favorite beverage of yoga mums.

Mike figured that there was space for an alternative brand. It would attract a different kind of customer.

Water caused Tsunamis and innumerable deaths also. Water was dangerous.

Liquid Death was born.

Slogan: Murder your thirst

6. Business Strategy

- Mike obeyed the first rule of startup life: "Find your niche." He targeted environmentally conscious rock fans.

What could be smaller?

- Create an edgy and exciting brand in a safe and boring space

- Turn the competition's strength into a weakness.

Mike did what no other water producer did: package water in aluminum cans.

For his competition, copying him would mean changing suppliers, production lines, inventory handling, changing the brand etc.

It was madness that they could not contemplate.

- Complement with a feisty slogan "Death to Plastic"

- Exploit their weaknesses too:

Mike also exploited their weaknesses.

First, they all had poor social media strategies. None of their pages had as much success as his fake page.

Second, most companies sold through retailers. They had no direct-to-consumer strategy. Mike went d2c.

Lastly, boring brands had no opportunities for merchandise. Liquid Death had T-shirts and Caps.

7. End results

Almost a decade later, Liquid Death is a $1.4b dollar company. Investors include the Hollywood star, Josh Brolin.

They have now gone mainstream. Kids now drink water from Liquid Death cans to appear cool. It's like adults sipping beer.

Liquid death is also sold in 60,000 retail locations in the US.

About Good Strategy

Good strategy is not matching strengths against each other like in an arm-wrestling contest. It's directing one's own strength against another's weakness.

We saw this with Liquid Death. They leveraged their strengths in branding, packaging, retailing and social media against the weaknesses of other water manufacturers in these same areas.

Netflix

They pioneered streaming in 2007 against Hollywood studios who were invested in DVDs and theatres.

Walt Disney launched Disney+ in 2017.

Apple

They built strengths in software and hardware that delivered the original Mac, then later, the iMac and the iPod.

They used these against the weaknesses of Nokia, Samsung, Motorola and Blackberry. Apple's touchscreen phones re-defined smartphones.

The iPhone went on to be the most sold device in history.

Amazon

They pioneered selling books online. They then used these strengths to get into online retailing. That was every bricks-and-mortar retailer's weakness.

Today, Amazon is the world's largest online retailer.

BYD

The Chinese Electric Vehicle (EV) maker had spent over a decade making batteries for leading smartphone companies.

They had beaten the Japanese by developing cheaper production systems.

When Tesla appeared on the horizon, BYD leveraged their strengths in batteries and cheap production to launch EVs.

Today, their stated goal is to make EVs cheaper than vehicles with Internal Combustion Engines (ICE).

They are already the world's largest EV maker.

How to do Strategy as a Solopreneur or a Small Business

It's not complicated to develop good strategy.

"Not complicated" does not mean not hard.

First you must discover why your most excited customers buy from you.

If there's none, you have a problem on your hands.

But if there are say 5, 10 or more really excited customers, find out what you do really well for them and build on that.

Say you are a designer. Your customers love the speed with which you deliver designs. Well, work on even quicker Turn Around Times (TATs). Those who value speed will start migrating to you.

Perhaps, your customers print the designs you make for them. If existing printing companies have long TATs, you may be able to draw more business if you can print faster than the rest.

Perhaps new printing techniques may help you do that.

So, build up strengths.

Pitch your strength against weakness, not against strength.

Odabo awon ore mi (Goodbye friends - Yoruba)

If you are faced with challenges in reaching your business goals, I provide one-on-one strategy consulting sessions. DM me.

If your marketing results are not good enough I provide one-on-one consulting sessions. DM me.

If you want to become more visible to your audience and attract better clients, join my workshops on personal branding. DM me.

Please like, comment, follow this newsletter. Also share it with those who will find it useful in your network.