What started as a conversation between two college football players became Cirkul, a billion-dollar company transforming the way Americans hydrate.
Cirkul, a Tampa, Florida-based company that sells customizable water bottles that infuse plain water with flavor cartridges, allows customers to control the intensity of their drink with the changing of a dial. The company offers more than 150 flavors, with some of the customer favorites last year including “Gateway Tea,” “Frosted Refreshers” and “Inflow Energy,” according to Cirkul’s website.
Co-Founders Garrett Waggoner and Andy Gay, who met while playing football at Dartmouth College, told FOX Business that the idea for Cirkul was born out of frustration with trying to pour powdered sports drink mixes into disposable water bottles.
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“I remember looking at Andy and saying, ‘What if you just had something you could pop in a bottle and just drink it?’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, what if you could just dial up or down the flavor?’” Waggoner told FOX Business.
The duo launched the business in 2015. When building the company, timing worked in their favor, Waggoner said, as consumer trends toward more water, less sugar and sustainability aligned with Cirkul’s benefits.
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Customers drink 96% more water when using Cirkul’s water bottle than they do with competing water bottles or beverages, according to Gay, citing a company study.
“One of the things that customers tell us over and over again is they just drink so much more water when they get their hands on Cirkul,” Gay said.
In 2022, the company was valued at $1 billion, according to Business Insider. Earlier this year, Cirkul ran a Super Bowl commercial featuring Adam Devine, USA Today reported.
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However, scaling quickly did not come without challenges. Because starting Cirkul involved creating a product that had not yet existed, they had to build its supply chain from the ground up, Waggoner said.
“Cirkul is a product that never existed before,” Waggoner said. “We really had to kind of figure it all out from zero to a million to a hundred million units — whatever the numbers are — we had to really kind of start from scratch.”
When asked what advice they would give to young, aspiring business owners, Waggoner and Gay stressed the importance of believing in your idea and trusting your instincts.
“I’d say one piece of advice I’d give to him is really stick to your guns,” Gay said.
Waggoner added, “Just because something doesn’t exist, doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t. … If you think something should exist, and you think you would use it, there’s probably more folks out there on the planet that likely would as well.”
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