Hydro Flask: Travis Rosbach. How a thirsty surfer changed the water bottle industry

Summary

Podcast Summary: How I Built This with Guy Raz

Episode: Hydro Flask: Travis Rosbach. How a thirsty surfer changed the water bottle industry
Date: November 24, 2025
Guest: Travis Rosbach, Founder of Hydro Flask
Host: Guy Raz

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the story of Travis Rosbach, who, driven by his passion for surfing and a quest for the perfect water bottle, created Hydro Flask. Host Guy Raz unpacks Travis’s journey from a burned-out fence builder and restless entrepreneur to a tenacious innovator who pioneered the wildly popular insulated metal water bottle. As usual, the conversation is rich with moments of doubt, setbacks, creativity, and the ultimate triumph of Hydro Flask in a crowded, competitive industry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Entrepreneurial Spirit & Serial Ventures

• Travis grew up in Oregon, spent time in the Virgin Islands, and pursued adventurous jobs like dive instructor and pilot—never quite settling.
• His entrepreneurial journey starts with Bend Fencing, a business he launched with no prior knowledge, demonstrating his willingness to learn by doing.
  • “I had no clue. I didn’t know a post hole digger from a pry bar.” – Travis (07:04)
• Burns out due to the physical grind and stress, sells the business, and moves to Hawaii, seeking a fresh start.

2. Sign Shop in Hawaii: Lessons in Competition

• Starts a sign-making business with girlfriend Cindy despite the saturated market.
• Purchases equipment, learns the ropes at a sign convention, and recognizes how small differentiators can lift a business above competitors.
• Business breaks even and gains some success, but Travis is restless for a new challenge.

3. The ‘Aha’ Moment: Water Bottle Frustrations

• While running errands, Travis is frustrated by limited, unsafe plastic options and uninspired metal alternatives.
  • “I want to get a non-single-use bottle to drink water… There's nobody else doing water bottles.” – Travis (15:17; 16:55)
• Experiments with existing brands Sigg (aluminum, easily dented, couldn’t fit ice) and Klean Kanteen (not ergonomic, poor temperature control).
• Realizes traditional thermos vacuum insulation technology hasn’t been applied to everyday-sized water bottles.

4. From Idea to Prototype: Navigating China’s Manufacturing Maze

• Travis leverages contacts to find Chinese manufacturers, embarking on a risky trip funded by selling personal belongings.
  • "Sold a surfboard, sold a moped, and took off to Shanghai in May of 2007..." – Travis (23:51)
• Factory after factory tells him it’s impossible or pointless.
• Persistence pays off when he finds a small factory making vacuum-insulated milk bottles and persuades them to adapt their process.
  • "I said, hey, let's just make them bigger… He laughed. And he looked at me, and I wasn't laughing. I was serious." – Travis (27:04)

5. Bootstrapping the First Run

• Creates initial samples and decides on the name “Hydro Flask” (which he disliked initially).
• Designs the bottle shape using calipers, modeling lip feel after favorite containers, resulting in a scuba tank-like silhouette.
• Sells everything to pay for a first shipment—eventually negotiating for 1,500 units due to limited funds.
• Returns to Oregon, moves in with his mother, and prepares to manually launch the business.

6. Grassroots Hustle: From Farmers Markets to Whole Foods

• Sells at Portland Saturday Market, using demos with ice to show off insulation power, and offering a lifetime warranty to skeptical buyers.
  • "We'd put ice cubes inside... by Sunday there's still ice cubes in it… People would freak out." – Travis (40:14)
• First retail breakthrough comes when a Whole Foods buyer says yes, letting Travis trumpet, “We’re in Whole Foods!” to open more doors.
• Relies heavily on sign-making skills for professional branding and merchandising.

7. Scaling & Growing Pains

• Local press coverage leads to a partnership with sales rep Brent, who opens accounts across the Pacific Northwest.
• Participates in the Outdoor Retailer show, expanding reach via more sales reps and small retailers.
• Patents the unique bottle design, not the utility (since vacuum insulation wasn’t proprietary), initially shielding Hydro Flask from competition.
  • "People saw patented and figured, oh, they've got the vacuum insulated market…" – Travis (50:03)

8. Financial Rollercoaster & Personal Turmoil

• Massive growing pains: major manufacturing error leads to defective bottles and potential ruin.
• Personal relationship with co-founder/partner Cindy dissolves under strain.
• Family pitches in: grandparents mortgage their home; lines of credit used to stay afloat.
  • "My grandparents took out a second mortgage on their house…" – Travis (51:45)

9. Near Collapse and the Lucky Break

• Out of cash, Travis drafts a letter to lay off his entire team. In a twist of fate, a potential investor walks in at that crucial moment.
  • "I write this letter… I'm sorry… we're going to have to close down. And Friday morning… the phone rings… this guy here who wants to see you… well, I might want to invest." – Travis (58:34; 02:32)
• Secures a $1 million investment, professionalizes the business, and brings in operational expertise.

10. Exit and Legacy

• Investor buys Cindy’s shares, then Travis’s, bringing in the “corporate playbook.” Travis realizes he’s no longer suited for the corporate path and negotiates his exit in 2012.
  • “I felt like I had accomplished everything that I’d really set out… it was just time.” – Travis (62:18)
• Post-Hydro Flask, he consults for other manufacturing start-ups and hints at reinventing the bottle industry again.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The Epiphany:
  “It hit me right in the back of my head, and it came right out my mouth. And I said, I will. I will do that.”
  — Travis, after learning there was a market gap in water bottles (16:55)

• On Bootstrapping:
  "We sold all of our clothes and furniture... moved back to Bend and moved in with my mom."
  — Travis, on funding the first shipment (37:37)

• On Convincing Customers:
  “We gave a lifetime warranty and said that if anything happens, we’ll take care of it.”
  — Travis (43:17)

• The Moment of Resignation and a Twist of Fate:
  "I write this letter that says... I'm going to have to close down the business. Friday morning, I call everybody... The phone rings... this guy here who wants to see you… he says, well, I might want to invest."
  — Travis (02:32, 58:34)

• On the Importance of Luck:
  "I think that it was a lot of hard work. I think the luck comes in that it hadn’t happened yet and the world was ready for it."
  — Travis (65:56)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [05:44] – Travis’s fence company origin story & entrepreneurial lessons
• [11:26] – Launching the sign business in Hawaii
• [15:17] – The failed search for a safe, quality water bottle (the ‘aha’ moment)
• [23:51] – Flying to China in search of a factory, facing rejection
• [27:04] – Convincing a skeptical factory owner to try vacuum-insulated bottles
• [37:00] – Selling everything to fund the first production order
• [40:14] – Demonstrating Hydro Flask’s insulation at farmers market
• [46:46] – Cracking into Whole Foods
• [49:53] – Patent strategy and rise of competitors
• [54:11] – Production disaster: 40,000 faulty bottles and financial crisis
• [58:34] – Writing a layoff letter, interrupted by a lifesaving investor
• [62:18] – Travis’s decision to step away, reflecting on his journey
• [65:56] – The role of luck and timing

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Conclusion

The Hydro Flask story showcases the zigzag path of entrepreneurship, from outsized ambition to hands-on inventiveness, near-debilitating setbacks, and unexpected rescue—punctuated by honest reflections on luck, teamwork, and the grind of building something lasting. Travis Rosbach’s journey is a masterclass in recognizing market gaps, learning as you go, and keeping just enough stubborn optimism, even when the chips seem down.

“Sometimes you just have to really look for that luck.” – Travis (66:28)

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For listeners and entrepreneurs alike, this episode is a testament to resilience, creative thinking, and the power of persistence—plus the occasional need for a lucky break.

Transcript

[Guy Raz]

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[Travis Rosbach]

We ran out of money. I had about 10 employees at that point. And so I write this letter that says, you know, dear employees, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to close down the business. And Friday morning I call everybody into the office to tell them that we're closing down. And the phone rings and the lady at the front desk says, there's this guy here who wants to see you. And he says, travis, I'm here to talk to you. And I said, I'm sorry, I'm not hiring and I'm not even interested. Thank you. And he says, well, I might want to invest.

[Guy Raz]

Welcome to How I Built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, today, how an obsession with finding the perfect water bottle led Travis Rosbach to invent a new one, Hydro Flask, which became one of the most popular metal bottles in the country. Around 2007, Travis Rosbach walked into a sporting goods store looking for something pretty simple. A water bottle, a reusable container that he could take to the beach to keep cold water cold. And that purchase, or should I say attempted purchase, changed his life. Because in that store, Travis could not find the bottle he was looking for. So he started looking deeper. And when he realized the product he wanted wasn't on the market, he decided to make it himself. People told him it couldn't be done or that it would be too expensive or that he didn't have the right background. And to be fair, he didn'. Travis wasn't a design engineer, he wasn't a materials expert, but he had an idea and a stubborn belief that it should exist. And so this is the story of how Travis basically proved the skeptics wrong. But it's also a story about how much time and effort it took to do that, because this conversation really gets into the mechanics of building something. The painstaking hours of research and reverse engineering, the risky trip to China to find just the right manufacturers, the improvising and jerry rigging that went into making a first prototype. The company Travis eventually built became Hydro Flask, and in just a few years, he and his then girlfriend would go from selling bottles at farmers markets in Portland to seeing Hydro Flask become one of the most popular water bottle brands in the country. Travis Rosbach grew up in the 1980s and 90s in Salem, Oregon. After high school, he joined his dad in the Virgin Islands, where he got certified to become a dive instructor and later a private pilot. And as cool as those jobs were, Travis was restless. He wanted to start his own business, and eventually he moved back to the Pacific Northwest and settled in Bend, Oregon.

[Travis Rosbach]

I had a girlfriend at that time, and we rented a place, and one of the first nights we were there, we were sitting watching a movie and drinking a bottle of wine, and a guy walked into the backyard, and so I jumped up and ran out back, and he was building a fence at the rental house. And I thought, well, that's an idea. I'd never even thought about people building fences before. How do you do this? And he showed me. He's using metal pipes and clear cedar. There's no knots and bend was really starting to grow about 2005 or so. And so the fences and the houses were going in everywhere. And I asked him, I said, why are you doing the subdivisions? And he said, no, I just like to do one house at a time. I said, well, why don't you do the subdivisions? Because that's, you know, 200 houses in one go. And he said, no, I'm not interested. And I said, well, do you mind if I do that? And he said, I don't care what you do. I said, oh, I'm going to do that. So I went back in the house, and I told my girlfriend, I said, I want to start a fence company. So we started Bend Fencing.

[Guy Raz]

All right, this is important because she will factor in later. Your girlfriend's name is Cindy because she will. You will be together for a while and start other businesses. But let's talk about the fence business. What did you know about, like, did you know how to build a fence?

[Travis Rosbach]

Not at all. I had no clue. I didn't know a postal digger from a pry bar. So I got on Craigslist and found a guy who worked at the number one fence company in town, Mike's Fence Center. And he was ready to leave there, and I said, well, come on, come work with me, and I'll make you the head guy. And he said, okay. And so we went out and bought a truck and bought all the tools that the supply company told us that we would need. And the day before our first project, he got arrested. And so we were supposed to show up in sun river and put in the first fence. And instead, I ended up going to the homeless shelter and found a couple guys that said they knew how to do fences and went down and learned how to build a fence on. On site.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you start this fence business and. And. And who. You know, how. How are you, like, competing against established fence companies? I have to assume you were. You were charging less.

[Travis Rosbach]

Well, a lot of the fence companies were still using wood, and they would say, oh, pressurized wood lasts forever, and it's going to be here forever. Well, no, actually not. It. It rots and it breaks. So we were using stainless steel pipes and then building wooden boxes around it. And then we're also doing clear cedar, which had no knots, and it just looks beautiful. It's high end looking fence. And so we were going in to a lot of the high end subdivisions.

[Guy Raz]

And how would you, given that you had no experience, and I have to imagine you're in Bend, right, that there are established fence companies who are working with developers who are trusted. Like, how does a guy like you, who has no contacts or connections in that world, gain the trust of developers to hire you?

[Travis Rosbach]

Well, we called it Bend Fencing, which actually went quite a ways. A lot of our customers just thought we had been around forever and why would we not be? We have the name Bend Fencing and hired a lot of good people who taught me a lot. And it's a high turnover rate and so I had to learn pretty quick how to build a fence myself and drill holes in the rock and get through the ice and stuff.

[Guy Raz]

So. All right, so you run this business, I think you would end up running it for almost two years, is that right?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

And from what I understand, you're getting burned out doing this. It's just a grind. It's like seven days a week, 14 hour days, no breaks. Is that a fair description?

[Travis Rosbach]

It exactly was, yeah. I tried to take off a couple hours on Sunday, but typically that wouldn't work. And I did, I got burnt out. And I called back the office and I told her, I said, look, I'm going to kill myself or kill somebody else. I have to get out of here. And it was, it was cold and I was in pain and I said, either Mexico or Hawaii, but I need to go somewhere warm and I need to go quick. And she called back and said, all right, come.

[Guy Raz]

And when you say she, you're talking about Cindy, your partner.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. And she says, all right, come home and grab your bag. And I took off to Oahu. And I remember landing in Oahu and as soon as the door opened, I could just feel the aloha. And I called her and I said, you can keep the company or you can sell it, but either way, I live here now. She said, where are you? Are you at the bar? Are you drunk? I said, no, I'm still on the airplane. I haven't even got off yet, but I live here. And I spent about nine days on vacation in Oahu and went back to Bend and said, I'm done. I'm completely out of this. And we put it on Craigslist and sold a couple weeks later.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, I mean, I understand that impulse of landing in Hawaii and just thinking, I'm not ever leaving that place because I have been there and it's Absolutely incredible. And I felt that before, by the way, but you left behind your fence company, right? So now you had to figure out something else to do. And I guess. I guess you decided to start, like, a sign making company in Oahu.

[Travis Rosbach]

I did, yeah. So I. There was sign shops in. In Oahu, and there was a lot of them. Every couple blocks, you'd see a sign on the corner that said sign company or banners or something like that. And there was a huge amount of competition for it, but I wanted to. I wanted to try that. I had a fascination with embellishing a substrate and making it different and beautiful. So I thought, well, let's just buy a plotter and start a sign company.

[Guy Raz]

A plotter is basically like a large printer.

[Travis Rosbach]

It's like a razor blade that's computerized, and so it cuts vinyl.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. Yeah. All right, so here's what I understand. You said that you noticed a lot of sign shops in Hawaii, like, you know, all over the place. Like, every street corner had a sign shop. Right. And so why would you get into that business if it was already super competitive?

[Travis Rosbach]

Well, technically, what I would see were signs advertising for signs. And so there were very few actual brick and mortar signed shops. It was that a lot of people owned a plotter, and so they would make banners and call themselves the sign company.

[Guy Raz]

I see. Okay.

[Travis Rosbach]

And I thought, well, if the best you can do is cut blue and black vinyl and put it on a white banner, I bet we could figure out a way to do it different and. Or better than what you're doing.

[Guy Raz]

And you're in. In Oahu. You're living there with Cindy at this point?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yes, yes.

[Guy Raz]

What was her reaction when you said, why don't we buy a plotter and make signs?

[Travis Rosbach]

She was down. She. She thought that, yeah, that's a wild idea, but why not? And sure enough, there's a sign show in Orlando. And it's like it was in a couple weeks. And so we bought tickets to fly to Florida. And at this big convention, I saw this one booth called Fellers, and there was one guy, Frank, who's the owner. And so I went up and said, hey, Frank, I want to start a sign company. He goes, well, what do you need? I said, I don't know. Could you tell me? And he thought I was crazy. But they told us what we needed and what we should buy and shipped it out to Oahu. And the guy showed up and installed the printer.

[Guy Raz]

And.

[Travis Rosbach]

And it was a 64 inch printer so we could print banners as opposed to just Putting vinyl on top of them so we could do full color photographic image banners.

[Guy Raz]

And where did you. Did you get a shop in Oahu?

[Travis Rosbach]

We did, yeah. We just got the biggest lease that we could find and afford, which was right downtown, right by the Blaisdell center, right by the big coliseum. And we did screen printing and embroidery and hats and tablecloths and table throws. We ended up doing big outdoor signs. And we did a lot of like, business development, branding, marketing.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so this sounds like a pretty good business, but I'm trying to understand what happened to it. I mean, why am I not talking to a guy who ended up, you know, starting a chain of sign stores? Like, I mean, you've got a business going. Was. Were you making money?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yes, we were breaking even and slightly pulling ahead. So we were bringing in a couple hundred thousand a year. I'd say yes.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you're. So you're doing that job and you like it, but what's going on?

[Travis Rosbach]

Well, one day I was out and I was running errands and I was thirsty. I'm tired of seeing the plastic wash up on the beaches. I want to get a non single use bottle to drink water. And so I thought, well, I'll just get a Nalgene and then I can reuse it. So I go into the sporting goods store thinking it's pretty simple. 20 bucks, I got a bottle and I'm back to work and tomorrow is another day. And there was some employees up front and I said, hey, where are the water bottles?

[Guy Raz]

Right?

[Travis Rosbach]

And the guy takes me back and he shows me this wall that was completely empty. There were only two bottles left on it. And I said, what happened here? And he said, well, the owner's French and she just got back from France and her dad is a doctor. And he says, there's this stuff called BPA and we don't know what it is. It's probably not going to be anything. But as a precautionary measure, she decided that she wanted us to take all these bottles off the shelf.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, but the Nalgenes, I don't think at least today they're BPA free now.

[Travis Rosbach]

They are, Yes.

[Guy Raz]

I see. Okay, now I see. Nalgene stopped using BPA in 2008. So at that time it's possible that they did have bpa. And I remember this because my first child was born in 2009. And BPA thing was, was hardcore. Nobody, you know, everything was like, no, BPA free, BPA free. And had a baby. And I was like, oh, My God. I shouldn't be really careful about this. So. Okay. Yeah.

[Travis Rosbach]

And I said, well, who's going to refill this shelf? And he said, nobody. There's nobody else doing water bottles. And it hit me right in the back of my head, and it came right out my mouth. And I said, I will. I will do that. And decided I was doing water bottles.

[Guy Raz]

Hang on, hang on. Okay. So right there in the store, you get struck with this idea. A new idea for business, maybe. But meantime, you were still running a sign business, right?

[Travis Rosbach]

Right. Yeah. So I get back to the sign company, and I asked one of the employees, I said, what do you know about water bottles? And she said, oh, it's Sig. You got to go with this company called Sig. And I thought they were aluminum.

[Guy Raz]

Yes, aluminum. I remember those bottles. Yeah. Yeah.

[Travis Rosbach]

And I was like, oh, this is great. I don't have to do bottles. I can just stick with signs. This is fantastic. And so I went to Patagonia and I bought one, and it was expensive. It was, like, 20 bucks, you know, for a water bottle. It was a lot of money.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, but they're good. They're good bottles. I mean, they. Right. I remember then they had, like, that little. I think they still make them, like that small screw top or the. You could, like, hook it on a. It looked like it was made for climbers. Like, you could hook it on a carabiner or something.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. And it had real nice powder coating on it. It was really gritty. And I really enjoyed it for about a week. And I realized I couldn't put ice cubes in it. I couldn't.

[Guy Raz]

Small opening, right?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. And they were aluminum, so you couldn't put them in the freezer.

[Guy Raz]

Wait, why is that? I don't know that. Why?

[Travis Rosbach]

It would expand and crack. They basically rip over. Okay. I kind of like putting a pop can in the freezer.

[Guy Raz]

Right, right.

[Travis Rosbach]

And I was walking up the stairs, and it fell off some books, and it dented almost, like, catastrophically.

[Guy Raz]

It just looked terrible because it was thin. It was, like, thinner.

[Travis Rosbach]

Really thin.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Travis Rosbach]

And I thought, well, that's too bad. You know, I just paid a lot of money for it. Now it doesn't look great. A couple days later, I'm filling it up, and I look inside, and some of that gold had flaked off.

[Guy Raz]

There was a gold liner inside the bottle.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. And so I said, okay, well, I guess I really am doing water bottles now. And I called my brother Jeff, who just started working at REI and Bend, and I said, hey, Jeff, I need a water bottle. And he goes, klean Kanteen. They just started.

[Guy Raz]

Good brand, good product, great product.

[Travis Rosbach]

And so he sends me a Klean canteen. And it just wasn't ergonomically correct for my lip. And every time I'd take a sip, it dribbled down my shirt.

[Guy Raz]

And was it a screw top at that time? I mean, now they've got all kinds of flip tops. But was it just a screw top, like wide mouth bottle?

[Travis Rosbach]

It was. And it was big enough that I could put ice cubes in it, which was huge. You know, to take to the beach and have cold water on the way there was. Was awesome. And then I'd put it in the sand, I'd go surf and I'd come back and it'd be too hot to drink. And. And then I came home and I'd hike a mountain and I'd get to the top and it'd be too cold to drink. And so I thought my grandpa had an old school coffee thermos, one of the big old heavy thermoses.

[Guy Raz]

I remember those.

[Travis Rosbach]

And I thought, well, why can't we take that same technology and make it in a normal sized water bottle that we could actually drink water out of?

[Guy Raz]

Well, let's talk about the thermos for a moment because that's been around for a long time. Right. And so it's not like the technology didn't exist.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, it was vacuum insulation. They came up. I can't remember exact year. I almost want to say it was like in the 1900s or even late 1800s, they came up with a vacuum insulation technology.

[Guy Raz]

Basically, it's like between the inner wall and the outer wall, the air has been completely taken out. The part in between those two walls is where they've sucked out all the air.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, yeah. It would provide a vacuum space that no temperature, air molecules could transfer between. So anything on the inside, whatever temperature it is, it's going to remain that temperature because it doesn't have outside influences affecting it. And it doesn't release. Like if you have hot liquids, the hot doesn't release through the vacuum.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. So this experience is get you thinking like you get a clean canteen. Again, it doesn't do the trick. It's not keeping your drink cold, it's not keeping your drink hot. It's not doing what the thermos did. But there is no therm. You could buy a thermos, but the thermos was like a big thing. And you know, you had like the top and you unscrew the top, and then you pour the coffee in there and then you drink out of that. And, and so you're thinking, wait a minute, why isn't there a thermos but for water bottles?

[Travis Rosbach]

Exactly. And I wanted metal on the inside. I knew I didn't want plastic, and so I figured. And I knew I didn't want aluminum, so I figured, well, why can't we just make them out of double wall vacuum insulated stainless steel?

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you, you have this itch that you want to scratch. So what? So what, like, are you still working in the sign shop every day? Are you going in there every day at that point?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, every day was, was long days. Our printer was broken, and so it would take us hours and hours to fix it and keep running it. And it was just, it was like I was completely overwhelmed with having to do bottles. And we had a client who would go to the Canton fair in China and he would help his customers find factories to build their products. I really knew that I had to find a factory and it was probably going to be in China. So started doing Google and found a factory that said, yes, we'll do that. Come on over and check it out.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, but did you have a design in mind or did you just think, All I know is I want this to be done double walled and I want to be steel. That's all I know for now. I don't know what. And I know, I know I want it to be a wide enough mouth where I could put ice in it. Like unscrew it and put ice in it. Is that all you knew?

[Travis Rosbach]

It was. And I kind of still figured that somebody was doing it. Surely there must be somebody who's doing this. I can't be the first person who's thought of this. But I knew that I wasn't able to physically stop until I found that.

[Guy Raz]

So when you decided to pursue this, what was your first step? Because I would think if it was me, I would be looking online. I would make contact, I'd get in touch with them, and then maybe I would fly out there.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, I found one that said, yes, we will do that. That's what we do.

[Guy Raz]

Okay.

[Travis Rosbach]

So I sold a surfboard, I sold a moped, and I took off to Shanghai in May of 2007 and found this factory. And I get there and I go in and it's all plastic water bottles. And they show me around. We go through the tea ceremony and everything. And I said, well, where are the insulated and where's the stainless? And he said, oh, no, we don't do that. Nobody does that. I said, well, surely somebody. And he said, no, there's nobody. And I thought, well, I've sold my surfboard, I've sold my moped, I'm starting to run out of money. I guess I'll just fly back early. And so I start leaving the factory and this guy came up and he grabbed my arm and he said, I have a cousin in Hangzhou that might be able to help you. Why don't you talk to him? And so he gave me two pieces of paper. One was to get to the train station, one was to get to Hangzhou. And I show up in Hangzhou and I realized I don't know anybody. I don't know where I am, I don't know who I'm looking for. I don't know what's going on here. And I'm going down the the escalator and luckily I hear Travis. And I said, yeah. And her name was Natalie. And she takes me to this office and I met her husband, Michael.

[Guy Raz]

Who is Michael?

[Travis Rosbach]

Michael was the guy who was the cousin of the guy I met in Shanghai.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. Oh, he was. He was a Chinese man.

[Travis Rosbach]

He was.

[Guy Raz]

And Michael was his English name.

[Travis Rosbach]

Correct.

[Guy Raz]

And he spoke enough English where he could help you a little bit.

[Travis Rosbach]

Right. And then the next day we get on the train and we're heading south again, and we show up at a actual water bottle factory where they're doing metal water bottles. And we go in and Michael says, hey, you know, Travis wants to do these vacuum insulated bottles. And the guy just laughed. He said, no, there's no way. Nobody does that. We're not doing that. And so we spent three days going from factory to factory trying to find out if they do double wall vacuum insulated bottles.

[Guy Raz]

Because a double wall means it's like you make a metal bottle and then you basically, I guess, they insert it into another bottle and then connect them together or something.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, it's a lot like if you think of a metal fence post, you have two different size fence posts, and one's inside of the other one. And then there's a little copper tube that vacuums out the air in between the two walls.

[Guy Raz]

And that requires, I guess, a certain technology on their assembly line that presumably they didn't have. Because I must imagining if they could do it, they want to make money, they'd be like, yeah, we could do this, right?

[Travis Rosbach]

There was no market, nobody had asked them for it. So finally, on the very second to last day, we Find a factory that had a vacuum, and it wasn't very big. It was kind of the size of a motorcycle, which isn't huge for the vacuum world. And they were doing these little vacuum insulated Japanese milk bottles.

[Guy Raz]

So wait, like bottles of milk that you buy in the grocery store?

[Travis Rosbach]

It was more for, like, kids milk and maybe formula and I see for.

[Guy Raz]

Their, like, lunches or something, right?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, but they were real small. They were cute. They were, you know, they were Japanese. And so they were just beautiful little containers. And I said, hey, you know, let's just make them bigger and do water bottles. And he laughed. And he looked at me, and I wasn't laughing. I was serious. And he said, fine, we'll try it.

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment. How Travis finally gets some samples made and winds up walking into his local Whole Foods at exactly the right moment. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built this. One of the coolest things I did last summer was take my family to Athens, where we saw the Parthenon and the Agora and all those amazing neighborhoods and ancient historical sites. And one of the things that made it so awesome was the home we booked on Airbnb. We literally had a view of the Parthenon from our bedroom window. There was a hot tub on the top floor. We could sit in it, overlooking the entire city. And we had a kitchen and access to markets, and we were in walking distance from all of the things you would want to see. It made the trip so, so amazing. And when you take your own vacation, that's actually a great time to host your home on Airbnb. Your place with your cool art collection and your handy kitchen gadgets. It might just be what someone else needs to feel right at home on their next trip. Plus, your earnings from hosting provide you with another income stream and could even help offset the cost of your next trip. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how [e-mail] host you know, one of the most surprising things about how I built this is just how many pitches we get. Every year, tens of thousands of businesses reach out, hoping to tell their story. Now, while we do try to read most of those pitches, we can't possibly read all. But we choose most of our guests through our own deep research. And that means my team and I spend hundreds of hours digging into companies, what they make, who's behind them, and whether their journey can inspire you. And that's exactly where Claude has become such an incredible Thinking partner In my creative process, Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. The thinking partner that works with you to explore the things that fascinate you. Whether you're researching late night curiosity spirals or working through complex creative challenges, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems together. For example, imagine I'm about to sit down with a founder of a snack company. I'll want to know what products they've released, how they've evolved, and which competitors they're up against. In the past, it could take hours to track down reliable details. We'd search articles, databases, reports. Now Claude can give me a clear answer in seconds, and then I can decide what to dig into further. It doesn't replace my process, but it sharpens it. And that means I can spend more time doing what I love most, focusing on the human stories, the lessons, the decisions, and the struggles behind the businesses you hear on this show. Experience what collaborative thinking feels like at Claude AI HIBT and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner. This show is brought to you by American Express. Running a business means making countless choices every day, some small and some that can change everything. The business owners who thrive are the ones who are ready for whatever comes next, and having the right support behind those decisions can make all the difference. That's why so many business owners I talk to choose the American Express Business Platinum card. It's built to help them move quickly and take their business further. And with five times membership rewards, points on flights and prepaid hotels booked through amextravel.com, you can turn any business trip into a chance to earn more and invest in your business's future. Plus, you get a flexible spending limit that changes as your business does, adapting to where you are and where you're headed next. Because when it comes to growing your business, there's truly nothing like Business Platinum. Not all purchases will be approved. Terms apply. Learn more at Go Amex bplat. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy raz. So it's 2007 and Travis is in China, where he's finally found a factory that might be able to make him a vacuum insulated water bottle. But he and his local guide, Michael, they still have a lot to figure out.

[Travis Rosbach]

We didn't have the molds and the machine. The vacuum wasn't quite big enough to do it. And so Michael and I spent the next two weeks going from factory to factory and we'd buy two kilos of Screws and we'd go buy metal plates and we'd go buy all these parts to build all these machines, to build more parts and more machines.

[Guy Raz]

What were you. Sorry, what did you need to build?

[Travis Rosbach]

Well, we had to modify the inside of the vacuum to hold bigger sized bottles. So not only did we have to get the molds made for the actual bottles, but we had to modify the vacuum to get the molds inside of it.

[Guy Raz]

Why were you guys doing it? Why didn't the factory do it?

[Travis Rosbach]

They said we could rent time, but that was it. They weren't going to do anything to help us. They didn't believe in it, they didn't think it would work and they thought.

[Guy Raz]

They said you could rent time on our line and, you know, try it out.

[Travis Rosbach]

Correct?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, but you had to build the adapters to make this work. How did you even know what to do? How did you know to build that?

[Travis Rosbach]

They showed us. They said, you know, here's. Here's what we have, but it's not going to work. And we're not willing to work with you to do this because this is a dumb idea. Nobody wants a vacuum insulated water bottle. So we're not putting forth any effort. That's how we came up with all the modifications and everything. And then I took off. I come back to Oahu, and about six months later we got a call that the samples were ready. And what name do you want to put on it? Do you have a logo? Do you have a name? And we didn't. And so all hands on deck, all friends and family. What should we call this water bottle company? And my brother came up with the name Hydro Flask and I hated it. I thought it was a terrible idea. I didn't like the word flask, but we had to have something printed on the bottles, so we went with it. And we got the first two samples in November of 2007.

[Guy Raz]

And how much sort of input did you have in the design? You just said, was it just a. I don't know. It was a cylinder with a wide opening that screwed on and off and it was double walled. Like, did you give them any specs about colors, about powder coating, or did they just kind of make it based on what they thought you wanted?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, I had drove all over the island buying as many bottles as I possibly could, and I bought calipers. And I was measuring thicknesses of mouth sizes of bottles and which one was the most ergonomic size to drink out of and put an ice cube in. And so I Drew it all out. And I'm kind of embarrassed to say, but about five years ago, somebody pointed out that I'd basically just drawn a scuba tank. And it was. The first ones just look like a scuba tank.

[Guy Raz]

And it's interesting. You buy calipers to measure the width of the bottle and the width of the metal, which is interesting because there is. I mean, there's like a lip feel right when you're putting a water bottle to your lips. And we don't think about this consciously, but it's like when you have a beautiful wine glass that's just very thin glass, it just. It's a better way to drink wine. And I think it's the same with a water bottle. Like, if it's the right thickness, not too thin, not too thick. But did you give the factory in China those specs, or did they just kind of make something and send it to you?

[Travis Rosbach]

Well, both. I gave them the specs. Minute Maid I liked better than Pepsi, but Coke I liked better than Sprite.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, you're talking about. These are plastic bottles, though.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. I was measuring, like, how big is my lip? How big is the drinking size out of each of these bottles? Budweiser bottles versus Corona bottles versus milk jugs. And once I found what I really liked, I gave them the specs, and then they. They made it the best that they could. But the very first samples, the lip was real sharp, and I didn't like it, but everybody else liked it, and they were insulated. It worked.

[Guy Raz]

And it worked.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. We got two. There was a red one and a blue one. 18 and 21 ounces. And went down to Waikiki beach and put ice cubes in it and started just a. Handing them to people. And they would get out of the water from surfing, and they would see the ice and they'd say, wow, yes, this is. This is something we would buy.

[Guy Raz]

Did you. And by the way, how roughly, how much did it cost to get the samples done?

[Travis Rosbach]

It was about 10,000.

[Guy Raz]

And was there a commitment that you would have to make an order after that?

[Travis Rosbach]

Well, we didn't know that at first. I hadn't thought to ask about a minimum order quantity. I didn't. I don't have an mba. I don't know these things. You know, I didn't know these things. And we found out later that the first MOQ was 3,000.

[Guy Raz]

And how much would that cost you?

[Travis Rosbach]

About $17,000.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so did you have that cash?

[Travis Rosbach]

No, no. We ran out of money, and So I negotiated 1,500 instead.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so how did you finance that?

[Travis Rosbach]

Sold everything we had. We sold all of our clothes and furniture and that's.

[Guy Raz]

And when you say we, this is you and your girlfriend Cindy, right?

[Travis Rosbach]

Correct, correct.

[Guy Raz]

She's on board too. You guys are both selling all your stuff to get the cash so you can pay for this order.

[Travis Rosbach]

Right. And then In March of 2008, we moved back to Bend and moved in with my mom.

[Guy Raz]

Why not stay in Hawaii?

[Travis Rosbach]

It was expensive and I knew that we needed to have, you know, closer access to airports and, and big trade shows and things. And Bend has kind of been an outdoor mecca for Oregon for quite a while. And it was, it was just kind of really starting to take off as an outdoor place to be.

[Guy Raz]

Got it. Okay. And this is 2008 financial crisis about to be in full swing. Right. This is the beginning of, I think, Bear Stearns happens. And then, you know, and this is going to Lehman Brothers and it's going to go, this is all going to go, going to all go crazy. But you go back to Bend and you, and to save money, you do you say you move in with your mom?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, yeah. And my brother had just moved back in and my sister had just moved back in and had a baby and it was, it was a full house.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. So you get to Bend and the idea is you're going to get this order of bottles and then what are you going to do at that point?

[Travis Rosbach]

That part I wasn't quite so sure about. I knew that we had a Portland Saturday market that sold. You could go and sell your wares. And so I figured, well, we'll start at the Portland Saturday market and see how it goes.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. But when the shipment of 2,500 bottles arrived, were they like individually packaged in boxes?

[Travis Rosbach]

They were in boxes of 12.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, and where did you store all of it?

[Travis Rosbach]

My grandparents have a two car garage and my grandpa said we could have one of the two cars until the summer. And so we started out in Salem in the garage.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you've got. They arrive in March of 2008 and the idea was, let's start selling these at the farmer's market. Let's set up a table. And by the way, I'm assuming you have a pretty kickass sign because you were in the sign business. Your sign is saying, it says hydro flask water bottles. Right? Am I right?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, kinda like we, we knew the difference between a table throw and a tablecloth, you know, and so we had a table throw that said hydro flask and we Put it up on the Rubbermaid table. And we had a little pop up banner. We had our shirts that said Hydro flask and hats that stickers.

[Guy Raz]

You knew what to do because you had a design company.

[Travis Rosbach]

Exactly. And it was hot. It was middle of, I think it was July. And people came and they'd say, what is this? And it's a water bottle. And they'd say, why would I need a water bottle? Well, because it's not plastic. You can reuse it and it's insulated. And we'd put ice cubes inside of them. And I'd put ice cubes in on Friday night and I'd write 8pm Friday. And then by Sunday there's still ice cubes in it. And. And people would freak out.

[Guy Raz]

And the farmer's market was on Saturday or Sunday?

[Travis Rosbach]

It was on Saturdays and Sundays. Yeah, Saturday market's a bit of a misnomer. It's really on Sundays also.

[Guy Raz]

Right. So you would, you would have a piece of tape on it and it would say, Friday, 8pm ICE. And then on Sunday people be like, wait, you put the icing on Friday and it's still this cold?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. And it was 100 degrees outside.

[Guy Raz]

And they were like, great idea. I love that idea. And how much were you selling the bottles for?

[Travis Rosbach]

We had. We had an 18 ounce that was $19.99 and we had a 21 ounce that was 24.99.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. And this is 2008. It's. The financial crisis is starting and this is the summer of 2008. So people are starting to get. I mean, it's not totally crashed yet, but it's about to.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. And.

[Guy Raz]

And again, like, I'm thinking 20 bucks, 24 bucks. What a great deal. But again, I have to go back to 2008. And from a 2008 perspective, that was probably kind of pricey for people. People were probably like, wait, what? 20 bucks for a bottle? For a metal bottle?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. It was tough because oftentimes what they would do is they'd come by, they'd meet us first, and then they'd go shop the whole market. And then if they had any money left over over, they would take a chance on us. So we're selling anywhere from 20 to 50 bottles a day at that point for the two days. And then we'd leave the Saturday market, we'd head back to Bend and start doing what's called munching music at Drake park, where they show a movie and have a bit of a Thursday afternoon get together.

[Guy Raz]

And when you sold them, and obviously, people had seen how it was keeping this ice water cold. Did you offer any kind of warranty or return. What did you say to people? How did you convince them to part with their money for this water bottle? Because in 2008, the idea of having a permanent water bottle was not like, what it is now, where everyone's like, what do you mean? I can go in my pantry now? We have too many of these things. We've got hydro flasks and swell bottles and yetis, and we got all. We got the whole thing. We got every brand in there. And I'm sure a lot of people listening are like, oh, yeah, I got a closet full of these things now. But then it wasn't like that. People just bought a plastic bottle and drank it and threw it away. Or, you know, like, only. Only, like, really environmentally conscious people were doing this in 2008.

[Travis Rosbach]

Right. Which was a bit of a benefit being in Oregon, because we do have a lot of environmentally friendly folks here in the state. But we gave a lifetime warranty and said that if anything happens, we'll take care of it. We'll replace your bottle for you. And that helped a lot.

[Guy Raz]

So how are you financing the. I mean, were. You were selling them how much? They're probably roughly, what, $5 a bottle? That's what it was costing you to manufacture them and have them shipped?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, yeah. About 525. 550. Yes.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. So you were making 15, you know, $17 per bottle, which is pretty good. And that was enough money, I have to imagine, to. To be able to finance the next order.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, we just bootstrapped it all.

[Guy Raz]

And it was just you and Cindy?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yes. And. And then what happened was we were at the Munching Music here in Bend, and a guy came up and he says, hey, I'm with. I work with the Ben Bulletin newspaper. Can we do an article on you? Yeah, sure. Fine. So we were on the front page of the business newspaper Ben Bulletin. And the following Thursday, a guy comes up and he says, hey, I'm a sales rep, and I want to rep hydro flask.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. His name is Brent, and he lives in Bend, and he's a sales rep, and he wanted to rep the bottles in sporting goods stores throughout the northwest.

[Guy Raz]

And what was he selling at the time? What was his other main product?

[Travis Rosbach]

I think he had, like, skis and socks and other outdoor products.

[Guy Raz]

So he was like, hey, I like this product. I want to work with you. How did you even. How did you know he Wasn't a scammer.

[Travis Rosbach]

I didn't.

[Guy Raz]

You didn't?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. No, he. I said, okay, well, what do you need? And he said, I need 48 bottles. And at that point, we were down to less than a thousand. And I was like, I don't know, man. I don't. I don't. I'm not going to just give you free bottles.

[Guy Raz]

He wanted the bottles so he could go around and offer them as samples to retailers.

[Travis Rosbach]

Right. And I said, I just don't feel comfortable giving you 48. I said, I'll give you a 24. And then you tell me how you did with the 24. And he sold 22 of the 24 doors and opened them up.

[Guy Raz]

He sold them to where? To, like, individual sporting good stores. Yeah, just like around. In. In Oregon, mainly.

[Travis Rosbach]

Oregon, Idaho, Washington.

[Guy Raz]

And what were these? Like, these are mom and pop stores, presumably many of them. So they were probably ordering no more than 100 of these bottles at a time.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, we started out with. With our. Our minimum was 12, and then we bumped it up.

[Guy Raz]

12 bottle minimum?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, because they came in 12 bottle boxes. And as soon as we figured that, okay, people are buying 12 and they're starting to reorder, we. We bumped it up to 24 per case, and the accounts started getting bigger and bigger. And so we picked up a couple more sales reps on the east coast and a couple in the Midwest. And pretty soon we started getting more sales reps and opening bigger and bigger accounts.

[Guy Raz]

And meantime, you get into Whole Foods and then to Dick's Sporting Goods. But that's not nationally. That's just in Oregon initially.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. When we got the first 1500 bottles in and brought them from Salem over to Bend because my grandpa kicked us out of the garage, I thought, well, we just got a Whole Foods in Bend. What if I just go check it out and see what they say? And so I walked into Whole Foods and I said, hey, I'm here to sell water bottles. And they sent me back to the lady who buys water. And she said, where's the water? I said, there's no water. It's just the bottle. And she's like, ah, that doesn't make any sense. I said, well, it's a water bottle. She goes, yeah, go talk to Evan. And so I go back and I. There's a man laying on the floor, and he's pulling water bottles out of the bottom shelf. And they were sig and they had BPA in them. And I said, hey, good news. I'm Travis from Hydro Flask. I got these water bottles to replace those. And he says, they're bpa. I said, nope, it's all metal, because, okay, fine. How many do you have? We had about six colors. And he says, fine, I'll take a case of each. And so once we got the Whole Foods order, just for that one binned location, I basically used that all across town.

[Guy Raz]

You would say, hey, we're in Whole Foods.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. And people are like, oh, good enough for Whole Foods. Good enough for us.

[Guy Raz]

And I think it's changed now that Amazon owns it. But Whole Foods, like, stores had a lot of autonomy to do that. Now you still see that, like, local and stuff, but now it's more regional. So you could actually sell into one Whole Foods. And so this one Whole Foods and Bend starts to sell them. And. But how does. Then as you. As this product is kind of gaining some traction, right. Then what's the next step? I mean, was there, like, a trade show that you could go to? Did you start to cold call, or was Brent cold call? I mean, he had connections. Was he going to bigger retailers? Like, what? Tell me a little bit about how you start to expand this out into other stores.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, luckily, Brent said, hey, you got to go to this thing called the outdoor retail show in Salt Lake City. And it's where all of the outdoor product companies come to show what's new for the season. We couldn't afford an actual proper booth, but we paid to get in, and we took a bunch of bamboo and kind of laced and wrapped together a hut to put up our banners, and we were the only water bottle company there. And pretty soon, the buyers started coming and seeing who's. Who's selling water bottles. And. And then with that, we had other sales reps that would come to the booth, and they'd say, hey, I have this little tiny region in this area or this massive region in this country, and we're sales reps, and we want to sell the bottles.

[Guy Raz]

So this really was. And again, I can't. I don't know for sure, but it was probably one of the first brands that was doing this. Right. My question is for you, and this might be a sensitive question. Was your design patented? Did you have this protected?

[Travis Rosbach]

Well, what we did was we ended up getting design patents. And so there's utility patents that are, like, for the insulation. And we couldn't get that because that had already existed.

[Guy Raz]

You could not patent the vacuum technology.

[Travis Rosbach]

Correct. And so what we did was we design patented the design, the shapes and the sizes of the Bottles and made sure that it was on the packaging front and center patent pending or patented. And what I found was that a lot of people who maybe would have been competitors saw patented and they figured, oh, well, they've got the vacuum insulated market. We'll just leave them be. And it helped for about six or eight months that people just kind of left us alone and weren't really doing double wall vacuum insulated bottles until, oh, wait, it's just design, patent, and then they started designing around it.

[Guy Raz]

Right. Because I would imagine as people saw how effective these were, you've got a lot of companies out there that are like, okay, we could do this, we could do this technology. They don't own this technology.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah, I think Klean Canteen was the first. And when I found out that they were doing vacuum insulation, I thought, oh man, it's over. You know, we're, we're out of business because they're selling the single wall. So. Well, I'm sure they're going to sell the double wall and they use the different vacuum technique. They used one that was a little bit easier, a little bit less expensive, and it didn't, didn't look as good and it ended up not working as well. So that, that gave us a bit more of a Runway to run with it.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. And so I have to imagine you've got no cash because if the demand is high and you've got to constantly. The money's got to constantly be recycled out. You have no money, for example, for marketing.

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. Luckily we had a friend who was a banker and so she could help us find different banks that would give us a line of credit and credit cards. My grandparents took out a second mortgage on their house, and we borrowed and sold everything that we could just to keep buying more bottles.

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment, money problems bring the business to the brink. Until Travis gets a visit from an unexpected investor. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built. 1.3%. It's a small number, but in the right context, it's a powerful one. Stripe processed just over $1.4 trillion last year. That figure works out to about 1.3% of global GDP. It's a lot, but also just 1.3%. And GDP isn't capped. There's a ton of headroom for growth, especially with galeforce tailwinds like AI and stablecoins. Stripe aims to be both the fastest improving infrastructure to build on and the most reliable platform to grow with for the Millions of Stripe users worldwide. But that number isn't capped either. So join the ranks of industry leaders like Salesforce, OpenAI and Pepsi that are using Stripe to grow faster and grow the GDP. Learn how Stripe can help your business [e-mail]. your AI agents make your teams more productive, right? But if they aren't connected to the rest of your business, how productive can they really make your teams? Any business can use AI. IBM helps you use AI to change how you do business. Let's create smarter business. IBM. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy raz. So it's 2009, and Travis is gearing up for his biggest shipment of water bottles yet. 40,000 of them. He spends all of November in China watching them being made. But when he gets home, he's in for a shock.

[Travis Rosbach]

I get home and the bottles show up and we found that they had rusted and they were not insulated. So I ended up going right back to the factory in December of 09 and said, hey, what happened? And we found the machine and we figured out what was wrong. And I negotiated another 40,000 bottles to replace the rusted 40,000 and 120 day payment after they arrived. And so they said, okay, yep, we'll do that. I come home and in February, we get a call that we owed for the second 40,000 bottles, you know, about $250,000. And I said, no, no, I have a net 120 after they land. And they said, nope, you owe us for another 40,000. And so I had a kind of a list of people who had always said they wanted to help us if they could. And I called the list and finally I found a local banker who was a big hydro flask fan and he really believed in it. And he said, all right, yeah, I'll lend you the 250 to get the second 40,000.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you've got. Now you've got this good problem and a bad problem, which is you have very little access to cash, but you're selling a lot. And meantime, I think on a personal front, things are kind of breaking down at the company. So let's start. First of all, I think your relationship with Cindy, who you started this business with, is falling apart. Is that right?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yes. When it got too hard with the rust bottle, she took off back to Hawaii.

[Guy Raz]

But it sounds like you were probably on the way to splitting up anyway. Cause I can't imagine that the water bottles alone was the reason why she left.

[Travis Rosbach]

We had been on and off for quite a While. And I think that just the sheer overwhelm of the situation was enough to send her on her way.

[Guy Raz]

All right, Travis, I want to acknowledge something for a moment here, because I know that your perspective during this time was that you felt blindsided, and you've talked about before in other interviews about feeling betrayed, not just by Cindy, but by some of the other people that were working in the business. And I can't independently verify all of this here. This isn't a documentary or an investigative report. But I'm curious about something, because you're obviously smart. You're a smart guy. You came up with this idea. You built it, you pushed it forward with a ton of conviction. But when it came to judging the character of the people around you, do you feel like that was an area where you struggled, or maybe you just didn't have the tools to do that?

[Travis Rosbach]

I don't really like hr. I'm not great. I trust people. I just. I take people at face value. It always surprises me still to this day when people are dishonest or they have ulterior motives, and I'm probably not a real good judge of that. You're right, guy.

[Guy Raz]

But you were lucky, I guess, with this guy Brent, because he sounds like he really helped you expand and sell.

[Travis Rosbach]

He was awesome. And he brought in other sales reps. Unfortunately, what happened was he said that we were not going to be able to get into REI within a year, and I knew that we probably could. And he was adamant that he wasn't even going to try. And so we had to let him. Him go and replace him with a larger firm. But he was. He was instrumental in getting us up and going.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so now you've got this complicated situation, which is you've broken up with Cindy, who. Who technically started this with you. Whether you feel like you did 90% of the work or not doesn't matter. She still owns half the shares or what are part of the company. So you guys are splitting apart, but you do have this potentially growing business here approaching, you know, $12 million in sales by 2011. And I guess you get approached, or both of you get approached by somebody who wants to basically buy you guys out, buy this company from you. An investor named Jim Collis. Tell me what the story is.

[Travis Rosbach]

Well, so after she left and I started hiring new employees, that second 40,000 bottles came in, and we ran out of money. I had about 10 employees at that point and had no more money in the bank on a. On a Wednesday night. I remember. And so I write this Letter that says, you know, dear employees, I'm sorry, but I'm. I'm going to have to close down the business. And I was going to read it to him Friday morning, and Friday morning, I call everybody into the office to tell them that we're closing down. And the phone rings, and the. The lady at the front desk says, there's this guy here who wants to see you. And he says, travis, I'm here to talk to you. And I said, I'm sorry, I'm not hiring, and I'm not even interested. Thank you. And he says, well, I might want to invest. So I call off the meeting, and I tell him, yeah, you know, we need 80,000 bottles. And he goes, okay, how much money? I said, how about a million dollars? And he says, okay. Of course, he looked at the books, and he did some due diligence and things. It wasn't quite that easy, but he wrote us a check, and I was able to buy more bottles. And that's when he came in as an investor and started helping inside the office, even with the books. And we hired a CFO at that point and grew.

[Guy Raz]

So this was in 2011, right? And so now you've got some capital behind you. And. And, I mean, look, the story, at least from your perspective, ends not that long after. I mean, you were going to exit in 2012 and sell your shares. And at that point, you know, it's doing well. It's not what it is today. It's not as huge of a brand today, but I think you're doing about 12 million in sales. Tell me when you start to think to yourself, I just want out. I'm done.

[Travis Rosbach]

I got to a point where we got rei. We had Whole Foods. We were an international company. We were all over Europe and Asia and starting in on the South Pacific. And I was a little tired of being on the road and living in hotels and in the factories, and I. I felt like that season was just drawing to an end. I was tired. And then when the investor bought out my partner.

[Guy Raz]

Cindy, right?

[Travis Rosbach]

Yeah. It put him to 51%, and I was at 49. And he brought in the corporate playbook and said, here's what we're going to do, and this is what it's going to look like. And I took a look at it, and I said, no, I don't. I don't want to do that. So negotiated my way out, okay, 2012.

[Guy Raz]

Is when you're out. And so it's growing. There's potential there. By this point, there's already competitors. There's lots of competitors in 2012, but Hydro Flask is one of the brands out there. One of the first, if not the first, double walled insulated water bottle. I'm curious and again, I understand why you would want to be out. It's just, it's a grind. But a lot of people would also stay, they would say, okay, I got this investor, now we can scale. And maybe I'm not really a CEO type. Maybe I'm more of a creative visionary type and I need a professional operations guy. I need professional people to really scale this and I'll kind of just focus on branding, you know, or something like that. And this happens a lot. So I'm curious if any of those ever crossed your mind.

[Travis Rosbach]

I felt like I had accomplished everything that I'd really set out to accomplish and I didn't want to continue down the path of the corporate route. My original goal was to sell 2,500 bottles. You know, I wasn't looking to retire and move out into a castle. And I remember I woke up with just a whole weight that had lifted from my body and I realized, oh, wait, you're not the Hydro Flask guy anymore. And that I did. I separated from them and they changed the quality, they changed the price, they've changed some of the manufacturing techniques. I don't even really drink out of the bottles anymore. After some of their ad campaigns and things, I've separated myself even further with them.

[Guy Raz]

So eventually Hydro Flask was acquired by Helen of Troy, which is a, you know, they own a bunch of different brands for over $200 million. That was in 2016. And I think they still own it and it's an international brand. And you, I think you sort of started a different business of consulting business, right, for some time. Are you still, are you still doing that, like helping small businesses get into, into manufacturing and things like that?

[Travis Rosbach]

I do, I help do advising for companies that are looking for building their products in factories in the States or in China. But I'm also looking to do another bottle company as well.

[Guy Raz]

What kind of. Yeah, tell me a little bit more about how you would improve on it. Because now it seems like this is a pretty, you know, it's pretty competitive space, right? There's some, there's some heavy hitters in the, in the bottle business. And how do you differentiate something and make it better and make it competitive?

[Travis Rosbach]

I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment. It's a lot like when I saw this sign saying, hey, I have a Banner company. I have a signed company, and I thought, huh, I bet I could do that better. And basically I, I, I found a way to print on the entire bottle. And so there it's typically, the best way to embellish a bottle right now is with the laser engraver. And we started doing that early 2009, we started laser engraving on bottles, and it was great. It was cool technology back in 2009, but this is 2025. We're going into 2026, and it's time that somebody steps up and does something a little bit different.

[Guy Raz]

When you think about whether you have criticisms and issues with what Hydro Flask is today, you can still look at that product wherever you go around the world and say, I invented this. I created this brand. As wild as the story is, as implausible as it is, as weird as it is at times, you still can say that. And that's pretty amazing. And that's gonna be very likely a big part of your story right when your time comes to an end. But when you think about this thing that you built and what you were able to build out of it, how much of that do you attribute to luck? And how much do you think has to do with just the grind you put in and the incredible hard work and, you know, what seemed like endless hours?

[Travis Rosbach]

I think that it was a lot of hard work. I think the luck comes in that it hadn't happened yet and the world was ready for it. People were ready to start carrying water bottles with them everywhere they went. And so, as far as luck goes, I think that that was maybe where the luck was. But I always take the good luck when I can get it. It's just sometimes I've had to really look for that luck.

[Guy Raz]

That's Travis Rosbeck, co founder of Hydro Flask. By the way, Hydro Flask is now the official sponsor of the US National Snowboard Team. It's actually only the second time they've partnered with a major sports program. They also sponsor the US Surfing Team, which. Which kind of makes sense, right? Snow and surf, cold and warm. Same bottle, same idea. Keep the outside. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the Follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And as always, it's free. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, sign up for my [e-mail] or on substack. This episode was produced by Chris Masini with music Composed by Ramtini Rabloui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Claire Murashima. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex chung, Casey Herman, J.C. howard, Sam Paulson, Kathryn Cipher, Kerry Thompson, Andrea Bruce, Romel Wood, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built this. And don't stop the podcast just yet, because right now you're about to hear an amazing small business story that you don't want to miss. This segment is presented by American Express with a Business Platinum membership. The best just got even better. So a few years ago, on a bright, sunny day, Brie Van Leeuwen was on vacation with her husband and kids, celebrating a special milestone.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

My little girl, who was turning one, had a cake smash on the beach in Seaside, Florida.

[Guy Raz]

But right after Bree put some sunscreen on her daughter, the party was cut.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

Short in real time. On a video, you can see her having a terrible reaction to the sunscreen. So she got welts and blisters. She had a runny nose, itchy, watery eyes.

[Guy Raz]

This had never happened before. But this, this brand of sunscreen was new to her.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

And it turned out that this sunscreen had an ingredient called butyloptyl salicylate.

[Guy Raz]

It's a chemical added to some commercial sunscreens to help boost sun protection. And after testing dozens of other brands and consulting an allergist, Bri realized that her child's skin was sensitive to this specific chemical.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

And it's a problem for a lot of children.

[Guy Raz]

There are sunscreens Brie could, could have used without that chemical, like zinc oxide. You know, the thick, pasty white stuff that you can't really rub in. Her kids were not having any of it.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

The older your child gets, the more they're, oh, don't put that on. I look white. Don't put that on me. And the truth is, I wouldn't put white, cakey sunscreen on myself and expect to go out and do my day. And yet I was expecting my little girl to go out and go to school and walk out the door looking, like, ridiculous.

[Guy Raz]

The alternative was to skip sunscreen altogether, but that was not an option.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

Melanoma runs in my family on both sides, my mom's side and my dad's side. I have aunts and uncles and cousins. It's everywhere in my gene pool.

[Guy Raz]

So Bree decided to take matters into her own hands. She set out to make a mineral based sunscreen that didn't leave a ghostly white film. And that didn't include the chemical that affected her daughter either.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

I think the best inventor is desperation. And I was a desperate mom that needed something.

[Guy Raz]

She found a chemist to prototype formulas, and it took them weeks to create each new batch, and then they'd send it off to an independent facility for testing.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

We failed our SPF test over and over and over again.

[Guy Raz]

Every round took months.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

And at some point I realized, oh, this is why companies do this. This is why companies compromise. And they put these ingredients in. One, it's to save money, and two, it's to save formulation time.

[Guy Raz]

But Bri persevered, and finally, after four years of trial and error, she hit on the right formula. So in 2024, she launched her new brand to the public. Daily Shade Sunscreen.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

Standing in the manufacturing lab, watching it be produced was one of the coolest moments of my entire life, when I thought, if this is what being an entrepreneur is, if this is what being an inventor is, sign me up. Because I've never had a feeling like this in my entire life. And then to see my children recognize, my mom made this for me, topped it.

[Guy Raz]

Today. Putting on Daily Shade Sunscreen is an important part of the morning routine in Bree's household.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

It's almost funny at this point because my kids will come in the kitchen. Did you brush your teeth? No. Did you find sunscreen? Yes.

[Guy Raz]

And after years of hard work, Bree did more than create a product for her children. She gave them a role model.

[Bree van Leeuwen]

When I asked my daughters, what do you picture yourself doing when you grow up? Their answer is, I want to own my own company and change the world.

[Guy Raz]

That's Bree van Leeuwen of Daily Shade Sunscreen. And that's our small business Spotlight, presented by American Express. To build a business like no other, you need a card like no other. There's nothing like Business Platinum. If you like how I built this, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey.