Episode 431 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Cathy Lewenberg, CEO of Bevi.
When most people think of a beverage company, they immediately think of a traditional consumer brand fighting for shelf space at the grocery store.
But the real magic behind Bevi is its highly defensible B2B business model and it’s brilliant.
Bevi has made the old corporate water cooler cool again with its high quality platform which combines smart hardware, software, data, and customized flavors & enhancements to create a delightful experience. Oh, and its units are directly installed into your office, gym, hotel, or elsewhere.
On top of their success, Bevi is also helping out our planet. The company recently hit a historic milestone, officially surpassing 1 billion single-use bottles and cans saved from ending up in landfills.
Cathy stepped in as Bevi’s CEO almost two years ago to lead the company’s next phase of growth. As you’ll hear, she is uniquely qualified to scale this business. She spent years driving digital transformation and healthy convenience initiatives at CVS Health, before serving as Chief Operating Officer and then CEO at Drizly, where she helped lead this hypergrowth company to a $1.1B acquisition by Uber.
In this episode of our podcast, we cover:
- Cathy’s advice on joining a founder-led company as CEO.
- Her background growing up in upstate New York and her competitive experience rowing crew at Princeton.
- Her impactful tenure at CVS Health, where she ran the food and beverage business, led the shift toward healthy convenience retail, and helped play a key role in the decision to exit the tobacco category.
- Why she joined Drizly and the dramatic “COVID moment” that triggered rocketship growth for alcohol delivery, leading all the way up to the Uber acquisition.
- All the details about Bevi, what’s next, and the company’s culture.
- The burning question: Is a residential Bevi machine coming to our homes anytime soon?
- Cathy’s advice to the next generation of women aspiring to step into the CEO seat.
- And, so much more!
Podcast Sponsor:
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Transcript:
Keith Cline (02:56)
All right, let’s do this. Cathy, thanks so much for joining us.
Cathy (02:59)
Absolutely, thank you for having me, Keith.
Keith Cline (03:02)
I’m excited to talk to you because we’re going to talk about what I think is one of the ⁓ coolest companies in the Boston tech scene, that being Bevi And it’s a company that I’ve
been following for a long time. I remember going to Techstars and seeing like one of the very first Bevi’s there. And I was just like, what is that? And then obviously they explained it to me and I’ve been following the company’s journey along the way each step. So we’re going to talk a lot about Bevi, but obviously we’re going to talk a lot about you too. So we’re going to talk about your background story and your professional journey.
But one thing that I wanted to talk about first before we get into all that is, you joined Bevi as the company’s CEO. I was wondering, what advice would you have for executives that are coming into a startup in a leadership role with like, it’s a company that’s a founder led company and what your first 100 days should look like?
Cathy (03:57)
I love this question. ⁓
It is funny taking over for a founder. I’ve asked that question a lot, like, Ooh, how, how was it taking over for the founder? I would say, I mean, the first hundred days are critical, but even more importantly, the, you know, minus 100 days when I was talking to the founders, talking to the board, kind of building my own perspective was really, really important as well. So there was so much work and kind of relationship building and trust that was built before I even started. And then when, as soon as I kind of came and and officially took over the CEO role. It was all about listening
and building trust. We did listening circles across the board. We had more than 50 % participation. We wanted as many people as possible to come in. And I just listened. You know, simple stop, start, continue. Like, Bevi’s history. What are the most important things to protect? What do we need to continue to do? What are the things that you want to see us do differently or change? And what’s getting in the way? What are the blockers, right? And it was just a great, safe way to meet a lot of folks. From a leadership team standpoint, was, you know, spent a lot of time the first couple of weeks just talking about who I was as a person, my leadership principles and philosophies, ⁓ things I was so excited about, but I didn’t come in with a preconceived strategy, even though I had done a lot of work.
I didn’t really bring it to the forefront for a couple of months because I needed to learn as much as I could.
And I think one of the key things, I mean, you mentioned founder led business. I had the trust of the founders from the beginning and ⁓ Sean Grundy, who had been the CEO and founder for the life of the company, basically, he deferred to me all the time. So there he was an amazing support in terms of helping me onboard successfully, being a sounding board, answering my questions was so patient. But he also made sure that I came in as the CEO and that was really helpful in making it a successful transition.
Keith Cline (05:56)
Yeah, and like, so we’re gonna talk a lot about the current state of Bevi since you’ve joined. But if anyone is interested in listening to the history of Bevi, I did have episode 287 with the three founders, Eliza, Sean, and Frank. So I’ll include a link to that in the show notes. All right, let’s talk about your background story. So where’d you grow up? What were you like as a child?
Cathy (06:17)
I grew up in upstate New York, so in the Syracuse area. I guess that’s more central New York, buf, yeah, and I was the oldest of three kids. So probably what you would expect of the oldest child. ⁓ I always worked hard, was quite competitive. I still remember my parents coming back from my third grade parent teacher conference and I asked, did the teacher say? And I remember my mom saying, well, she said you had executive presence and kind of, and I was like, what does that mean? I’m like nine years old. And I don’t know if it was because I was as tall as my teacher at the time, right?
I’m quite tall, so, ⁓ or, you know, maybe she was just, that was code for, was a huge nerd, but I mean, I loved learning. I loved my teachers. I worked well within the class, and I wanted to do well. So I think that was something, you know, I was never the smartest, but I always worked really hard and I tried hard. And so that was kind of a theme throughout my childhood. I was also quite competitive. So I started playing sports in elementary school. That carried me through all the way through college.
lot of leadership principles, the philosophies, the things I bring into work day to day were built and kind of defined during my career as an athlete. It’s funny, I still identify as an athlete, even though it’s been a little while since I’ve been on a team, but it was just so formative to how I grew up.
I’ll say my parents too. mean, obviously starts with your parents. ⁓ They were high school sweethearts and also exact opposites. So my mother raised us when we were young and then went back.
to get our masters in reading and education and was a first grade teacher for close to 20 years. So she was so patient and kind and everything you would expect in an amazing teacher ⁓ at that age for first graders. And then my father, on the other hand, ⁓ he had started as a plant manager out of college at a big dairy in upstate New York, and he just worked his way up. About as loyal as they come, he spent over 40 years there, worked his way up to the chief operator.
officer role and I mean, it works six days a week. Made it home every night for dinner though to sit at the table with us and so and he never missed a game. So I think just having some of the you know, it’s interesting because they were so different, but the family values, the core values were there from the beginning and that’s something that you know, I hold dear you know as I have my own family now with kids and as I think about the boundaries I set and so some great examples, but definitely always striving to to try to do my best.
Keith Cline (09:01)
Athletics and a D1 level is ⁓ rigorous no matter what sport but an Ivy Crew rigor has got to be a whole different level.
Cathy (09:12)
Yeah, so it was very intense and a ton of I mean, I still talk to my teammates all the time, you know, we’re in each other’s weddings, like dear friends, we get together often. So, I mean, it’s definitely a special experience and that level of intensity ⁓ really bonds you. So I feel very, very lucky and grateful to have had that experience when I went to
Keith Cline (09:37)
How’d you get your career started?
Cathy (09:42)
so I was a politics major thinking I’m going to go be a lawyer because I really didn’t know what else to be. Like I had it, you know, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be. And so I thought a lawyer sounded cool. So major, major in politics. And right before my senior year, I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to work as a paralegal for the summer at an antitrust law firm in DC.
And it was so dry and I looked at what the lawyers were doing every day just kind of reading paperwork and document processing and I walked out of the summer saying, thank goodness I did this because I absolutely did not want to be a lawyer. So I went back to my senior year, I at least had known that that wasn’t the path for me and I love lawyers. My brother’s a lawyer. you know, I obviously talking to them daily, almost in my role, like they are they play such an important role and I think it’s such an important, you know, function for sure. But, definitely wasn’t a good fit for me. When I came back my senior year, I graduated in 2002. 9-11 happened about a week after I got back to campus. And I still remember, you know, being at Princeton, we were close to New York. You could see the smoke when the towers collapsed. And it was just this.
I mean, surreal moment, think, obviously for the world, certainly our country. And I think kind of went through senior year almost in a fog of like, what do I want to do? And everybody, know, how can I go change the world? And, you know, should I go join the Foreign Service? Like I was all over the place. And in the spring, I ended up taking a seminar. It’s called Entrepreneurship in America. And it was my first kind of more traditional academics experience kind of diving into the business world. And so it was run similar to what you might see in business school where you had a case each week. We had the founder or the CEO of whatever company we’ve been talking about. They actually came in to our seminar. We would debate, discuss, and then they would, of course, talk about their experience. But I loved it so much. And I said, wow, I think I need to do something in the business world, but I don’t know exactly what what to do. But I was so energized by the discussions and just the different problems.
And I mean, it was so impressive hearing all these different people’s And so that summer, I, you know, I took a little bit of time and traveled, traveled the world, thought again, thought about, you know, a lot of different options, but I ended up, still remember on monster.com and I just started applying to different jobs. decided I wanted to go back to DC, having the politics background. It kind of gave me, you know, different, different options, depending on what I want to do. And I ended up at the Advisory Board Company in a sales role, junior sales role, this was reaching out to, so their healthcare consultancy, reaching out to health executives, healthcare executives, trying to set up meetings, kind of pitching our consulting offerings, and it was tough. I mean the amount of rejection we got, I still remember we had like a wall of love notes which were basically like, please stop emailing me, like you know I don’t want to talk to you, right? So we had some of those, but of course there were a lot of people that were very interested. We had an amazing offering and it was really interesting, so there was a lot of value to be had.
But I definitely knew sales was not for me long term. So about a year in, I started looking and I ended up pivoting over to Grant Thornton, which ⁓ they had a federal management consulting arm in DC, so in the Virginia area. So I ended up pivoting into consulting. And I think what I was excited about was ⁓ the problem solving, like coming in, having to learn something new, help them solve different problems.
And it was really fun. I specialized, it’s funny, I still remember trying to explain this to people, I specialize in helping design most efficient organizations. So there were kind competitive sourcing initiatives that would allow private sector to bid on government work. But if the government could do it more efficiently, the work would stay in-house. So I worked on the government side to help kind of streamline operations, make them more effective so that they would protect the work, right, and keep it in-house. And it was all around bringing efficiencies and innovation into the work that we’re doing. you know, working with the Department of Defense, the Social Security Administration, like I got exposure to a lot of different administrations. It was, I love the problem solving. I got comfortable coming into spaces I didn’t know much about and having to learn quickly, diving into operations, right? Working with a lot of different types of people. ⁓ But at the end of the day, you know, when I would go home for the holidays and like explain what I was doing, I just wasn’t energized, right? I was missing the kind of excitement. People were like, I still don’t really get it. that sounds neat. you know, it was tough. And that’s when I decided I’m gonna go back to business school. I think I want to do something that’s much more relatable and consumer focused. As I mentioned, my dad had worked at this dairy as I was growing up and they had retail stores and they were making ice cream and right food and beverage. We were talking about it constantly, you know, test tasting, got early access to taste test.
Some of the new ice cream products or when they came out with a new line of cookies or and it was so fun and I said well maybe I’ll go back and I’ll pivot into something that’s consumer that’s really relatable, tangible and I needed the toolkit like I was a I hadn’t taken an accounting class I hadn’t taken marketing and of course you know you can learn some of these things on the job but for me and how I like to learn I wanted to get that really solid foundation so that’s when I went back to school and I ended up at Penn, U Penn, Wharton, Philly and it was an incredible experience and I was was it was grateful to go there beyond just the academics right we covered everything I mean game theory marketing I loved my strategy classes entrepreneurship classes social impact right kind of covered the gamut but the people you know we were over 50 percent international students so it was just in terms of the learning that happened outside of the classroom just hearing about different people’s experiences how they grew up their
you know, the different jobs people had held. I learned so much. And I was lucky enough during my summer internship, I did a stint at Diageo, which you is a major alcohol company, and I got to work on the Guinness brand. And I still remember that summer, I was home for the weekend, and I was out with my grandmother at a lunch in an Irish pub, and I had had a Guinness, and I was describing the perfect pour and how to the perfect pour to be Guinness. And I was so excited, just talking about the heritage of the talking to the perfect pour and I said, this reinforced for me. I want to shift into things that everybody can kind of connect with and understand and are really relatable. And so that’s when I kind of confirmed, okay, let’s go down the path of more consumer focused business.
Keith Cline (16:46)
Very, very, very cool. you obviously went on to stay in consulting where it seems like you were focused on retail and consumer products. How did you land in industry and what was your career like from that point?
Cathy (16:59)
Yeah, so leaving Wharton, I ended up making the decision to go to consulting. Coming out of your MBA, I look at consulting very much as kind of your residency for the MBA, right? I had learned about all these, you know, I’d studied all these different companies and different cases and gotten exposure to lot of different things, but I hadn’t been on the ground and like working on the different problems. And so I chose to go to Bain & Co. happened to be headquartered in Boston. So that’s what brought me up to Boston. And
got exposure to the retail practice, the consumer goods practice. I also did a stint in our private equity group, which was a different type of case in in retail or consumer goods, you’re maybe doing a three to six month case worked on, you know, digital transformation for a major sporting goods player or, you know, ⁓ offshoring, ⁓ sourcing of materials for apparel goods companies, right? Like there was a lot of different kind of cases that were big and bulky. In private equity, they were two-week sprints where you’re going and doing custom research. And it was everything from motorcycle auctions to grocery chains to ⁓ dental appliances to ⁓ wine bottles. So it really taught you how to learn something that you didn’t necessarily know much about at all very quickly, do the research, come back with a strong point of view, right? And it was this how to take these complex problems, break them down into simple pieces and then go solve those pieces, right? So that’s what I took from consulting it. But ultimately I knew I wanted to be more in a general manager role always. Like I had looked at that as very much just continuing from a learning standpoint, building my foundation and teaching me more things and more tools. So that’s when I pivoted. I was lucky enough to land at CVS Health, which happens to be down in Rhode Island. So not too far from where I’d been in Boston.
And I started on their front store strategy team working on the store of the future. And so this was back in kind of the 2010s when I think most retailers had ⁓ some kind of store of the future work happening, right? And it was everything from how do we change the layout? We wanna be more health forward?
Where does digital come into play? And I was lucky enough to work on the food and beverage ⁓ design of that store. Within the first maybe nine months, they then moved me into core business running the food and beverage portfolio across the chain. And so that was my first role. That was like truly a general manager. I made a huge P &L, a team of buyers, right? I was responsible for really running this business end to end. And I loved it. I learned so much. One of the highlights, when I first took on the business, tobacco sat under my purview.
As you know, CVS help exited tobacco. So within a few months of me taking this on, I was helping to remove tobacco from, you know, across the chain. Yeah.
Keith Cline (20:02)
Wow, that was you?
Cathy (20:03)
Well, I
was a small player in that, it was, mean, that was part of the business I was managing and yeah, definitely played a key role in helping to, to exit it. But there were obviously, as you can imagine, there were a lot of people focused on bringing that to life. And so I felt, you know, definitely very proud to have been a, a small role there. I think the big thing for me is I think about my career in these defining moments. It was such a purpose driven move, right? Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. mean, over a billion dollars of just tobacco sales and then all the trips and the additional dollars that came with those trips, like really standing for, are, and that was when we relaunched CVS the CVS Health, right? It had been CVS Caremark before that. And so there was a pivot to, are a healthcare company. We do not believe tobacco should be anywhere in a healthcare setting. And so we’re going to exit it. And everybody from the people stuck in the shelves to the folks driving forklifts in the warehouses to driving the trucks to the people at headquarters up to the board and the CEO. We all were fully aligned and executing this plan flawlessly. And even our customers who were smokers were like, I get it. This is the right move to do. There was everybody understood it. so we did studies a year later and showed that we had ⁓ reduced smoking by 1 % in the by removing insects.
Keith Cline (21:32)
Wow.
Cathy (21:33)
And so
it was a pretty awesome moment as I think about my career. But I used that as a catalyst to then say, okay, the rest of the categories that we’re working around, right, food and beverage, ⁓ we have a lot of candy and snacks and soda and things that you know, don’t necessarily align with health and they were used to really drive traffic into the store. So there was a strategic role, but we set as an opportunity. Obviously the overall trends and health and wellness around food and beverage at the time. could be a leader in healthy convenience. And so it was a really fun time to kind of set the strategy, align everybody around. Hey, we’re going to make investments and make this pivot of what we’re offering in the store. We’re still going to have some of these indulgent offerings that people want and need. We’re not going to restrict them from those things, but let’s really start to shift out the mix and nudge customers into these more healthy, kind of better for you options to better align with being a true healthcare company. And so that was really fun. I mean, I spent time with the team out at Expo West. We were constantly meeting these new up and coming vendors. We helped launch a number of now they’ve been acquired and they’re mainstream brands, but at the time we were kind of their first foray into big retail and just getting them out there, getting exposure and helping them grow their So everything from, mean, kind bars to bark things to, mean, it was just fun, you know, really, really fun kind of helping to lead at that time.
Keith Cline (23:02)
Okay, so you continued on and like, but let’s talk about the next step, because you went from a big fortune, I don’t even know, are they, Fortune 50, Fortune 100, to a startup called Drizly.
So how did that happen?
Cathy (23:14)
Yeah, they’re in the Fortune 10. So I mean, massive, mean, over 300,000 employees.
Keith Cline (23:17)
Yeah, Fortune 10.
Cathy (23:21)
So at CVS, the second half of my career at CVS, I actually moved over to the digital and technology team. And I was leading the digital business. And as part of that remit,
⁓ I obviously was thinking about connected commerce and how do we support the in-store experience. We were also managing the shop online. ⁓ Things buy online, pick up in store were things that we built, ⁓ loyalty programs. We also ⁓ managed the third-party marketplace relationships. So I was partnering closely with Instacart, DoorDash, ⁓ Shipt, ⁓ Uber Eats was kind of just getting off the ground then. So I understood the third-party marketplace landscape.
So I’d been taking calls, you know, you’ll take calls opportunistically and I kept getting pitched like come be the SVP of this, you know, division of this retailer or come, you know, work here. And it was very similar to what I’d been doing and I loved what I had done. And I didn’t want were things that we built, ⁓ loyalty programs. We also ⁓ managed
third-party marketplace relationships. So I was partnering closely with Instacart, DoorDash, ⁓ Shipt, ⁓ Uber Eats was kind of just getting off the ground then. So I understood the third-party marketplace landscape.
So I’d been taking calls, you know, you’ll take calls opportunistically and I kept getting pitched like come be the SVP of this, you know, division of this retailer or come, you know, work here. And it was very similar to what I’d been doing and I loved what I had done. And I didn’t want to, you know, I wanted to grow and expand in my career. And I felt like I’d already had such a great run at CVS. I didn’t want to go to a different retailer and kind of just repeat. And so I took a call from an executive recruiter and she said, you know, here’s opportunity at Drizly. They’re looking for chief operating officer. They need someone who understands the alcohol industry. So alcohol had been under my remit when I was at CVS and understands third-party marketplaces.
And so I luckily had kind of been able to dabble or more than double, but in both, I understood the complexities of alcohol with the three tier system, all the regulations, and I understood marketplaces and I knew what a huge opportunity bringing alcohol ⁓ online in the delivery capacity was. And so.
I went down and met with the founders. I know Justin Robinson, think you’ve had him on the podcast in the past too, and Corey Rellis. And I still remember when I spoke with the executive recruiter, she said, by the way, wear jeans. And of course, you know, I had been in more of a formal business setting. And so I still remember feeling so uncomfortable walking in with jeans and a sweater for an interview, but just absolutely hit it off. They were great. I loved the mission and I loved all the work they were doing and where they were trying to take the business.
I also felt like what I brought to the table and my skill set and my experiences was an amazing compliment to everything they already had going on. And so it ended up working out.
if you think about my career.
Keith Cline (26:20)
So Kathy, this is a quick comment. Just as a quick comment. You are like, so my background’s recruiting and you have these ideal profiles that when you talk to the person, you’re like, this person is uniquely qualified to do exactly what this start. It’s like you get off that call and you’re like, this is actually the person that could actually do this job and do it well. So anyways, that’s like, I totally have that chill moment when that recruiter reached out and it was like, this is the person.
Cathy (26:51)
Yeah, ⁓ I appreciated even more when I started to talk to them more about where they were taking the business and I…
But yeah, it was a big, I mean, it was a massive shift. I think, but if you think about the things I was working on, even at CVS, it was all around driving change, innovation, like getting a new, aligning around a new, a modified north star, bringing teams along. And so, ⁓ I just loved what they were doing around the building this category, defining experience to really take this super antiquated old school industry of alcohol retail in the modern 21st century by bringing it into delivery and online, right? And so, and they had done some incredible work, clearly had great product market fit. And it was more of a, do we go to market? How do we scale? So funny enough, Keith, I signed on, it was end of February, 2020, with a May 1st start date.
What happened between the end of February, 2020 and May 1st, COVID hit. And so as you
Keith Cline (27:48)
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Cathy (27:53)
imagine, people were looking at how they could
get alcohol delivered to them safely, right? And so the number one barrier that had been holding Drizly back of people just realizing it is legal to get alcohol delivered in many of the states, that barrier went away. And so when I joined, I mean, the company, we grew 350 % that first year, that first month, mean, 10X growth like
Keith Cline (28:19)
Right?
Cathy (28:20)
overnight. It was just wild.
I mean, hearing the stories of our retailers. For those who may be less familiar with it’s an alcohol marketplace. We had over 4,000 retailers across over 30 states on our platform and you could come to Drizly and type in, want a bottle of Jameson or I want to you know some Guinness and we would show you the different retailers. You could see the pricing, how quickly they could deliver, right? They had other assortment in their store you could add to the basket and so and then you would purchase and the delivery would be there in 30 to 60 minutes.
the retailers, I mean, they were calling in their family friends like bring your car, you got to help do deliveries because the majority of our deliveries were actually done by the retailers themselves, right? They’re the ones they’re checking the ID at the point of handoff, like all the ⁓ regulations. ⁓ So anyway, so the first month was literally just like, let’s get everything stabilized. We needed to ramp up our customer support team in a huge way. We needed, we had hundreds of retailers like, please, I need to have a digital presence. I don’t know anything about online and having a website and like help me get onto your storefront, right? And so ⁓ it was just like stabilizing and helping to accelerate as quick as we could. That June, I still remember we had hit our full year goal by June.
And so we kind of had this moment of pause, obviously recognize the hard work that everybody had poured in to getting through that point, right? Kind of gave an early bonus and then we reset for the back half. So within my first month to two months, it was just move as fast as possible, do this reset. We did a fundraise that summer and by October we were talking to Dara and others about a potential acquisition. So it was this wild ride in the first nine months. ⁓ And by February 21, so not even a full year, we had announced that Uber was going to acquire Drizly for 1.1 billion. So it was a really, really exciting part of the journey. And again, I mean, just, yeah, a wild ride.
Keith Cline (30:59)
Well, if anyone wants to hear the story of Drizly, not to continue to promote my podcast, but I like to. So episode 43, I had Justin Robinson on and shout out to the founders of Drizly because it was an amazing outcome, amazing exit. Yet what they did to build the company from the early days is like astronomical. Like they worked in a liquor store to understand the process.
They dealt with a regulated industry where there’s a lot of people involved in making decisions around alcohol and licensing and age verification. So what they built wasn’t an easy thing to do. So kudos to them for what they accomplished and obviously the outcome. post acquisition, I was like, wait, we just got acquired by Uber. So what happens next?
Cathy (31:50)
Yeah, it took a little while to close, so it didn’t close for close to nine months. So that was, that’s always a period of like keeping everybody focused and like moving forward. This thing is probably happening, but like there is a chance it doesn’t actually close. there was ⁓ a lot of just trying to keep focused on continuing to scale, right? Investing in the business, ⁓ continuing to grow. And then we officially closed and we operated basically as a subsidiary of Uber. So we’re part of the Uber family, but we were quite independent, kind of manage the budget. ⁓ We worked closely with Uber Eats on kind of the grocery and retail team, but as ⁓ kind of a subset of broader Uber. So ⁓ it was great. And then we helped them figure out their plans on alcohol, right? We built a lot of the ⁓ capabilities that we had invested in building ⁓ for Drizly, right? We built it into Uber and ultimately made the decision to wind down Drizly after a couple of years, ⁓ you know, after we kind of stood up things fully in the Uber Eats platform.
Keith Cline (33:01)
So let’s talk about Bevi. Again, another company where you’re uniquely qualified to be in the role that you’re in, right? All these experiences that you’ve held. ⁓ So one of the things that I’ve loved about Bevi since day one was the mission behind the company, right? And I was excited when I saw, don’t know, it like four or five months ago, Bevi announced that the company saved 1 billion single use bottles, which is like, you you see these stats of just like these single use plastic bottles ending up in the ocean, which is terrible. ⁓ I like it just like what you guys do is meaningful and it’s a great brand and a great company. But there’s that mission piece that is just so important as well.
Cathy (33:50)
Yeah, so I first.
learned about Bevi when I was at Drizly and we were scaling and we ended up moving to new offices. So we talked to our employees. said, what do you want in this new space? And the number one thing that came back was a Bevi machine. So we’re like, sure, you please work it hard. We’ll get Bevi’s. And so I got to experience it firsthand as the customer and I would go in the morning. We were remote, so people weren’t in the office every day, but we would come to the office often. And when we’d go in, everybody would be filling up in the morning. They identified by their favorite flavor. was community literally being built around this water cooler, per se ⁓ and I saw it firsthand. And so when we announced that Drizly was shutting down, it was still a few months to go before we like officially closed the doors. Never easy to say farewell to a brand, right? We just all poured our heart and soul into building. But it was, it was the right thing to do, certainly from a larger strategy standpoint. But, I had this space where I was getting calls, right? And it was so public that we were winding down Drizly. So I was getting a ton of outreach. And I still remember the founder and CEO of Drizly when I first joined, Corey called me and he said, hey, I think there’s this really interesting opportunity I just heard about and I want to put your name in the ring because I just think it sounds like a really awesome fit. I said, my gosh, Bevi, I love Bevi. I honestly didn’t fully realize we were in Boston. I said, I would love to learn more. I talked to the founder, Sean.
And I mean, our first conversation just dove right into like, oh my gosh, tell me about the business. Right. And obviously I love the purpose driven piece is exactly what you said. Right. It’s I think just reflecting back on that moment when I was able to play a small role and help into exit tobacco at CVS. Right. It was so purpose driven and the work we were doing healthy food, food is medicine, right. Nutrition, like all the stuff I had done back then. Well, slightly different here, right. This is sustainability. It’s just so purpose driven. And I’ve seen the power of what you can do when you bring teams together and they are all going after a mission like this. Like you can do incredible things. So that was absolutely appealing. I loved the product. And then I started to talk to Sean and I mean, similar to Corey and Justin, no ego whatsoever. So down to earth, just passionate about building and doing great work and like getting babies out there to really make a difference in the world. And what’s not love to love about that, right? And then as I started doing my own research and I’m
oh my word, there’s so much opportunity. The strategy in terms of where I thought we could take this just started to click into place, right? And so again, it was, as I understood what Bevi was doing, obviously already had tremendous product market fit. We started in the workplace and kind of have now expanded beyond that, but great product market fit. And there was so much opportunity. And so a lot of times, and this was similar to Drizly, there’s so much opportunity, what we could do, having someone come in to help crystallize what is our North Star? How do we make sure we’re focused on the few things that are really going to move the needle, cut out all the other noise, right? There’s so many things we could do, cut out the noise, focus the team, build the team and help take it to the next level. And so just felt like a great fit with what I bring to the table, where my strengths are and what already existed at Bevi and what they needed. So yeah, it’s been a great run. I joined in September 24 and ⁓ there’s been a lot, a lot happening. We’re investing pretty heavily on the R&D side. So more products coming out, a lot more innovation on the beverage front, we’re investing on the go-to market and sales. So a big part of our growth story is taking Bevi beyond the workplace. We’re now in universities, we’re in Delta lounges, we’re in ⁓ hotels and right in spas, in automotive dealers. I mean, we should be everywhere bottles and cans are, right? That’s what we’re trying to displace and they’re in a lot of places, right?
It’s been amazing. I joke, Sean Grundy, our founder, had been on a call a few months ago. In the morning, he was talking to a sorority about they wanted a Bevi and he was telling them their story they loved one of the key things about Bevi beyond just, you can get these delicious drinks and the flavors, but we have enhancements. So you can layer in these enhancements. have electrolytes, vitamins, energy, focused blends. We’re launching prebiotics this year. So you can
really craft the perfect better for you drink. So he was talking to them and they love the electrolytes. A couple hours later, he’s on the phone with ⁓ an individual who runs a senior living home. And he was equally excited about the electrolytes for his guests, right? And the residents there. And so I think just that story I tell because it just reinforces the ubiquity of like how relevant Bevi is for so many different kind of customer groups and settings.
Keith Cline (38:48)
The other thing that I think is magical about your business, two things. One, you’re selling to mainly businesses, right? And it is such a hot category, right? Wellness beverages, the prebiotics, the Poppi was acquired by PepsiCo for almost two billion. Like it is such a hot space, but the foundation that the founders built for this company is defensible. And it’s a hard thing because you’ve got a piece of hardware that you need to install that does the magic of Bevi and obviously what, and then there’s the actual product, the different flavors and all of it. So it’s a really, it’s not a easy business to run, but when you get it to the stage where you’re at, it’s just such a great business.
Cathy (39:35)
Yeah, I love that point, Keith, because we’re very much at the intersection of hardware meets software and data meets delicious beverages. It’s funny because I tell the team all the time, if the beverages aren’t incredible, it doesn’t matter how great the hardware is, right? We should pivot and not be a beverage tech company. We should be just hardware. So ⁓ we really focus on all three. that’s where the magic happens, is like the intersection of those three things. And all of our machines are internet connected. So we know exactly what is being poured at every location at every minute. And so with that incredible data, it allows us to deliver a really high quality experience every day because we can proactively work with our partners on things like preventative maintenance, making sure we’re in stock on the flavors and the CO2 and the enhancements. And so it really, and that’s where the tech is, right? And that’s the backbone that’s powering the whole fleet of machines that we serve.
Keith Cline (40:33)
Now, Bevi’s been getting lots of accolades as it should, like Boston Globe, 50 fastest growing companies, MTLC, growth stage company of the year. I can go on and on and on. But like, what’s the scale? Like, what can you share that like number of employees or whatever you can share there? And then what’s next?
Cathy (40:50)
Yeah, we don’t share, obviously, all the numbers publicly, but We grew 33 % ⁓ on the employee base last year. ⁓ So we’re sitting around 260 employees and continuing to invest and grow the team. The majority of folks happen to be in Boston, but we have ⁓ technicians as well as our sales team and a dispersed certainly to serve different markets as well. ⁓ From where we’re investing, the software and engineering teams, firmware ⁓ and electrical engineering, like those are all areas we continue to hire for today and we’ll continue to add more roles just given the complexity of the business as we’re serving more customers, we’ve added UK and Ireland into the mix and continuing to focus on global expansion. And then if you think about the beverages and experiences we’re trying to serve, like R&D you’re going to continue to product innovation. So R&D is a big focus. And then the sales side, because we work with partners as we go to market, there’s different channels we’re working with, different regions that we’re expanding into. And so there’s been definitely a focus us on the go-to-market and sales side as well. And just from an overall growth, I I think the exciting thing is, yeah, we continue to grow at a really steady pace and we’re looking to take that pace even higher. So that’s a lot of the work that’s happening now is how do we kind of continue to grow and accelerate that pace of growth with all the investment we’re making on the innovation and go-to-market side.
Keith Cline (42:28)
Question that’s on everyone’s mind these days is AI, of course, so I have to ask. how is Bevi thinking about that approach, whether it’s in use of the product or just in use for more productive employees at the company?
Cathy (42:41)
AI. Well, we talk about it almost every day. If not every day, we’re certainly using it every day. I would say probably back in September, we really made a concerted effort to pivot how we were thinking about AI. had kind of… had a bit more, you know, people were using it selectively, but we didn’t, we hadn’t taken a true company stance until last fall. And it is very much embedded into almost everything we’re doing. We think about it from an AI enabled automation across the team. And we have power users kind of within each department where they are building tools that are helping us be more effective, efficient, automating workflows. And so that’s been everything from, you know, we’ve, you know, took our collections process from a few days ⁓ a month down to an hour a month, right, to ⁓ service calls and how we’re capturing notes and then auto loading those into our systems ⁓ to our go-to-market and sales kind of research and targeting and how are we thinking that engine and just making our sellers much more productive and efficient so the majority of their time is focused on just selling, right, and not some of the administrative kind of overhead things that can sometimes come. So AI is embedded throughout our processes and we continue to create space for people to experiment, right? That’s the biggest thing is just get hands on keyboard experiment. Not everybody wants to build. So we definitely have folks that are the builders and then rolling things out to the team. And a lot of folks that are just using tools that were built leveraging AI to make them more efficient.
On the product front, we’re working on a whole orchestration layer now to make our agents even more effective. So, more to come there, but you’ll start to see it flow into the actual product experience. If you think about the back end that’s powering everything and how AI can come in to deliver an even better experience with our partners, drinkers, the UI, right? How we’re all about customization and so how we can really get that right mix of products into that, you know, customer’s hands at the right moment is really important to us. A lot more to come there, but it’s definitely something very important. We’re also a sustainability company, so we do have kind of guidelines around responsible AI, right? And how we think about that, that is something we continue to just think about overall, and I’m sure we’ll continue…
Keith Cline (45:05)
Right.
Cathy (45:10)
to evolve but I did want to note that as well.
Keith Cline (45:15)
What about the culture? What’s it like working at Bevi?
Cathy (45:18)
⁓ I’ll say when so
I felt very lucky at Drizly. It was an amazing culture, really incredible people. I didn’t think I would honestly get to have that kind of experience again. But then I came to Bevi. And you know, certainly a different company, but the culture is really incredible here. I mean, as we already talked about, the mission is the guiding principle for everybody and everybody’s here because they want to have an impact in the world, right, and do good and be positive. And so everybody is aligned around the mission. That is kind of point number one and the main thing. The second piece, take our work very seriously, right? We’re dealing with food and beverage and hardware and robotics and.
So that’s no joke, but we have a lot of fun. We don’t take ourselves seriously. So there are usually a couple of theme parties. You don’t have to participate, but people go all out, right? We have lunch a couple of days a week brought in so everybody can come together. There’s impromptu kind of happy hours. We really support our ERGs. We have a green team. They’re often setting up kind of volunteer events and different activities for the group. And so it really is all about coming together ⁓ strong, collaborative relationships. Again, no ego starts from the top, right? I think as I mentioned, our founders have zero ego and that has just trickled through and that’s really a core value of ours today. Stay humble is our number one value that we talk a lot about, right? There’s no ego hierarchy. It’s not a thing. Great ideas can come from anywhere and everyone and we just want to create a really collaborative space.
Keith Cline (46:58)
All right, what’s the number one question you get all the time?
Cathy (47:02)Hhow do I get one for my home? When are you launching the home unit? Yep, every day, at least once a day. I will hear that. Yeah, it’s quite funny. We get calls all the time. mean.
Keith Cline (47:06)
Exactly.
I bet, I bet.
Cathy (47:15)
I hear these stories of how we’ve changed someone’s life because they were drinking these high calorie soda or energy drinks every day and then they got exposed to Bevi and they lost 50 pounds because they started to care about what they put in their body and now their health is good. Like all these stories come in and so they’re like, please, how do I get this from my home? Right. And yeah, are you going to ask if we’re going to have a home unit? Is that where you were going to take the question?
Keith Cline (47:38)
Do I ask or do I not? I’m like, do I ask the obvious or do I go against the grain and not and be too cool to ask?
Cathy (47:47)
Well, what I will say, okay, what I will say, yeah, mean, listen, go.
Keith Cline (47:47)
Let’s ask, when’s the consumer version coming?
Cathy (47:53)
Going back to what I said, like I want to be where the bottles and cans are. And right now there’s a ton of opportunity in commercial spaces. And so that’s where we’ve been focused. And that’s where we have so much opportunity to continue to scale. So that is our near term focus. ⁓ We may be in a couple homes, one or two celebrities and a couple other folks just to start to get early reads. So that’s been interesting getting some data insights there. ⁓
But I will say, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that we’ll have a home unit one day, but I wouldn’t hold my breath in the very near term, but I wanna make an impact. And there’s a lot of bottles and cans sitting in pantries and refrigerators, so.
Keith Cline (48:31)
100% that’s a smart decision. Okay, I have two daughters, one who’s actually about to graduate from college this weekend. We need more female CEOs. So what advice would you give my daughter on becoming a CEO in the future?
Cathy (48:44)
Congratulations to your daughter. What a fun and you too,
Keith Cline (48:46)
Thank you.
Cathy (48:47)
Whole family. That’s awesome. What a great time. You’ll have fun celebrating, I’m sure.
What advice. You know, it’s so, so interesting. Can I tell a quick story? Okay. When I was at Penn at Edward, I was in taking a leadership class and there were a number of guest speakers. And I remember one of the guest speakers who was coming was
a female CEO of Fortune 500 company. And at the time there were 110 female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. And I was so excited to hear from her. And she walked into the room and her energy was, she just looked defeated and exhausted. And she went on just to tell us about how, who was now an adult hated her because she had traveled and like done it it was just and I left being like, my God, I know what I don’t want to be when I grow up and it’s a CEO. And so I there was this so for a little while there, I just thought, wow, it’s so hard. You can’t have a family. can’t do all these things that are important that I would like to have eventually. And then I think are important. and then I started to get exposed to incredible female leaders, whether it was from Bain and Co. Certainly in my time at CVS. my goodness. So inspiring. mean, Helena Foulkes was president of the CVS Pharmacy and she was the one that really spearheaded making the decision about exiting tobacco. You’ve had Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo. You had all these incredible leaders and I realized there wasn’t one person I had to emulate and be like. I could craft my own version of what I think a CEO is and the most important thing was figuring out what are my superpowers and how do I bring that into my roles. So I think my biggest piece of advice is taking the
to figure out what your superpowers are and just lean into it and then bring in people with different superpowers around you. And I think, you know, people talk a lot about imposter syndrome.
I think it’s awesome. What I learned was not like, you know, there’s a time in early in your career, especially where I think you feel like you’re supposed to have all the answers. And that’s what creates that imposter syndrome was like, I feel like I need to know all the things I need to be the expert in everything. And when I got really comfortable and made a shift was when I realized my superpower was actually not having the answer, but knowing how to get the answer, taking a problem, breaking it down into pieces, getting the right people in a room to then go and solve the problem. And that’s
when I felt like I kind of my career went to the next level with that mindset shift. So I think take the time, figure out your superpower and it will charge you ahead whether you’re a CEO or whatever you want to be when you grow up, like it’s gonna lead you in the right direction.
Keith Cline (51:27)
Great, great advice. All right, so two rapid fire questions. One is very obvious. What’s your favorite Bevi beverage or flavor of choice?
Cathy (51:35)
Oh, so I normally would go with a citrus, but I have been on a cucumber kick big time. Cucumber with electrolytes lately. It feels like a little bit of a little spa break in the afternoon when I have my cucumber water. So I would recommend it.
Keith Cline (51:50)
All right, three apps you can’t live without can’t be Slack, email, or calendar.
Cathy (51:54)
I am on Slack a lot as everyone knows. I always love throwing in emojis on all the fun things that they’re posting about and all the great work happening.
Okay, Uber, just because I’m on the road all the time and I just love that I know I can get an Uber anywhere I go. It’s going to get me where I need to be. And then as a working mom, Uber Eats, oh we’re ordering a lot of food. We’re ordering a lot of dinner. So that has made me super effective. Audible for the commute. I’ve been able to now, I listen to books all the time, so I’m a huge fan of Audible. And then WHOOP.
Boston favorite. ⁓ we, we have my
Keith Cline (52:32)
All right, yes.
Cathy (52:34)
So doesn’t always try not to look at my recovery score on days where I have a big, a big meeting because it’s not always the best, but ⁓ no, it’s, awesome. I love, I love the product.
Keith Cline (52:39)
Alright.
Well since you use Audible, any book or podcast recommendation for entrepreneurs that you’d recommend?
Cathy (52:50)
Ooh, one that I swear by Patrick Lencioni he wrote the five dysfunctions of a team, his book, The Advantage. I believe in it wholeheartedly. basic premise is you can have the perfect strategy. The numbers make sense, right? It’s crystal clear on where you need to the company. But if you don’t have organizational health, kind of at the core, you’re not going to kind of reach your full potential. And when you analyze all the highest performing companies, they were all really, really strong in organizational health. And so it talks all about, right, how do you align teams, bring clarity of strategy, communication, like building a really unified leadership team so they show up, you know, in a really consistent way. Like there’s a there’s a lot on that that I I fully believe in and that we definitely bring into what we do here at Bevi every day.
Keith Cline (53:45)
You’re busy, but what do you like to do for fun outside of work?
Cathy (53:49)
⁓ well, I’m a mom of three daughters, eight, 10 and 12. So when I’m not working, I spend a lot of time with them and my husband. We, ⁓ I coach teams. I’m a Girl Scout troop leader, volunteer in the, you know, the green room at the theater shows. So it’s, I love, I love being a mom and I love, ⁓ yeah, carbon time for that. I also love yoga when I can fit it in for me. So.
Keith Cline (54:15)
Well, Cathy, thanks so much for taking the time to walk us through your background story, the professional journey, obviously all the great work you and the team are up to at Bevi and obviously all the great advice.
Cathy (54:25)
Yeah, thank you, Keith. It’s great to chat with you. Thanks so much for having me.