There’s no single playbook for building a breakout beverage brand.
At BevNET Live LA 2026, founders Brad Woodgate and Andy Sauer will take attendees inside two very different approaches to growth — one built around a tightly controlled channel and operating strategy, the other around identifying audiences and turning distinctive brands into cultural phenomena.
Woodgate, a repeat entrepreneur who founded Joyburst in 2022, has grown the company toward $100 million in sales without outside investment, relying heavily on club and mass retailers rather than pursuing distribution everywhere at once.
At BevNET Live, Woodgate will break down the strategy behind that growth, including how Joyburst has used lower-cost product introductions to establish retailer relationships and earn opportunities to sell higher-margin functional products.
For founders, his experience raises some of the most important questions in building a beverage company: How narrow should your channel strategy be? How do you use one product to open the door for another? And how much growth can you finance through the business itself before turning to outside capital?
Sauer, meanwhile, has followed a very different playbook.
A CPG veteran who has worked with both industry giants and startups, Sauer has helped propel Garage Beer to national attention through rapid growth and distinctive marketing. With Roxberry Naturals, positioned as a “soda for kids,” he is applying some of those same challenger-brand instincts to a different consumer and category opportunity; the brand has begun opening new retail accounts and recently joined Walmart’s Modern Soda set.
At BevNET Live, Sauer will explore how he approaches the building blocks of challenger brands: finding niches within large categories, identifying an audience, developing a voice that can break through and deciding when marketing, cultural moments and celebrity investment can become accelerants rather than distractions.
Together, the two talks will give beverage entrepreneurs a look at very different answers to the same fundamental question: How should I grow my brand?
For some companies, the answer may lie in channel discipline, careful innovation and controlling capital. For others, it may be about identifying an underserved audience, building cultural relevance and aggressively amplifying a distinctive brand.
There isn’t one right path. The advantage comes from understanding the choices available — and the tradeoffs that come with each one.
That’s the idea behind these talks and the broader three-day BevNET Live program: giving beverage entrepreneurs access to the strategies, experiences and relationships that can help them make better decisions about capital, retail, innovation, marketing and growth.
Early registration pricing is available through October 23.
Register for BevNET Live Dec. 6-8 >>
About BevNET Live
BevNET Live is the beverage industry’s premier event, bringing together brands, distributors, retailers, investors, and service providers to explore what’s ahead for the industry. Featuring top-tier speakers and the fan-favorite New Beverage Showdown, each event draws hundreds of brands from across the country.