New Beverage Showdown 23 - Semi-finals: Plink!

Speaker 1 [00:14] Next up we have Max Luthy, who is the co-founder and co-CEO of Plink. Ax one up. Good to see you again. Alright, you can grab any one of the microphones, your, your timer's right over there,

Maxwell Luthi [00:29] please. Alright, alright, alright, hello, hello, hello everyone. I'm Maxwell Luthy, a reformed futurist and the co-founder of Plink. My partner Luke is the, the white Dennis Rodman in the audience, a reformed kombuchaist. Beautiful hair, Luke. Uh, we started Plink over 2 years ago to tackle a massive problem, and it's really simple. People consume over 1 trillion L of packaged drinks every year. That packaging litters our parks, our waterways, and our oceans, and the carbon footprint, not to mention the cost of trucking water around, is massive. So our solution is simple. You simply fill up a glass of water, pop a Plink in it, and boom, a delicious beverage with 99% less packaging and a fraction of the carbon footprint. But I know what you're thinking, you're thinking simple, naive, Max. People don't choose beverages to save the world, they choose them for personal needs, and that's true. We choose them for taste, we choose them to share with our friends and family, we choose them for daily moments of joy, and that's what Plink delivers. We see a huge fucking white space between Kool-Aid over here in the just add water category, where he literally kicks the door into your house and says, Here's the joy and liquid IV over here, so functional it's named after something you get in the hospital. The white space in between, and I love those two brands, is joyful hydration. That's what we're aiming at. We have just 1 g of sugar, 14 calories, a source of electrolytes, natural flavors, natural colors. We have cross-demographic appeal. We see 3 generations in the same household Plinking. We are incredibly cheap to sample. We are born for TikTok and user generated content. We roll out in retail soon. Oh yeah, we're going to reclaim the water cooler in enterprise as well. We can literally dominate the water cooler moment. So we launched one month ago. Our promise is simple, you bring the water, we bring the flavor.

Speaker 1 [02:36] Very well done. Everyone's still buzzing, well done, um. Alison, as someone who has won the new Beverage showdown, who's won investment on Shark Tank, obviously you know presentation is really important. Did you get what you wanted to hear out of that presentation?

Speaker 3 [02:50] Yeah, it made me want to be his best friend, you know, like I, I don't wanna like hang out with you or, you know, let's hang out after this, but I agree, like having the ability to sell your brand and tell the story and really believe in it goes into building a brand nowadays. So good job.

Speaker 1 [03:05] Yeah, David, what do you think of the opportunity for these types of tablets where, um, you bring the water, they'll bring the flavor?

Speaker 4 [03:11] Great pitch, uh, first off, and, um, I do think that sustainable I mean sustainability is here to stay and uh consumer awareness of that is, is definitely, uh, growing so, uh, the carbon footprint piece on reducing that, that's, um, you know, something that it is coming, um, so yeah.

Speaker 1 [03:33] And Jackie, uh, flavor is really important too. I mean, you know, we saw the, we, uh, we dropped these into some glasses over in the, uh, tasting room. What do you think of the taste of, uh, Plink?

Speaker 5 [03:42] Yeah, I would say the taste is similar to other like hydration tablets that I've tried. Um, it's, it's kind of light. It also is up to the consumer, I guess, how much water you put in to dilute it or to make it more concentrated, so it's kind of a little bit of an experiential experience. Um, so I'd say the flavors, the flavors there, um, it tastes like a hydration beverage, and I, I mean I love the packaging. The packaging is super fun. I think people are going to want to try this, and like you said, it's, it's something that could go viral or people would want to post about on Instagram.

Speaker 1 [04:15] Seems like Instacart drivers would love this product. They don't have to lug around heavy beverages all over the place. Um, do you like this product? Do you like this brand, Brittany?

Speaker 6 [04:22] Oh, say that again.

Speaker 1 [04:23] What do you think of this brand? What do you think of this product in general?

Speaker 6 [04:25] You know what, I think this has so much opportunity. I think there are so many consumers that are looking to do more sustainable activities in their everyday, and why not start with beverage? So it was a great pitch and, and great product.

Speaker 1 [04:37] All right, well done.