Biolyte— From Selling Out of a Car to $25M in Revenue

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Good morning! It's Tuesday, July 4 - First off, happy 4th of July! Today we are taking a look at Biolyte and how the company took the beverage industry head-on with its unique “IV in a bottle”.

THE FEATURE

Biolyte— From Selling Out of a Car to $25M in Revenue

In the early days of Biolyte, CEO Jesslyn Rollins sold her hydration drink out of the back of her car to high school sports teams and college fraternities.

Today, Biolyte is sold at over 20,000 retail locations and made an estimated $25M in revenue last year.

Let’s dive into how Biolyte grew so quickly and made waves in the beverage industry.

So, What’s the Business?

Biolyte got its start in 2012 when Rollins's mother was struggling through chemotherapy and was in need of constant IV infusions. Despite trying sports drinks, children’s hydration products, and electrolyte powders, nothing seemed to work for Rollins’s mother.

So, her family took it upon themselves to make their own solution. Rollins’s father is an anesthesiologist and used his expertise to develop the first iteration of Biolyte which had 7X more electrolytes than the leading sports drinks.

Seeing how successful Biolyte was for her mother, Rollins and her father began mass producing the drink and selling it to local high school sports teams who fell in love with Biolyte as a way to stay energetic and reduce cramping.

Biolyte’s big break came from an unexpected source– the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE). After Rollins presented the product at a fraternity chapter meeting, SAE bought 900 bottles in preparation for parent’s weekend.

While this showed Rollins another eager consumer group to sell to, it also provided her with a distributor. The CEO of Savannah Distributing, an alcohol distributor, was an SAE alumnus and was thoroughly impressed with the product.

Savannah Distributing was essential in securing Biolyte a spot at hundreds of Kroger locations across the country. After securing distribution, Biolyte doubled its revenue every year and has been profitable since 2019.

How They Win

Standing out from the competition

Competing in the beverage industry isn’t easy by any means. The energy and hydration drink category has long been dominated by Coca-Cola’s Gatorade and Pepsi’s Powerade.

While competing against multi-billion-dollar beverage titans isn’t easy, it’s not impossible. By branding Biolyte as an “IV in a bottle”, Rollins was able to carve out a niche that other companies didn’t serve.

Diverse application

One of the crucial aspects of Biolyte’s success is that it doesn’t cater to a single consumer demographic. By selling directly to consumers early on, Rollins realized that mothers, manual laborers, athletes, and late-night partiers alike felt that the drink was perfectly made for them.

So, instead of creating a brand image that revolves around a single consumer group, Biolyte markets itself to anyone who wants to live healthier and feel better.

Key Observations

The most successful businesses identify a problem for consumers that isn’t being solved by any other competitors.

Biolyte shocking growth that led to its placement on the INC. 5000 list and $25M in revenue was all because the company provided a unique solution to dehydration that no one else provided.