Mike Cessario used to be a creative director at Netflix, having worked on promotional material for shows like 'House of Cards', 'Stranger Things', and 'Narcos'. Now, he's received over a million dollars in funding from the tech industry for a new startup he founded.
It's called Liquid Death, and it sells canned water.
That's right, Cessario's startup just cans and sells water, and yet it recently received $1.6 million in seed funding, led by Science Inc. Other investors include Dollar Shave Club founder & CEO Michael Dubin, and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, among others. The startup's total investment currently sits at around $2.25 million.
How did he do it? Well Cessario is a veritable genius at marketing. His brand is called liquid death because it's a sort of inside joke aimed at the punk rock and heavy metal fan community. After all, as their tag line says, "Nothing's better than water at murdering your thirst."
"When we first started, we wondered why is it that products and [consumer packaged goods] products have to play by these 1950's bland and boring rules, while other entertainment things can play by much more fun rules," Cessario told Business Insider in an interview. He wanted to sell a product with a little less caution and a little more pizazz.
He believed there was a market for bottled water aimed at "straight edge" punks instead of "Whole Food yoga moms". The former are fans wholly immersed in the punk rock lifestyle, while still keeping sober and healthy.
"Red Bull blurs the lines, are they an energy drinks company or action sports brand?" Cessario said. "You just don't see that in the health space and with the healthy brands. I don't drink soda or energy drinks, and neither do most of my friends."
And so, Liquid Death was born. You can only buy it online, and it comes in 12-packs of tall cans. And though he's marketing to punks, Cessario says the product is one that appeals to pretty much anyone.
The idea was to base their marketing strategy more on beer than other food products. After all, the best kind of beer ads are the ones that make you take notice because they're either strange or awesome. Additionally, Cesasrio says, "If you want younger people to want something you have to market to people in their 20s because teens want the thing they can't have. At first we knew the easiest crowd for us is anyone into heavy metal, punk rock, and that kind of world because they immediately get the joke and get the humor and have never seen anything like it. What makes this appealing for such a large group is that it feels like a niche thing."
Aside from all of that, selling canned water instead of bottled is a little bit better for the environment, something Cessario believes his buyers will appreciate. Liquid Death plans to donate $0.05 from every can sold to help clean up plastic polluting the oceans.
"If you think about it, it makes sense, everything metal and punk is extreme," Cessario said. "Being vegan is extreme, protesting the deforestation is extreme. There are more vegans at a heavy metal show than a Taylor Swift show. We are by far the most sustainable option for packaged water, which is a big driver for why people want to buy from us."