“You can’t escape disappointing people in this role, but you need to learn to do it as thoughtfully as possible.”
I had the pleasure of interviewing Sean Grundy, CEO of Bevi, a high-growth beverage technology company that has raised $28M in venture capital. Bevi makes smart water coolers that provide sparkling and flavored water on demand. Prior to founding the business, Sean worked in water conservation at an environmental non-profit organization in the US and China. He studied at Princeton University and MIT.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us about your journey to becoming CEO?
I’m one of three co-founders of Bevi. One of my founding partners had a strong background in design and mechanical engineering, so it made sense for her to lead product development. The other had a manufacturing and operations management background, so it made sense for him to lead operations. I had no relevant experience to cover a core business function, so I became CEO!
What is your definition of success?
We’re an environmental company. Our mission is to rid the world of disposable bottles and cans by creating the highest quality beverages on demand, using filtered tap water and a variety of natural ingredients. Success for us is first and foremost our environmental impact. We keep a running log of the number of bottles and cans that we’ve displaced. Right now we save several million bottles per month. I’ll consider us successful when we reach the billions!
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
One of our venture capital investors hosted a conference in Japan for their portfolio companies. The night after the conference, there was a fun banquet with a talent show, and we all had to participate and put together skits. My role in the skit was to be a piano player, but I barely had time to learn the song I was supposed to play — City of Stars from La La Land. I figured it wouldn’t matter, as I assumed the judges would be other entrepreneurs who didn’t know or care much about music. It turned out that our VCs have friends from all walks of life! The judges included
will.i.amfrom the Black Eyed Peas and Stella McCartney, among others! It’s embarrassing to hit wrong notes in front of the guy who wrote “Where is the Love?”
What failures have you had along the way? How have they led you to success?
So many failures! I try to be systematic about learning from everything that goes wrong. One example is with sales. When we pitch prospects and get rejected, we document the primary reason for the rejection — some aspect of our product, the lack of a feature, the price, et cetera. We then funnel all the rejection data back to our product development team and use it to guide what we build next. This feedback loop helps make sure we’re meeting customers’ needs.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
People get obsessed with our product! Many of our referrals come from people who have Bevi in their office, and tell their wives or husbands about it. It always surprises me because I can’t imagine people getting excited enough to tell their significant other about any other office appliance — for example, coming home and bragging about a printer or refrigerator. Sometimes the obsession goes too far. One loyal user calls the Bevi in his office his “girlfriend,” and gets jealous when our technician replenishes the machine!
Are you working on any new or exciting projects now?
Yes! We’re doing a lot of R&D to develop ways to create truly custom drinks, personalized to each person’s taste profiles and health goals. We’re helping people discover and even invent beverages that are uniquely theirs. It’s the opposite of the mass production that dominates the food and beverage industry today.
Is your company working to be more sustainable? If so, how?
Since our company’s mission is to eliminate disposable bottles, we try to walk the walk in being more sustainable in both large and small ways. Not only do we recycle and compost, but, for example, we also work with the company TerraCycle to reuse all sorts of packaging such as chip bags. Long-term, we’d love to embed environmentalism even further into our business and develop a partnership where we donate a percent of profits to an NGO.
What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?
Hold people accountable for results rather than effort. Success is about what you achieve — not about how hard you try. That sounds scary to many people, but it’s actually very attractive to top performers.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are?
The first $100K in funding we received came from a business accelerator program called Techstars. It’s a wonderful, intense program for tech entrepreneurs. During the program, my co-founders and I spent three months being mentored by highly successful entrepreneurs whose companies had gone public or been sold in massive acquisitions.
The mentors there drilled a philosophy into me that is now core to our company — speed comes first. In a resource-constrained start-up environment, you’ll almost never have all the data or knowledge that you need to make business decisions. To make progress quickly, we had to get comfortable looking for the
minimum amount of information we needed to make a decision, not the maximum.
One example of this in action was coming up with our initial pricing model. I remember telling Techstars’ former managing director, Katie Rae, that I couldn’t develop a pricing model because we didn’t have a product ready yet. She looked at me quizzically and asked, “Why is not having a product yet stopping you from selling it?” It sounded crazy, but we got to work pitching customers on our concept, and ended up lining up a dozen pre-sales before the product was even fully designed.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I don’t consider myself successful yet, but I’ve tried my best with Bevi to align financial success with positive environmental impact, so that the two go hand in hand. I also try to create jobs for people that they’ll really enjoy.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became CEO,” and why?
1.
The fun of the job is that you never stop learning. Especially in a high-growth start-up, the nature of day-to-day work changes significantly with the stage of the business and the challenges you’re facing in the market. Depending on the day or month, I’m a sales person, a fundraiser, a general manager, or a product manager.
2.
It’s not just most of your waking hours that are spent working — you’ll dream about work at night too! I recently had a nightmare about a never-ending spreadsheet that I just kept scrolling down. For real, it’s hard to ever disconnect.
3.
Other CEOs will help you! It’s amazing how many other CEOs you meet and become friends with when you’re in this position. We open up to each other and support each other. I’ve met many of our investors through introductions from fellow CEOs. People talk about it being a lonely job, but there’s a large support network out there of people who can empathize with you and who have been in your shoes.
4.
Get good at giving bad news. Did the needs of the business evolve so that certain employees aren’t a good fit anymore? You’ll be the one terminating their employment. Miss a number? You’ll be the one telling your Board of Directors. Make a strategic change? You can’t escape disappointing people in this role, but you need to learn to do it as thoughtfully as possible.
5.
In spite of all the demands, it’s exciting and addicting to be responsible for your own destiny. I’m not sure if I can go back to a regular job after experiencing this!
If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Reach back out to one old friend per month! Modern lives are so transient and so crowded with activities. Rekindling friendships helps you remember the core values that really matter.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? How has that been relevant to you in your life?
A philosophy professor once posed the question, “If your life were a book, would it be interesting?” It’s a simple question, but one that helps make sure you take advantage of life’s possibilities. I’ve asked myself this before making many of my biggest decisions, from moving to China on a few weeks’ notice when a job opportunity came up there in 2010, to going to grad school at MIT, to starting Bevi instead of joining an established company. I want to make sure that a biography of my life would be fun to read!
Is there a person in the world with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?
Sir David Attenborough! His work for the environment has been inspirational, and it’s actually his documentaries that first got me interested in joining an environmental NGO at the start of my career — an interest which eventually led to founding a mission-driven for-profit company. Also, I can only assume he has the most amazing life stories.
