In a noisy market, education cuts through.
The hydration category isn’t lacking options. It’s lacking clarity.
Walk down any aisle or scroll through any marketplace, and you’ll see the same guarantees but in different packaging — zero sugar, better-for-you claims. It’s constant.
Bryan Appio, founder and CEO of DryWater, looked at that and decided not to compete on volume.
“We did things the opposite way typical brands do in the space,” he shared in a recent interview with Inc.
This wasn’t positioning. It was a decision about how to build the business from day one. Instead of trying to out-market competitors, Appio focused on helping people understand what they were consuming.
Education beats marketing.
Most brands assume customers need convincing. Appio believed they needed clarity.
“The consumer is very educated post-COVID,” he said.
This meant repeating what people already knew — sugar is bad, and artificial ingredients aren’t helpful — wasn’t enough. So, he shifted the conversation.
“What we said is, ‘Hey, do you actually even know what potassium does to your body?,” he remembers.
That question reframed the entire interaction. It also shifts the relationship from selling to teaching, which builds trust in a way pure marketing can. Early on, that meant showing up in person and explaining the product directly.
“We literally went out and handed the product to people,” he said. “This is why I drink it, and this is why we made it.”
This approach doesn’t usually scale easily, but the thinking behind it does. It also carried into retail. DryWater didn’t push aggressively for distribution. The product and the story started pulling it in
That approach doesn’t scale easily, but thinking behind it does. It also carried into how DryWater expanded into retail. Appio said no outreach was done. Instead of pushing aggressively for distribution, the product and the story started pulling it in.
“We never sold,” he noted. “We just educated.”
Selling does drive transactions, but education helps build belief. Belief compounds.
The best partnerships don’t feel like marketing.
As the brand grew, so did opportunities in sports. The default approach is familiar — pay for visibility, and plaster logos anywhere you can. Appio wasn’t interested in that.
“I don’t want to put a logo on something and say, it’s marketing,” he said.”
Instead, he looked for alignment. That led DryWater to bet early on League One Volleyball. Not because it was the biggest platform, but because it fit the brand.
“What I was identifying was these female athletes had a following that was aligned with health,” he said.
The audience — moms, youth athletes, and families — was already the core customer. Then came the moment that confirmed the direction.
“They said to me, ‘We don’t want the money,’” he said. ‘“We want our players drinking the product.’”
That shifted the partnership entirely. This wasn’t a transaction. It was about integration.
“I need to be in every activation,” Appio added. “I want to give product away, and I want to speak to the youth sports.”
The goal wasn’t visibility. It was connection, which is harder to execute, but far more durable.
Product wins. Everything else follows.
If there’s one idea that shows up repeatedly in Appio’s approach, it’s that product comes first. DryWater went through 49 formulations before landing on something that worked. It took years of iteration and persistence.
At one point, the process nearly broke him. “I got to a point where I felt defeated after about a year,” he recalled.
Then came a moment that changed everything.
“I was on the golf course,” he said. “I took it and I was like, ‘Holy s***. This is the best thing I’ve ever tried.”
From there, the standard was clear. The product had to taste great, it had to work, and it had to be clean. That same discipline carried into retail. Getting on the shelf is one challenge, but staying there is another.
That’s where many brands will lose focus. They alter their formula or chase trends to improve short-term performance.
The real advantage is focus.
Ask Appio what founders get wrong, and the answer is immediate.
“Put your blinders on and stop reading the headlines,” he said.
The market isn’t crowded with great ideas. It’s crowded with similar ones. Many companies end up chasing what’s working for someone else instead of building something distinct.
“I think the reason we have so many me-too products on the market is people just try to chase money,” he said.
The alternative is slower, less obvious, but more durable. Solve a real problem, build something better, and stay with it long enough to see it through.
“You’re not going to make any money for a long time,” Appio said.
That’s the part most people underestimate. It’s not the idea nor the opportunity. It’s the discipline required to stay focused long enough to make it work.
