for me. It, sadly, all started out of tragedy. My mom when I was a senior in college, I went to Emory University. My mom was diagnosed with liver cancer on DSO instead of going to graduation, I was actually at her funeral. Andi, that for me was kind of this realization that life is incredibly fragile. I moved right after that summer. I moved to New York toe take a job in sales marketing for the company that produces sugar in the raw brown sugar packets at Starbucks. You invite them, um, love the company. But after realizing how fragile life is and we could all go at any time, um, I really wanted to start something that both continued her legacy and gave back to people in the environment. Um, I was actually doing sales out of in London at the time. My girlfriend was living with me. She drinks more water than anyone I know. Um, and it got me thinking I didn't have ah, reusable water bottle. I was drinking single use plastic bottles and which was a terrible waste. Um, even though I had studied sustainable business in in college, um, it inspired me. Think of concepts for reusable bottles for men. So the original concept was actually a collapsible bottle that would fit in guys back pockets we have pivoting from their changing the design. Launching a Kickstarter on DWI sold $65,000 from a terrible product, I think, Yeah. I mean, it was a terrible product. We were not actually able to manufacture that product. Uh, had to pivot. Ah, few times changed the design, change the structure. It was actually a blessing in disguise. The bottles are now insulated. They come with a removable infuser, letting you booty or infuser water with fruit. It's just a much better product than what we were planning to do on Kickstarter. Um, we offered a full refund to anyone who wanted to back out because the design change. But we only lost 2% of our customers on Ben. I was from there. I was in the reusable water bottle business eso way Incorporate bamboo, which is a natural renewable resource, Um, mainly, but also mainly because it looks great. You know, when you have a natural resource on on a product, you know whether it's furniture or water bottles. I feel like it really looks nice and adds to that feel on the aesthetic eso. That's kind of how I got launched into Ueli, and, uh, the business is named after my mom. My dad used to call her Ellie at home, so I named it welly after her. And then we also donate 1% of ourselves to clean water projects, mainly through well, so that's the name WellI.

Yeah. Before I go into the elevator pitch, I wouldn't say that we're, you know, so innovative that we're solving a problem that no one else is solving. Right? There are a lot of reusable water bottles on the market. Um, what I what I like about the industry is that it's growing. People are moving people, cities. They're starting to ban single use plastics. So the overall industry of reusable eyes starting to grow and I expect to grow continuously for the next 20 years. Eso I believe we're in a good space. Um, what? When I get asked that trade shows what makes us different than hydro flask. You're swell. Are cork school or entities? Competitors? Um, if you stand those side by side, you'll see just stainless steel and plastic. They just in different shapes. That's the only difference in all of our competitors. It has the same functionality. Is the thermostat. Keep drinks hot or cold, but they just look different. What? Where we stand out is three things. One is just appearance, right? The reason you probably bought the shirt that you're wearing right now. You thought it looked good, right? Then you've checked it out and make sure that the buttons work and all these things. But the look is really when you put us next, all of our competitors, you see the difference, and that's through our materials, which is our bamboo. Um, Second, we try to take it beyond just a vessel that holds your liquids. We have a removable infuser, as I mentioned, that helps you brew tea if you want to go if you want at home. But also you can put fruit underneath and get flavored water it. Access filter or strainer so you can get flavored water. Andan. The last thing is, you are, but this is a to prom. Part one is my connection to my mom and why I started the business and also what we're doing to help people. So we help reduce our reliance on single use plastics. But we're also donating the clean water projects in developing countries. And my goal What we're planning for 2021 Justin, When you buy a bottle, you're going to get une email saying, Hey, because of your purchase, we sent money to this specific community. Here is a story of a girl who used to walk four hours a day to get dirty water and now has clean water because of your purchase. So we're really trying to tie our customers to the give back. Most businesses today have some sort of charitable component, which is great, but you never really see where your money goes. We're really trying to tack. Customers can project mhm.

give you some perspective. The Kickstarter closed in 2015 but our first full year of sales was 2018. So there was a big lag where we were, uh, changing the design, paying for new molds, waiting for molds, testing things. So I'll take. First start with the first few weeks with Kickstarter was incredibly exciting When we got the we did a video for $4000 postal prototype for maybe 1000 bucks and then sold $65,000 which is kind of the proof of concept that was really exciting and followed by years of Oh, my goodness, this is not working. We need to change the design. Actually, the first production run that arrived was assembled drop and there was a chemically smell because they didn't let the adhesive dry and they packaged it up. So we had to recall our first whole shipment, so that was miserable. But the more exciting part is when we actually had product that we loved and could sell. Um, it was really just me on my own, um uh, s so I'm literally getting, you know, reaching out, doing sales, putting together the website with the Web Web designer, Um, or an agency, Um, you know, fulfilling orders myself. We actually invested in a laser engraver. So we could do, though. Goes a lot of our businesses from custom bottles with with, you know, Carnegie Mellon's logo on it, for instance, um, so I invested in a laser engraver for $25,000 where I'm literally putting 10 bottles under the time up, loading. They are hitting go cleaning the bottles, packing the bottles, putting the shipping label on shipping it out, invoicing the customer s. So it's literally it was every aspect of the business to me, that was my MBA. That was like the, you know, fill it. Um, I learned Mawr. I've learned more from this business than I think. Any school? Really? You know. Sorry. I know we're talking to students, but it was tremendously helpful. Toe learn. Just, you know, I had taken financial accounting, but when you're really diving into a profit loss statement and your balance sheet really understand what everything means and where everything goes, Um, first, when you see it in the textbook, and, you know, you kind of study it on, take a test. Um, so really running every aspect. The business was incredibly exciting, but also incredibly scary. I remember we had had a month of $20,000 in sales, and I was telling my cousins like we had $20,000. Now, that would be a you know, Um, so, you know, I just remember that the excitement there of building the business, um, you know, the most important thing I did was build the team, right, Because I can't do it on my own. So I remember I had to convince a sales person to come join me so he could focus on sales. I could focus on every other aspect of the business, including sales on basically gave up 1% of the company, but 1% of the company. A swell as, Ah, a large commission rate. Yeah. So the high Commission and a percentage of the business he was able to help us grow the business. And then we were able to bring on us. Someone had to run our marketing and two more sales people. Right now we're a team of six in total, including myself, Um, which has been exciting. Yeah,