Entrepreneur Spotlight: Ben Lewis

August 10, 2010

Our last Entrepreneur Spotlight showed that young entrepreneurs can accomplish big things, regardless of how the economy is doing. Another case in point (and the focus of today’s spotlight) is 21 year old Ben Lewis. After graduating from Pittsburgh’s Shady Side Academy in 2007, Lewis did not kick back and relax in his final summer before college. Instead, he got straight to work starting GIVE Water, a bottled water company with a unique marketing strategy and an ambitious social vision.

Ben’s impressive rise to marketplace success is chronicled below:

The Big Idea

PopCityMedia.com explores the early days of GIVE Water and how Ben Lewis made the decision to start it. After incorporating as PurBlu Beverages, the then eighteen year-old Lewis’ mission was simple: turn a bottled water business into a permanent, self-sustaining charitable donor. His basic strategy for achieving this is as follows:

“Unlike other brands, their water, GIVE, comes in three causes: GIVE Life for children suffering from poverty and malnourishment in the world; GIVE Hope for women suffering from breast cancer; and GIVE Love for the environment.”

Different bottles of GIVE Water are adorned in a different color label denoting one of these causes. This way, consumers can look at them all on a shelf and consciously decide which charity and cause they wish to support. Once the purchase is made, ten cents of the price is automatically donated to whichever cause that bottle corresponds to. (Competitor Ethos, Inc.com notes, gives just five cents of each purchase to charity.) The list of causes that consumers may support with their GIVE Water purchases now includes environmental issues and muscular disorder research (green and orange labels, respectively.)

The Early Days

Ben Lewis was under no illusions about how competitive the market he entered was. “When you look at the bottled water market, there are 800 brands out there,” Lewis told PopCityMedia. “It’s critical that we set our product apart from all other brands. This makes activism really easy for people. All they have to do is buy the water.”

Of course, business success is never quite as easy as entrepreneurs initially believe. Despite having a meaningful unique selling proposition and point of difference, Lewis had to hustle to gain early traction and distribution.

Early on, Inc.com finds that Lewis borrowed warehouse space at the office of a friend’s father and began selling GIVE Water from the trunk of his own car. He was pleased to find that people did indeed want to buy his product, but naturally, the sell out of your car distribution method is not very scalable. As a logical next step, Lewis succeeded in persuading some local delis and grocery stores in Pittsburgh to stock GIVE.

Company Expansion

His initial plans for a nationwide roll-out by the end of 2007 proved far too optimistic. However, Lewis, his product sales and the story behind it did slowly begin to attract the attention of distributors on the East Coast, in Canada and the Midwest. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reveals that the enterprising young man convinced a nearby Whole Foods, the Giant Eagle in Cranberry, and the Children’s Museum café to stock the beverage. By the end of 2007, GIVE had donated “around $3,000-$4,000″ to charity.

By February 2008, the Daily Pennsylvanian found that Lewis had found a headquarters for his company: a 2,000 square-foot office on the eighth floor of One Oxford Centre.

Additionally, Lewis brought in some “adult help” to manage the GIVE’s growth. Gary Paparella, an ex-Cadbury Schweppes executive with 28 years of beverage industry experience, had become the company’s Chief Operating Officer, alongside CEO Ben Lewis.

Whole Foods & Future Plans

Lewis summed up his ultimate goals for GIVE Water in his interview with the Daily Pennsylvanian:

“What I’m trying to achieve with GIVE is to leverage the rapid growth of bottled water and use it as a vehicle to create social change.”

It’s still early, but Lewis is well on his way. In March 2009, Inc.com reported that Lewis had deals in place with Whole Foods to carry GIVE Water on both coasts. At the time, GIVE had donated “more than $50,000, which suggests retail sales of about $650,000″ in the 18 months since the company’s mid-2007 founding. Lewis now expects nationwide reach by the end of 2010, and a May 2010 company press release states that its products are already “distributed in thousands of outlets across the US and Canada.”

GIVE has also run a number of contests which award seed money to aspiring young social entrepreneurs. The top prize in the most recent contest, announced on May 12, went to biodiesel firm GTECH.

Ben’s Advice For Aspiring Young Entrepreneurs

Ben’s early business experience has taught him a number of valuable lessons other young entrepreneurs would do well to learn. Time management is crucial. Inc.com writes that “Lewis often must decide between taking a conference call and going to class.” Lewis has also learned the importance of budgeting. Says Lewis:

“It’s really helped me gain experience with adults. Seriously, what 18 year old has to make budgets? No one out there my age is running a company with a $600,000 budget.”

More broadly, Lewis advises:

“I know it’s kind of cliché, but I would have to say anything is possible, don’t give up. There were a couple of times when I gave up. I realized at one point that I was too far along not to go forward, I knew more about bottled water than I needed to know. Set high standards for yourself.”

Keeping Tabs

Those interested in keeping tabs on GIVE Water and Ben Lewis can go here:

• DrinkGive.com
• Ben’s LinkedIn

• Comments 2
• Date August 10, 2010
• CategoriesEntrepreneurship