Heroes in Business - Scott Allan, fmr CEO Hydro Flask, CEO Puffin Drinkware and Tyrone Hazen, Founder Puffin Drinkware

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Scott Allan, CEO Puffin Drinkware, fmr CEO Hydro Flask and Tyrone Hazen, Founder Puffin Drinkware is interviewed by David Cogan of Eliances entrepreneur community and host of the Heroes Show.  www.eliances.com  

welcome back to alliances heroes where heroes in business align to be part of our super community and find out more about alliances visit www.alliances.com all right well welcome back and again so much stuff is going on as always you. You know, now we've done, are you ready for this? Over 1,500 interviews. Does this exist? It does with us, the Alliance's Hero Show. Thank you for the feedback I recently had when we had on the co-founder and former CEO, Pandora. So make sure that you go to alliances.com.

That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. Are you ready for this? We have with us the CEO of Puffin Drinkware, that's Scott Allen, and former CEO of Hydroflask, along with Tyrone Hazen, founder of Puffin Drinkware. You can reach them at puffindrinkware.com. And if you're watching and listening, I'm going to give you a P-U-F-F-I-N-D-R-I-N-K-W-E-A-R.com. Welcome to the show, both of you. Thank you, David. Yeah, I really appreciate being here, David.

All right, let's jump right in. How, why did Puffin Drinkware start? How did it all come to be? Sure, yeah, I'll take that one. So a handful of years ago, I was hanging with some friends around a barbecue and fire pit in the backyard and having some drinks and sharing stories with friends. And a friend handed me what seemed to be a koozie made out of the remnants of an old sleeping bag. And in holding it and seeing the bottle of beer in my hand, it just I immediately snapped back to my 1980s sleeping bag. And so this image of a puffy kind of mummy bag style sleeping bag around my beer bottle seemed like it made sense at the time. And we

were founded in a town called Bend, Oregon. We're here in the in the central mountains, centralized in the state. And we're known for beer. We've got about 30 breweries for a small town of about 100,000 people. And we're known for the outdoors. So that cross pollination of beer and outdoors and putting my beer in a sleeping bag just seemed like something the world needed at the time. So we ran with it and now we're just running to keep up. How do you, though, you know, come from the idea to actual inception? Right. I mean, you know, and the design and everything of that, like, I mean, that takes a lot of work. People that don't know, never done it before,

have no idea, right, of the amount of work that just goes into it. It does, absolutely. Thank you for the question. So that was one of my largest challenges. I don't come from a background of product development. I have mostly, you know, real estate background. So that was something I've been chasing for years, trying to figure out how to go about taking an idea from concept in my mind all the way through this production process into mass manufacturing. supportive community for entrepreneurs and a lot of the companies that are here that exist already,

like the Hydro Flasks of the world. We have access to people that have been in those companies since day one. And so they can provide a lot of guidance and connections and walk through all those questions like, hey, well, I've got this idea. What do I do? What's the first step? What's the second step? So I had tried a couple of things in the past. So I had a little bit of a process, a little bit of a pathway down, down the process and reached out some to some contacts and say, I've got this idea. What do I do with it? And they, you know, kind of said, hey, we'll go talk to these folks and they can get a prototype going for you. I had my mom do an initial prototype. Yeah. And so, you know, you just kind of push your way through. Yeah. And so, you know, you just kind of push your way through, obviously, as an entrepreneur and someone creating a new product, you're doing something that at least in the way you're doing, it hasn't been done before. So it's necessary to recognize that you're going to have hurdles and friction along the way. That's part of the process. You run into a roadblock, you find a way through it, and then you just, you keep moving. Sure, sure. And again, whether it's Hydro Flask or Puffin Drinkware and stuff, how do you go, though, get the message out there? I mean, there's, you know, so much stuff that's already out there. I mean, you may have the best product right in the world, but I mean,

did you guys use influencers? I mean, you know, what did you do? Yeah. So early on, we really thought this was going to take off online first. So we started spooling up and getting ads going and trying to figure out how to compete in that marketplace, which this would have been a holiday of 2018. And we didn't have a ton of luck. It was really we thought it would be the type of product that could just go viral. And there's a like you say, there's a lot of noise in that space. There's a lot you're competing with a lot of other ad spend money to get your message heard. So we found that with our product, when people saw it in person, it was no brainer. Everybody loved it. In fact, the first time we sold into a store, the person buying for the store didn't really have much of an interest in it. But a customer heard heard me presenting the idea and he came over and said, hey, sorry to interrupt, but is that what I think it is? Can I buy two of those right now? So we found that in the retail space, people got it. Buyers understood it when you saw it and you could touch it with your hands and realize the quality of the product and the attention to detail that we put into these. So we ended up actually avoiding online initially

and went to try and build out a retail distribution, which we now have over 4,000 stores throughout the US. So we're getting into the hands of consumers as they come by and see it and recognize the value and the quality of the product they're getting. Got it. Got it. We're going to hear from you, Scott, next, because you're watching, listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. Make sure that you go to alliances.com. It is the only place where entrepreneurs line. You can catch past interviews.

Simply click on radio and you'll see over 1,500 interviews. That's right. Amazing to be here and stuff and amazing to have both of you guys here. All right. So, Scott, man, you launched Hydroflask. Everybody knows that. Yeah. Certainly some parallels here. And there was actually two founders of Hydroflask that preceded me. I got the business off the ground and sold to a high net worth individual who then

recruited me into the business to grow it when it was about, you know, 3 million in sales and 14 people. And, you know, I think some similar things from a playbook standpoint, just there's places that consumers can go to discover products to hear about and learn about products, whether it's a kind of camping store or a gift store or a natural food store, kind of the better, better retailers. And that's their job is to find those products and get it in front of consumers. So, you know, similar playbook to

how Hydroflask got off the ground in a lot of the better retailers and just a place then ultimately for consumers to show their friends and talk to their friends about a product. So similar things also in just a product that's very visible and kind of in some parts an expression of who you are and your values and how you like to have fun. And how did you both meet? Yeah, Bend's a small community. So there's, you know, there is that collaboration. There's that kind of stoke of being in a place like Bend, Oregon, and being part of, you know, the outdoor industry and companies that make products.

So there's Hydroflask, there's Ruffwear, which is the kind of Patagonia for dogs. Of course, you'd have that in Bend, Oregon, right? There's a bunch of other outdoor brands, a local university, and it's kind of community of entrepreneurs and business leaders that get together and share best practices and, you know, think about advocating on behalf of our region or sometimes just getting out and having fun together as a larger community. Be it a ski day, you know, mountain bike outing, things like that. Nice. Well, I'm sure you both have put in a ton of hours together. Got to know each other really well.

Oh, yeah. And and counting here we go yes right right yeah there seems there's there's never an end it's only a beginning and continuing to grow so and congratulations too on the growth of everything um so what's this now about this one percent company what's the what's what's all about that about giving back one percent you know yeah we're a one percent pledge member and so so what that means is that we want to we want to be a brand that's not only looking out for shareholder value, but also just stakeholder value in general. So very early on, we wanted to bake into the DNA of the organization that while we're doing well for ourselves, we want to be doing good for our community and doing good for the world. So we have our slogan is our tagline is is fun together. And we've started kind of a cross departmental organization with a group within the within the

company called Good Together. And that is where we get together and try and figure out how can we use our message, use our platform and our relationships out in the community and through our retailers to spread the good that others are doing. So we don't want to be the arbiters of good so much as use our voice to share the good that others are out there doing and support them in the best way we can. So the most recent activation there that we did was with a local organization called OAS, Organ Adaptive Sports, where they take people that for one reason or another have challenges that would mean they normally couldn't go up and get some of the

stoke out of skiing and snowboarding and just being up on the mountain. And they help them through adaptive procedures and adaptive equipment and training. So they did a big fundraiser. We were their summit sponsor. We put some of our time, money, and effort into being a part of their, you know, making their message louder. And so we look to do that on a regular basis, be that quarterly or semi-annually for some of the larger campaigns that we'll start doing. And just making sure that we're doing our best

to leave the world a better place and have a positive impact outside of just making a couple bucks for ourselves. Great. And now maybe you can both chime in on this one is it's all about money, money, money and raising money, money, money. And you guys now completed your series A funding a few months ago. I mean, that's a huge challenge of its own. You could have the best product right in the world. But how do you get others to buy into that and most

importantly, open their checkbooks? Yeah, and I'll just say, you know, kudos to the team here that got the business to the point it got to, especially during a pandemic. It's like nothing was easy for the team to land retailers like REI and Exporting Goods and Bass Pro Cabela's, amongst others, get the product out, figure out how to innovate, how to build a team, how to begin to grow. And so they closed their Series A led by two private equity funds late in the year at a time when people just were not investing. You know, the economy is certainly full of uncertainty. And so really a credit to the opportunity to the team. Yeah, I joined alongside with the private equity investment and, boy, you know, the investors are really excited about the future potential for the brand. And like you

said, David, it's not easy, but, you know, at some point you need the kind of capital and the backing to build that foundation and to take the business to the next level. So we're certainly excited to have them on the board and, you know, putting their shoulder behind the rock here and helping push the thing uphill. We're super excited about that. How cool is that when you walk into these stores, because you're in a ton of retail stores, and like you see your product on the line, you're like, okay, where's my autograph? Who's going to come up to me? Like, I mean, how cool is that to see it? Like, because so much, I mean, shelf space, right, is so to see it? Like, cause so much, I mean, shelf space, right.

Is so rare and so hard to get. Yeah, indeed. No, it's a, it's a fun question. I remember one time many years ago, walking by a bookstore in New York city and seeing people's books there. And I know there's so many authors in, in New York city. And I thought, Oh, it wouldn't be interesting if you were the author of one of these books, you walk by and you saw it right there in the front. And yeah, maybe you get recognized. And I certainly I don't think any of us here are recognizable for our connection with Puffin. But it is really a neat thing to see. You know, just about anywhere I go in the country, I can find a store that carries the product. And I get, you know, friends and family that are anytime they're out traveling and they see them, they're sending back pictures. and family that are anytime they're out traveling and they see them, they're sending back pictures.

So it's a really fun experience to be a part of because it really is kind of like a once in a lifetime thing. I don't know that I'll have the energy to go after something like this again. So to have had the success we've had so far, it feels really good, certainly. There's almost been a miracle, right? Being able to bring something to market in that. Now there's children that are out there too, and they have may have an idea or they want to be able to make their mark or have something, you know, that they create, they draw, they're like, this would be great. Others, what kind of secrets maybe of advice can you share with them that they can go in, you know, and most importantly to stay motivated? Yeah, great. I'm sure Scott, I have some thoughts too, but I think the thing that comes to mind for me,

and this has been well-earned through the past 15 years of me trying to get ideas out of my head and out into, into the real world is that I, early on, I tended to ask myself, how do I do this? You know, whatever the task was, I thought, well, there's, there's a way to do it. How do I do it? And I found that that was rather restrictive thinking. So I've switched that line of thinking. And so rather than ask, how do I do something? I now ask, how can I do something? And so rather than looking for a particular solution that maybe someone has used in the past, I'm open to all ways of getting there. Because like I said before, you're doing something that

has never been done before. If you're doing something really entrepreneur related, really bringing something new to market, it hasn't been done before. So you're going to have to kind of bushwhack your way through a new trail through the jungle. And you're going to do that by leveraging the tools you have and figuring out how can you do it. And there might be half a dozen or a dozen ways, and you've got to pick the way to go, but rather than seeking out the right way to do it, find a way to do it. Right. Yeah. And the thing I quickly add is just, you know, leverage community, leverage people that have gone before you. The success of Hydroflask, you know, is directly attributed to some of the advisors and others that we,

we put into our community and learn from. So I think that, that just surround yourself with smart people, ask a lot of questions and yeah, just try to enlist partners in your, in your journey. It'd be just kind of support network advisors, investors, employees. Yeah. It's, it's just part of the journey. It'd be just kind of support network, advisors, investors, employees. Yeah, it's just part of the journey. Excellent, excellent. Well, great. Well, I got to tell you, Tyrone and Scott,

you're giving consumers a smile by giving back their beverages in unique ways to stay cool, whether it's a hoodie, a life jacket, or a sleeping bag. That's your old Scott Allen, CEO of Puffin Drinkwear, former CEO of Hydroplast. Tyrone Hazen, founder of Puffin Drinkwear.

Go to puffindrinkwear.com. That's P-U-F-F-I-N-D-R-I-N-K-W-E-A-R.com. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. If you've both got to watch the dance, okay, it's part of the show. with the Alliance's hero show