Apr 6, 2020 · 1h 6m · how-i-built-this
S'well: Sarah Kauss
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, host Guy Raz interviews S'well founder Sarah Kauss about how she bootstrapped an insulated water bottle startup into a $100 million fashion-forward global brand while retaining 100% ownership.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 33.5% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.8 Guest teaching 1.8 Guest disagreement 0.2 Guy pushing back 0.5
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 55:30 Pushing back against the premise of innate founder swagger
Sarah rejects the host's framing that scaling rapidly gave her swagger, emphasizing instead that true confidence came from admitting operational imperfections and staying humble.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 23:10 Pressing on peer skepticism about entering a crowded marketGuy challenges Sarah on whether entering an already crowded reusable bottle category seemed foolish to observers, prompting her candid story about a defensive friend at a wedding.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 49:20 The hidden operational cost of intellectual property theftSarah educates Guy on how counterfeit products damage brand trust far beyond lost sales because duped consumers blame the legitimate brand for poor knockoff quality.
Guy holds their own ▶ 1:55 Host synthesis on design as a primary competitive moatGuy demonstrates deep business analysis expertise by comparing S'well's design-led disruption to other category standouts like Spindrift and SoulCycle.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| How I Built This Live Video Series Announcement | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Introductory housekeeping and episode framing segment featuring show announcements and teaser clips. The tone is purely promotional and expository with no real dynamic debate. | |
| Sarah Kauss's Childhood in Florida and Early Business Aspirations | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Guy inquires about Sarah's upbringing in Jupiter, Florida and her parents' multifaceted car wash and retail business. Sarah happily explains how her family's background gave her early entrepreneurial instincts. | |
| College Years and Starting Out as a CPA at Ernst & Young | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about Sarah's accounting background at Ernst & Young, joking about auditors being unwanted guests. Sarah agrees and elaborates on transitioning to early dot-com clients in Los Angeles. | |
| Harvard Business School and Navigating the Post-Grad Job Market | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy notes that entrepreneurship was not heavily emphasized at HBS in the early 2000s, which Sarah confirms, detailing her post-graduation struggle during the economic downturn. | |
| Working in Real Estate Development and Searching for Meaning | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy explores Sarah's transition into commercial real estate development and her growing sense of professional restlessness. Sarah describes feeling unfulfilled despite conventional corporate success. | |
| A Hiking Trip in Arizona Sparks the Idea for S'well | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy prompts Sarah on the pivotal Arizona hiking trip with her mother following cancer recovery. Sarah details how drinking warm water from a metal bottle merged with climate awareness to inspire the idea. | |
| Drafting the Manifesto, Testing Market Bottles, and Quitting Her Job | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Sarah details drafting her initial vision manifesto and testing every existing water bottle on the market. Guy presses on whether peers thought it was crazy to enter a saturated category, which Sarah confirms with an anecdote. | |
| Designing the Bottle, Sourcing Manufacturers, and Naming S'well | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy and Sarah discuss the product design, manufacturing obstacles in the US versus China, and the evolution of the brand name from an awkward placeholder to S'well. | |
| Early Grassroots Sales Efforts Across New York City | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Sarah describes pound-the-pavement sales tactics in NYC and sending cold samples to magazine editors. She highlights the pivotal call from O Magazine that forced her to immediately expand her color palette. | |
| Hitting Trade Shows, Partnering with Crate & Barrel, and Early Growth | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy asks about navigating massive trade shows and landing Crate & Barrel. Sarah details the operational steep learning curve of retail compliance, barcode printing, and deciding not to take early venture funding. | |
| Gifting at the TED Conference and Celebrity Word-of-Mouth | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about the strategy behind gifting bottles to TED conference attendees. Sarah explains the return on investment through enterprise B2B orders and high-profile word-of-mouth like Shonda Rhimes. | |
| Discovering Counterfeits in Hong Kong and Battling Intellectual Property Theft | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Sarah recounts finding blatant counterfeit bottles with her trademark at a Hong Kong trade show. Guy notes the immense operational drain of IP litigation, which Sarah affirms enthusiastically. | |
| Pitching Howard Schultz and Expanding into Starbucks Worldwide | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sarah tells the story of approaching Howard Schultz directly at the Seattle Roastery opening, which turned a small pilot program into placement across 14,000 Starbucks stores worldwide. | |
| Scaling Without Venture Capital, Executive Team, and Retaining Full Ownership | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Guy presses Sarah on maintaining 100% ownership and questioning whether her self-confidence was innate or developed. Sarah gently reframes confidence as the willingness to acknowledge imperfections and ask for help. | |
| Transitioning Leadership, Pandemic Uncertainty, and Brand Resilience | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy and Sarah discuss her decision to step down as CEO right before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sarah outlines the company's focus on staying resilient, pivoting messaging, and supporting community needs. | |
| Attributing Success to Hustle, Lucky Timing, and B Corp Status | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | In the standard closing question, Sarah weighs hustle against lucky timing and upbringing. Guy wraps up the episode by noting S'well's B Corp certification. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Entrepreneurship was not heavily emphasized at Harvard Business School in early 2000s
“It really wasn't a thing when I was in business school. I think I took one half class on entrepreneurship, but it was more how to finance a business than how to start and grow a business.”
Kauss earned less in her post-HBS job than before business school
“Myself and just a couple of my friends, we actually wound up staying at Harvard Business School, and the school created jobs for some of us. So you're working in a position that, you know, quite honestly, I was making less after business school than I did befo…”
Kauss founded S'well to combine insulated water bottles with a social mission
“So the first Thing that occurred to me is, wouldn't it be great if somebody invented a water bottle that actually kept things cold? And then I had just recently been at my business school reunion at Harvard, and they had a professor that made a presentation ab…”
Kauss realized the reusable water bottle market lacked fashion-forward accessory designs
“This was a very crowded marketplace, but what I discovered was there wasn't anything that really looked great. I mean, everything was appropriate for the gym. Everything was fine for hiking, right? But there wasn't anything that I thought could catch, like, wi…”
Kauss launched S'well entirely funded by $30,000 in personal savings
“So I had 30,000 dollars in the bank at the time.”
S'well's first production run consisted of 3,000 identical blue bottles
“So I made 3000 pieces, and they were all blue, they were all the same size, they were all exactly the same, and I had them shipped to my apartment.”
Kauss originally named S'well 'Can't Live Without It' and bought the domain
“I actually originally named the company Can't Live Without It, because I thought you can't live without water. Yeah, I thought I was a genius. I actually spent a thousand dollars on the URL, can'tlivewithoutit.com, and, which is available if anyone's intereste…”
Bloomingdale's initially rejected S'well because they did not sell water bottles
“You know, I wrote that manifesto, that, that small business plan, and said, you know, we're gonna be sold in Bloomingdale's, and the buyer said, no way, we don't sell water bottles.”
S'well's customer demographics are balanced fairly evenly between men and women
“Now we're actually pretty Balanced in our customers being women and men, but that's really where the idea started in the beginning.”
S'well's website crashed immediately after being featured in Oprah's magazine
“Well, the web traffic went up so much that we, when I say we, I was still the only employee. I had to really work on the back end of the website because we crashed immediately, so there was absolutely an Oprah effect”
S'well generated just under $100,000 in revenue during its first year
“I think my sales in the first year were just under a 100,000 dollars.”
Kauss delayed fundraising until S'well's traction provided a stronger investor pitch
“I considered it, but then quickly discounted it, because I thought, you know what, this is going to be a big waste of time, and I'm not really sure if it's going to work, and so why don't I just wait until we're bigger and more successful, because we'll have a…”
S'well's early corporate orders came from executives attending the TED conference
“Some of the first bigger corporate orders that we received were CEOs and founders of companies that had, had attended TED, and they actually wrote to us from the TED conference.”
Shonda Rhimes purchased S'well bottles for six television shows after attending TED
“And so in a couple years ago, Shonda Rhimes was one of the TED speakers, and she wrote into, you know, info at Swell Bottle herself, and said, oh, hi, I'm Shonda, and I just got a Swell Bottle at the TED conference, and she purchased Swells for all six of her …”
S'well won multiple IP lawsuits, including $19 million in trademark damages
“Correct. So we've had a number of lawsuits, that one included, of individuals and companies that are there making products that directly a fringe upon our intellectual property rights.”
Starbucks expanded S'well distribution to over 10,000 global store locations
“That's right. So I think 10,000 stores in the U.S. And Canada, 25 countries in Europe, all over Asia, Russia, South Africa.”
S'well self-funded its growth and avoided raising outside venture capital
“So luckily, we were self-funding pretty well at that point. We really didn't need the outside capital.”