Today we’d like to introduce you to Phoebe Oetting.
Hi Phoebe, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My husband, Clayton and I met at UGA a few years ago, and after a few weeks of dating, we both knew that each other was the one we were going to marry. Funny enough, right before we met both our parents had quit Diet Coke and gotten into fitness at the same time. Clayton had immediately started working on a natural diet drink that he tried to sell while he was in school, but was unsuccessful. After we started dating though, we were talking about his journey into trying to make a drink that would fit his parents’ new healthy lifestyle, and both of us thought there was still something there. We both had also seen some new fitness energy drinks that had become popular that had similar ingredients to the artificial diet soda our parents had given up, and we thought we could make something better. We started researching ingredients and trying things! Through A LOT of trial and error, we found two things…
1. A natural sweetener blend that was 0 calories and beat all artificial sweeteners in taste tests.
2. That we could use hibiscus superfood to replace all the other artificial ingredients most other popular drinks have to add in.
With these two simple ingredients, we began formulating versions of fitness-focused energy drinks that we liked, and we settled on the name HIBO, which is based on the word “hibiscus” and the name of an African drink that uses hibiscus called “Zobo.”
Meanwhile, Clayton & I had been reading a book about “bootstrapping” a business. It basically taught you to find the cheapest way to start a business or make a product, go out and try to sell it, and either fail fast & cheap or find that you’re on the right track and continue on!
We liked that this strategy enabled us to vet the business before we really invested in it! We bought some cheap canning equipment, purchased our materials and ingredients, found a certified kitchen space, and launched! We would can at night together and sell and sample during the day. One of our first customers was the Earth Fare store in Athens. They quickly started selling cases/week of HIBO, so we knew we were on to something!
Very quickly, we got requests from the rest of the Earth Fare stores throughout the Southeast, so we were able to expand our footprint and sales continued to go well. Since then, we’ve spent our time continuing to listen to customers and developing HIBO into something truly great.
At the end of last year, the CEO of Creature Comforts Beer Company approached us about investing in the business and joining our board. We were ecstatic about this, and since then we have built a board of people with plenty of experience in the beverage world.
This year, we are focusing in on Athens, Atlanta, and the rest of Georgia. We are about to launch a marketing strategy of some really fun content, including blind taste tests that show us beating other top fitness beverages! We are also starting distributing through Savannah Distributing Company, who will be able to vastly expand our footprint throughout Georgia.
Through all of this, we remain a woman-owned business that was started for family, and we still have as much passion for making people healthier as the day we started!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Certainly not! Beverages take a lot of time and money to get off the ground. We are young, fresh out of college, and not personally wealthy. We’ve been fortunate enough to have found people that believed in us along the road when we needed investment, but we’ve certainly had to be frugal. We also started the business during COVID, so getting sales meetings and doing sampling of our drinks was a lot harder than it could have been.
We are also bringing another co-founder into the mix as we are having a baby in July! This is such a blessing, but we are working hard to be ready for another huge responsibility very soon.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We believe that everyone’s fit lifestyle deserves simple ingredients. For everyone that is trying to eat only natural & organic ingredients, why would you want to compromise on what you’re drinking? From the start, we wanted to make fitness energy drinks that beat the top beverages in taste tests but did it with simple, natural ingredients. We’ve totally done it.
HIBO Superdrinks have super benefits, simple ingredients, and delicious energy. They’re all zero calories and zero sugar and in a clear recyclable packaging that shows off the drink’s red glow. We’re the only ones making a drink like this that’s all-natural.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
My advice would be go to every event and take every chance you can to meet new people! Always say hey to people you don’t know, and ask people questions first instead of talking about yourself. The more you’re out of your comfort zone the better off you’ll be!
Pricing:
- Single Cans- $2.99
- 4-Packs- $8.99
- 12-Packs- $24
- 24-Packs- $38
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.drinkhibo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drinkhibo/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/86213045/
Image Credits
Clayton Oetting
