Rethinking Bidons with Bivo and Carina Hamel

EPISODE NOTES:
- Why plastic bidons are still dominant
- How Bivo’s gravity flow design works
- Material choices in bike bottle manufacturing
- Launch challenges during COVID
- Breaking down the impact of 2025 tariffs

 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Hottie (01:07)
we welcome to the show, Carina Hamel. She is one of the founders of, you know what Karina, the first time we met, I think one of the first things I asked you when it was in an email was how to pronounce the name of your company. I'm a stickler for this because I was in radio for like 35 years, so it looks like Bivo, do I have that right? Is it Bivo? Okay, yeah.

Carina Hamel (01:07)
Yeah.

Totally. Yeah.

It is Bivo. Yes, it's Bivo.

Hottie (01:36)
And you call us, we're the Bevo Bottle Company, Bevo Sports Vessel Company.

Carina Hamel (01:40)
We typically

say Bivou at performance sport water bottle.

Hottie (01:45)
performance sports water bottle company. the reason why we're having Karina on to talk about Bivo is I caught a very cool, not quite documentary length, but cool video on the five year anniversary of Bivo. That and the fact that folks, I'm gonna fully disclose, I am a Bivo user and have been since nearly the start of the company. In fact, the first person I saw with one of these bottles, Karina, I reached out to him yesterday, was a cyclist, another cyclist friend of mine.

Carina Hamel (01:47)
Yeah.

Nice.

Hottie (02:15)
And he was riding around with them and he said, look, these bottles are changing the game for a lot of cyclists out there who want to have cold drinks on the ride. He had the double insulated bottle like this one here, the Trio, as you call it. And that's when I first became aware of the bottles. And then I think I met you folks at a, maybe an event somewhere or you reached out, can't remember.

Carina Hamel (02:25)
Yeah, nice. Yep. Yeah.

We,

yeah, we came to Leadville, I think it was 2023. ⁓ we were doing a road trip across the country, trying to spread the word about Bivo. And so we came up to Leadville. That was the first time I had been out for it. And we did a little pre-ride with a group ride, I think you were hosting. Yeah.

Hottie (02:53)
Okay, that's right.

Yep. So yeah, folks, I love the bottles. My wife has one too. We both use them religiously. I think I drink out of mine 13, 14 hours a day. All my waking hours I spent with a Bivo bottle nearby. So congrats first of on the five year anniversary, but we're gonna rewind a little bit, Corinne, if you don't mind. First of all, while we're talking about the name Bivo, where does that name come from?

Carina Hamel (03:02)
Yeah.

Thanks. Yeah.

It's a combination of to live and to drink in Spanish and Latin. So it's made up word. have, we had a background in footwear product development and we worked with a guy, Mark Beard, who's now our brand director for many years. And he has always said that four letter words are really good words as a brand name and having it as a, with B as a beginning. It's also really good because early in the alphabet. So he came up with that actually for us before we even had.

Hottie (03:23)
⁓ Are you?

Carina Hamel (03:47)
the bottle of course and he knew right away that that was the name.

Hottie (03:51)
Excellent, okay. So let's go to the pre-bivo days. What was in your earlier days? What was paying the bills? What sports were you enjoying? And how did the bike get into your life?

Carina Hamel (04:02)
I actually started as a kid, I was a cross-country ski racer. So I'm actually home at my parents right now. We grew up in Western Massachusetts and we had a little ski course on our property and I grew up skiing from the age of two to 23. I raced at the University of Vermont and then one year professionally. And Western Massachusetts used to get a lot more snow than it does today. after...

The snow started melting and I stopped ski racing. My dad actually got really into cycle cross. and so he switched from having a Nordic course to a cycle cross course on the property. ⁓ and so when I retired from ski racing, a lot of people tried to convince me to bike race. And I was just at a point in my life from like, am done racing and I'm ready to just have fun. And so I bought my first road bike after college, and that was one of my first ways to, to exercise.

after our, you know, no more roller skiing, it changed to riding the bike.

Hottie (05:02)
Mm-hmm. Well, first of all, we're recording this at the end of January, folks, and as many of you probably know or going through right now, the eastern half of the United States is just socked in with weather. I imagine you're suffering through that right now, Karina, like no outdoor activities right now.

Carina Hamel (05:16)
Well, I actually, I'm like the weird one who loves it. So I was pretty excited to have all this snow. It's been very cold, but I skied at minus six Fahrenheit the other day and was quite happy. So I'm good. But, ⁓ I know a lot of people are ready for it to get a little bit warmer.

Hottie (05:29)
Whoa.

And then another follow up here, did the cyclocross course get built? Did your dad actually build that course?

Carina Hamel (05:42)
Yeah, he built it. We're close with the Jam Fund, which is Jeremy Powers, Makunda, and Al. And so they actually started the Jam Grand Fundo from my parents' house. ⁓ So yeah, there's just so many good cycling connections in this area.

Hottie (06:00)
Yeah, awesome. Okay, now, ⁓ what are you doing then once you decide, okay, maybe I'm not gonna be a cross-country skier for the rest of my life. We'll let Jesse Diggins do that gig. Like, where do you go from there?

Carina Hamel (06:11)
Yeah.

I met the owner of Keen Footwear and I had worked in an outdoor store in high school and college. And I was always really interested in how product worked and like interacted with bodies, especially as an athlete. And so I expressed my interest in how to make product to Rory, who's the owner. And he said, well, if you want to learn product, why don't you move to China? So he offered me a job in China. So I went from a town of like, I don't know, less than 2000 people up in Vermont to living in Guangzhou, which is about

14 million people ⁓ and went from beautiful trails to running on a treadmill. ⁓ And so it was quite the change, but I learned so much about product development. So I was there for about three months. I worked in seven different factories at the time. And then I was moved from China to Portland, Oregon, where I was put in the innovation group. And my job was coming up with different designs and manufacturing techniques for inline Keaton.

Hottie (07:15)
So that's Keen footwear, which many people know. They probably see it in REI quite a bit. I mean, it's quite popular in the outdoorsy crowd. Like that's the type of footwear. Okay, then what happens after Keen?

Carina Hamel (07:17)
Yep.

Yeah.

So I left, noticed that one of the biggest pieces that was hard for smaller brands, it was around the time that Kickstarter was becoming popular. And it was before you needed a prototype to be on Kickstarter. And I was noticing a lot of really cool ideas were getting funded, but then they wouldn't actually get made because it was really hard to find those manufacturing locations and find good partners. And so I left Keen and I started my own design and development agency.

where we help brands anywhere from creative direction through to production. So that was, I think that was like 2012, I ran that for ⁓ almost 10 years. And my husband, I met right when I started that business and he came and joined me about two years into that and we ran that together.

Hottie (08:11)
What was that company called?

Carina Hamel (08:13)
That was called line concept creation.

Hottie (08:15)
Nine concept creations, okay. That's much longer than in the BIVO, so a little more complicated, less, not so, right, and your interaction with the public probably less so than BIVO, I would imagine back then.

Carina Hamel (08:17)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That's punchy. Yeah.

It was, we were

a hundred percent behind the, yeah, behind the scenes. So we, we acted as, ⁓ really the external product team for a lot of these brands. And so in that time we worked with about 30 different, ⁓ companies and many of them were startups. some of them were bigger, like Sperry Topsider. but it was really cool because it was a really great introduction for us into, ⁓ you know, business. And we learned from some of the biggest mistakes they made and.

Hottie (08:38)
Mm-hmm.

Carina Hamel (08:57)
learn from the biggest successes. So it was a very great way for us to tee up owning our own business.

Hottie (09:04)
At this point it's you and your husband, Robbie, by the way, is your husband correct? It's the two of you running this business at this point?

Carina Hamel (09:07)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And then we had about seven, we got up to about seven employees in the U S and we had three people in China.

Hottie (09:16)
Wow, okay. So how from footwear is a a bottle company born? Like where does this idea first start germinating or how does it?

Carina Hamel (09:26)
Yeah, we,

so in 2018, our first daughter was born. Um, and I took time off from work and I honestly was having a pretty hard time coming back. Like I was kind of like, if I'm going to focus away from her, I want to have a new challenge. Um, I love, I loved new challenges. And so it was just like, it's, it was a good time for a transition. Uh, we also were having a really hard time with her because she wouldn't take a bottle.

And so I would have to like literally walk to the daycare and feed her every couple hours. And we tested all sorts of bottles, like every baby bottle on the market. And we didn't like the idea of feeding her out of plastic. Like that was a constant conversation in our house because we felt like if plastic tasted bad, it couldn't be good for you. we, ⁓ there was very little data at that time that that was actually an issue and there's more and more coming out.

But it was something that was just like constantly in our heads. And so we were out skiing on Mount Hood and we were chatting about this and I stopped and I took a drink out of my disgusting old Nordic drink belt that many of you might know what it is. It's like not a very common thing, but it's basically a fanny pack full of water. It was about 15 years old and it had black mold around the rim. And we looked at it and we're like, what are we doing? Like, why do we drink out of plastic when we're exercising, but in no other time of our lives.

⁓ And so quickly that turned into bike bottles because we were surrounded by cyclists and this was in Portland, Oregon. ⁓ And we just like, literally the next week we started designing the bottle. It was just like one of those ideas where like, wow, there is nothing out there on the market. That is so crazy. So we just went for it.

Hottie (10:59)
Really.

Well, at the time, were the Yetis and Stanleys not in the space, at least somewhat?

Carina Hamel (11:13)
They were there,

but not like they are now, of course. ⁓ Hydroflask was actually, you know, they're from Bend. So I would say in our area, hydroflask was getting really popular, but that was almost paving the way to say like, okay, people are transitioning to metal in all other parts of their lives. So why aren't cyclists? ⁓ And so it was a great way for us, even though we were a leader in the bike space, there was already some awareness about metal bottles.

Hottie (11:40)
And why weren't cyclists transitioning from plastic?

Carina Hamel (11:44)
there really actually wasn't a solution. So most of the bottles either have to like flip up a straw or unscrew the lid. And so our bottle, we have a gravity flow system where we wanted to be so that you open and close just like a normal sport bottle. That was something that was really important to us. As athletes ourselves, we knew that if it didn't work the way other bottles athletes were used to using, nobody would adopt it.

So we had to come up with a system, the gravity flow system that ⁓ allows water to pour really quickly. So you open and close like a normal sport bottle. And then when you tip, it just pours. So you can empty 21 ounces in under eight seconds. And that's faster than you can squeeze plastic. And it is truly a wonderful drinking experience. Like that was something that.

We actually wanted to just be as good as plastic. We didn't really think we could beat it. But it turns out that drinking out of our bottles, a lot of people actually say that they drink more water while they're drinking out of a Bivo.

Hottie (12:51)
So I don't know much about product development because I've never had to develop product in my entire life. I sit down here and talk on microphones. But what I do know is it probably takes longer than you just explained it to me. So tell me what are the iterations, what are the materials you guys went through, the design concepts you went through to finally arrive at something you thought was marketable?

Carina Hamel (13:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, we hired a former NASA engineer. actually hired ⁓ an engineer we were just connected with. We actually before we started working with him, we didn't know he used to work at NASA, but he did a lot of work in fluid dynamics and so that was really cool to work with somebody with such a technical expertise. ⁓ We thought that we could bring it to market in 12 months. It took us a little over 18, so not crazy ⁓ amounts longer than we anticipated, but it turns out that getting water out of a bottle also.

keeping it inside a bottle is quite challenging. Water likes to go anywhere. So we did a lot of prototyping through 3D printing. We also did a lot of like hot gluing and testing, but we really wanted it to be simple. And that was, that was like, we kept having to come back to, okay, there's all these cool techy engineering things, but how do we make it so it's really easy for an athlete to use? And that was always our principle is it has to be simple.

⁓ But yeah, took, know, we molds are really expensive for bottles. So the lid itself is almost 25 grand and the bottle is ⁓ like five. And so we didn't want to get it wrong. So we did a lot of 3d printing.

Hottie (14:23)
$25,000 for the mold for the top and $5,000 for the bottle itself? Okay. Were you always looking at stainless steel? Was that the material of choice from the get-go?

Carina Hamel (14:26)
Yeah. Yeah.

We explored aluminum, titanium, and stainless. And we like the processing of stainless the best. You don't have to treat it the way that you have to treat aluminum in terms like ⁓ acid can get into aluminum differently than stainless steel. So stainless ended up as the top pick.

Hottie (14:51)
Titanium is a buzzword these days. Why did titanium fail your test? It's so expensive.

Carina Hamel (14:56)
It's so expensive. it, yeah, I mean,

now there is a titanium bottle on the market, but it's a hundred dollars. And we just felt like, you know, we, actually went for making the lid lighter, ⁓ and also using a thinner gauge of stainless. ⁓ and so we were able, we actually launched our bottle. Probably one of our biggest concerns when we came up with the idea was weight. We know cyclists are super obsessed with weight.

Hottie (15:21)
Mm-hmm.

Carina Hamel (15:22)
And so we actually came out with single wall, so not insulated to start with because we wanted to make sure that when a cyclist picked it up, they weren't like, my gosh, this thing is so heavy. ⁓ And so that was our first two bottles was a 21 ounce and a 25 ounce. And then about a year and a half later, we came out with our first insulated model and that now is our most popular.

Hottie (15:43)
So who were your testers and what did they tell you when you were in the prototype phase?

Carina Hamel (15:49)
⁓ we've worked very closely with river city bicycles because they were like almost our next door neighbors. ⁓ they're a big cycling shop in Portland, Oregon. Jeremy Powers was one of them, Ellen Noble. they're all the neighbors in this area where my parents live. ⁓ a lot of different professional cyclists and, ⁓ just avid cyclists in Portland. ⁓ so lots of, know, people who rode their bikes a lot.

Hottie (16:14)
Mm-hmm. did they tell you anything that ended up in the final product? Was there something in particular?

Carina Hamel (16:21)
⁓ you

know, we also did some focus groups, ⁓ and that was probably the most informative because it was before we did the designing of the bottle. And I would say the biggest thing was cleanability. I think that's the biggest piece we took away. So, ⁓ when you open, when you take off our bottle, so there's a straw, when you take off the lid, there's a straw inside and that's why it flows. The extra air it's not for drinking out of. ⁓ so when the, when you open the nozzle.

connects to the straw and that pushes air inside and helps equalize the pressure so that water can come out. So we opted to use ⁓ food grade silicone for this because it's dishwasher safe and it's inert. So you can take the straw off, you can also take the nozzle out. And we also made that like as few nooks and crannies as possible. And we also made a dishwasher safe. So that's all those things.

Hottie (17:15)
Mm-hmm.

Carina Hamel (17:16)
⁓ A big point of cyclists, why they would get rid of their plastic water models is because they're so hard to clean. And we wanted to make sure that these would last and that people would use them for a long time. So I'd say of all the focus group things, that was the biggest takeaway. Yeah.

Hottie (17:27)
Yeah, basically you.

Cleanability, okay. Yeah, basically

you have five parts here. You have the bottle itself, you have the cap, you have the nozzle, you have the straw, and then there's the seal for the cap interfacing with the bottle itself. ⁓ the first couple times you wash it, you're like, ⁓ you're trying to put it back together, you're like worried you're gonna break something, but kind of you get through it a couple, three times. And the seal is the trickiest part, getting that seal back into the cap.

Carina Hamel (17:40)
Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Hottie (17:58)
But if anybody, the reason why cyclists is perfect for the bottle is if a cyclist has changed an inner tube, right, they can put that CO back into that channel where it belongs. It's almost like the same process. So you five parts in that thing. Cool. Did... ⁓

Carina Hamel (18:05)
Yeah, they can definitely put the seal in. Yep.

Hottie (18:17)
Was it always intended just to be a cyclist model or were you thinking about other markets even early on?

Carina Hamel (18:25)
I would say we've always thought about different markets. We really wanted to enter the cycling space because it was such an open hole and we did not do a ton of fundraising. So we've done very small friends and family rounds. We've never gone out to VC to get ⁓ a large amount of funding. And we knew that if we needed to hit a market, couldn't go too wide or else we would just like get lost everywhere. So we really honed in on the cyclist.

⁓ we do have a lot of people using our bottles for all sorts of sports and just like daily life in their daily lives. but we actually are just, we just launched, ⁓ what we're calling the long shot. And that is a hockey nozzle, which is interesting and something we never thought of. ⁓ but it was developed because there was a, ⁓ my niece actually plays hockey in Canada and it's hard to get a water bottle through the mask.

And so we definitely are starting to explore outside of cycling, but it's still our main focus.

Hottie (19:24)
Yeah, because here's the thing with cyclists. They're going to pick up a bottle, especially the insulated bottle, but even the lighter bottle and they're going to go, jeez, I'm trying to cut a of grams off my bike. This weighs a lot more than plastic. How did you address that through your messaging? What was your counter to their quite obvious argument and understandable one at times that, look, this thing's heavier, Karina, I don't want to carry this around.

Carina Hamel (19:49)
Yep.

Yeah. so our single wall bottle is about six tablespoons heavier, ⁓ heavier of water. essentially if you have six tablespoons more of water in your water bottle, that's the amount that our bottle is heavier. ⁓ so that was always kind of a good way to put it in perspective that it really isn't that much extra, but honestly, I think we got a little bit lucky in timing of launch in that, gravel was becoming super popular.

And we do find that gravel cyclists don't care quite as much about weight. We definitely once in a while have a weight weenie come up and say they won't buy it because it's metal and too heavy. But honestly, the cyclist cares less about that than I think we anticipated. And then other people, it's like, well, just go pee before your ride and you lost that weight that was on your bike.

Hottie (20:39)
Yeah, and there's nothing like having a cold, you know, in particular, this bottle has saved my wife's day out on hot trails in Southern California. that's especially when she uses it is on a hot day. She'll make sure she's got it chilled and we're chilled, you know, cold and ice in there too. As we go out for our harder training rides and you know, she loves it for that. ⁓ Then.

Carina Hamel (20:49)
Yeah.

Hottie (21:03)
So you get through product development, as I understand the timeline correctly, and you've got product, and either you're ready to go to market or you have already gone to market and boom, you get COVID. Not you, you don't get sick, but here comes COVID, right? Into our world. Take me through those months, what happened to Bevo and your marriage and everything, what was going on then?

Carina Hamel (21:14)
Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. So our daughter was 18 months at the time. ⁓ and we were in a fourth floor apartment in Portland, Oregon. ⁓ we had our footwear development agency still. we launched, we were, we were wanting to launch Bevo and run Bevo in conjunction with our footwear agency until we became cash positive. That was kind of always the goal. ⁓ but when COVID hit supply chains got really messed up. ⁓ and we had to, you know, it was a lot of.

chaos for our footwear agency. ⁓ But when COVID hit, we decided to fly east and we moved in with my parents. This was March 2020, because we were worried about our daughter being stuck in a fourth floor apartment with no childcare. And so we were fortunate to be able to move in with them and they took care of her. So we had just finished prototyping. we were like ready to basically, I think April 1st, we were ready to place our first purchase order. And we're like,

Should we actually do this? Like, this is our life savings. ⁓ We have no idea what to expect with what's happening in the world. And so we actually paused for like three weeks. We decided to not place the order because we were too nervous. And then it became quite clear that everyone needed to be having fun outside and that it could actually end up being an okay time for us to launch. So we ended up placing our first purchase order in April ⁓ and we...

were ready to launch in August. ⁓ And then one of the biggest things I always told a client was for your first production order, you always have to be at the factory. And unfortunately, we couldn't be there because it was in China and we couldn't travel there. ⁓ And so we had to just like go with it and hope that everything would be okay. We put everything we could in place as like everything possible, but there was no way for us to be there. ⁓ And so we got our first bottles.

They arrived here on this property and they look great. They look beautiful. And we had sent them out to, we had a whole list of people like influencers and you know, contacts that we had, and we got an email from one of them. He's actually the co-founder of Velocio apparel. ⁓ He's like, I'm watching this thing and the outside is just peeling off. And so we had a problem with the exterior where literally you could just take your thumb and peel off the silicone coating on the outside. So.

Hottie (23:50)
Mm-hmm.

Carina Hamel (23:51)
About 50 % of the bottles were bad, but unfortunately to tell if they're bad, had to damage them. So we actually had to postpone launch and that was quite devastating. And we thought we lost everything. ⁓ this was August, 2020. And then we were able to work with the factory, ⁓ and re, you know, re order all the whole purchase order and deliver in December.

Hottie (24:14)
So they made good all those bad bottles for you? that what they did? At no cost to you? Or how did that work out?

Carina Hamel (24:18)
No, no, we

I know we paid for. We paid for that mistake. Yeah.

Hottie (24:23)
Wow, okay, all

right. Okay, well, live and learn on that one, right? In the meantime, you're running Bivo out of your parents' barn or something or garage, I'm trying to remember the video.

Carina Hamel (24:28)
Yep.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. was, uh, the warehouse was in there, was in their barn and, uh, this property was built in 18, I think 1880. And so we were in the old barn that had like ladybugs, you know, coming through the windows. And, it was quite the, it was quite the year. Yeah. It was actually, ended up being here for 16, 16 months.

Hottie (24:52)
Yeah.

you're running Bivo out of your parents' barn for essentially 16 months. And this product, think one of the reasons I came across it was grassroots marketing. That clearly was probably part of your strategy from the beginning. COVID shuts that down. So at what point are you able to get back out there and show product to people and explain it to them?

Carina Hamel (24:58)
Yeah. Yep.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah, so I actually, know, when the biggest thing for us was we had planned on launching in wholesale. Like that was originally our go-to-market strategy because people are so connected with their local bike shops. ⁓ And so we actually couldn't do that. So we had to pivot and launch only in direct to consumer. ⁓ And we worked with a press agency. So we were able to get press out there. And because we were the first metal water bottle for biking, we did get a lot of great press.

right off the bat, so that was awesome. But it took about a year until we could be out at events, and that is a huge part of our marketing. We do find that being on the road, chatting with people, learning from what they experience, learning from their environment, that has been so huge. And word of mouth for us, even we did a survey maybe four months ago, and it's still like over 60 % of people have found out about us through their friends.

Hottie (26:15)
Yeah, yeah, because this thing does need explaining. I think from either person to person, user to user, or bevote a user to really be effective. Relying on a third party, whether that be competitive cyclists or a bike shop, to explain to people why this thing is great, why you need it in your life, why it should be in your bike cage. There's gonna be a gap there in the message, right?

Carina Hamel (26:19)
Yep.

Yeah.

Yep. Yes.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Talking to people face to face is huge. We love, we love events. It's our, it's, like the best way to spread the word.

Hottie (26:48)
Okay, so we're starting to get through COVID and events are coming back online. Is this for you and Robbie? Is this now suddenly becoming a series of road trips where you're out on the road a lot? How's the business humming at this point?

Carina Hamel (27:06)
Yeah. So when COVID opened up, we actually decided just to throw more on our plates and we had a second kid, our son Nolan. So yeah, I know it was, it was a lot. It was that one actually, they, I knew a second kid would be a lot, but honestly, it was more than I think I anticipated. COVID was still really messing up supply chains. We still had our footwear agency. So when he was six months old, I went for a hike and he was on

Hottie (27:13)
Of course you did.

Carina Hamel (27:35)
my chest in a pouch and I actually emailed Robbie and I was just like, we gotta be done. Like we can't do this footwear agency anymore. We have to focus on Bivo. We'd seen that people were adopting it. Like there was enough proof that we were confident enough to quit the footwear agency and focus 100 % on Bivo. And that's right when like Omicron had hit. So like that second wave of bad COVID. So daycare, it was just like, it was so hard.

Um, and so that was a really great decision, uh, to shut that down. And then that was actually my, like full introduction into Bivo. At that point, Robbie had mostly transitioned to Bivo and I was still running mostly the forward agency. And so that next spring, um, so think that was 2022, early 2022, we started going to local events. That was like the first big, uh, push for events is just in New England. And then in 2023, we went, um, across the country.

Hottie (28:34)
By the way, Sightangent, did you ever solve the baby bottle dilemma that really kind of spawned this whole idea to begin with?

Carina Hamel (28:40)
No,

no, she skipped the bottle and she went right to a sippy cup. Yeah. Yeah.

Hottie (28:45)
Okay, all right, there we go. Okay.

Maybe there's another market for you, I don't know. There might be. Okay, well, you get through COVID, how's the business doing now at this point? We're talking about, where are we now? 2022, or are we that late? Are you starting to show some positive signs revenue-wise and expenditures?

Carina Hamel (28:52)
I know, yeah, totally. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. hired our first. ⁓ So actually our first employee started with us before we came up with the idea for Bevo. We had hired him as an intern knowing that we wanted to start our own brand, and so we hired him being like, OK, if we hire somebody, they're going to keep us accountable. So Peter, he was our first employee and he's still with us today, but he's still in Oregon. So we hired our first employee in New England in. I want to say that was 2022.

Um, and so we were growing. mean, we've doubled almost every year. Um, and so, yeah, we've seen positive growth, uh, but it does, uh, yeah, I would say, um, you know, we've seen the great growth, we see great progress and then 2025 hits and we hit the tariffs.

Hottie (29:57)
Right. Before we get there, was there a moment coming out of COVID where you and Robbie said, okay, this is going to work. This is getting traction. This is going to happen for us. Was there a seminal moment?

Carina Hamel (30:14)
yeah, probably rooted Vermont rooted, ⁓ was a, was a ride put on by Ted and Laura King in our hometown of Richmond, Vermont. ⁓ and they, we, we set up a tent there and honestly, the lines and just like the churning and excitement around Bibo at that event was so cool. That was, I would say that was probably the first time we were like, wow, this is like, this is more popular.

than we expected so much so that our bottles were actually still down in Western Massachusetts at my parents. ⁓ And we had brought bottles up from, ⁓ from Mass to Vermont to sell. And we sold so many that Robbie had to drive down that night, pick up more bottles and drive up the next morning to continue selling some. Yeah.

Hottie (30:58)
Okay, cool. And how about

retail? Was there a big retail moment? Did somebody sign on and go, okay? And you went, look at that. REI, anybody like that come on board?

Carina Hamel (31:07)
Yeah,

I think probably MechMEC up in Canada, they were our first one where it was like a cold call. Like they found us on LinkedIn and they're like, can we please sell your bottles? That was a, that was a fun one too. Cause that one, we weren't even chasing it and it came. But yes, REI, we're also at REI and that was, that was definitely a big moment too.

Hottie (31:21)
Mm-hmm.

So during this period, kind of coming out of COVID, before we get our first round of tariffs, what percentage of your sales are directed to consumer, what are coming through retailers, how's the pie being, that pie being divided up?

Carina Hamel (31:31)
Mm-hmm.

It's continued to go more even towards wholesale. So we were in the beginning like 90 % direct to consumer. Two years in, we were probably like 80-20 and now we're about 50-50.

Hottie (31:58)
Okay, cool. Okay, so we've started the attraction. You and Robbie have decided, okay, this is it, we're all in. Goodbye shoe, goodbye shoe brands. And in that world, we're gonna be all about these very cool, very techy bike bottles. ⁓ You're humming along and then we get a Trump part two in office and he decides.

Carina Hamel (32:22)
Mm-hmm.

Hottie (32:25)
He's gonna levy some pretty massive tariffs, ⁓ especially against a country you are highly reliant upon, and that is China. So take us through that very crazy spring.

Carina Hamel (32:39)
Yeah. So 96 % of the world's stainless steel water bottles are made in one like town region of China outside of Shanghai. Um, so when we had first started Bebo, we actually had looked at producing in the U S we looked at Mexico. We looked, I think at Brazil, cause there was like maybe something there. Um, but really when it came down to it, almost all of the infrastructure is in China. Um, and so we worked with,

We work with a great partner, Harz. They make for the world's largest water bottle manufacturers. And so at the time when we started Bivo, the tariffs on them were two and a half percent. And then when Trump came into office second time, so January, maybe early February, 2025, they started creeping up. And so I think at first it was an additional 10 and then another additional 10. And then in April,

the big tariffs hit. so we went from, yeah, originally that two and a half percent back in January up to 154 % in April. And so it literally costs us more to bring the product in than it did to make the bottles themselves. So it went overnight really from being a super viable growing, like very quickly business to not viable in the U.S.

Hottie (33:51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm hmm. How close did it get to being to being we got to fold this thing up.

Carina Hamel (34:08)
We definitely had a lot of conversations like, okay, maybe we just are going to have to like keep all the bottles that we have in our warehouse and sell them slowly over time to make all our money off of them. ⁓ but we never, you know, we actually got somewhat lucky. got into the New York times, as a small business that was being impacted by the tariffs. And Robbie was quoted, my husband, Robbie, he was quoted in the New York times as we, ⁓

We brought product into the country and with dumb luck, it was like two days before the first round of tariffs hit. So we actually, because we were growing so quickly, we were preparing ourselves to have enough bottles in case something really hit that we had enough product to sell. So we did bring in, it really was, I it was like two or three days. And so we had enough product when the tariffs hit in April to last us through what we anticipated to be September. So.

Hottie (34:42)
⁓

Carina Hamel (35:05)
We felt lucky in that we could halt all production and even we held bottles like the factory stored them for us. So we didn't have to bring them in to the US. So that was huge. We also pivoted. We had been working with a Japanese distributor. So we really like leaned into that relationship heavily. We signed on with the UK distributor and we launched our DTC site in Europe actually in November. So I would say a lot of our efforts.

last year in 2025 went towards mitigating risk in case more tariffs come back. Because that's been the hardest part is that there's no planning. Like it could change tomorrow on a dime and there's no reason why, there's no warning. And so that lack of predictability has been the biggest challenge to the business. But back in April when the big tariffs hit, know, it cash flow. That was our biggest concern.

And like I said, fortunately, we didn't have to bring in the product, but we literally didn't have the cash. If we had to bring in all the bottles that we had ready to ship, we would not have had the cash to bring them in to the US.

Hottie (36:11)
Cause the bottles, and we're talking about when the tax is 2 % here, so pre big tariffs, take us through how the business was running. Were you manufacturing and then shipping all 100 % of your manufacturing to Massachusetts or wherever you're headquartered at this point and then shipping out from there? Is that how it was working?

Carina Hamel (36:16)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so we basically have three production orders a year. So one is in early ships in late January, early February, another in May, and then another in September. And so we were facing that May shipment that we were able to just like completely hold.

Hottie (36:50)
And so from there you just shifted to it you you shifted to an idea of let's manufacturer I don't know if you reduce the amount of manufacturing and ship to other locations not the United States correct and then sell from there is that how the kind of the distribution change from there

Carina Hamel (37:03)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah. And that was something that we hadn't planned on doing so quickly. Like we definitely know we have a ton more to do in the United States and North America. ⁓ But it was something that we just felt we had to pivot and make sure we had solutions if more tariffs were to come or if, you we just didn't know what the economy would be like. And so it just felt safer to pivot and focus on international distribution.

Hottie (37:32)
Yeah, and at that point in time, what ⁓ was your sales like in those other markets? How were you doing in Europe? How were you doing in Asia? Did you have established brand recognition in those areas? Were sales happening right away?

Carina Hamel (37:46)
Very little. we

luckily we had already had a sales rep in the Benelux region, which is Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands. And so we had some awareness there. We were in about 40 doors, a little bit in Germany, but really very little. The nice thing about the bike industry is that it is very trans, you know, crosses borders quite easily. So a lot of the press that happened in the U.S. was kind of known from Europe too. ⁓

From early on in launching BIVO, we actually had quite a few people reaching out to us like, please, can you launch in the UK or please can you launch in Germany? So we had some fans, but honestly, very few.

Hottie (38:27)
⁓ You know, of course, the president would say, Karina, just make your bottles in the U.S. Now, you told me you've explored that. Take us through, ⁓ could they be made in the U.S.? What would be the increase in cost if you did so? I'd imagine there would be an increase.

Carina Hamel (38:33)
Yeah.

Yeah.

We don't think we could make a vacuum insulated. So ⁓ the bottle you have on your desk there. And we did get a quote from a supplier in the US who said they could maybe make the bottle. ⁓ in order, and that's the non-insulated, but in order to make it, they would have to charge us $50 just to manufacture it. more than what we pay for the, more than what we charge at retail.

Hottie (39:09)
Okay. Yeah, I mean, Josh Portner, who's, you know, the head of Silke and one of the co-hosts of the show has often said he would love to manufacture 100 % of his products in the US. every time he develops a new one, always looks at like, okay, can I do this here? That's my preference. But just the way we've evolved as consumers and makers of goods here in the United States, you know, we put a lot of our eggs in baskets that are outside of our borders, and it's made it very difficult

Carina Hamel (39:20)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Hottie (39:40)
to pivot quickly when something nice comes in. mean, even long term, if I were to set a goal for you, Karina, okay, maybe not now. I'm not gonna tell you now to manufacture, but 10 years from now, I want you to be manufacturing 100 % in the US. That would be a tough call, no?

Carina Hamel (39:56)
Yeah, yeah,

yeah, for sure. mean, I think it like it could be it could be done. I don't know if it could be done profitably. The machines aren't quite ready yet in terms of like a lot of hands still have to touch the bottles. ⁓ But I mean, you have to invest millions and millions to bring in the correct machinery to the US. ⁓ Also the expertise, also the supply chain, ⁓ you know, all those things. It's quite complicated, but that is the problem. I would say.

Of course, so many of us would love to make our products in the U.S., but it's not financially possible and also just not technically possible. a plan, you know, a period of time to make a plan to get that done would be much better than just like slamming it on us and making that quick change.

Hottie (40:42)
I want to explore a little bit more about how you pivot. I'd imagine that at least some other companies came to you and said, gee, Karina, that is a great design you have. That valve, that whole thing, how it works. How about we just pay you to license that? Did you get approached?

Carina Hamel (40:55)
Yep.

Yeah.

⁓ we have had some people ask us about that. Yes. and we wanted, we, we love the cycling community and we love, yeah, well, the, the brand that we're creating around ourselves essentially. And so we feel like it's distracting at this point. And sometimes it is hard because there are opportunities that arise and you're like, it seems like a good idea. ⁓ but it's maybe too distracting. And so we've, we've decided to continue to just focus on building the brand that we love so much and continue.

down that path.

Hottie (41:33)
Okay, in your video, you guys said, hey, in the five-year anniversary video, you said you were on the verge of profitability when these tariffs went down. Have you been able to get back to that point? Where do you stand now?

Carina Hamel (41:43)
Yeah.

⁓ No, we still aren't. ⁓ We've had a few months of profitability, so those were big wins for us. ⁓ But essentially, when the tariffs increased, we still haven't raised our pricing. ⁓ We still think that there's so much inconsistency. We really don't understand if it's going to change again. And we felt like bringing that consistency to our partners or retail partners, to our consumers, ⁓ we didn't want to make that change. And so because of that, our margins aren't quite as strong as they used to be.

And so we are still chasing it. We also had to invest more into international expansion. ⁓ And so that's another reason why we're not quite there yet.

Hottie (42:28)
going ask you, how big's the company now? How many people do you have?

Carina Hamel (42:31)
There are 11 of us. Yeah. Yep.

Hottie (42:33)
11 of you, OK. Bivo is 11, great. OK,

well, hey, let's get back to bottle talk, actually. ⁓ So I imagine you get this question a lot.

This thing, folks, is great for cold liquids. I think I relayed to you, Karina, once here in LA. I went out. I had the bottle with me. I had to go up to the San Fernando Valley, a notoriously hot place in the summertime. I put ice and water in it, stuck it in my cup holder, rolled up the windows, went into a store for like an hour and a half, came back out and hardly a cube had melted in my double walled bottle. That's how good it is with cold liquids. It's almost better than it needs to be.

Carina Hamel (43:09)
Nice.

Hottie (43:12)
dare I say. But what about hot liquids? You know, they're cold event. Look, you skied, did you ski this morning in minus 60 degrees? Can you put some hot cocoa in it? Yeah.

Carina Hamel (43:12)
Yeah

Mm-hmm.

It was, it was, it was four. It was four. It was balmy.

⁓ yeah, we, you know, the biggest, I would say the most use I get out of hot beverages in my bevos is actually for apple cider for our kids on ski adventures. ⁓ but I would say the biggest benefit is actually the fact that it doesn't freeze and it also stays a normal temperature. So if you've, if you've ever been out in, you know, minus six.

Hottie (43:37)
Mm-hmm.

Carina Hamel (43:50)
It's cold on your teeth to drink water. That's almost freezing. and so it's really actually nice. just like goes down easier to just have a normal like room temperature water. so that's my, and then also the fact that you can still like open and close and drink out of it. Cause a lot of bottles will freeze at that temp while you're out skiing or riding. I know fat bikers have that problem a lot is that their bottles will freeze on the bike. ⁓ so the lack of freezing in many ways is what.

Hottie (43:54)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Carina Hamel (44:17)
I appreciate so much, but I do know a lot of riders in the Vermont area that we live in, they love like hot tea and warm maple syrup for their winter riding. Yeah.

Hottie (44:28)
Ooh, I like that. are

there any precautions when you want to take a hot drink with you on your bike or otherwise in a Bivo bottle?

Carina Hamel (44:36)
Yeah, you can't have it boiling. can't be super, super hot because if pressure builds up inside, when you open the spout, could squirt out. And also it's such a high flow rate that you could burn your tongue. So just like, I think you say a hundred, a hundred degrees or something like that. Just keep it warm, not super, super hot.

Hottie (44:51)
Okay.

but I can drink it through the nozzle, through the valve, in other words. Okay, cool, I didn't know, okay. What other users, again, I'm gonna go back to Stanley. I couldn't believe this craze that was going on. In fact, I was back in New Hampshire. My sister lives in New Hampshire, three daughters, and I opened one of their cupboards and outpoured these, I don't know, 10 Stanley.

Carina Hamel (44:58)
Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Hottie (45:21)
Right, you've seen these Stanley things with the big straw, they had just a ton of them. I'm like, wow, I mean, so what other, is this, is that type of user somebody that you folks could see carrying a bit of a bottle? Is it worth pursuing them? I mean, those products like Stanley, we see them just every hardware stores and right, just general sports stores. Is that worth your marketing efforts, do you think? Is that an area you'd like to go after?

Carina Hamel (45:21)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Not, not quite. We really want to stay performance. That's our, that's our, ⁓ we always, whenever we look at wherever we're going, it has to have performance integrated in it. So I would say that's very much a lifestyle category and we're very much performance. So I'm like really excited to go, you know, into run markets and, ⁓ basketball, but definitely not just the lifestyle for sure.

Hottie (46:13)
Okay. Do you folks do custom?

Carina Hamel (46:16)
We do. Yes. Laser etching. ⁓ I think we, our minimums are, think 48 and it's really popular for bike shops. it's also popular for even like cycling clubs. ⁓ or, know, some of favorites are like wedding events and that kind of stuff, but yeah.

Hottie (46:31)
really?

That made some interesting etchings on a wedding... wedding bottles, huh?

Carina Hamel (46:37)
Yeah, you know, two cyclists get married and they give their friends all a gift of a BIVA bottle.

Hottie (46:44)
I remember for a while, some of your messaging, including ⁓ the badge of honor is getting scratches on your bottle. thought, that's interesting. Yeah, I mean, it is. It shows use and it shows you've been out there. Mine are the stickers. Like I've gone with an array of crazy stickers on here. I a salmon, that's salmon fish, folks, a Leadville sticker. So, I mean, there's all kinds of ways to make them, to personalize them, minus the etching, if you can't do the 40 bottle etching.

Carina Hamel (46:54)
Yeah. Nice.

Yeah.

Yep. Yep.

Hottie (47:12)
Awesome. Okay, what other any other products? I mean, so let's take us through the line again. It's you have the trio, which is the double insulated, the duo, which is the single wall tall bottle, and then the uno or the one, which is the shorter single wall. Yeah, it took me a while to kind of you ever what else do you have?

Carina Hamel (47:22)
Mm-hmm.

The one, yep, the short 21 ounce. Yeah, and then we have a short.

short insulated as well as 17 ounces. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Hottie (47:38)
Okay, yeah, both of those come from the trio family, right? You have the trio, which means

essentially means double walled, correct?

Carina Hamel (47:45)
Well, it's actually the third, it was the third bottle we came out with. So it's the trio for three. ⁓ but yes, that's the insulated collection. ⁓ and then we have a new lid that's a hundred percent leak proof, ⁓ because our sport nozzles are not leak proof, but this is a way that you can travel with it. it's been a request that a lot of cyclists have gotten or have sent our way. So we launched that this past fall. ⁓ and then we do have a hockey or a, yeah, hockey nozzle. And we also have a coffee. ⁓

lid in the works too for commuters and just ⁓ yeah fans fans of coffee which i know so many cyclists are.

Hottie (48:22)
Cool, okay, what else? Have you given any thought to other products in the hydration space or otherwise? mean, hydration packs, can we fix this thing? I don't know if we can fix it with stainless steel, there's gotta be stuff where you've kinda gone, hmm, I think I got something for that. Baby bottles, I mean, there's something, right?

Carina Hamel (48:33)
⁓ yeah. Yep.

Kids bottles for sure. Actually, one of the biggest comments we get is that their kids steal steal their their bottles. The parents so we get that that a lot. ⁓ But honestly, so we we thought of a lot of ideas, ⁓ but we've been very diligent again. We haven't raised much money and so we have to be very diligent about how we spend our money. And our biggest thing is that we focused on marketing and getting our brand out there. And so that's made us.

focus more on the cyclists and the products that we have and getting more people aware of our bottles. And from there, we'll be able to develop more. We've definitely talked about the run space and Nordic skiing just because it's so near and dear to my heart. ⁓ But I think, ⁓ yeah, we still need to just capture a lot more cyclists.

Hottie (49:32)
You know what I feel the ass too when we were discussing about bottles and making these is when you go to make a double-walled Bottle what what happens like what makes it double walled? What's what's that manufacturing like? How does it hold in cold better than the single wall? What's going on that I can't see?

Carina Hamel (49:52)
Yeah, so there's two layers of steel. ⁓ The inner layer is a thinner layer than the outer layer. And then as it's it's welded on the top together and then on the bottom when you manufacture it, there's a hole and so the hole gets a little bead, like a little glass bead that's put on top of the hole and it gets put into a machine that's super hot and pressurized. And so when the. ⁓

when the bottle gets hot, that bead melts and it creates a seal inside. And that's why it's called vacuum seals because inside those two layers, when the glass bead melts, it actually creates a vacuum. And so it can't get hot or cold.

Hottie (50:36)
Okay, and that's what keeps our temperature steady as opposed to the single wall. The single wall bottles are really a direct replacement for the plastic ones we all carry. And this one's more made for the temperature conscious athlete, right? The person who wants constant and cold. Have you done performance testing on your... Now I've seen journalists...

Carina Hamel (50:45)
Yep. Yeah.

Hottie (51:00)
kind of do bottle shootouts before with a platen they've kind of mixed the plastic bottles with some of the stainless steel bottles and and tried to do temperature ratings on all of them. What does some of your testing show about the performance of the duo and the trio and the duo or otherwise?

Carina Hamel (51:07)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. the compared to plastic, it like outshines it. Like, you know, it stays cold for 12 plus hours. ⁓ compared to other stainless steel bottles, we actually specifically chose a thinner gauge metal, knowing that the cyclist isn't going to be out there for, well, basically they're either going to drink the water first, or they won't be out there as long as needed for these like super, super high, temperature rating. So we chose to go.

thinner metal, have a little bit less, and again, it's 12 plus hours, so still a really long time. ⁓ But that way we can be later weight.

Hottie (51:56)
Uh-huh. And that's for the trio you're talking about, correct? Yeah.

Carina Hamel (51:58)
Yeah. Yeah. And then

the duo and one, the non-insulated models, they stay pretty similar to plastic, but I think that a lot of people perceive them to taste or to be colder because there's not that like gross plastic taste. You know? Yeah.

Hottie (52:13)
Okay, okay, yeah, yeah,

okay, cool. All right, excellent. Well...

Carina Hamel (52:18)
But it's

funny, I would say one of our most common stories we get from people that we talk to at events is their regimen of what they do to keep their plastic water bottles cold on their rides in Texas or Arizona or Florida. And it's funny because they're all like, I put it in the freezer the night before, halfway full, in about two hours in, it's totally warm. And so we actually get a lot of comments like, oh, the first time I used it, I actually put too much ice in because it didn't melt.

Hottie (52:45)
Yeah, I've seen that. I've seen that in hydration packs too. I've seen where you freeze your bottle, plastic bottles, and then you can't get them, you can barely get them in your cage. actually risk breaking your cage by trying to shove them in there. Yeah, there's all kinds of trickery you can try. ⁓ Some of it sort of works, but most of it is fail. And in the end, you're drinking plastic. right. I mean, look, you're not gonna get rid of the plastic bottle is gonna be part, we're a tough.

Carina Hamel (52:56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Hottie (53:13)
bunch of cyclists that were very slow to change on certain things. I think it's going to be a tough ask to ever get rid of it totally, the plastic bottle. You know, just because, and especially like on the pro tour level, if you look at that athlete, right, the number of bottles they go through in a season is head spinning.

Carina Hamel (53:34)
It is. think there was a, there was a article, think cycling weekly, they put, they did a study on this and it was like 607 or 675,000 water bottles or something crazy like that on the pro tour annually, because a lot of bottles get filled and they actually just never even get used. They just get thrown out. Cause again, they're really hard to wash.

Hottie (53:55)
And that's not your focus. Your focus is the person who reuses and reuses and reuses. Okay, well, we won't look for you on a pro tour bike anytime soon, but certainly on our...

Carina Hamel (53:57)
No.

Yep.

But hopefully the

pro tour, you know, training, actually did sponsor the Insta-Fund team, a pro women's team, and they were able to reduce the amount of bottles they use quite significantly. I think one year they only went through 72 bottles, ⁓ which is, you know, a lot of pro women's teams were going through at least 10,000. So ⁓ that was cool. That was really fun to be part of and see how a bit of change we can make.

Hottie (54:31)
Well, Karina, it's a fascinating story, a great one. Congrats on the five years. Actually, it's five plus because you've been thinking about this since your first child was born. So congrats on all that and encourage people to go. If nothing else, go watch the video. It's actually a great story on trying to run a business here in the United States and dealing with COVID and tariffs and all of it. If you think running a business is easy, go watch that. You'll see right there. Thanks for being on Marginal McGains, Karina. Appreciate it.

Carina Hamel (54:36)
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

Yep. All right.

Thanks so much, Hadi.

Hottie (55:03)
Okay, I'm gonna hit stop and you're gonna see...