Episode 318: A Brand Built on Sustainability and Community | Linnae O’Neil | Co-Founder of Chug Water
Linnae O’Neil is the co-founder of Chug Water, Vermont’s small-batch, sustainability-first spring water brand, and a multi-hyphenate entrepreneur with deep roots in community, connection, and impact. In this conversation, she and Kara talk about launching a mission-driven beverage company, why doing things the hard way often means doing them right, and what it looks like to build a slow, intentional business that actually fits your life. They get into running (literally and figuratively), growing up in Vermont, female friendship, leaving “shoulds” behind, and why supporting women-owned businesses is the path forward. This episode explores purpose-led entrepreneurship, sustainability, and redefining success on your own terms.
“Women get sh*t done. You tell them no, and they’ll do it twice.”
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Follow along using the Transcript
(00:00:01) - Introduction to Chug Water and Linnae O’Neil
(00:00:35) - Linnae's Background and Career Journey
(00:03:14) - The Birth of Chug Water
(00:13:24) - Community Reception and Sustainability
(00:24:38) - Challenges and Opportunities in the Beverage Industry
(00:35:11) - Women Supporting Women in Business
(00:48:58) - Final Thoughts and How to Connect
People buy spin drift all day long and they buy things in cans, they buy energy drinks in cans. But why is there not a water option that's local, that's in a can? We were joking about it. We were making some jokes about like chugging water and I was like, we should call it chug water. And then, we left from the ski trip and then two weeks later I was like, we should do this.
That's Linnae O'Neil of Chug Water. I'm Kara Duffy, and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast. Welcome to The Powerful Ladies Podcast. Let's begin by telling everyone your name, where you are in the world, and what you're up to.
Great. My name is Linnae O'Neill. I just relocated to Wakefield Rhode Island from Vermont. I've lived in Vermont my whole life, which has been 30 years. And it's so funny when people ask me what I do because I feel like I never know how to answer them because I don't just do one thing, and I feel like career is such a big part of.
Who someone is and what makes them up. But I own Chug Water alongside my brother. He and I are the co-founders. And I also work part-time for two companies. One is Untapped, which is an athletic fuel company based out of Richmond, Vermont, and it's Maple syrup based. And the other one is Parody Sport, which is a women-owned underwear company that's trying to. Create a really wonderful comfortable performance underwear for women regardless of what they're doing.
Which is such a challenge.
Yes. Oh my gosh, yes. I'm a big runner and I, both of these companies I found out about because I was a consumer first and my friend Laura told me about them and she was like, you have to try them. And it's so funny that I was on the hunt for the most comfortable underwear when running and it's it moves or it chafes and these like horror stories that if you tell me you haven't had them as an active lady. You're lying. Yes. And I found these undies from my friend Laura, and I was like, holy smokes.
And it's all I wear now. And then met the owner and that's how I found out about them and started working with them. Now isn't it so crazy how, like how easy it can be to just keep going down the rabbit hole of loving something and what's happening and suddenly you're getting paid? Yeah. Yeah. Very true. And I feel like it all feels so authentic. It's like I, I. I have this really wonderful community of people and just talking with people and learning about the products that they're producing and why they started them, and you get interested and you start using them and you're like, holy smokes. I want everyone to know about this. And it's from a truly consumer standpoint, first of selfishly I'm a runner and these are the things I really like using and I want to tell other people about them. It's a huge bonus that I know have become friends with the business owners. And of course I want them to succeed too. And I want to share with the world these wonderful products that. They're producing and that other people need to know more about.
Did moving to was the Rhode Island move for work?
No, it's actually the opposite. I started Chugwater with my brother. We started the project in 2021, and I think if you told me now everything we needed to do to get to where we are, I would've been like, oh, hell no, I'm not doing this.
It's it's so technical and there are engineers involved and. Because it's just water and we really didn't wanna do anything to it. We wanted it to be the good clean Vermont Spring water we know we had, but that meant we don't wanna filter it a lot, which means a lot of involvement with the state to make sure that it stays really clean.
And hiring water operators and sending off for testing and. Long story short is that we created this brand and I think in my head I thought I have to stay here because we started this Vermont brand and I've been growing it here, and we actually have a distributor in Masson, Rhode Island as well.
But I thought, it's a Vermont brand. I need to stay in Vermont. This is a Vermont company, but my dream has always been to live by the ocean. And so it really was just a change of mindset of what if I leave? It doesn't mean that it's still not a Vermont brand. It doesn't mean that I'm not in Vermont basically every month to do events or talk to people or.
Whatever commitments I have. But no, Rhode Island was actually totally a jump on my own of, I've always wanted to be closer to the ocean. I've come down here a number of times in the last few years because I have friends who live down here and I just, I fell in love with it. It's, there's something really special about New England and so it's funny, I was telling somebody about i'm gonna move to Rhode Island. And they were jokingly like, wow, big move. And I was like, it's not about the actual distance of the move, it's just that it's a new fresh space. And it's funny, it's a month ahead here from what it is in Vermont, of Vermont. It's still just on the bud of spring, no pun intended.
And here it's yesterday it was 75 degrees and sunny and the lilacs are in bloom. And so I feel like I'm coming out of hibernation after living in Vermont for 30 years, and I'm truly like a summer girl. Winters I think I've always tolerated because it's just where I lived and I didn't know anything different. But it's really wonderful being down here. So no, Rhode Island was totally self a selfish move that I wanted to be closer to the ocean.
When I was doing kinda my homework for this episode and like checking out your website and the Instagram, it made me have so much New England fomo I consider like Massachusetts and Boston Home.
And I haven't lived there in a long time. I haven't gone back to visit in a couple of years now. And in fact, it was in the last time I was in New England, I was in Rhode Island Oh my gosh. For a family vacation. We, my parents rented a house in Southwest Rhode Island and we all met up there. But I was like, no, I need to go back this summer.
Like I need to just do a little road trip, take some time and see the people and just soak it in. And I live in California by the beach. But it's different. It's a completely different summer experience. Yes. It's a completely different beach experience, and I don't know, it's yeah, I was even, I was like, I need to go to Burlington.
I have to go to Vermont this summer.
It's so true. It's so funny. I was just, I was talking to Alice who was on the podcast and she's coming back to Vermont this summer and I was so excited to hear that. And there is just something so magical about Summers in Vermont. Summers in New England, it's everything turns green in May and June, and it feels like hope that if you've ever gone through the winter of Vermont and the sun comes out and you don't have to have a jacket on one day, but then everything turns so lush and you have these beautiful sunsets and there's, outdoor summer series concerts and things are in bloom and there's so many bodies of water you can jump in and it's really like fresh and hopeful and there's just nothing that compares to it, and it's always so lovely to come back home to New England.
Oh, okay. Now I need to like just go back and start making my plans. So come on back anytime. I'd love to come back to you and Chugwater. So where did this idea come from and why also did you decide to go into business with a sibling?
Yeah, great questions. Chug water started when I was managing two coffee shops in Vermont, one in Waterbury, and one in Stowe. And Stowe specifically is a big tourist destination. They're neighboring, they're right next to each other towns. But I would see. The demand for customers who would come in the morning and they would want a coffee and they'd want a bottled water. And a lot of times it was, people would come in, hung over after a wedding in Stow and they're like, I need a coffee and I need a water and I'm getting on the road.
And so we sold a packaged water company. It wasn't in a plastic water bottle, but. The packaged water that is in, say, a tetra pack or it's in a wax box. A lot of these companies, they're recycled at major recycling facilities, but we don't have major recycling facilities in Vermont. And so unfortunately, a lot of it ends up in a landfill.
And as I did more research, I was looking at plastic and. It's, just a wrench to the heart that the majority of plastic, unfortunately also ends up in a landfill. And so we also sold spin drift. And people come in all day long and they order a seltzer, and there's no expectation that there's a lid that goes back on it.
And so I was trying to find a local water option that was just good spring water. I didn't want anything crazy. I didn't want electrolyte balanced. I didn't want pH balance. I didn't want, things added for taste. I just wanted what you would think of as bottled water locally, but in something that was recyclable.
And so my brother Cullen, he is the fifth. I'm the seventh. There's seven children in my family. Wow. I know. And so I have very unique relationships with each of my siblings, but Cullen and I were talking about it and he has a background in renewable energy. And we were honestly out skiing and we were drinking beers and I, we were talking about the plastic industry and I, this was before the big boom of Liquid Death.
And I said to him, people buy spin drift all day long, and they buy things in cans, they buy energy drinks and cans. But why is there not a water option that's local, that's in a, can it, the simplest format possible that you can put something in? And we were joking about it. We were making some jokes about like chugging water, and I was like, we should call it chug water.
And then, we left from the ski trip and then two weeks later I was like, we should do this. And he was like yeah. And I was like, no, I bought the LLC. And that's just it's so easy to buy a name for something, but then the more we got into it, the more we heard back from people, this is gonna be really hard to do.
You can't do it. And when someone says no to me. That's not an answer because I knew there was a solution here and I knew there was a way to do it. It just, it might, it's gonna be hard, but we can figure it out and. The logistics of canned water is way more in depth than I think either of us could have imagined.
But it's because there was contamination in the past, and it's because water is so clean that you have to be really careful that it doesn't get contaminated by something else. So while there are so many breweries and canning facilities in Vermont specifically, it's hard to. Produce just water in those canning facilities because nothing else can go through our canning line.
So what we ended up doing is we found a co-packer and we found a ma, a mobile canning company. And what they do is the mobile canning company comes in and nothing else goes through our line. It was only our water. And they set up parallel to the equipment at the co-packing facility, and it goes through their line.
And then after it goes through their line to fill the cans, they have it go through the other equipment that's at the co-packing facility. So our water gets lightly pasteurized just for any chance of contamination that might happen during the canning process. Then it gets 10 sent off for testing to the state.
Somebody comes in, they test it at multiple points. And so we have to be really thorough with our product to make sure that it stays clean. And so that's why I can say confidently that our water is really clean and it's been tested, at so many points because we have to hire all these people to do it.
But we wanted to leave the water the way it was. And so our water has a lot of vitamins and minerals naturally. And I always say it's. pH balanced by Mother Nature because the nature of spring water is that dependent on the season. It's just funny that if it's been more rainy or if it's been drier, the pH can change, but it's always right at 7.0 to 7.2, and when they sent it off for testing as they do regularly the spring, we work with a family owned spring in Stockbridge Vermont called Pristine Mountain.
They're wonderful and have been around since the eighties and it is just, it's chockfull of minerals. And we started this project trying to offer a local sustainable option. And really what we do is we took systems that were already in place in Vermont and other small businesses that were already working and created a new network to create a new product that wasn't being offered.
Very cool. And. How has it been received by your community?
It's so funny because when I started, I would say it's been received well. When I started this, I was like, everyone wants water and everybody's gonna buy our water. And Vermont is sustainably minded that what I've really realized in the last year is we're not necessarily catering to the Vermont buyer.
What we're catering to is a tourism that comes in, which really goes full circle with why I started this project. But Vermonters will think it's wonderful. That's a great idea. I'm so glad it's an option. In case I forgot my water bottle. But I hear all the time, I have well water at home. And I go, oh, that's wonderful.
Like I fill up my water bottle too. And so I tell people, I'm like, don't buy our water. I would love that. But what we wanna do is offer a sustainable option to the traditional single use plastic water bottle so that when you are out, you have an option of something that's not been shipped across an ocean in a plastic water bottle.
That it's done all right here in state lines. And even as we start to branch out to. Other locations in the Northeast, it's really still more local than where a lot of water options are coming from.
Yeah. The trajectory of Liquid Death is basically a case study for marketing at this point. Yes. And it's just been really crazy.
And I think also with the cell recently of Poppy. Yes. And what's happened there, there's the beverage industry is, has so much opportunity and it's evolving all the time. And I do think people, anyone outside of Vermont where they don't have access. Like even here I go, I have fine tap water, compared to the rest of the world.
My tap water is fine, but I go to a water like brewery place, fill up glass, five gallon or three gallon bottles and bring it home. And that's all I drink. That's amazing. But it's like you're selling ice to Eskimos in this sense, because I have a tap, like I have running water. I have water. That's some of the best in the, in not the world, but the country too.
But we have been trained here not to drink it. Like it's not good enough. And there's even a place locally called the Water Brewery. That they would put intentions into the water, like super hippie. And it like you get a sign that said this is pH balance and it has these minerals added. Oh. And we hugged it and all this stuff.
And it's just so interesting to me like the how we need water to survive and there's so much different story storytelling, marketing perceptions around is the water okay or not? And it just leaves all this room for being like, great, what story do we wanna tell? Because you have to drink it and most people don't live in Vermont and have it. So let's talk to everybody else.
And it's funny because I was talking to, his name is Melanie. He's really been a mentor to me of as this my, I literally met him at a bar in STO one night, and he's your classic middle aged. Man who he is, been very successful. And now what he does is he is, he helps small businesses that are starting up and he kept telling me, water's fungible wa, water's all the same.
Everything's the same. And I kept saying I understand what you're saying, but I disagree that I really, water is not all the same and. We drink it every day, but there are differences. And I gave him, it was our sparkling water and he prefers sparkling water. And he called me and he said, I just had to call you because he had gone skiing and it was sitting in his car, and so it was cold.
And he says, I just got my car. I was thirsty. I cracked open your can of sparkling water. You're right. He said, not wa not all. Water is the same. It is the most incredible sparkling water I've ever had. And of course he's a little biased because he works with me already. But it is so wonderful to hear from people saying yours is different.
And I really think it makes a difference to offer. We started this to offer a sustainable option, but quality matters. And I think so much of Vermont is known for the quality products that we produce and the small brands that come out of Vermont. But we don't do things the easy way. And I think a lot of brands try to offer something that they really want the world to have.
It's not just to sell another product. And my brother and I really try to do that with chug water of. I'll never forget the day I went to the spring and tried it fresh outta the spring, and my brother at the time was living in California and I called him and I was like, you won't believe how amazing this water is that we're about to put into cans.
And so there is a difference, and it's exciting when you get to share your product with other people and they stop and say, oh my gosh, I have not tasted something like this before.
I do think it's, there's something really special about brands coming out of Vermont. One of my favorite movies and definitely the movie I like to watch when I'm not feeling good is the movie, baby Boom. Have you ever seen this eighties movie? No. No. It's so good. It's Diane Keaton is like this high powered New York business woman and somehow she inherits. A baby through some distant relative passing and like they get a baby and she ends up like breaking up with her, very typical eighties New York boyfriend.
And she moves to New York, to Vermont and starts a baby like applesauce company. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's it's so good. And like just all the drama of her adjusting from New York City to Vermont and if you know it's an old house, it's great. Go find it and watch it. I will. But it just it speaks like, it checks all the boxes of the type of people you can find in Vermont, the quality that you mentioned.
There's so many people who are like, you know what, if it's not working let's fix it. Yeah. If it's missing, let's make it. And I'm really proud that I grew up in that New England environment of having the seasons come no matter what. Are you prepared? And no, you can survive the seasons by yourself and it just completely changes how you think about things and the responsibility that you have both for the house to make sure pipes and things don't freeze, but yourself and your community.
It's a completely different mindset. How do you think growing up in Vermont has changed or influenced you and how you see the world?
Oh, that's a great question. I think you hit the nail on the head saying that. You have to be hardy to get through the seasons In Vermont, it's not for the faint of heart.
You can't just walk outside and be ready to go. You really have to think about the preparation. Even I was in Vermont last week and looking at the weather, I was like, oh my gosh, I have to dress for everything because it's gonna be one morning. It was 35 and windy and felt like 23, and then the next day was literally 80 degrees.
But you can't do it by yourself. And so you build this really strong network of community. And the image that's coming to mind is my parents' home and about a mile down the road is an organic dairy farm. And we grew up in the suburbs in Vermont. And then just as I was graduating high school, my parents decided they're gonna move outta the suburbs.
They want a little more space. And they live on the lake up in Northern Vermont. And. There's, so about a mile down the road, there's this organic dairy farm, and my mom met them because she wanted some compost for her gardens, and so she brought them a pie and then they were so thrilled. I felt the pie.
They were like, you can have all the compost. In the world, you don't have to bring us by. And they've become such good friends. They're really like family. And some of my older siblings worked on the farm when they came home for the summer 'cause they needed a summer job and the farm had just lost some of their help.
And now in the winter, and Jeff Sweeney comes up and he really takes good par, good care of my parents and he. Plows their driveway and he checks in on them and he drops off maple syrup. And my parents have this cat named dust mop who's was a barn cat that wasn't doing so well. And so it's just this idea of community and you working together to get through the seasons.
And I think it's not, the pace in Vermont is slower, but it. What it does is it creates really authentic relationships and it results in really putting your heads together to collaborate. I. No matter the season or the task. And it really is a place where if something happens to one of your neighbors, you know them because you walk down the street and say hi to them.
But also everybody chips in and helps them and it's this, we're stronger as a team mindset. And I think my parents were an example of that and the way that they, brought us up and I think. When I think about the other business owners in Vermont, or people I've met who have started companies or entrepreneurs, it really is products that were created because there was a need for them.
And a lot of them are things I use every single day and it's. Doesn't feel flippant or like an unnecessary purchase. It feels like these things that are really, they're durable and they're quality and they're meant to last a long time, or really do the job well. And I think that is the essence of Vermont.
And thinking about you like watching the movie, baby Boomer is it. Vermont has so many cliches of the Hallmark movie and people move there. Yeah. But it's what it's like people really do want to help one another and it's not about a quick fix or a quick sell.
It's really about quality and integrity and community, I would say.
And something, so in addition to powerful Ladies, I'm a business coach and consultant and. It's this kind of idea in the entrepreneur world that we need to 10 x the business. We need to grow to maximum amount. We have to just like chase being as big as possible, as fast as possible, and that makes me crazy.
I. Because like you can be on this hamster wheel of more. And it's do you need that as an, as founders and owners, do you want that? Is your business capable of scaling to that extent? And so I'm often asking my clients like, what does enough look like? Or can we break this into phases be you can have a very successful business that stays in one town.
And what I think is also really interesting about a lot of Vermont based businesses, and I just saw on CBS Sunday morning, they were talking about the Front Porch Forum.
Yes.
The app that's out of Vermont and the owner's I don't wanna expand, but beyond Vermont. And they're like, what? Everybody loves this app.
And he's no. Like I'll talk to other people in other states who wanna make it, but I don't need to. Yeah. And it's such a, there's this idea of no, like we've made the impact we wanted to make. It's running efficiently and profitably, like we're good. Yeah. And it's so in the face of the type of entrepreneurship that is in the media and on social media.
So I, I just think it's this refreshing approach of why does it need to be nationwide? Why does it need to be global? I don't know. I think so. When you guys are thinking about expansion, how are you integrating the sustainability of the business to go beyond Vermont and expand?
Yeah, that's a great question and I feel like I have this tug and pull of, as a business owner, there are so many things that you tell yourself you should do.
And just recently I had this kind of. This moment of if I wanna grow it and I wanna scale it here and I wanna get it into all these retailers. And then also I just had this moment of like coming back to myself of I think if I come back to the core of why we started this business and who I am, that's how I can grow it most successfully.
And yes, I would love for it to be. Something that is to the point that we can expand and maybe we're not just a Vermont brand, but we're Spring water and the sustainability focus that is coming from as close to as possible. But right now what I've found is when I feel most successful or I see the best return, and I don't just say that like in terms of sales, but.
Is when I go and I meet people in person and I tell them my story or our story myself, and I get to meet them and shake their hand and hand them a can of water. That is success to me, is to walk into a small market and see it on the shelves and see it selling regularly. It's not sitting there because a lot of times it's people that know me or I met them and people are excited about the brand and that goes so much further than I don't know.
Everything going through email and it being through a big retailer. And I, that's what I've seen in Vermont is that a lot of our success is through independent retailers. And so it is, as we start to think about expanding a lot of this like chicken and the egg of talking about distribution. 'cause I found the most.
It feels like the most sustainable way for us to grow is through finding a distributor, because shipping water, one case at a time is really heavy and not cost effective for us. It's not cost effective for the retailer, and it's also using a lot of fossil fuels and shipping efforts to get, a 12 pack case of water to them.
But as a talked to distributors and they said, who are your key account holders? And I was like. We sell mostly in Vermont, which is like all mom and pop shops. So I don't have this, like we're not in with a big retailer yet. But it's done so well in these independent retailers in Vermont.
So we're in over 150 retail locations. It's all usually these independently owned small stores or like Shelburn Farms in Vermont, which is, I would say more of a resort. Resort maybe isn't the right word, but it is a tourist location. But they sell a lot of our product. So I don't know if that answered your question, but I think it, what feels right to both my brother and I is, and he's really good about, I get really excited about things and he'll reel me back in.
And so we have this nice balance of okay, let's go back to I. What's our core values and how does this support this? And I'm like, you're right. And so for a while I was just focused on Vermont, like I just wanna sell it in Vermont. 'cause we can't sell it in Vermont. We're not gonna sell it anywhere else.
And then I had this realization of, we're really catering to people coming to town. So start branching out to Boston where they have bottled water bans, or Nantucket has a plastic water bottle ban. Moving into Northeast where we're starting, we get recognition. Vermont, now it's exciting from people.
Me to meet people and have them say, oh yeah, I saw your can at the Essex, or, I picked up Summit Commodities and it's not somebody I know who's buying it, but starting to branch out because we're getting recognition beyond just Vermont. But I think as much as I want to share my product with everyone we keep coming back to, we need to do it in a way that fits in with our values, which means staying in the Northeast New England area right now.
And a lot of product-based businesses don't even think about their kind of distribution pyramid, and these mom and pops are at the top of the boutique. Sometimes they're elevated, sometimes they're just independently owned, but often that's so hard to break into because they cause the waterfall effect.
There's. It feels more exclusive. It's almost, do you know the store of Bodega in Boston? The sneaker store? I don't, no. But they ha they actually have a bodega in front and like ba, there's like a hidden e entrance to this pretty high end sneaker boutique. And that's the pinnacle. And I think for you to be in some of the pinnacle spaces already. And go you don't, again, you don't need to go into the bigger retailers. 'cause sometimes they're also complete pain in the butt to work with.
Yes. Yeah. And as a small business, we don't have the big marketing dollars that someone like Liquid Death does. I, I. Always support liquid death because I think they're trying to offer a canned product.
They're trying to offer something. That's not in plastic, and I'm all for that. So if that's your option, go and buy it. But we don't have the big marketing dollars and the funding that they do. I know I don't have billions of dollars right now. And so to get into some of these bigger retailers is the immediate questions are how much money can you spend on marketing and.
What I've even seen working with distributors, and this is just the nature of it, and I love our distribution team, but you get chargebacks. Yeah. And that's part of it too. And so it's what can we feasibly support right now for sponsorships and chargebacks? Because don't get me wrong, these are things I want to do.
I want to support the. The scholarship opportunity that they're doing at with Vermont retail grocers for, Vermonters in June. And I want to donate to those things, but we don't have the capability to say yes to everything. And so we do have to be careful about. What are we capable of doing right now as we grow?
Because we can't just, jump into the big pond. And then there's all this money for marketing that you need to spend as right now as well. And we're really to the point where we're growing and what we can offer for sponsorships is usually, a few cans here and there. But it is definitely more of a grassroots effort and my brother and I are okay with that.
Right now it's, this is where we're at and it's been fun to meet people and know the story behind the brand, and we're not, we're trying to produce another product to produce one, but here's why.
And I think too, like I'm often asking brands and businesses to go back to their heart and soul. Like what is that unique story you have? Like you can have a successful business just staying in those specific niches and with you guys having the story of sustainable water, the story of Vermont and the story of running, like you can just keep replicating that everywhere. There's Boston in particular has so many just running brands and running groups.
And. That's so there. And I could also envision when you were talking about expanding, I'm like, how cool would it be if different regions had different colored cans and you got to Ooh, this is a Mid-Atlantic water versus a water from Colorado. And they're all chugged, but they're all local.
Yeah, it be, it could be very interesting to like really take that model and just we're just gonna copy this because. I know people, there's often also the production capacity risk of signing with a, nationwide Whole Foods versus a local Whole Foods agreement. Or a target, and they have such a demand for how much product you can make and consistently make.
It's like when people are like, Ooh, let's get on the Today Show or QVC. I'm like. Awesome. And do you have the cash flow to produce that much quantity that the demand is gonna come with, or should you wait for that opportunity? And people hate waiting. Yeah. They hate.
Yeah. And the way you said it is exactly has been our dream of, it is a Vermont product and that feels very close to home for us.
It's, we were born and raised. The idea is to give people a product that doesn't have to be shipped far from them. That it's getting the product to you as local as possible. And so when people reach out to us and say, Hey, we want your product in Florida, we go, that's wonderful. Please buy a local Florida water or something that's local to.
Yeah, I think you guys are asking yourselves the right questions and I think having a pace that you can also do has. It always, I also hate what's happening right now in regards to if you go on Instagram or on TikTok and there's so much should being talked about in regards to business. And I hate that also because it's not that anyone's, I don't think people are lying with their advice. But just because it works for somebody else doesn't mean it will work for you. And just because somebody else is doing it, it doesn't mean that you should, you're ready yet your business is ready. Like I don't, there's just the idea of like more and more, and it's never enough is just wrong.
Yeah. Finding the rhythm and the pace that allows it to keep expanding and taking the pressure off. Are we 10 xing this business? Who cares? Do we have enough cashflow to keep going? That's yeah.
I know. I would say success right now is that Chugwater is keeping itself rolling. Yeah, that is that it was okay.
We put more money into it this year than we returned, and then it was like, okay, we're getting close to breaking even, and now it's okay, chugwater is rolling itself over and that feels like a win right now. It's huge. And the reminder, congratulations. Thank you. I think the reminder that this isn't a sprint, this isn't a, we're gonna go viral and sell a bunch of water next month.
It's a marathon, and we want it to be sustainable for us to grow. And the way we set up our business model is that it can be replicated anywhere. So if we get to the point where, okay, now we've got Chug water Nevada, or chug chugwater, South Dakota, or whatever it is. We can do the same system we started here in Vermont and produce another quality product and have it being distributed out of there and grow that way.
But it needs to be sustainable with the way it's growing right now for us to even think about that one day.
There's a great book, animal Vegetable Miracle. Have you ever read this one by Barbara King Solver? Yes.
Oh yeah.
But I think it's just, so the idea of how do you find what you need in a certain radius, and I think even that's a really interesting question of.
What is the radius for each of your springs and what a fun project to like just be taking it and drawing the circle on the map and be like, okay, that's it. This is the, as far as we're gonna offer Vermont water. Yeah, absolutely. It's such a, that alone is such a marketable story because now you're creating a product. People can't have.
That's true. Yes. And it's, we've gone back and forth of do we sell it online? Do we not sell it online? I've had it up, I've taken it down before this real tug and pull of, I want our product to be shared and I want people to have access to it. And like shipping, like I said, a case or two at a time is not sustainable and that feels hard for me to do when I do it.
Yeah. And so there's this real tug and pull about it, and I never know what the right answer is, and my brother and I go back and forth it, back and forth about it a lot. So I don't know what the answer is right now. We have it available online, but I am also in big favor saying, find whatever is most local to you.
Thank you for wanting to support us. When you're in Vermont, come buy it.
Would you like my advice on that?
Yes, please.
So I would have it available online, but limit how many. You'll take a year. Oh, okay. 'cause I think it's, I think it's important for your business, for people in far-flung places to be able to try it's own and, but for the sustainability component, decide what's the limit of think about it like r and d almost, or influencer instead of influencer gifting and people are paying for it.
Make them pay for the shipping. If you want to even include a sustainability. Carbon buyback. Put that in there too. But there is I'm thinking about all the people who trek, especially from Philadelphia North, that trek to Vermont throughout the year. And there's something so special about oh, that's the blanket we got on that ski trip.
Or this is there's so much story and value in it for people that. They're going to want to support you and it but it's okay to limit it. It's okay to be special edition, exclusive, numbered, whatever you wanna do to figure out your story around how many you can ship a year. But I think it's important to allow it to be available.
It almost becomes. Like Art or Supreme, where yeah, you are like, we only have 50 cases for the entire year to ship. Otherwise you gotta pick it up yourself.
Oh, I love that. Thank you for that idea. You are welcome. You're welcome. It makes me think of, are you familiar with the brand, the Alchemist? Yes. They sell Heady Topper beer.
So when I worked in sto, a lot of people would come and say, we're looking for Headie Topper, and I was like, oh, it's The Alchemist. But it's literally right behind us. It was right behind the coffee shop that I managed, and they still only produce Headie Topper at their facility in Waterbury. And because they actually tried to do it in STO and it tasted different with the water there, but when they first started, and you probably already know this story, but it was, they only had so much to sell every week that wasn't already being sold.
And so people would line up on, I think it was like Thursday afternoons to go and buy their heady topper because they loved it. And so by no means are we heady topper. I think what they're doing is absolutely lovely, but maybe we will be one day with the demand for it.
But I think some of that's created too, right?
Like the, we can control demand a lot more than we think we can because it comes from the story and then the word of mouth, and then there truly being a limitation.
Yeah.
And so that's why I think it's so interesting. But I also think by having a couple cases that you will ship throughout the year, it could even open up opportunities for the person who has the spring in Nevada to be like, Hey, could, would you franchise?
So I can open up the Nevada version? Or just other things like, I think there's a marketing and even PR component of having a few available. But, oh, I just think this is such a juicy brand. My brain's now going like a million last an hour.
Women have the best ideas. This is why I love chatting with other women because they just, they're like, here's something I just thought of.
And women just get shit done.
No, it's amazing. It's, it's why I love these. This is such a selfish part of my business, getting to meet people like you, especially like when they're referred from someone amazing. And just the ongoing flow. And it makes me feel really good about the state of the world because, and that's part of why power of ladies exist, is like to show all the stories.
No one's talking about all the people doing good work, all the people in action. And doing things that are about impact and their own alignment. This brand matters to you. It's not, you just make it to make it.
Yeah.
Absolutely. And so there's so many stories like that, that we are not getting into the mainstream media space. And if we only listen to that narrative, it's just one that. Isn't on the ground. There's a lot more optimism. There's a lot more people doing good things, and I need that from my
sanity. I also think it's more than okay that you say selfishly, this is why I do this, because that's why you love what you do and you're sharing it with people and so it's really beautiful that you say it's selfish, but it's. It's because you're so invested and that's why you do this. So thank you for doing it.
Thank you. As we are wrapping up today, I have some rapid fire questions for you. Oh gosh. I'll do my best. We ask everyone on the podcast where they rank themselves on the powerful 80 scale. If zero is average everyday human, and 10 is the most powerful lady you can imagine, where would you rank yourself today and on an average day?
Oh gosh. I knew you were gonna ask me this question, and I have been thinking about it because I think if you asked me to rate any of my friends that I think are the most badass females of all time, I'd be like 8, 9, 10. No question. They're amazing. I. It's so much harder to rate yourself. And I'm like, I a four, so I'm feeling really jazzed after our conversation.
So I'm gonna give myself, I'm gonna give myself a seven today. I'd say on an average day,
like a four or a five because I'm just me. And I know that sounds I don't know. I'm not trying to be a martyr, but I just I think I try to do my best every day and that's all anybody can ask. And so for me, maybe it's not trying to be a powerful lady, but just lead the best way I can.
And I love seeing the women around me who are just doing absolutely incredible work, whether it's on a project or just a change in life or tackling a new project. But yeah.
Perfect. How have the women in your life changed your trajectory, kept you afloat? What do they mean to you?
The women in my life mean everything to me. Kept me afloat. That's how we do it, is we do it together, un we lean on one another and it is so amazing to me when you. Open up to people, the support that you receive. And to be candid, there was a lot of change in my life in the last year and I was so scared to say I'm unhappy and I'm not okay.
And a lot of changes happening. And instead of being. Turned away from people because I had this idea that I had to be perfect and nothing was wrong, and that was if everything was easy for me to flow through life in terms of like I wasn't impacting somebody else, that's the best I could do.
And instead of people turning away from me, I made these strongest, most amazing connections and was just met with open arms and support and. Actually, I got divorced in the last year and I'll never forget now, one of my best friends, Kristen, who I met literally a year ago, and she said to me, she had just met me and she said, congratulations.
And I was like, oh my gosh, thank you. It was like just with the biggest smile on my face because she got it and she knew, and these things are hard and it is. Just because it's hard, doesn't mean it's not the right answer. And in fact, the hard things are usually because you really need them and because it is the right answer and things are gonna be so much brighter on the other side.
And when you can't see it and somebody says, I've got you. That's what women are and that's what we can do for each other. So I just feel so grateful that I have these amazing women in my life that we can lean on one another and laugh, and cry, and smile and go on adventures together. And that's really what it's all about. Yep.
When Alice recommended you to be on this podcast, I'm gonna read a few things she said, and like your feedback. She said, you are such an incredible human being. You're a beam of light, and I feel so lucky to know her. She's always been an incredible friend. She has shown up for me when I needed it, and has always been supportive and uplifting. She's a true, lifelong friend and overall just such a joy to be around. She's one of the most powerful women I know. For those who are just listening right now, that made you very emotional, which is okay. People cry on this podcast all the time.
Oh gosh, Alice. There's so much hard in this world. And there's so much beauty and this is such a reminder of that. It's, I think it can be easy to look at your life and say, these are all hard things I've gone through, and life is really hard and it sucks and there's so much bad in the world. You can look at it and say, I'm so grateful for the people that are around me and I have the most beautiful things in my life. And that's what that means when Alice says that about me. And it just is. Alice is such a light as are so many women in my life, and to hear that today means a lot.
I'm glad. She, I was so happy to be connected with her and it I think we have to start drawing like the family tree of the podcast guests too, of who came from who and like, how did we find some of these people?
And I love when someone like an Alice comes. Off the podcast and five minutes later she's here are three people that have to be on here next. Yeah. Because it, it is such an honor to me to have somebody want to refer their people. And sometimes people refer close friends and family, and sometimes they refer, they're like, I don't know this person, but this is who I is inspiring me.
Go find them. And I'm like, okay. But again, it speaks to this network that we really have, if we choose to tap into it. And it's been, we've been rebuilding and both in the coaching side of the business and the powerful lady side. It's okay, what? What do we need to provide? Like how can we make sure these people are getting connected?
And it's been a really interesting exercise that we've been doing so far this year to find great, valuable reasons why everyone here should be getting connected because. An important value of mine is like who's sitting at the table with me? Who am I bringing to the table together? And you said it earlier in this episode of.
Women have such great ideas, and I just feel like if we grabbed even 10 random people who have been guests on the podcast and put them in a room, we could solve some major problems. Absolutely. And probably by lunchtime too. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because we're gonna be hungry and have other things to do sort, we're gonna be like real snappy about it.
Yep. Yeah. Coming back to our rapid fire questions. Yes. For. This is a powerful connected community that does produce results. Loves to pay it forward and help other people out. What is on your wishlist to-do list to manifest list? What's something that you'd like to offer up to this group to see how we can help you?
I think my ask is for women to keep supporting women because when it happens, it is pure magic. It is amazing and. Grace costs nothing. To, it's so you look online and it's so easy to tear someone down or other people tearing people down, whether it's a woman or not. But I. We have an opportunity to not do that, and we have the opportunity to lift each other up.
And women, I said it earlier they get shit done and they are gonna tackle it and you tell 'em no and they're gonna do it twice. So by being together and supporting each other, that's my ask Share your friends' artwork that they're doing on. And sharing on social media and being really vulnerable about buy your friend's bread that just started baking bread and I don't know if anybody wants to buy it, they want to buy it.
It's delightful. There's a reason you started selling it. So that's my ask is to keep supporting the women that you know they're doing badass shit.
For everybody who wants to support you, support Chug Water, support the other brands that you are supporting, how can they find, follow you and connect?
Instagram is probably a great spot to see it all. Chug Water's on there. I'm my own personal Instagram. And then Parody Sport is the other company I work with who I love dearly. And our website, Chubb Water VT as well, is a great spot to find us.
It has been such an honor to meet you today. I'm so glad Alice recommended you. I'm really inspired by what you're doing and the choices you're making and all the possibilities for Chug water as well. So thank you for the work you're doing and who you are and being a yes to me and powerful ladies.
Thank you, Kara. It's been such an honor to be here and such a joy to meet you, so thank you for having me.
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share it with a friend. Head to the powerful ladies.com where you can find all the links to connect with Linnae and Chug Water, as well as learn more about powerful ladies. Come hang out with us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies, and you can find me and all my socials@karaduffy.com. I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
Related Episodes
Episode 307: Alice Reed | Commercial Pilot and Founder of Cedar & Sky
Episode 305: Brianna Madia | Two-Time Bestselling Author and Van Life Enthusiast
Episode 215: Gemma Totten | Founder of Conscious Jewelry Company Chapter Six
Instagram: @linnaecaroline
Paradis Sport: @paradis.sport
Untapped: @untappedmaple
Chug Water: @chug_water
Website: www.chugwatervt.com
Email: linnae@chugwatervt.com
Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
