00:00We don't see anyone as competitors. We were on the hype, then we were viral.
00:04Now we are in the habit building. This is true innovation.
00:13Welcome to The Big Question, the series from Euronews where we speak to some of the biggest
00:19names in business. And today is no different. I'm joined by Christina Kentz, who is the CEO
00:25of AirUp. Christina, thank you very much for joining us on The Big Question.
00:28Thank you so much for having me. Very excited to be here today with you.
00:32Now, AirUp produces water bottles, which you sent to create essentially the perception
00:38of flavor by putting the interchangeable pods in the top of the bottle. And this product,
00:45Christina, went viral, didn't it? I saw that it racked up billions of views on TikTok and
00:50the like, which is amazing. So can you tell us what really drove that explosion?
00:55I think there are three steps to virality, to go into a positive area. When you look
01:01at a society problem, like for example, hydration, the fact that we need to drink more water,
01:07it becomes a topic that people want to talk. So it has a really good base for virality.
01:12At the beginning, it went as a hype. And of course, that surprised everyone because this
01:16is a product that came from founders that were inherently engineers. And Sente actually comes
01:23from neuroscience comes from a true innovation. So the fact that we can flavor water in a way
01:29that has no sugar, no artificial, so it's basically it's scent taste. You're able to perceive the taste
01:35even though you're just drinking pure water. That becomes the magic of the system. So the sum
01:40of good insight, a good product, and a good conversation, that makes it viral. And now the part
01:47that we are building in is the habit.
01:55And the company launched in Germany in 2019. And I read that within the first six weeks,
02:02it sold 80,000 units of the water bottles. Now take me back to the beginning and where the whole
02:10idea
02:10came from.
02:12It has a beautiful story. There were a bunch of founders. We have five founders. And everything
02:17started in a university lab. It was an end of year project. And the project was based on
02:24neuroscience. They were looking at how 80% of taste comes retronasal. They thought about different
02:31applications and they came up with the idea of water. So when they presented the project,
02:36very soon they were able to get back in and to build up a company. So the story is incredibly
02:42founder-led. And what is very nice is that that was created, as you're saying, about six years ago.
02:48But the founders are still in the company. This is one of the reasons why I was attracted to the
02:53company. When I met the founders and I saw their authenticity and the authenticity of the product
02:59and the innovation, it felt like a very wholesome place to be. And working with them is super fun.
03:05The bottles, of course, they get people through the door, but the pods are what bring them back,
03:11essentially, because you need the pods, the interchangeable pods, to put at the top of the
03:14water bottle to smell the flavour for the water. So is the real Air App business the bottle,
03:19or would you say it's the recurring revenue pod business?
03:23I think it's both. And when you look at the part of the journey we're at, the bottle, of course,
03:28opens the conversation. And then what we have done is that the pods now are available in many places.
03:34Now we have 15,000 points of sale. Like, we actually opened up a lot of the retail distribution
03:41to make sure that there was no friction in terms of when you wanted to change the pod that there
03:45was availability. It's a little bit like when you think about a gym, we all know that being healthy
03:51is going to a gym. But if you have to take a bus and you have to take a walk
03:54a kilometer to get to
03:56your gym, you won't make it. And seemingly, when you get to the gym, it has to be a nice
04:00experience.
04:01So we know that the repeat comes from both the nice experience of the bottle and also the
04:06accessibility of the pods.
04:08And do you know what percentage of customers come back and buy the pods?
04:11The business has sold now 50 million bottles and we are above 200 million pods.
04:16So it is working. And what we can see is that people who really stick to the franchise,
04:22through clinical studies, we see that they drink more water. So the product is proving itself.
04:28And now, as I was saying before, we were on the hype, then we were viral. Now we are in
04:33the habit
04:33building. The habit building is a little bit slower in the sense that we need to get people
04:38adopting the system day after day for the hydration promise to be true. You need to continue
04:44coming back, coming back. And that is the part that we are vested now on really creating habits.
04:48And Cristina, when it comes to competition, your biggest competitor, it isn't necessarily
04:53Coca-Cola, for example. It's the glass of tap water that costs nothing. So what's your answer to that?
04:58I think we have our own lane. We have created a new category. We don't see anyone as competitors.
05:04And not because we are arrogant or anything like that. It's just basically we created something new,
05:09which is the ability to give you a system that makes you enjoy water.
05:13We exist to help humans drink more water. And we do it in a way that there's no sugars,
05:19no artificials, just pure water with a hint of flavour. And that gives you the enjoyment.
05:23And Cristina, AirUp was founded, as we talked about, and is still headquartered in Munich.
05:29You've also expanded into the US. But what's fundamentally different, would you say,
05:34in trying to grow AirUp on the continent, here in Europe, versus the US?
05:39We actually have gone into the US in two different ways. We went the blockbuster way,
05:45which is you get in, you go everywhere, you try to do nationwide distribution.
05:49The reality is that there's not one US. There are many USes. And US is a very vast territory.
05:56And also lately, it's been harder with the tariffs and everything. So what we've done is change our
06:02approach. And instead of going all in, we are now launching in Boston. We're going to win in a smaller
06:09footprint, create a prosumers, and then expand from that. It is very different to launch in the US
06:15than to launch in France, for example.
06:18You're a CEO that's worked with lots of major brands, Cristina. Has, in those internal conversations
06:24that you have with other CEOs, has the tariffs really taken you all by surprise? And every day,
06:30is it sort of, okay, what's happening today? Is it difficult to strategize with the business?
06:35Yeah, of course it is. It has brought many business into a very difficult place of planning,
06:41not only because of the sheer tariffs, also because of the changes within the tariffs,
06:46the promises of returning the money, then the different change of tariffs setting. And as you
06:50know, you couldn't bank on anything. Like one day was one thing for one country, the other day was
06:55another thing for another country. So I think it's been for CEOs who manufacture in Europe and they
07:02want to sell in the US, it's been an interesting time. Yeah. And what's next for AirUp? What can we
07:08look forward to next? Next for AirUp is we are launching a new product. We very actively seek for
07:14feedback and we are always seeing ongoing improvements on the product. The product we're
07:19launching now has a few capabilities that they have been massively improved. Now we can put
07:24sparkling water, which is, if you know, like in some countries like Germany, unless you can
07:29put a sparkling water, the habit of the still water is not there. So for us to be able to
07:34have
07:35sparkling water was very important. And this is our next big thing.
07:39Well, Christina, best of luck with the launch of the new product. It's been really fascinating
07:43to talk to you. So thank you very much for sharing your insights and thank you for joining
07:48us on The Big Question. Thank you.
07:53check out the link to see if you are interested in the video, please check out the link to
07:54the link in the description below.
07:54We'll see you next time.
07:54Take care.
07:54Bye.
07:56Bye.
07:58Bye.
07:58Bye.
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