Summary
On this episode of Startup Junkies, hosts Caleb Talley, Victoria Dickerson, and Claudia Scott sit down with Erin Campbell, co-founder of Gen Z Water. Erin joined the podcast last year after Gen Z Water won the People’s Choice Award at Startup Crawl 2022, and she’s back this week to share what she’s been up to since. Throughout the episode, Erin discusses the unique challenges of marketing water, how she found her ideal niche in the Gen Z market, and the benefits of taking risks as an entrepreneur.
Show Notes
(1:17) Introducing Erin Campbell and Her Origin Story
(6:47) Marketing Water
(12:39) Connecting with Gen Z Customers
(20:53) Leaning into Risk as a Startup
(26:28) Building to Sell
(31:10) What’s Erin up to Now?
(33:06) Advice to the Younger Self and Closing Thoughts
Links
Quotes
“With the insights and the data and the research that we did during the pandemic, it was incredibly clear that that fit, filthy-rich, famous brand imagery was a huge disconnect from the value system of the Gen Z generation, [and] much more inline with the aspirational millennial generation.” - Erin Campbell, (13:22)
“It landed so well because I feel like we did it with such intention. There is a story, there is a reason, there is a strategy, there is a data point, there is an insight behind every decision that we made. So, to that risk point, they’re informed, and they’re educated risks. They’re not just careless; they’re very calculated, and we made sure that we had a reasonably data-informed argument that would justify that risk.” - Erin Campbell, (22:46)
“I don’t know if [my] younger self would have been ready to hear, ‘just take risks.’ I think she had to go through the whole process to get to where I am today.” - Erin Campbel, (34:29)