British GQ - 04.2020

The sell matters

In the early days of S’well, no one

bought the product because the first

website talked all about the

statistics of the plastic in

the ocean and the Great

Pacific Garbage Patch

and how many people

on the planet didn’t have

drinking water. After all

that it said, “Oh, and by

the way, I’m selling this

product.” Really, I had to

turn that message upside down.

Grow, but don’t become

too diffuse

Since we launched in 2010, with one

bottle, one colour, one size, we [now]

have a whole portfolio of products.

So we certainly have a wider stance,

but it all comes back to our singular

mission: to try to eliminate single-use

plastic from the planet. We’re still the

same company with the same focus, but

we’re broader and more sophisticated

in our product offering.

Don’t rely on focus groups

We’ve got a great in-house research

team that does focus groups. I think

that’s one way to think about [reach-

ing customers]: from a research

perspective. But we just came out with

silicone handles that you can carry

your bottle in and a lot of that came

from customers saying on our social

Who would have

predicted that premium

reusable water bottles

would become a status

symbol? S’well has sold

25 million of them,

with revenues of more

than £75m. Here’s

how founder and CEO

Sarah Kauss built it...

Sarah Kauss, founder of S’well

The

SECRETS

of MY

SUCCESS

‘ I don’t like the word

“networking”, as it’s

so transactional.

Real connections

are truly beneficial’

Story by Thomas Barrie

DETAILS − ENTREPRENEUR

media, “I would love a better way to carry

my bottle so I can go hiking.” Similarly, I’ve

taken the subway to work and had a great

conversation with someone about my reus-

able coffee container...

Network less, but better

I don’t like the word “networking” because it seems

so transactional. I really see it as not necessarily the number

of contacts you have in your LinkedIn, or the number of

business cards you can pick up at an event, [but] as having

more real, deep and meaningful connections that happen to

be truly beneficial for each other. I’d rather go to an event

or speak at a conference and talk to two people, but really

understand who they are and how I can help them and make

a connection and file it away.

The boring stuff is important

I was a chartered accountant for four years; I worked for a

very good firm. I worked for smart people and I liked them,

[but] I really disliked it. I’m a people person – I like the exter-

nal and not the internal. However, it was good discipline for

me to sit at a desk and crunch numbers for four years. To

this day, I can find my way around the balance sheet and an

income statement and I know, when I see an Excel spread-

sheet, when something’s wrong.

Get help

If I could go back to the first week of starting the company,

I would tell myself to think about bringing in a leader-

ship team earlier on. It’s OK not to know everything, to

raise your hand and say, “These are the

areas that I’m strong, but these are

the areas that I’m less experienced in,”

and really try to supplement that and

not feel guilty. I’m incredibly proud of

where S’well is today. But could we be

further, faster, if I had had a really great

team by my side [earlier]?

In the last year, we brought on a chief

marketing officer. I was a little late to

understanding the need to have a great

marketer because the product boomed.

That was probably something that was

clearly not in my wheelhouse and I can

see the benefit of having it.

It’s a good sign if your team

hangs out

You can’t regulate people being friends

at work, but I follow a lot of our team

on social media and I see they hang

out on the weekends. By allowing

people to socialise, it does bring a sep-

arate level of engagement that you can

hope for in a culture. But you don’t

want to mandate it.

Keep a ‘five-year diary’

For the last 15 years or so, I’ve been

keeping a five-year journal. If today’s

31 January, on the same page I can see

what happened three years ago or two

years ago. It makes me feel like I’m

making periodic progress: whatever

thing that was vexing me two years ago

is certainly cleared up by now. I realise

that the challenges aren’t so dire and

it keeps me humble. It’s a really neat

system for me to keep myself a little

bit balanced in the midst of lots of ups

and downs on this journey.

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