Hidden Gems: Meet Victoria Brodsky of DrinkLyte Co.

Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Brodsky. She shares the DrinkLyte story with us below:

Drinking two beers can be just as dehydrating as an hour-long workout – so why is there not an entire beverage category around post-alcohol rehydration? UC Berkeley Nutritionist and current UCLA MBA candidate Victoria Brodsky understood this, and the lack of proper hydration options at the bar forced her to always carry a flask of coconut water or Pedialyte to rehydrate when out with her friends. When she’d wake up feeling rehydrated and refreshed, but her friends were parched and hungover, she knew she had an opportunity.

DrinkLyte is an all-natural ready-to-drink rehydration beverage dedicated to bar-hoppers, party-goers and casual drinkers. Drink MoonLyte at the end of the night and SunLyte first thing the next morning to rehydrate and recover.

In late 2019, Brodsky launched the medical-grade formula in a cool and trendy canned form-factor. Immediately, multiple trendy bars and hotels in Los Angeles jumped on board and offered this low-calorie electrolyte drink to anyone who needed water at the bar. 2020 forced her to pivot to an eCommerce model and launch a powdered version of the drinks. Now, she’s re-launching the cans in 2022 in hopes of carrying out her vision of becoming the first-ever leading rehydration company dedicated to nightlife venues and events.

DrinkLyte has been bootstrapped entirely by Victoria. She has a team of 8 MBA and undergraduate student interns, 5 of which are women. Her advisory board boasts beverage industry leaders like Daina Trout, Founder of Health-Ade Kombucha.

The objectives for DrinkLyte in 2021-2022 are to grow in online sales, obtain retail placement, and establish brand partnerships with hotels, bars, and events.

Victoria’s goal isn’t just to disrupt the nightlife, beverage, and hospitality industries but to also lead an organization that is committed to inclusion, specifically for young aspiring female leaders.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
We had great momentum going into Spring 2020 – we’d obtained nearly ten great on-premise accounts to sell DrinkLyte. When everything shut down, that business was gone. But we quickly created a powdered version of the drink, which would be easier and cheaper to sell online – the idea was to keep the brand alive, keep the momentum going, but do it with a “COVID-friendly” form-factor for the product.

The challenges we’re having now are finding the right salespeople to work with, the right partnerships that will bring our brand mainstream.

We’ve been impressed with DrinkLyte Co., but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
With a degree in Nutrition Science, I knew the simplest way to hydrate – ORS. DrinkLyte products are Oral Rehydration Solutions (ORS), which is a fluid replacement therapy-it’s just as effective as an IV for immediate hydration. ORS’s purpose is to effectively and immediately replenish electrolytes in the body. DrinkLyte’s drink powders are offered as a cost-effective way for as many consumers as possible to try the product. DrinkLyte’s ready-to-drink version which is supplied to nightlife venues. DrinkLyte employs direct messaging to get the idea across that drinking alcohol causes dehydration and leads to hangovers.

DrinkLyte aims to disrupt both the beverage industry and the nightlife hospitality industry by inspiring a sustainable lifestyle that marries having fun, staying healthy, and living our best lives. Our effective product, instructional branding, and unique product placement normalizes proper rehydration after drinking. The big picture here is that we have millions of people either drinking too much and feeling awful or not drinking at all because it may make them feel awful; and no dedicated solution to address either of these previous issues, only tangentially marketed solutions or snake-oil “hangover cures.” At DrinkLyte, we believe that enjoying alcohol (responsibly) and trying to maintain your health and being productive should not be at odds with each other. We want our customers to feel confident that they can strike a balance through our products. Our vision is to become the leading rehydration company in the world for nightlife venues and events; and normalize rehydrating properly after drinking alcohol.

The best way to try DrinkLyte today is to order our drink mixes on our website: https://drinklyte.co/.

Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I’m lucky to have been able to work in a startup right out of college so I was able to see, in action, a small team of people taking big risks. It helped me start thinking about what risks are worth taking, which ones have high failure rates, and how to listen to your gut.

I would say I have a pretty high level of risk tolerance when it comes to my own business. I’ve bootstrapped us the entire way – investing my earnings as savings while trying to be as resourceful as possible.

DrinkLyte is a risky endeavour in a lot of ways, but we’ve been able to mitigate that risk by getting creative. For example, we struggled with how to make sure consumers knew what the intended use-case was (drinking), so instead of plastering our company name all over our packaging, the outside just says “Drinking Tonight?” – a phrase that my friend and mentor helped us come up with in 2020.

Contact Info:

• Email: victoria@drinklyte.co
• Website: https://drinklyte.co/
• Instagram: @drinklyte
• Facebook: @drinklyte
• Twitter: @drinklyte
• Other: https://youtu.be/m1kw1dsdFl0