Paul and Maddie Voge of Aura Bora: 5 Important Business Lessons We Learned While Being On The Shark Tank

Know what makes you special. For us, it was our flavors — we own that we are weird and were confident about that with the sharks.

As a part of our series about the ‘5 Important Business Lessons I Learned While Being On The Shark Tank’ I had the pleasure of interviewing Paul and Maddie Voge.

With a home carbonator and an unquenchable thirst for weirder water, Paul and Maddie Voge started Aura Bora in 2019 in pursuit of earthly tastes and heavenly feelings. Their kitchen experiment became one of the fastest-growing sparkling water brands in the United States. When they aren’t concocting, mixing, sipping, and sharing, Paul and Maddie can be found doing outdoor things with their Goldendoodle, Indy.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you tell us a bit of the backstory about how you grew up?

Growing up, we went to the same summer camp in New Hampshire — where we were immersed in the outdoors. We became passionate about the environment — we buy our groceries in bulk, shop second-hand, and live a virtually no-plastic lifestyle. Our shared love for the environment, as well as our shared love for sparkling water at a young age (a side effect of growing up in soda-free households), are rooted in both our marriage and business.

Can you share with us the story of the “aha moment” that gave you the idea to start your company?

While we were working for tech companies, we taste-tested a lot of products in the office fridge. We noticed that sparkling water was both the most consumed drink, and the least enjoyed of the beverages. Because of this, we asked ourselves, “why isn’t there a better-tasting, artisan sparkling water?” Armed with a home carbonator, we started serving bizarre water experiments to friends at dinner parties (Paul would actually drape a white napkin over his arm as he poured).

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

Wow. Where to begin? Maybe it was the cold reach out from what would be a producer at Shark Tank asking us how soon we could be in Vegas to pitch the sharks. Or the fact that winter has become known internally as “freezing can season” because the water can sometimes freeze while it’s on the way to consumers. Every day is a new adventure in the land of weird water!

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We’ve got a bunch of new flavors coming out this year! We’re also forming really exciting partnerships that we will bring to life this year. We’re also using the Crisp Data Platform to get real-time data from our retail partners, helping us track sales and inventory to keep up with demand as the brand grows.

One thing that we are continuing to double down on is our commitment to protect the planet via being a 1% for the Planet Company (which means we donate 1% of our revenue to environmental causes every year).

Ok, thank you for all that. Let’s now move to the main part of our interview. Many of us have no idea about the backend process of how to apply and get accepted to be on the Shark Tank. Can you tell us the story about how you applied and got accepted? What “hoops” did you have to go through to get there? How did it feel to be accepted?

Our journey to the Shark Tank stage was perhaps a little unconventional — we actually never applied. In April 2020 (a year after starting the business), Paul got a cold email from someone claiming to be a Shark Tank producer. After months of back and forth and a cold email trail, he got an email asking if we could be in Las Vegas the following week to pitch to the Sharks.

I’m sure the actual presentation was pretty nerve-wracking. What did you do to calm and steel yourself to do such a great job on the show?

Drank Aura Bora and crossed our fingers.

So what was the outcome of your Shark Tank pitch? Were you pleased with the outcome?

After making a deal with Robert Herjavek on Shark Tank (who said, “This might be the best branding we’ve seen in all 12 seasons”), our business has been growing so fast! We quickly became one of the fastest-growing sparkling water brands in the United States with a robust eCommerce business and retail distribution including Sprouts, Whole Foods, Thrive Market, Walmart, and hundreds of grocery stores.

What are your “5 Important Business Lessons I Learned While Being On The Shark Tank”? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Be ready for brand awareness to explode. Fortunately, we were ready for all of the new consumers who discovered us in just a few minutes — it would have been a huge miss had we not been ready.
2. Understand your business really well. Unit economics are key for our business — we have a great mastery of our business fundamentals which definitely helped build the sharks’ confidence in us as entrepreneurs.
3. Know what makes you special. For us, it was our flavors — we own that we are weird and were confident about that with the sharks.
4. Know your worth. We went into Shark Tank with several scenarios built out so we could negotiate on the fly.
5. Have fun. That’s why we brought the confetti gun to our episode and Maddie wore that rad purple jumpsuit — don’t take it too seriously.

What advice would you give to other leaders to help their team to thrive and avoid burnout?

It’s all about empathy. Invest the time in getting to know each other as people who are professionals (and not the other way around). We are humans first and employees second.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

The global climate calamity is here — whether it means reducing your consumption of animal bi-products, composting, shopping bulk — find one small way you can do your part to reduce your environmental impact.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The more you know — the less you need.” — Yvon Chouinard

We are big readers and consumers of information — we have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Related to Aura Bora, neither of us had a background in sparkling water or CPG; we are self-taught, and through being self-teachers have become entrepreneurs.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

Yvon Chouinard from Patagonia is a huge personal hero. But also, Jonah Hill — if you’re reading this, we want to send you some water.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!