Today we’d like to introduce you to Todd O’Gara.
Hi Todd, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was living in Cochabamba, Bolivia working in a residency program where I was exposed to the lack of public healthcare in what would be considered a developing country. I would work in hospitals, schools, clinics, the Amazon with villagers. I was performing oral surgeries with no anesthetic, along with providing acute healthcare to those in dire need, most of them being children under the age of six.
The fork in the road for me to go down a path of creating wanu water was when I diagnosed a six-year-old girl at the time with cancer in her mouth. I was able to aid in the surgery and helped cover the medical costs as well as her family had no money. This in my opinion was due to lack of nutrition as well as clean drinking water, and I decided to be the change instead of going into private practice. This was the inception of creating and eventually launching what we know today as wanu water, water + nutrients.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The road is never smooth for an entrepreneur in the beginning. This could be a dissertation in itself. There have been so many hard and challenging times over the years that it is difficult to just point to one, but of the many examples of the challenges we faced and overcame was when we were launching the brand. When you start a company resources are very, VERY tight. Just to get all of the moving parts to align to go to market is where majority of beverage brands fail. Everything has to align, and a lot of the alignment is out of your control. You’re dependent on your vendors and third-party partners to come through. Unfortunately, one of our biggest cogs in the wheel failed us. Our manufacturing partner at the time. Wanu was to be launched at the Expo West show in Anaheim, we were running our very first production run days before the launch, so timing was to be perfect. The manufacturer ran the product, we picked it up and everything from a high level seemed to be copasetic. The show was a success, the brand was a hit, and we received instant orders and distribution. That is where the trouble started. About three weeks post-launch, we started to see issues within the product lines. What we came to learn is the manufacturer botched the entire 80K bottle run, where we had to completely destroy all product and find a new manufacturer within a week that could run our formula, bottle, cap, label, and have enough time for testing and quality control to distribute to the retailers that had just placed orders. In this industry like most, you only get one opportunity to execute, or they move on to the next.
We found a new partner that we still have today, and everything worked out. This industry, much like life is Murphy’s law. What can go wrong will go wrong. The challenge is to overcome and navigate these landmines that we are thrown and continue to persevere and overcome to reach your ultimate goals.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Wanu water (water + nutrients) is the first-to-market, best-selling nutrient-infused water packed with ten essential vitamins including 24% of your daily fiber intake providing natural energy that boosts your metabolism, supports a healthy immune system and quenches your appetite while you hydrate.
Wanu separates itself from the competition with our highly differentiated formula, packaging, and bottle design, but I would also say our passion to be authentic and honest. We aren’t trying to “dupe” the consumer like so many other brands. We take tremendous pride in our ability to relate to consumers and providing 100% transparency while doing so.
The catalyst behind the creation of wanu was to cure infant mortality rates due to waterborne illness in developing countries. Our proprietary formulation provides the tools and building blocks to strengthen one’s immune system while providing healthy hydration with great taste. Every person that drinks wanu is bettering their overall health and wellness and that couldn’t make me happier and appreciative for knowing I am helping those individuals live a better lifestyle.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. There has been a lot of good luck in my work career, but also some very bad luck that has lead to some very important mistakes that you have to learn from. To overcome some of these mistakes, I continually resorted back to my passion and belief in myself were instilled in me long ago through my parents. I was taught from a very early age to never quit. No matter how hard it was or how much I didn’t like it, quitting was never an option. Making mistakes were and are teachable moments, as long as you learn from them and continue on.
Pricing:
- Amazon $29.99/case
- $2.29/ bottle
Contact Info:
- Email: info@wanuwater.com
- Website: wanuwater.com
- Instagram: @wanulife
- Facebook: wanu
