Today we’d like to introduce you to Eliza Becton.
Eliza, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
We started in a basement. Actually, we spent the past 2 years in a basement office. A few months ago, we moved into a wonderful light-filled office space in the Schrafft’s Building near Sullivan Square. But even before that, we worked in coffee shops and conference rooms at the MIT Sloan School of Management. We didn’t get real office space until we won enough business competition prize money and grants to rent space at Greentown Labs.
I was introduced to my two co-founders Sean and Frank (MIT Sloan alums) after I had graduated from RISD with a master’s in industrial design. While there, I focused on sustainability and more specifically, the user behavior around bottled water. I came away from the program with a rough idea for a better way to deliver water through a kiosk. The product concept was crazy, and the business model was very pathetic. However, Sean and Frank were believers in the sustainability mission. We tinkered with the product concept and business model until we started to get good feedback from business plan competitions. After winning a couple of these competitions, we built insanely large prototypes and launched market testings.
In order to keep building the company, we were not shy about testing terrible prototypes, as long as we are learning. We promised ambitious goals, and then somehow met them. Along the way, our idea has changed a lot as we’ve learned from customers. However, our mission has remained the same, as it’s embedded in our product and company culture. Today, we have over 50 employees nationwide, two products in the market, and each month, Bevi machines save more than 1 million bottles from landfills. Some of our customers include GE, Netflix, Apple, and Google.
Has it been a smooth road?
It definitely has not been a smooth road! There are always fires to put out, and new challenges to overcome. We’ve had pilots that failed, especially before we found our product market fit. Finding talent at an early stage was also difficult. As we started to scale, finding people that fit our culture becomes even more challenging.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Bevi’s expertise is in designing the best on-demand beverage delivery system on the market. I am the Head of Product. Our goal is to eliminate the need for bottles and cans wherever there is a Bevi. And we aim to be everywhere! What I’m most proud of as a company is that we aren’t afraid to fail, and we put our users first. We are constantly learning by listening to our customers and learning from our mistakes. There are always opportunities to get better.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Boston is a great place for hiring talent. There are so many amazing schools and startup networks, forming a supportive community. In terms of running market pilots, we found that people are very welcoming to startups and willing to take a risk on new projects or ideas.
It’s been challenging to find office space for a hardware company, which requires a significant shop space. However, I imagine it would be difficult in most cities to accommodate that need affordably.
Pricing:
- We help companies save up to 80% in beverage costs.
- Customers can rent Bevi units for a monthly fee, which equates to as low as 20 cents a drink.
- For example, we saved a customer Revel Systems almost $65,000 a year!
Contact Info:
- Address: The Schrafft Center
Suite 3304
529 Main St
Boston, MA 02129 - Website: http://www.bevi.co
- Phone: 617-315-4715
- Email: info@bevi.co
- Instagram: www.instagram/getbevi
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/getbevi
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/getbevi
- Other: www.linkedin.com/company/bevi
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