Promising earthly tastes and heavenly feelings, sparkling water brand Aura Bora took off after its launch in 2019, followed by Shark Tank appearances, record sales numbers and news appearances. How did it start, though? Aura Bora founder and UCLA alumnus, Paul Voge, who graduated in June 2016 with a degree in political science, spoke with BruinLife’s Ali Alfarsi about his journey from his days at UCLA to building Aura Bora and discussing how he continues to bring whimsy to the world even after Aura Bora’s acquisition.
Interview has been edited for length and clarity.
BruinLife: How do you think that your experience at UCLA has shaped who you are today?
Paul Voge: I definitely was entrepreneurial in college and the best asset UCLA gave me was a very big crowd; you have to kind of stand out from a crowd. It’s such a large school full of really ambitious people, which frankly is kind of what the real world feels like too. The second gift was just being located in beautiful, sunny California. I think that it, as a state, is underpriced, underrated and underpopulated despite what you might read in the press. It’s just like truly the greatest place to live on Earth. And the final thing is, when it is a large school full of ambitious people, you can kind of find anyone doing anything and doing it excellently. I think that’s like a rare mix of things.
BL: Why start a sparkling water business?
PV: I grew up in a home that didn’t drink soda, so I was always a big sparkling water drinker. In my first few jobs after college, I was probably drinking eight to ten cans a day, which is a lot. And it felt like, ‘why is there not a craft version of this?’ So the idea of Aura Bora came at one of those jobs. I was working at an investment firm called Saturn Five, based in Colorado. Imagine if there was a Sierra Nevada or Sam Adams of sparkling water, where we had differentiated ingredients, top-tier flavors and a brand consumers really relate to. Could we make a craft sparkling water? So that was the idea of Aura Bora. I started making the first few iterations in my kitchen and delivering the first few pallets out of my 2016 Subaru. That started in March of 2019 and 30-something million cans later, we sold the business on January 29 of last year.
BL: What’s your favorite Aura Bora flavor and why?
PV: My favorite that is still being made is ginger Meyer lemon. Back to my answer about California, Meyer lemons are plentiful in this state. And it’s the perfect mix between an orange and a lemon. My favorite flavor we ever made, though, was our first flavor, which was lemongrass coconut. I’m like obsessed with lemongrass. UCLA gave me a much broader horizon, in particular on Asian flavors and I became obsessed with lemongrass. And I made this lemongrass coconut flavor. I thought everybody would love it. And the truth is, pretty much only I loved it. It was like our worst-selling flavor.
BL: If you could describe Aura Bora in three words that would distinguish it from other beverages like sodas, sparkling waters and other beverage businesses, what would those words be?
PV: I hope, whimsical. I used to say the phrase, both delightfully peculiar or peculiarly delightful. I’d say like, fresh, lively. Maybe the easiest one is like, whimsical, delightful, unusual.
BL: What can readers expect from your SubStack page, The Renaissance Man?
PV: I definitely resonate with writing a lot more than I do with business. I didn’t take a single economics class or business class in college. I just found it a way more effective to learn how to communicate. Obviously, if you’re writing essays, as I was in both of those subject matters, film and political science, you know, you just have to become a better writer. We’re becoming a world where having a distinct voice is super unusual, so what readers can expect is at least a distinct voice and a distinct set of experiences that inform it, as does anybody in the world. But I certainly feel like learning strong communication skills is far more important than almost anything else you can learn.
BL: If you were a Shark on Shark Tank, what would the number one thing that you’d be looking for be in other people’s businesses?
PV: I am so interested in the distribution strategy, compared to being more invested in the product. Like anyone can make a product, but it’s so much harder to get people to listen for a lot of the reasons we talked about. It’s a very loud, noisy world. Of course, they must have a product I like, but I’m listening way more intently to what their strategy is for getting above the noise. And I find that way more useful. There’s an old quote that first-time founders focus on product and second-time founders focus on distribution.
BL: What made you take a step back from Aura Bora. What are you working on nowadays?
PV: The truth is, it’s an exhausting thing to sell in grocery stores. They’re closed two days a year, generally. And every problem under the sun happened at least twice is what it felt like. But the goal of leaving was whether the brand would continue to exist. Can we find a new owner? And obviously we did. I continue to be interested in consumer products. I’m probably less interested in food and beverage and more interested in what are unusual, delightful ways to connect. Obviously, I did that with weird-flavored sparkling waters for many years and I’d like to do that with several other experiences. As to what I’m up to for work, I generally design immersive experiences of various kinds. Next week, I’m making a game show for a client. In a couple of months, it’s an art installation for different clients. It feels like every year the world gets less and less connected, more and more disconnected, and less and less real. So I’m trying to spend my time building things that are both real and connective. Some of those things have a digital component to them, but oftentimes, it’s an experience you’re having in real life.
BL: If you had a piece of advice that you could give UCLA students who are interested in starting a business, what would that advice be?
PV: One, I would say, who you are starting the business with matters a lot more than what the business is. Two, know your numbers cold. Ultimately, businesses are a collection of numbers, and that’s coming from a North Campus guy. And then maybe three, it’s more important to be fast than to be good.
