How Brez Grew a THC Drink Brand to $44M, Almost Entirely Online

Brez is a functional THC beverage built to give drinkers the social ease and relaxation of alcohol without the next-day consequences. Founded by Aaron Nosbisch in the USA, the brand was built on a conviction that drinking cannabis is the next chapter of how people choose to socialise. In its first two years, Brez went from 200 hand-labelled cans at a conference to $44 million in revenue, almost entirely online. Retail is now accelerating.

The idea: The obvious future of drinking

Aaron Nosbisch grew up in a Midwest Bible Belt family where cannabis was treated as a path to ruin. Then one day he tried it, and all of a sudden everything was different. The fear his community had projected onto it didn't materialise. What materialised instead was a question: why is the most widely accepted social lubricant in the world the one that costs you the next day?

The alcohol market is a $1.25 trillion global industry, $250 billion in the US alone. It is so large, Aaron says, it has become invisible. But the cultural conditions were shifting. Awareness around what people consume and how was growing. The social spaces people gravitated toward were changing too: saunas, ice baths, morning coffee shop events. The desire for a better option was already there. It needed a product.

"The obvious and unexpected future of cannabis becoming mainstream is of course drinking it."

He flew home from Costa Rica on a small plane, wrote the vision for the whole brand, felt the breeze through the window, and had a name.

The product came together at a psychedelic and cannabis conference in Miami. A late-night chance meeting introduced Aaron to nano lion's mane. Combined with a THC and cannabinoid profile, the result was something crisp, uplifting and relaxing in the right measure.

"We made something that could give you that sense of relief, that could facilitate connection, that could enhance celebration, but not trade off your next day for it."

The launch: From 200 handmade cans to $28.9 million

Travis, Brez's head of product, made the first 200 cans for the conference. The labels didn't fit. Aaron went to Office Depot, bought a paper cutter, trimmed every label by hand, and applied all 200 himself. The reception at the conference was immediate. That night in the hotel lobby, two strangers walked up and asked if they could buy one. Aaron charged them five dollars each. Those were the first two cans of Brez ever sold.

The brand that followed was built for eCommerce from the start. Aaron and his team had deep experience there, and they focused the entire operation around it. The first eight months produced $1.25 million in revenue at around 10% net profit. The following twelve months: $28.9 million.

"People don't buy beverages online. Thank god I didn't know much about starting a beverage brand before this, because it's a crazy market."

Not knowing the conventional rules meant they never followed them. They built for the channel everyone said wouldn't work for the product, and it did.

Production scaled from 30,000 cans per run to millions of cans produced every couple of weeks. Monthly subscribers crossed 10,000. The broader eCommerce and beverage community didn't know what to make of it.

"They thought of us as a fluke. Like something must be up."

The fuel: $10 million in, $44 million out

In the two years following launch, Brez reached $44 million in total revenue. "Of which I'd say 90 to 95% of it is online," Aaron says, "which is phenomenal because people don't buy beverages online."

Getting there required production at a scale where capital is committed weeks before a single can is sold. A $10 million facility from Wayflyer provided the working capital to keep pace with the rate Aaron demanded. For a brand doubling and tripling its production runs with that frequency, that gap between manufacturing cost and incoming revenue was the potential ceiling. Wayflyer's capital kept it from becoming one.

Retail has started to follow the eCommerce foundation. In Brez's first two years, 5 to 10% of revenue came from retail. In the last 30 days alone, it was over 30%. The advertising built online has created a brand consumers recognise on the shelf before they've ever been asked to try it.

"When retailers put our product on the shelf, all the efficient advertising we've done has allowed us to create a brand that people are familiar with. So when they see us on the shelf, they want to try it."

Aaron's expectation for where that leads is not modest.

"In a very short matter of time, Brez will be the largest functional beverage brand in the world. And my gut is that the largest functional beverage brand in the world becomes the largest beverage brand in the world."

Interested in following in Brez's footsteps? Wayflyer has funded over 6,000 businesses worldwide with $6 billion worth of working capital, backed by world-leading financial institutions. Apply in minutes and access funds in hours. Start your application today.