Bryan Appio

Bryan Appio is the founder and CEO of DryWater, who reinvented the hydration category from 'Real Fruit' clean hydration brand he scaled to $100M+ in revenue and 26,000+ retail doors — including Walmart, Target, Kroger and The Vitamin Shoppe — in just two years. He did it by ignoring the standard D2C playbook: instead of burning VC cash on digital ads, he ran 20 in-person activations a week, distributed hundreds of thousands of samples, and used purchase orders as debt financing to fund growth. That strategy is how Walmart discovered DryWater at an event activation, how Target signed the brand off a marathon activation, and how a New York pop-up tour seeded national distribution. Along the way, DryWater unexpectedly captured the everyday female consumer in a category dominated by male performance brands. Bryan was named EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2025 for the playbook behind that growth. Before DryWater, he founded 1-800-Bartend at 18, a New York hospitality staffing business that gave him an operator's instinct for events, service, and building from zero. Here's how Bryan can help: 1. Building a retail-first growth engine when everyone tells you to start with D2C 2. Running event and sampling activations that actually convert to shelf placement 3. Using purchase orders and debt financing to scale without diluting on VC cash 4. Landing buyer meetings at Walmart, Target, and specialty chains — and keeping the shelf once you're on it 5. Positioning a brand to capture audiences you didn't expect (and knowing when to lean in)

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