For Helena Price Hambrecht the abundance of alcohol at every after-work event meant that hangovers seemed inevitable.
"I knew that I had a problem. I knew that everyone else I knew had a problem where we were like 'god, are we supposed to do this forever and not die?" she said on this week's episode of the Modern Retail Podcast. "We're supposed to drink, drinking is part of life, but we all feel terrible. Why isn't there a better way to drink?'"
She and her husband Woody Hambrecht founded Haus to try supplying that better way. The company's drinks are alcoholic, but only a bit more than the stuff you put in an Aperol Spritz -- the growing popularity of which proves the "demand for something lighter," Price Hambrecht said -- and other aperitifs. Millennials, the thinking goes, aren't drinking to get drunk. Haus' concoctions are also on the not-so-sweet (read: sugary) side, and are under the legal cutoff (24% ABV) for mailing bottles to customers.
Price Hambrecht joined the inaugural episode of the Modern Retail Podcast to talk about founding Haus, focusing on PR at launch and what comes next for the direct-to-consumer industry.