My guest today is John Sherwin, the founder and CEO of Hydrant. Hydrant hydrates you faster and more efficiently than water alone.In this episode you'll learn about a part of health and wellness that has been overlooked: dehydration and that we're living in a dehydrated economy, why it's underserved, how he grew digitally and why he decided to go into both Walmart and Whole Foods. Without further ado, here's John.Sponsor: This episode is brought to you by Gorgias. Gorgias combines all your communication channels including email, SMS, social media, livechat, and phone, into one platform and gives you an organized view of all tickets. Sign up here and mention the Consumer VC podcast for two months free.Click Here to sign up.Some of the questions I ask John:What was your initial attraction to entrepreneurship?How did you end up founding Hydrant? What was the insight?What did you learn about Dehydration vs. hydration 1.How did you approach validating your idea?What was the DTC strategy?What was life like during COVID? What was going through your mind when everything started shutting down in March last year?What was your omni channel strategy?When did you retailersWhen did you know it made sense to transition from regional to national?How did you approach brand awareness and marketing in secondary and tertiary markets?Since you're in Walmart and Wholefoods, do you approach those customers and consumer segments differently?How do you think about leadership and building a team?Why did you decide to raise venture capital?What was that process like?What's one thing that you think investors misunderstands about being the CEO of CPG brands?What's the best piece of advice that you've received?What's one piece of advice that you have for founders?