

How would you sell water? - zellunit
http://zellunit.com/2008/04/07/selling-water/

======
rrival
<http://www.ethoswater.com/> Click 'About' - Sell $1.80 bottles of water and
'give' $0.05/bottle to your own charitable foundation. They were acquired by
Starbucks inside 2 years.

------
craig-faber
Water is actually the best re-hydration aid ever. Bottled water is really
popular with construction workers for that reason. They like the convenience
of being able to carry the bottles around with them, and the fact that they
come pre-filled when you buy them (even though they re-fill them with tap
water later). So you really can sell bottled water based on the fact that it's
water and it's in a bottle.

------
angstrom
Market it as dihydrogen oxide skin cleaner.

~~~
tokipin
<http://www.dhmo.org/>

------
FleursDuMal
I would sell carbon-neutral, zero-environmental-footprint water. A portion of
the price of every bottle offsets the manufacturing/transport costs to the
environment, so people are free to enjoy the water totally-guilt free.

~~~
rrival
I have carbonneutralwater.com/net/org (and have for awhile) - free to a good
home if anyone wants to seriously pursue this idea.

------
slapshot
This is a very longwinded way to say "sell the sizzle, not the steak."

You don't sell water. You sell rebellion.

~~~
hugh
I dunno, an awful lot of people seem to be making an awful lot of money by
selling bottled water, and I don't see any of them using a rebellion-based
marketing strategy. I see messages ranging from "Buy our water, it's cool and
refreshing and comes in a pretty bottle" to "Buy your water, it's cooler and
more refreshing, and it comes in an even prettier bottle!"

It's true that products don't sell themselves, but on the other hand some
products are dumb enough that even a huge marketing campaign won't make 'em
popular, and I'm pretty sure that five-spouted rapper-endorsed water is one of
them.

~~~
slapshot
The rebellion example came from the article. It suggested creating an
alternate means to drink water that "rebellious" people would use.

~~~
hugh
I know, I thought it was a silly example. Sorry, I kinda convolved my reply to
your comment with my reply to the article.

------
dkokelley
There's one part of the article that states:

"Instead of getting caught up on the idea of creating the perfect product,
settle for an okay one."

As hackers and creators here, I think we'll have a hard time getting over that
point. The suggestion to release early can sort of apply here, but the goal is
to build something better and better - perpetual improvement, and settling
into the mindset of "why make it perfect when I can make it cool" is probably
not the best startup advice.

Still, the moral of the story is still a great take away. When doing any sort
of sales, be it to customers or investors, sell the benefit, not the features.
People don't don't want A/C, they want comfort.

I loved the marketing thought put into this article. It really makes it easier
to get into a consumer's mind.

------
theoutlander
By targeting the right market....with the right strategy in place.

------
rumblerob
Anyone else concerned with zellunit posting a link from zellunit.com? Or does
that happen a lot around here? Legitimate question.

~~~
baha_man
No, I'm not concerned, there's nothing against it here:

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

Does it happen a lot? No, I don't think so.

------
GavinB
In bulk. Through a pipe. Cheap. Advertise that it never touches plastic.

------
kaens
I wouldn't.

