Cure Hydration - How One Brand Made Hydration Cool (and Clean)

The Story of a Brand

Ramon Vela

Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 145 Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On today’s episode of The Story of a Brand Show, I’m joined by Lauren Picasso, the founder and CEO of Cure Hydration.

What started as a personal struggle with staying hydrated as an endurance athlete led Lauren to launch a science-backed, clean-label hydration brand that is now available in thousands of retail stores.

We talked about how she identified the gap in the hydration category, built Cure from the ground up (including mixing formulas at home), and the strategic choices that helped the brand scale across DTC and retail.

Lauren didn’t come from the CPG world, but her background in e-commerce and performance marketing helped her build a brand that’s both mission-driven and data-informed. She shares how DTC insights led to major pivots in product format and packaging, why launching in CVS was a game-changer early on, and how Cure’s clean ingredients and powder format offer a better, more sustainable alternative to traditional sports drinks.

Here’s what we cover in this episode:

* Why coconut water powder + salt = hydration magic

* The moment CVS expanded Cure to 3,000+ stores—and what it unlocked

* The value of launching DTC before going retail

* The surprising reason most customers buy Cure (hint: it’s not just for athletes)

* Expanding into a kids’ line (with flavors kid-tested and approved)

Join me, Ramon Vela, as we listen to the episode and get inspired by how one founder turned a personal need into a rapidly growing wellness brand, redefining what it means to stay truly hydrated.

For more on Cure Hydration, visit: https://www.curehydration.com/

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Today’s Sponsors:

Compass Rose Ventures - Advisor for CPG Brands: https://compassroseventures.com/contact/

Compass Rose Ventures can help your CPG brand increase customer lifetime value, expand into the US market, create an omnipresent omnichannel footprint, optimize customer journeys, build brand communities, and more. Visit the link above to learn more.

Augmentum Media - Influencer Marketing for Consumer Brands: https://www.augmentum-media.com/story

What secret do fast-growing Health and Wellness brands like Xtendlife, Nourished, and Hunter & Gather share? They all outsource their influencer marketing to the experts at Augmentum. Augmentum is offering "The Story of a Brand Show" listeners a 30-minute consulting session AND a personalized influencer strategy plan built by their experts for you to implement either with them or in-house. Visit the link above to learn more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This formula has been around for decades. It's got dozens of clinical studies behind it. It's
0:05.1	considered to be one of the greatest medical advances of all time. And it's quite simple. It's just
0:10.5	this perfect balance of sugar and salt, but it's proven to hydrate as effectively as an IV
0:15.9	drip. What you can imagine, like the reason why it's had such a big impact is because it's a lot
0:20.7	cheaper than an IV drip. It's not more scalable. reason why it's had such a big impact is because it's a lot cheaper than an IVGIP, it's not more scalable.
0:23.3	And so it's a product that has really helped with dehydration in developing countries and is
0:28.9	considered an essential medicine.
0:30.6	For me, that was the aha moment, really because I had never heard of it before.
0:34.1	And I thought, okay, you know, here you have this amazing formula that
0:39.2	helps millions of people all over the world, but no one really in the U.S. knows about it at all.
0:44.5	And so I thought, you know, here is an opportunity really to educate consumers, to develop a product
0:50.8	that's actually effective, but, you know, doing it in a way that is actually
0:55.4	going to be appealing to them.
1:07.1	Hey, everyone. This is Ramon Vela, and this is another episode of the story of a brand.
1:12.7	Like always, we have an amazing guest and brand that we're going to feature on today's show.
1:16.9	But before we do, hi, I speak to hundreds of founders and CEOs of consumer brands each year.
1:23.6	And they are facing unprecedented challenges.
1:27.2	That's why the story of a brand has worked with
1:30.0	the Compass Rose team, my strategic partner, to provide relief. We are offering a no-cost
1:38.0	solution exclusively for consumer brand founders and CEOs featured on the story of a brand show, as well as listeners,
1:47.5	whether it's to help you map out your brand's growth trajectory or prepare your brand in
1:53.0	financials for investors or acquisition or more. Simply book a one-on-one call with Rose Hamilton,
	...

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