Simple Modern wants to solve ‘everyday hydration’ with its new brand Trevi
Simple Modern, known for its insulated water bottles, is betting that people are still thirsty for better electrolyte powders.
This week, Simple Modern unveiled Trevi, a hydration brand that will operate as a sister subsidiary of Simple Modern’s parent company. It will be the first new brand launch the company has launched since Simple Modern was founded in 2015. Named after the Italian fountain, Trevi will launch with electrolyte packets in four flavors that claim to have three times the electrolytes of traditional sports drinks.
Corbin Wallace, formerly the chief growth officer at Simple Modern and now the CEO of Trevi, said the company saw an opportunity to capture what it calls the everyday hydration market. Hydration has been a popular area for serial entrepreneurs this year; in June, Everlane founder Michael Preysman launched a magnesium-focused supplement brand called Magna.
A lot of companies that sell electrolyte drinks or powders, Wallace said, cater to hardcore athletes who were maybe “just finishing their CrossFit workout,” he said. Trevi’s marketing will instead focus on people using its electrolyte packets to stay hydrated during everyday activities — at work, at school or while running errands (perhaps while also holding their Simple Modern water bottle). Trevi’s website will launch in December, and the products will also be available on Amazon.com and Walmart.com.
Wallace said the hope is also that Trevi introduces some new customers to Simple Modern and vice versa. Simple Modern has grown into a nine-figure business that’s available in mass retailers like Amazon, Target, Sam’s Club and Walmart. Last year the company brought in $200 million in revenue. Wallace said that 2024 has been strong for Simple Modern but declined to share updated revenue figures.
In an interview with Modern Retail, Wallace discussed how the company decided that now was the time to launch another brand, as well as the growth plans for Trevi. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Why did you decide to launch Trevi?
The team that operates Simple Modern is always looking for new opportunities. And initially, we looked at the consumable space in 2023 as a potential opportunity to add a new product line or potentially a new brand — and it just didn’t feel like the right time.
But we felt that the opportunity to launch an electrolyte powder hydration enhancer alongside our drinkware brand just made a lot of sense. There are a lot of synergies. We have millions of customers that already trust the Simple Modern brand with their water bottle tumbler or coffee travel mug on a daily basis. And we felt like there was an opportunity to have another kind of player in the market.
This is a market that’s growing quite a bit, pretty rapidly, and we felt like there was kind of another angle that could be taken from everyday hydration.
What convinced you that this year was the time to do this?
It was a couple of different inputs that we actually looked at… We talked to customers quite a bit with our brands and [are] just always trying to get customer feedback. We got some really good feedback from customers that this was a product that they used and that they were still searching for kind of an everyday offering for themselves. And then I think, broadly, the larger organization was ready to take on adding another brand. I think last year, Simple Modern was focused on continuing to grow the Simple Modern brand.
We’ve gone through a brand redesign, kind of a visual change in our branding, that’s taken about a year to finalize and implement. And so think the team at large was also able and ready to take on launching a new brand.
You said that this is your take on everyday hydration — how will that look in terms of marketing and product offerings?
One is in the kind of product that we’re offering. It has all the essential vitamins and minerals, sodium and ingredients within our formula to help maximize the hydration process… But it’s not so rich in sodium that it comes out as too salty-forward. It doesn’t have too large of a daily value of your sodium.
And so, what it does is it kind of promotes the opportunity to have two or three of these throughout the day and not exceed any daily value of sodium or any of the other vitamins and minerals.
What we’re trying to do with this is show [that] this product — this formula — can be used multiple times a day for you. Whether you consume 16 ounces or 30 ounces, or 40 ounces [of water], taking down that last little bit of water will be done a little bit easier [by] adding Trevi to it.
The marketing will [showcase] individuals living their daily lives. Sometimes, the marketing in this category is really sport or health care-forward… whether it’s from a medical perspective or you’re seeing someone finishing a CrossFit workout or a half marathon.
Our marketing is going to be everyday life, whether it’s at work, at school… It’s going to be showing everyday activities. Of course, you can use this after workouts. You can use this before workouts. We’re not saying they can’t use it that way or you shouldn’t use it that way. You definitely can and should. But it’s also going to promote just kind of everyday hydration because people need to be staying a little bit more hydrated than they currently are.
How do you envision growing the wholesale presence for Trevi?
We’re in early conversations with a few different physical retail stores. And I think what we’ll try to do is pretty similar to what the team did at Simple Modern, which was [to] show the value of the brand, show the value of the product through our ability to digitally sell and market product and gain retail placement in 2025.
There are a lot of parallels with both drinkware and hydration — what do you feel like you’ve learned from Simple Modern in terms of what it takes to stay ahead in a crowded category, and how will you apply that to Trevi?
First and foremost, it’s about the product. You have to have a great product that people resonate with. It’s talking to customers and getting feedback, and learning how to iterate on that with products that you’re launching.
And then, from that, just making sure there’s an opportunity for people to try the product. In durable goods, you kind of know what you are getting with a water bottle… There are definitely a lot of different features and functions around insulation technology, around lids.
Consumables is a little different. The taste, the texture, the experience [are all important]. Activation is just key for us in terms of allowing people to sample and try Trevi.
Whether it’s a really crowded space or a space that has fewer competitors, what we’re trying to do is make a great product that people love and then finding as many ways as possible to allow people to try it.