What a $1.4 Billion Water Company Taught Me About Breaking the Rules

I just finished watching Mike Cessario’s MasterClass on building Liquid Death, and holy shit - this guy turned fucking water into a billion-dollar brand by doing everything the “experts” would tell you not to do.

Here’s what stuck with me.

Your Brand Has to Be You

Cessario’s whole thing started with skateboarding as a kid, copying Mike McGill skull graphics, reading Mad Magazine - all that irreverent, funny, slightly fucked up stuff. When he started Liquid Death, he didn’t try to be something he wasn’t. The brand is literally him, just turned up to 11.

His point: when you’re starting out, your brand can’t be that different from you. You don’t have teams of people to manufacture some fake personality. It has to be authentic or Gen Z will smell the bullshit from a mile away (and they’ve seen more ads before breakfast than we saw in our entire childhood, so they’re pretty good at it).

Look at Seinfeld - it’s Jerry Seinfeld playing a caricature of himself. That’s what works. That’s what people connect with.

Think Wrong to Think Right

This part was fascinating. Cessario worked with a designer who wrote a book called Think Wrong, and the concept is simple: if you want an innovative idea, you have to trick your brain to not think of something that’s already been done.

When you try to think of “good ideas,” you just start recycling successful things from the past. But if you start with “what’s the dumbest possible idea?” - you get to innovative territory faster. Some of those ideas will actually be terrible, but at least you’re thinking differently.

That’s how Liquid Death got its name. Most marketers would tell you never to confuse people. Cessario says confusion is actually powerful - when people are confused, they stop and want to figure out what’s up. You’re already light years ahead of brands people just scroll past without thinking.

Test Cheap, Fail Fast, Prove Demand

Here’s the thing that pisses me off about most business advice - it assumes you have money. Cessario had six grand in his bank account and needed to raise 150k just to do a minimum production run.

So what did he do? Made a funny commercial for $1,500 (basically just paying his wife’s actress friend), put it on Facebook with $500 of paid media behind it. Six months and maybe four grand later, it had 3 million views and hundreds of comments from people asking how to buy it.

That’s when he went to raise money - not with just an idea, but with proof that people actually wanted this thing.

His point about focus groups is spot on too: they’re clinical environments where people don’t act normally. But if you just show up in someone’s social feed and they think it’s real, you get honest reactions. Social media is the cheapest, best focus group you could ask for.

Hire for Your Gaps, Not Your Strengths

This is where his first company failed - the brandy thing before Liquid Death. He partnered with people who all thought they were great marketers. Everyone was stepping on each other’s toes, nobody agreed on anything, and it went nowhere.

The lesson: if you’re the marketer, you don’t need more marketing people. You need the best finance person who’s totally fine not contributing to marketing. You need the operations person who understands how to actually make the thing. Build a team where nobody’s overlapping and everyone can do their job without interference.

90% of People Hate Marketing

This stat came up multiple times, and it’s the key to everything Liquid Death does: 90% of people hate marketing. Hate it.

So Cessario decided to make a brand that hates marketing too. That’s the connective tissue between the masses and Liquid Death - they’re on the same side as the consumer. They’re making things that are actually entertaining, that make people laugh, that feel like someone made them for fun rather than to extract money from your wallet.

When you do that, people don’t just tolerate your brand - they tattoo it on their bodies. (Seriously, over 400 people have Liquid Death tattoos. What the fuck.)

The Tony Hawk Thing Was Genius

This story perfectly captures their approach: they got Tony Hawk as an ambassador, but instead of just having him hold a can and smile, they literally put his blood in the ink for limited edition skateboards.

They filmed the whole process - pouring the vial of blood into the ink, making the boards. Put the video on Instagram. A week later, millions of views. Sold 150 boards at $500 each in under 10 minutes. Every media outlet covered it. Then Lil Nas X commented, which created a whole second wave of virality.

Total production cost: $10,000. Total impressions: 15.5 billion.

That’s the kind of shit you can only do when you’re willing to be weird and you understand what actually makes people stop scrolling.

You Can Be Big and Still Be Rebellious

Some people asked Cessario if he thought they’d lose their rebellious spirit when they got big. His answer: look at Monster and Red Bull. They’re still sponsoring death metal bands and dirt bikers, they’re valued at $50 billion, and nobody questions their edge.

His younger brother put it best: “I don’t wear a Liquid Death shirt because I like metal and punk. I wear it to communicate to people I hate marketing.”

That’s the real insight - in a world where marketing has become toxic waste, a company that does it better and makes people laugh becomes something people actually want to champion. They’re not just buying water, they’re voting for a different kind of company to exist.

The Boring Stuff Still Matters

For all the viral marketing and funny videos, Cessario is pretty clear about the fundamentals:

• They picked a massive category (bottled water just passed soda as the biggest packaged beverage category)
• They went where competitors were all extremely similar (easy to disrupt)
• They expanded methodically - started with still water, added plain sparkling a year later, waited two years for flavored sparkling, then iced tea
• They measured what mattered (shares over likes, engagement quality over quantity)
• They understood marketing is a marathon - 50% of Coca-Cola’s revenue comes from people who only buy 1-2 cans per year

It’s not just about being funny. It’s about being funny while building a real business that can scale.

My Takeaway

The whole thing reminded me that the rules are mostly bullshit. Everyone told Cessario that retailers would never put something called “Liquid Death” on shelves. They were wrong. Everyone says don’t confuse your customers. He says confusion is powerful. Everyone says be professional. He says be yourself.

The companies that break through aren’t the ones following the playbook. They’re the ones bold enough to write a new one - but smart enough to validate their ideas cheaply before betting the farm.

Also, apparently you can make a billion dollars selling water in a can if you’re willing to put Tony Hawk’s blood in a skateboard. And somehow that’s just how business works now.