Liquid Death

SpaceX

Liquid Death

Consumer packaged goods (CPG) — Liquid Death sells canned water and flavored beverages through retail stores, Amazon, and DTC. Revenue comes from wholesale to retailers (7-Eleven, Whole Foods, Target, Walmart) and direct online sales.

The aluminum can format commands a premium over plastic water bottles — a single tallboy typically retails for $1.89 to $2.49, significantly more than a bottle of Dasani. The brand licensing and merchandise arm (selling branded t-shirts, hats, and absurd limited-edition products) adds high-margin revenue.

Advertising partnerships and brand collaborations provide additional income. The company has a subscription model called the "Country Club" for DTC recurring orders.

SpaceX

SpaceX makes money three ways. First, launch services — companies and governments pay SpaceX to put their satellites into orbit.

A Falcon 9 launch costs about $67 million, which undercut the competition by 75% when it debuted. Second, Starlink — SpaceX's own satellite internet constellation, which is now generating over $6 billion in annual revenue from 4+ million subscribers.

Third, government contracts — NASA pays SpaceX to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station and the DoD pays for national security launches.

The secret sauce is reusability. Before SpaceX, every rocket was used once and thrown into the ocean.

SpaceX figured out how to land the first stage booster back on Earth and fly it again. A single Falcon 9 booster has flown over 20 times.

That's like the difference between throwing away an airplane after every flight versus keeping it for decades.

Liquid Death

Mike Cessario was a creative director who had worked at Netflix and various ad agencies. He noticed something at concerts and punk shows: everyone was drinking water out of plastic bottles, but nobody wanted to be seen doing it because water bottles looked lame next to a can of beer.

The branding insight was almost stupidly simple — put water in a tallboy can with aggressive heavy metal aesthetics, give it the most ridiculous name possible, and market it like an energy drink. He made a Facebook ad in 2018 for a product that didn't exist yet.

The ad went viral with 3 million views. He used the viral proof to raise seed funding and actually make the product.

The first cans shipped in 2019. By 2022, Liquid Death was in 60,000 retail locations and valued at over a billion dollars.

All from water in a can.

SpaceX

In 2001, Elon Musk had just sold PayPal to eBay for $1.5 billion and was sitting on roughly $180 million after taxes. Most people would buy an island.

Musk decided to buy rockets. His original idea was even weirder — he wanted to send a small greenhouse to Mars called "Mars Oasis" to reignite public interest in space exploration.

He flew to Russia three times to buy refurbished ICBMs. The Russians kept raising the price and at one point literally spat on him.

On the flight home from that last failed Russia trip, Musk opened a spreadsheet and started calculating the raw material costs of building a rocket from scratch. He realized the materials were only about 3% of the typical price of a rocket.

The rest was markup, inefficiency, and monopoly pricing by companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. He decided to build his own.

SpaceX was founded in June 2002 in a warehouse in El Segundo, California. Musk put in $100 million of his own money.

He hired Tom Mueller, a legendary rocket propulsion engineer who had been building rocket engines in his garage as a hobby. The first rocket, Falcon 1, was supposed to be the cheapest orbital rocket ever built.

It took six years and three spectacular explosions before it finally worked.

Liquid Death

Content-first marketing that acts like an entertainment company, not a beverage company. Liquid Death's social media posts, videos, and stunts generate millions of organic views — they've had a witch hex their water, made a real music album from hate comments, and partnered with adult film star Cherie DeVille for a commercial.

Retail distribution expansion from specialty stores to mass market (Walmart, Target, 7-Eleven). The aluminum can itself is a growth strategy — sustainability-minded consumers prefer cans over plastic, giving Liquid Death a values-based selling point beyond the comedy.

Celebrity investors (Tony Hawk, Steve Aoki, Wiz Khalifa) provided credibility and reach. Festival and live event sponsorships position the brand where its core demographic gathers.

The brand's absurdity is the moat — nobody else can copy the tone without looking like they're trying.

SpaceX

SpaceX's growth strategy was simple: be cheaper than everyone, then be better than everyone, then be the only option.

They started by undercutting the launch market. The United Launch Alliance (Boeing + Lockheed Martin joint venture) was charging $300-400 million per launch.

SpaceX offered $67 million. Government agencies and commercial satellite companies started lining up.

Reusability was the real game-changer. Landing a rocket booster looked like science fiction when SpaceX first attempted it in 2013.

They failed over and over — spectacular ocean landings, explosions on drone ships, near-misses. But in December 2015, a Falcon 9 first stage landed back at Cape Canaveral.

It was the first time an orbital-class rocket had ever landed after a mission. Now they do it routinely — it's almost boring.

Starlink created a completely new revenue stream. Instead of just launching other people's satellites, SpaceX launched thousands of its own.

By 2024, Starlink had over 4 million subscribers and was generating billions in revenue. It turned SpaceX from a launch company into a telecom company.

Liquid Death

It's still water. The product itself has zero differentiation from any other mountain spring water — the entire value is brand and marketing.

If the comedy stops being funny or the brand loses cultural relevance, there's nothing proprietary underneath. CPG margins are thin and retail shelf space is brutally competitive.

Scaling a premium water brand into mass market means competing on price with Coca-Cola (Dasani) and PepsiCo (Aquafina) who have unlimited distribution muscle. The $1.4 billion valuation requires the company to grow into a full beverage platform, not just a water brand — hence the expansion into iced tea and flavored water.

And there's a real question about whether the ironic marketing can sustain long-term or whether it's a cycle that peaks and fades.

SpaceX

The early days nearly killed the company. SpaceX's first three Falcon 1 launches all failed.

The first one in 2006 crashed 25 seconds after liftoff due to a corroded fuel line nut. The second in 2007 reached space but the second stage shut down early.

The third in 2008 failed because the first and second stages collided during separation. Musk had enough money for one more attempt.

If flight four failed, SpaceX was dead.

Flight four worked. On September 28, 2008, Falcon 1 became the first privately developed liquid-fuel rocket to reach orbit.

Musk has said he was so stressed during that period he was throwing up regularly.

The financial pressure was existential. Musk was simultaneously funding Tesla, which was also on the brink of bankruptcy in 2008.

He had to split his last $40 million between the two companies. He borrowed money for rent.

But right at the end of 2008, NASA awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract to resupply the International Space Station. That contract saved the company.

Starship development has been its own saga. The rocket has exploded multiple times during testing.

Each failure costs hundreds of millions. But SpaceX treats failures as data — they move faster by blowing things up and iterating than competitors do by being cautious.

Liquid Death

Mountain Water — still water sourced from the Austrian Alps, sold in 16.9 oz and 19.2 oz tallboy cans. Sparkling Water — same Alpine source, carbonated.

Flavored sparkling water in flavors like Severed Lime, Berry It Alive, and Mango Chainsaw — names that sound like horror movies. Iced tea line expanding beyond water into flavored beverages.

The Country Club subscription for recurring DTC delivery. Merchandise and limited-edition collaborations — from branded caskets to a $50,000 enema kit that sold out.

Every product name and packaging decision is designed to be the opposite of what a water brand would normally do.

SpaceX

Falcon 9 is the workhorse — the most-launched rocket in the world. It carries satellites to orbit and astronauts to the ISS, and the first stage lands itself for reuse.

Falcon Heavy is three Falcon 9 boosters strapped together — the most powerful operational rocket in the world until Starship came along. Dragon is the spacecraft that carries astronauts and cargo to the ISS.

It's the only American vehicle currently flying humans to space. Starlink is the satellite internet service — over 6,000 satellites in orbit delivering broadband to 100+ countries.

Starship is the big one — the tallest and most powerful rocket ever built, designed to carry 100+ people to Mars. It's still in testing but has already completed a full flight.

Liquid Death

Investors include Science Inc., Velvet Sea Ventures, Live Nation Entertainment, Conviction Partners, and celebrity investors including Tony Hawk, Steve Aoki, and Wiz Khalifa. Series D in 2022 valued the company at $700 million; by 2023, valuation reached $1.4 billion.

SpaceX

Founders Fund, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Google, Fidelity Investments, Valor Equity Partners, Baillie Gifford, a]6z (Andreessen Horowitz), NASA (as customer/partner)