Public relations alumnus Victor Guardiola founded Bawi Sparkling Agua Fresca to make a Mexican tradition healthier. His journey is a case study in what happens when smarts and persistence meet a UT education.
Eight minutes into his interview for this story, Victor Guardiola had to leave. "Sorry, I'll be right back."
The van driver waiting behind the South Austin warehouse needed to load up. Guardiola walked out of the conference room and into the warehouse, climbed onto a forklift, skewered a pallet of Bawi Sparkling Agua Fresca, and loaded it into the van outside, which sank 8 inches on its shocks with its new payload. Constantly juggling responsibilities, from fundraising and promotion to driving a forklift, is all part of the deal for a young entrepreneur, and 27-year-old Guardiola, B.S. 2020, is neck-deep in it.
But it's paying off. This year, Bawi topped $1 million in sales and is poised for a new round of funding and an exponential growth spurt, possibly including distribution in a major grocery chain. Four employees are spinning plates as fast as they can.
The well-rehearsed business case rolls off Guardiola's tongue automatically: "Now that we've proven to the market that this better-for-you, mass-market, culturally differentiated beverage is showing signs of product-market fit, it's a question of what recipe do we have from a growth perspective to scale to Chicago, San Francisco, LA, etc. How do we rinse-repeat that in other markets?" he says in his relaxed, articulate way.
In this story of a precocious immigrant boy now on the verge of major success, The University of Texas at Austin played a big role. "I love UT so much," he says. "I'm so grateful to have gone there, legitimately." Asked why he chose the University, he pauses, then says, "It was not linear."
***
Guardiola was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and moved to Waco at the age of 2, when his father, José Guardiola, moved the family to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics at Baylor University. He describes his father, who finished high school at 14, as "a mathematical savant" from rural Chihuahua. "My dad and I did not play catch; he would tell me about Issac Asimov's science-fiction novels," says Guardiola. Three years later, the family moved to the Corpus Christi suburb of Portland, where Victor grew up.
The first book his father gave him, at age 9, was "The Tao of Warren Buffett." Victor began reading business magazines at the age of 10, and by 12, he was emailing their editors with pitches for stories he wanted to write. This was not solely the result of precociousness but was motivated in part by fear about his family's finances. What normally would have been a comfortable middle-class upbringing sustained by his father's career at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi had been stretched thin by raising three children, family health problems and sending money back to family in Mexico. "We were under an incredible amount of financial pressure, and I, as a child, thought I could solve it -- or help to solve it."