History of Alive Water
History of Alive Water
Big Bear 2013, the first delivery May 2016, the move to reusable Italian glass, and what 4,200+ households taught us along the way.
Alive Water started as a question, not a company. The question was: why is water the only thing we put in our bodies that we've stopped caring about?
That question came up on a mountain, in the dark, in 2013. The answer took three years, a few wrong turns, and a complete reinvention of how water gets delivered. The company that exists today is what grew out of it.
The Story in Five Acts
Act I: Big Bear Mountain, 2013
Chris Sanborn was studying health and learned about the importance of drinking spring water. He took a trip to a friend's cabin in Big Bear, California, where he drank from a natural spring for the first time as an adult. The taste was unlike anything in his kitchen in Los Angeles. The water was alive, mineral-rich, cold, with a finish that tap water and bottled water had never replicated. That night, sitting on the porch with the spring less than a mile away, the question formed. Why was this water special? And why didn't he have access to it?
Act II: The First Bottles (and the first pivot)
The first attempt was a single-serving bottling operation. Small glass bottles, hand-filled, sold at farmers markets. Beautiful product, wrong business model. The cost-per-bottle was high, the shelf life was short, and the volume didn't pay for the truck, the warehouse, or the time. After 18 months and a lot of learning, the company pivoted to subscription delivery — refillable 2.5 gallon glass jugs, picked up and refilled at the source, dropped at the customer's door. The first delivery was in May 2016, to a small group of friends in the San Fernando Valley.
Act III: Word of Mouth (2017-2019)
Delivery growth was slow at first — word of mouth in LA, then San Francisco, then Orange County. The jugs became their own marketing. Customers moved into apartments and brought the jugs with them; gifts of 'two months of free delivery' became the most popular referral offer; the Find A Spring Foundation was established as a 501(c)(3) and began receiving 11% of profits. By the end of 2018, the company had 200 active customers and was cash-flow positive. The milkman model had a future.
Act IV: The Pandemic (2020-2022)
In 2020, COVID reshaped everything. Customers were home and drinking more water. Delivery was one of the few businesses that could operate normally — the contactless drop fit the moment perfectly. The company grew 8x in 18 months. New regions opened: Texas, then Florida, then New York. The jug design got refined three times. The Italian glass manufacturer we work with today was selected during this period — a small artisan producer outside Venice who could deliver consistent quality at scale. By the end of 2022, 2,400+ households were on the service.
Act V: What's Next (2023-2030)
From 2023 onward, the focus shifted from growth at all costs to growth that holds. We're now serving 4,200+ households across California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Oregon (Q4 2026). The model is proven. The product is right. The team is stable. The 11% to Find A Spring has funded watershed protection work across the country. The next decade is about scaling the model to a million households — and proving that refill-and-return is the future of beverage packaging, not just water.
What Alive Water Actually Stands For
Source integrity. We bottle at the source. Our two springs — Opal Springs in Oregon and Blue Spring in Alabama — are both protected aquifers with zero industrial-age contamination. Annual lab tests are published at /water-quality. We've never found a trace of the contaminants we test for.
Reusable packaging. Glass is the only material that does what water deserves — preserve the water exactly as it came out of the ground, with zero leaching, indefinitely. We don't make bottles. We run a return-and-refill loop. That distinction is the entire company.
Living wages and fair treatment. Our team is paid above-market with full benefits, including wellness programs for physical, mental, and spiritual health. We're a small team by choice. We'd rather be small and treat people well than be big and treat people like inputs.
Find A Spring Foundation. 11% of profits — not revenue, profits — go to a 501(c)(3) that maps natural springs, advocates for watershed protection, and educates the public about living water. The mission of Find A Spring is to make sure the springs that produce water like ours stay protected. We're protecting the resource that produces our product.
Carbon neutral. From bottling at the source to delivery in reusable glass, our entire operation is carbon neutral through verified offsets. The glass manufacturing is the largest single emissions line item — and that's amortized across 50+ trips per jug.
What 12 years taught us
Why We're Still Here
The question that started the company — why is water the only thing we put in our bodies that we've stopped caring about — is still the right question. Twelve years later, the answer is the same: water deserves the same care we give our food, our supplements, our skincare. The milkman model is the way to deliver it. Glass is the way to package it. Spring water is the only source that doesn't strip or treat or compromise.
Everything else is execution. We're still working on it.
Try us
See If Alive Water Delivers to You
Spring water from protected springs, delivered in reusable Italian glass. The first jug is free. The model is 12 years strong.
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