We were lucky to catch up with Olivia Sears recently and have shared our conversation below.
Olivia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
For the last several years my wife and I, a queer-identifying married couple from Portland, Oregon, had been dreaming of ways to apply our combined skillsets and passions to enact meaningful change in our communities. Sarah is an Executive Creative Director and myself, Olivia, a Client Service leader in tech, found ourselves at a crossroads during the pandemic. Like many, while navigating work from home challenges and the broader difficulties that arose, we spent a lot of time drawing inwards. One of the explorations coming out of that time was around our relationship with alcohol. We began to evaluate how it impacted our lives and relationship, and ultimately committed to engaging more mindfully with drinking. As bars and restaurants began to open back up we found ourselves in a new world, in more ways than one.
When it came to going out to eat or meeting up with friends sober, there was a new anxiety around ordering a drink, unsure what the reaction would be from the bartender when asking for something non-alcoholic, or unclear what the options even were. For the following year or so, any time we had a night out, I would plan ahead by searching the store finders of our favorite non-alcoholic brands to find a place where we knew we could order confidently. Laying in bed one night we reflected on what a sense of ease and comfort it would be to have one place (ideally in the palm of your hand!) that would aggregate all of those places serving our favorite NA brands. And what if it was a tool that pulled everywhere across the nation, from big cities to small towns, where these non-alcoholic brands are being served, into one giant store finder map? It dawned on us that the solution, and the way we could bring the same sense of ease and comfort to the masses, would be for us to build a brand and an app that did just that.
Navigating social gatherings and dining experiences sober introduced a new anxiety, unsure of the reception when opting for non-alcoholic beverages. Pre-planning going out with friends revolved around scouring website store finders for places where we would know ahead of time we’d be able to our favorite non-alcoholic brands. There was a moment we had, lying in bed one night, that sparked a revelation—we thought how valuable it would be to have a unified platform aggregating venues serving these drinks nationwide. What a powerful solve that could be for those going through similar experiences as us. The birth of this idea evolved into BuzzCutt, an app bridging the gap between seekers of non-alcoholic options and ensuring their accessibility “out in the wild”.
Our preliminary research revealed not just a demand but a cultural shift taking place. 34% of Americans said they were trying to drink less in 2023, 28% are trying to ‘break up with alcohol’, and one in four Americans are familiar with the sober curious movement (Source: Drizly 2023). Mindfulness, moderation, and a burgeoning “dry culture” are redefining societal norms around drinking. Further, the non-alcoholic drinks industry itself is experiencing tremendous growth, with the pace of growth of the no/low-alcohol category expected to surpass that of the last 4 years (source: ISWR 2023).
Our mission with BuzzCutt transcends being only an app (the first of its kind!); we are a movement and a mindset. One look at our social media feed and you’ll feel the energy of who we are and how we connect to our community. Sarah’s creative approach birthed a vibrant brand that embodies joy, optimism, and playfulness.
Our users’ stories resonate deeply. We receive messages daily from folks expressing a newfound confidence in social settings, a testament to BuzzCutt’s impact. And our community isn’t limited to sober individuals but extends to anyone seeking an alternative, creating what we like to call “a secret society meant to be found”. In a world glamorizing alcohol, BuzzCutt celebrates the powerful choice to drink less or not at all. We’ve been elated with the overwhelming support from our home city of Portland and nationwide, aligning with a burgeoning alcohol-free industry and a community advocating for a culture shift in the sentiments around drinking.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
We are most proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish around bringing our brand to life through electrifying (and successful!) event. BuzzCutt may be based in tech as an app, but we are rooted in communities, both locally here in Portland, and afar as our IG community sees that it IS possible to party sans alcohol. It’s been powerful to create spaces where people can be in community and PARTY again. We joke (kind of) that we want people to walk by our events and think there’s a boozing rager because of the energy, and yet it’s hundreds of people partying SOBER.
Our first year as a company we hosted the inaugural BuzzCutt Summer Fest, an outdoor summer bash with jello wrestling as the main event. Off the heals of the 2023 success (over 300 attendees!), we brought the event back bigger and better this year, with Summer Fest 2024 sanctioned by PrideNW (the PNW’s official pride parade organizers) as THE alcohol-free pride party in Portland. Over 500 people attended, we sold 150 tickets just at the door, sold over 230 raffle tickets to raise money for True Colors Recovery, and hosted 10+ brand vendors (with 4 monetary sponsors).
Have you ever had to pivot?
We identified not one, but two necessary pivots in building BuzzCutt over the last 2 years. One major pivot came when we recognized the need to diversify our revenue streams to ensure sustainable growth. Initially, our focus was solely on creating an engaging space for our app users to find businesses that carry NA drink brands they are looking for. But as we started to grow, we realized that while our user base is invaluable and a major key to our success, our CUSTOMERS are the NA brands. We adapted by reevaluating our competitive pricing tiers and ramping up our brand outreach. We’ve since been able to offer in-app advertising to those brands, in addition to the brand integration costs. This approach allowed us to stay true to our core mission: bridging the gap between consumers and the enjoyable no-and-low drink options that exist, revolutionizing the way people explore and enjoy their beverage choices.
Another significant pivot involved rebuilding the backend of our app. As our user base and integrated brand customer count expanded, our initial infrastructure wasn’t equipped to handle the growth. We needed to build a stronger foundation that could scale with the demand without sacrificing app performance. So, we undertook a backend overhaul that will not only improve the app’s reliability and speed but will also create a more sophisticated architecture. This change will allow us to expand features more quickly and reflect even more locations globally where our integrated brand customers are carried!
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
Our resilience is demonstrated in the fact that BuzzCutt continues to be entirely and proudly self-funded by myself and my wife, Sarah. As with any early startup, we are in the stage where we’re balancing managing all of the day-to-day BuzzCutt ourselves while working full-time jobs and managing our passions with fitness.
Despite operating entirely grassroots since starting out in November 2022, we’ve managed to continue forward with events, community impact, and maintaining our MVP app version all the while. We care deeply about applying our combined skillsets and passions to enact meaningful change in our communities, which fuels our resilience.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.buzzcutt.co
- Instagram: @buzzcuttco
- Other: LinkTree for press features to date:
www.linktree.com/buzzcuttcoApp download links:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/buzzcutt/id6448928356
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.buzzcutt.prod&hl=en_US
Image Credits
Edgar Salmerón-Núñez