Suggestions
Paul Voge
Co-Founder + CEO at Aura Bora
Professional Background
Paul Voge is an inspiring entrepreneur and the co-founder and CEO of Aura Bora, a thriving beverage company based in San Francisco. Established in 2019, Aura Bora has rapidly evolved into a recognized name in the beverage industry, specializing in craft sparkling waters. Under Paul's visionary leadership, Aura Bora has successfully expanded its presence, now gracing the shelves of over 8,000 retail locations across the United States, including popular stores such as Sprouts, Publix, Safeway, and Wegmans.
Aura Bora has gained a reputation for its unique flavors, including best-sellers like Lavender Cucumber, Ginger Meyer Lemon, and Strawberry Basil. Furthermore, it offers distinctive online-exclusive flavors such as Banana Bergamot, Mango Chili, and even the beloved Green Bean Casserole. One of the keys to the brand's success is its commitment to health-conscious consumers: each beverage is sugar-free, calorie-free, non-GMO, and Whole30 certified, positioning Aura Bora as a favorite among sparkling water aficionados.
Paul Voge's entrepreneurial journey has been nothing short of remarkable. Starting his career in various industries with ventures ranging from t-shirts, socks, and concrete curbs to Christmas trees, he has gathered invaluable experience that laid the foundation for his future successes. His entrepreneurial spirit and innovative approach led to him being recognized as a Forbes “30 Under 30” awardee, marking him as one of the top young entrepreneurs making waves in the business world. Additionally, his appearance on the popular TV show Shark Tank elevated Aura Bora's profile and contributed to its rapid growth, making it one of the fastest-growing beverages in the world.
His dedication to sharing knowledge and fostering growth within the industry has seen him engage with various programs and institutions. Paul has served as an industry speaker for the Techstars and SKU accelerators and has been involved in New Hope Network’s Business School, focusing on natural products. His passion for education is further showcased through his collaborations with universities, where Aura Bora has served as a case study for students at esteemed institutions such as Cornell University, University of Texas, University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication, Texas A&M, and the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Education and Achievements
Paul Voge’s academic journey began at UCLA, where he pursued a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.). This educational experience not only equipped him with essential skills but also instilled a mindset of creativity and innovation that would later help him thrive in the competitive beverage market.
Beyond his academic preparation, Paul's career encompasses a diverse range of roles, showcasing his versatility and adaptability. Before co-founding Aura Bora, he played significant roles in various companies, including a stint as the Co-Founder at Face2Face Masks, a venture in response to the changing market dynamics. He also contributed to Saturn Five as an Associate and was involved in the Business Development efforts at Gusto. Before establishing Aura Bora, he showcased his entrepreneurial creativity by founding Bangarang Clothing, which further underscores his diverse interests and talents.
Paul’s expertise and achievements have earned him invitations to share his insights and strategies at renowned accelerator programs and educational institutions, solidifying his reputation as a thought leader in the natural products sector.
Achievements
Paul Voge's contributions to the beverage industry and entrepreneurship are commendable. Some of his most notable achievements include:
- Co-founding Aura Bora: Under his leadership, Aura Bora has quickly established itself as a prominent brand in the sparkling water industry, expanding to over 8,000 retail locations across the nation.
- Forbes “30 Under 30” recognition: This accolade distinguishes him among the finest young entrepreneurs, highlighting his innovative approach and significant impact on the industry.
- Shark Tank feature: His appearance on this widely recognized show not only boosted Aura Bora's visibility but also demonstrated Paul's ability to successfully pitch and grow a startup in a competitive landscape.
- Engaging as an industry speaker: By actively participating in accelerator programs and business schools, Paul has contributed his knowledge to the next generation of entrepreneurs, fostering innovation within the natural products space.
- Leading Aura Bora to become a case study at prestigious educational institutions: This involvement speaks volumes about the brand’s values and operational excellence, showcasing practical insights into running a successful business in today’s market.
In his personal life, Paul Voge strikes a balance between his professional endeavors and personal interests. Known for his love of the outdoors, he often enjoys escaping to nature, disconnecting from the digital world, yet ensuring to keep himself hydrated with the refreshing drinks his company produces. This connection to nature reflects a holistic approach to wellness and health, which resonates deeply with Aura Bora's brand ethos.
tags':['entrepreneurship','beverage industry','Aura Bora','craft sparkling waters','Forbes 30 Under 30','Shark Tank success','natural products','business education','UCLA graduate','public speaking'],
questions
:
How did Paul Voge's experiences with previous companies influence his approach to launching Aura Bora?
What strategies did Paul Voge implement to achieve rapid growth for Aura Bora in over 8,000 stores?
How does Paul Voge balance his professional responsibilities with his passion for the outdoors?
In what ways has Paul Voge contributed to the education of future entrepreneurs through his speaking engagements?
What are some future trends Paul Voge envisions for the beverage industry, particularly in health-focused products?
Highlights
People also viewed
Related People
Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.