A Longhorn's Healthier Twist on Sugary Sodas

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, BS ’20, is neck-deep in it. But it’s paying off. This year, Bawi topped $1 million in sales, is poised for a new round of funding and an exponential growth spurt. The company’s four employees are spinning plates as fast as they can.  

In this story of entrepreneurial success, The University of Texas at Austin played a big role. “I love UT so much,” Guardiola says. “I’m so grateful to have gone here.” 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, relocated the family to earn a PhD 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,” Guardiola says. 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 the editors with pitches for stories he wanted to write. This was not solely the result of precociousness, but 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.”  

Though bright, Guardiola did poorly in high school, focusing much more on his extracurricular activities. Upon graduation, he moved to Austin and entered Austin Community College. There, he figured out how to be an “academic weapon,” studying and getting good grades. The next year, he applied and was accepted into UT’s Moody College of Communication, where he majored in public relations.  

“I loved going to Moody. In terms of the entrepreneurial skill set you need to have—what makes any sort of offering valuable?—my education at Moody was really good at that,” he says.  

Guardiola also minored in business, allowing him to take basic courses such as accounting and finance and earn a business certificate. At McCombs, he took a Food and Beverage Entrepreneurship Practicum, which he describes as “a super high-powered, 12-week entrepreneurship summer program.”  The course offered students an intimate learning environment: One professor, two teaching assistants, and eight students. “I couldn’t believe the caliber of speakers coming in. It was insane.” Many of these guest speakers went on to become his investors.  

During his senior year at UT, Guardiola and a friend from ACC, Jordan Hicks, conceived of a drink business that nodded to traditional Mexican beverages such as Jarritos and cane-sugar Coca-Cola (a.k.a. Mexican Coke), but with significantly less sugar. What could a better-for-you, modern version of a nostalgic Mexican beverage be? he wondered.  

Bawi’s first iterations were made by juicing fruit in a commercial kitchen on Friday nights and selling it on tap the next day at Barton Creek Farmers Market. The first batches were from his mother’s pineapple agua fresca recipe that he grew up drinking.  

But within five months, COVID-19 hit and shut it all down. He graduated two months later. Guardiola’s job applications were passed over by numerous companies, until he finally landed a job at Golden Ratio, an Austin coffee startup. The job allowed him to start making money to invest in Bawi and learn about the fundraising process from founder Clark Nowlin.  

To make Bawi’s first canned batch, they used a local brewery and learned a hard lesson. “I had shipped out 100-plus cans to incredibly wealthy individuals, potential investors,” but the first canned samples were spoiled. Bacteria were feeding in the cans and creating gas. “I remember getting pictures of their pantries with exploded cans. I remember being in my living room, with a stack of probably 300 cans and hearing the metal creak. I was so embarrassed and upset, but you move on,” he says.  

The spoiled-batch fiasco made Guardiola’s experience at Golden Ratio important for another reason: The startup had contracted with Jill Talcott, the former head of beverage development at Starbucks. She became Bawi’s first food scientist contractor. One goal, and a major challenge, was to produce a drink with a “clean label,” that is, with as few ingredients as possible. The average number of ingredients for Bawi is four.  

The next major step: Production. “Almost no manufacturer will speak to you unless you can afford a day of their line time, and for most manufacturers that have the pasteurization technology needed, you’re talking about tens of thousands of dollars to start without even taking into account your raw material and ingredient costs,” Guardiola says. “It’s really tough!”  

It was Guardiola’s 13th email to a potential investor when that recipient agreed to a meeting. It was another Moody College alumnus, Patrick Terry, BS ’80, owner of the 37-restaurant juggernaut P. Terry’s. Several conversations later, Terry became Investor No. 1.  

Bawi sold its first can of soda in 2022 and has now sold millions of cans of agua fresca at places such as Central Market, Sprouts Farmers Market, Tom Thumb, and select Whole Foods Markets.  

Though at the early stages of his entrepreneurial journey, Guardiola is already focused on giving back. He mentors someone at least weekly, whether on a phone call or speaking to a class. He recently started offering “office hours” as an homage to his dad, Professor Guardiola. “As I started getting a little bit of traction, it became really important to me to share these life lessons,” he says.  

CREDITS: Jana Cantua; Jackie Lee Young