Our Story
COLDEST was founded by a team of Engineers in 2014 with the one goal to create the COLDEST products. Founded in the hottest state of Florida, we wanted to build something to keep us COLD. It started with a water bottle and has since grown into so much more.
State of Coldest
November 18th, 2022
Coldest is now almost 8 years old. Time flies - what happennned!? We started in 2015 as a hydration company but today it's become the Coldest Everything Store. 3 years ago, in the midst of covid, we were battling the biggest waves as a business that we had ever faced - We went from 8 employees to 1 employee (me doing fulfilment) then all the way to 80 employees. And let's reiterate that - all in 3 years. Not only that we, had sales crash to nearly 0 per day. We were headed to 0.
Yesterday was a huge milestone for us and it's worth noting. It full loops into what I wrote 3 years ago in our state of Coldest -"Yesterday I was visiting several warehouses in search of our first main distribution hub with a min of 15,000 sq ft. In comparison, our current warehouse is 2400 sq ft.. This will likely require internal Coldest Trucks, manned by coldest team members who will drive them. We will do everything internally, just like Elon would do."
Today, we have over 15,000 sqft of warehouse space. And just yesterday- we got our first Coldest Truck - seen pictured below! I'm mindblown. This is literally going to be huge for us as we can restock our store at Coastland center here in Naples, but also expand to a second warehouse as we're starting to outgrow our existing 15,000 sqft warehouse! What!??
I think one takeaway to learn from all this is- baby steps is the key to where you want to go. There is no way to jump from 0 to a 15,000sqft warehouse. We worked out of my backyard prior. Or to go from 0 to a truck. These things take very serious overhead. We slowly and continuously reinvested everything back into Coldest with the belief we would one day getColdest Truck(s).Today we find ourselves in a much different position. Our products are continuously getting becoming more superior than the rest (in my opinion/and in our fairly scientific *but not scientific* disclaimer cold tests against Yeti/Hydro/xyz) and we're finding delightful advancements in engineering in all areas. We are still absolutely obsessed with our current productsand- Everything to this point, is still focused onproducts that I and Joe (my twin /COO) use and love every day- which I think is in partwhat is helping us grow(Insight - #2).From the Coldest Bottle, to now Coldest Dog Bowls for my dogs (Simba, Keywei, Dobei, Nala) - to less sweaty nights sleeping with the Coldest Bedsheets, Pillow, and Comforter, to ice packs that I use for recovering from soccer injuries -You can see where I'm going with this.So what's next?The universal bottle just released.It's our new, minimalist triple lid, multi-compatible super insulated bottle that fits in 99% of cupholders, and soft landings, fully insulated and custom to the market.It's the first of its kind because of what it is - there is more than meets the eye. Most things you see out there are generic's/copies of others. We went our own path and combined everything we had for the past 7 years into asuper bottle. Maybe we should've called it that--hmmmm... Anyways - There are currently 5 colors available, but you will see way more over the next 365.
More innovations are coming in Coldest Bedding. We know some of you are firm pillow sleepers. And we know the Coldest Pillow can keep getting better. So you will see more bedding!
We drop a lot of secrets and free drops in VIP. It's where our most loyal community members and customers hang out. I also for whatever reason just love seeing our stuff in the wild - and so does Joe, Kaira, Maria, and everyone else on our team. It gets me excited every day and wanting to push COLDEST even further. I highly, highly recommend you join it if you're not in there already. And more EPIC innovations are coming. Today, we have a world-class team helping achieve these innovations, and products that will see the light of day for the first time. Imagine a baby chicklet cracking through an egg for the first time - that is the image I imagine - lol
I will say the same as I said in last year's State of Coldest because it stays it's truer than ever - This rollercoaster is just beginning so get ready. It’s getting absolutely crazy and it is truly a pleasure to serve you all, every day, especially through the hard times.
David Stark
Founder of Coldest / Lead Engineer of Coldest
OUR FIRST COLDEST TRUCK 11.30.2022
MAY 2022: OUR NEW OFFICES CONNECTING TO OUR WAREHOUSE
7 Years in, and we’ve finally have official offices.
2021: THE COLDEST WATER HITS #480 ON INC 5000 FASTEST GROWING CO.
During Covid, we dreamed of getting our bigger space. We finally made the move to our new HQ at approximately 15,000 sqft in Ft Myers.
AUGUST 20, 2021 - RECOGNIZING THE TEAM BEHIND THE SCENES THAT MAKES EVERYTHING HAPPEN
COLDEST RETAIL EXPERIENCE 1 OPENS TO THE PUBLIC - MARCH 2021
JUNE 2021 TO PRESENT - COLDEST HQ 3
LOOKING BACK ON THE PANDEMIC, AND MORE.
It’ll now be a total of 16 months since the pandemic first started, and 8 months ago since I last wrote The State of The Coldest (you can read about that at the world ending at the bottom lol). But I believe many of us saw the silver lining emerging. After writing that previous email below, many of you wrote back describing your struggles through it, but also the encouragement meant to push through it. Your words encouraged me as much as mine may have.
So one of the biggest secrets I’ve kept till now, was that The Coldest for the past 6 years, STILL worked out of my backyard. Literally my backyard! Initially, it was out of a 1 car garage in Naples Park. But when I ran out of space and we grew some more, we moved to a bigger property in the outskirts of Naples, that was pretty much in the boonies (for cheap land), but it gave us more land and space to operate. I had employees using my bathrooms, kitchen. The second bedroom was converted into an office. I’d wake up, and walk 10 feet right into a bustling business with 13 employees working at full pace packing orders, organizing the warehouse, doing customer support and sometimes just hanging out after work. It was non-stop.
As it grew, created a semi-truck entrance on the far side of the property because 53′ foot truck trailers couldn’t fit on the regular driveway. This allowed us to get way more inventory in versus smaller box trucks.
But keep in mind it was residential. So over the next few years and into 2021, my backyard ended up having over 20 forty-foot storage containers. (Good thing I’m not married lol) This strategy was genius in my eyes at the time because it would save us so much money storing goods. The land is insanely expensive here. However, by December of 2021, my neighbors complained, and the show was over. Collier County code enforcement was not happy about 20 containers in the backyard. For good reason. Can’t complain. I tried, I tried.