How James Hill is Building a Lucrative Community Around Health and Wellness at BetterDays

James Hill hasn’t always had a place in the food and beverage industry, but he has nurtured a long-standing passion for health and wellbeing. After a chance encounter with an incredible “super food” during a trip to Mexico, he discovered an opportunity to create a product like no other.

Focused on building a business that put the customer first, James created the BetterDays brand, designing a beverage that combines all-natural ingredients, with genuine health benefits.

Thanks to a unique formula, a commitment to brand transparency, and a dedication to building strong relationships with his customers, James has built a massive following around his brand.

Now, he’s ready to expand, branching out into new pipeline ideas that will help even more customers discover the benefit of his natural drinks.

Meet James Hill

I am the CEO and founder of BetterDays Cactus Water. I come from a Sales & marketing background and this is my first foray into the Food & Beverage industry. I have run my own businesses before, previously having started an online sweatshirt business call GOOD CMPNY.

I am passionate about health and wellness and anything that helps people to get the best out of themselves.

On weekends you'll find me spending time with wife, 2 y/o daughter and dog Hugo. I love to travel, cook delicious food and be active. Big believer in mental wellbeing trying to meditate most days.

Please share the story behind starting your business. What inspired the creation of your brand?

My wife and I were hungover in Mexico one day and came across a stand selling Prickly Pear juice. The man selling it told us that Prickly Pears were known to fix hangovers and were often used in Latin American natural medicines.

We tasted it and thought it was delicious and then started doing some research. We soon found out that the Prickly Pear fruit is actually a super fruit rich in electrolytes and antioxidants. This began our obsession with creating Australia’s first cactus water.

Is there a particular philosophy or values that drive your business? How do you ensure these are reflected in your products/services?

Our philosophy is centered around helping people to create better days by making healthier choices. We wanted to create a beverage that was enjoyable enough you could replace soda or an alcoholic beverage, but had the functional health benefits of a health drink.

Each flavour is all natural, low calorie and has functional ingredients targeting everyday health needs such as hydration or focus.

What are some signature products that your brand is known for, and what makes them unique?

We have three flavours targeting three health benefits: Hydration with Electrolytes, Focus with Nootropics and Beauty with Collagen. What makes our products unique is that we believe we have found the perfect balance between healthy and delicious.

When you drink BetterDays you don’t feel like you're making a sacrifice for your health. We are also the first Cactus Water in Australia which is a pretty cool feeling.

How do you ensure a memorable and satisfying experience for your customers?

The most important thing we want is for our customers to enjoy what they are drinking. So everything we do, flavour is front and centre. We then want to make sure that there are genuine health benefits to gain from drinking BetterDays.

So unlike low calorie soft drinks where the only benefit is that they are low in sugar, all our drinks have carefully selected ingredients to support better function i.e electrolytes or nootropics. Lastly we wanted to create a can design, that was unique and different in the market place and reflected our ethos of creating ‘better days’.

What have been some of the biggest challenges you've faced in running your business, and how did you deal with them?

Our first greatest challenge was finding the correct balance of flavour. Having not come from the beverage industry, we underestimated how hard it was to get the right balance between healthy and tasty… I guess this is why so many drinks fall short here.

Using natural health focussed ingredients such as Nootropics come with their own unique flavour, which is not always pleasant. So you have to work with the hero flavours to mask the less pleasant ingredients. Lucky we solved that problem and were able to develop a drink that we think tastes delicious and are proud of.

What do you consider to be your greatest accomplishments so far?

For me it is getting a product to market that we are really proud of. Lots of people have ideas, but less go through with those ideas. I am proud of the team we worked with to bring this vision to life.

People who have never started a business before, don’t realise how vulnerable you have to be and how much of yourself you put out in the world to be judged. I think anyone who overcomes that fear of judgement has a lot to be proud of.

What do you wish you knew when you started?

Oh where do I begin. I think having a better understanding of COGS would have been helpful. I naively underestimated the costs involved and had I had a clearer picture it would have helped me immensely.

What was your biggest mistake?

We initially paid a relatively significant amount of money to have a designer, design our first can labels. While they were a good designer, they never quite met our vision. In hindsight we should have pushed forward with a basic MVP and then received market feedback before launching into a full design.

Luckily I come from a design background, so was able tinker with the branding until we landed on something we were happy with.

What advice would you give to someone aspiring to start their own business in this industry?

Really understand your COGS first. Understand the supply chain costs, distributor cost, wholesale costs, wastage and samples, before you worry about anything else.

Can you please write a few lines about your current platform you're using (Shopify, Woocommerce etc). What are some pros and cons of using it?

We use Shopify. Shopify is a great platform to use as it is mostly intuitive. There are great templates out there as well, so you don’t have to create everything from scratch. It can get quite expensive though as you add on extra features so watch out there.

In what ways does your brand strive to have a positive impact on the communities where it operates?

A core principle of our brand is to help our customers to have BetterDays. We strive to do this by providing a healthy drink that is low cal with functional health benefits but also fun enough to drink at social occasions.

Ultimately we want to make it easier to make better decisions. We also try to leave a positive impact on our customers through positive messaging in all our communications. We want our customers to leave every brand interaction feeling better for it.

Looking to the future, what innovations or expansions can we expect to see from your brand?

We have an exciting pipeline of ideas that will hopefully come to fruition. Each product we create needs to tick 3 categories. Low Cal, Functional Ingredients and fun to enjoy. We also want to expand on the functional health benefits. Think sleep, sex, calm, etc.

What does the ideal version of online business success look like to you?

Online business success to me is about creating a community. A community of customers who believe in the brand we have created and in return get a lot out of our products.

Repeat purchases are the lifeblood of any ecommerce store and are the ultimate sign that your online business is striking the right cord with your customers.

What is your biggest fear in the digital marketplace?

The cost to get in front of new customers. Digital advertising is getting more and more competitive and therefore more expensive.

What aspect of your leadership style do you think needs improvement?

As a leader I am always looking to improve. I don’t think there will ever be a point where I feel I am the best leader I can be and this is what drives me to become better than I was the day before.

If I had to pinpoint something, then I would say that I can be blunt providing feedback and could be better at being more constructive with my feedback.