She Spent 6 Months Looking for the Perfect Spring Water. What She Found Changed Her Entire Business.

When shoppers pick up a bottle of spring water decorated with snow-capped mountains and cascading waterfalls, they assume what’s inside is as pure as nature can make it. Clara Sieg did, too. So when the former venture capitalist set out to build a bottled water company, she spent six months traveling the country in search of the perfect spring.

What she found surprised her. “Every source has some footnote,” she says. Some contained naturally occurring arsenic, nitrates or radium. Others changed with the seasons, weather patterns and surrounding land use. Instead of finding the perfect source, Sieg realized she’d have to build a better system.

Loonen is her answer. The company combines spring-sourced water, physical membrane filtration and transparency in an effort to rethink bottled water. Sieg, the company’s co-founder and CEO, recently joined the One Day with Jon Bier podcast to discuss what she learned entering one of the world’s toughest consumer categories, why questioning conventional wisdom became her biggest advantage and how Loonen attracted celebrities including Justin Bieber and Dua Lipa without paying a dime. 

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The perfect spring wasn’t enough

Sieg’s idea to build a better water company came from a deeply personal place. While undergoing IVF and later during pregnancy, she became hyper-aware of everything she was putting in and on her body. She switched to cleaner beauty products, organic food and natural household cleaners. Water, however, proved far more complicated.

After her daughter was born, her team spent six months traveling across the country, testing natural water sources and comparing the results. The original plan was straightforward. If a spring met the company’s standards, they would bottle it. If it didn’t, they would keep looking.

Instead, the research changed her thinking. “We would pair a high-quality source with a high-quality filtration system,” she says.

That became the blueprint for Loonen. The company starts with mountain spring water, transports it in stainless steel tankers, filters it without chemical disinfectants, restores the water’s natural mineral profile and bottles it exclusively in glass.

Related: Every Drop Counts: Here’s Where Water Security Efforts are Missing the Mark

Why glass was non-negotiable

Most bottled water companies have spent decades making packaging lighter, cheaper and easier to ship. Glass gave way to plastic. Even aluminum cans, which many consumers assume are plastic-free, rely on plastic liners to prevent corrosion.

For Sieg, that defeated the purpose.

“Most of the innovation in the set has been around packaging and driving from glass to plastic, plastic-lined aluminum and plastic-lined corrugate,” she says. “A lot of people don’t realize this, but while aluminum and corrugate are much better for the environment, they’re still all plastic-lined.”

She decided Loonen would only use glass, even though it costs more and makes it far more complicated. 

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Every detail matters

Sieg’s obsession to detail didn’t stop with the water itself. She noticed most glass bottles don’t fit in a car’s cup holder, which is annoying. So Loonen created a custom mold that does. Then she focused on the bottle’s opening.

“I don’t like a really narrow spout,” she says. “We designed a much wider spout than what’s normal in the industry because it feels like you’re drinking from a glass.” The wider opening also makes it easier to pour in hydration packets, greens powders and other supplements without making a mess.

For its sparkling water Loonen focused on a “bubble breaker” to create smaller, smoother bubbles that are easier to drink and digest.

“It all adds up to just a nicer experience,” Sieg says.

Related: The Secret to Successful Product Design? Simplicity.

Changing minds is the hard part

Sieg is under no illusion about the market she’s entered. Bottled water is dominated by multinational brands with enormous marketing budgets and distribution networks. Shipping water is expensive. Choosing glass over plastic only adds to the cost.

“So in some sense, it was great that I was naive enough about the category,” she says. “Had I known all the stuff that I know now, I probably would’ve been too scared to give it a try.”

She also believes changing consumer behavior may be the biggest hurdle. For decades, bottled water companies have competed on branding, convenience and price. “We’re asking people to think about water differently,” she says.

The water is catching fire. Justin Bieber and Dua Lipa have both been photographed drinking Loonen, even though the company never paid them to endorse the brand.

Sieg says the celebrity attention wasn’t the result of a traditional influencer campaign. Instead, the company focused on building a product people genuinely wanted to carry. While the brand’s mission centers on water quality and transparency, she says many customers simply like how it tastes.

“My husband always says, ‘I don’t care about plastics. I just don’t. It’s too much for me. But the water tastes really good.'”

Related: This Neuroscientist-Turned-Entrepreneur Says Leaders Should Be a Little Naive — Here’s Why It Works

What’s next

Sieg’s immediate focus is getting Loonen in front of more consumers. The company recently launched in Sprouts stores, is available nationwide through Amazon and is expanding its presence in New York through distributor Big Geyser. Loonen is introducing a smaller single-serve bottle with the same wide-mouth design. The goal, she says, is national distribution by the end of the year.

But Sieg is careful not to overstate what one company can accomplish.

America’s aging water infrastructure isn’t going to be fixed by a premium bottled water brand. That’s a challenge that will require investment, better regulation and years of work.

“I think Loonen is part of the solution,” she says.

It’s an answer that reflects the lesson she learned searching for the perfect spring. There isn’t one breakthrough that solves everything. Progress comes in drips.