Kara Goldin had a serious Diet Coke addiction. Looking for healthier alternatives that didn’t involve artificial sweeteners, Kara started tossing fruit into her water. Little did she know, she was concocting the first recipe for what would become Hint, a $100+ million beverage brand, right in her kitchen.

As a former AOL VP turned entrepreneur, Kara never set out to challenge beverage industry behemoths — seriously, she refers to Hint as a “side hustle” she spent time on while job searching. She felt that Hint’s fruit-infused water could truly help consumers live healthier lives and kick the soda cravings for good.

On this episode of The Empowered Challenger, Kara talks about the “criminal” marketing tricks Hint set out to avoid, why being a challenger brand gives you an edge over launching the same product at a large corporation, how she spent her company’s early marketing dollars and what it was like to create an entirely new product category.