In our latest Founders Series post, our co-founder Robby reflects on the chaos, the joy, and what it means to try (and sometimes fail) to find balance between parenting and running a company.

Oof, the last eight weeks have been a doozy. 

In early April, new tariffs were imposed on goods from China. Our bottles—like 95% of the stainless steel bottles in the world—are made just outside of Shanghai. The new tariff hit was staggering: 154% on insulated bottles and 47% on non-insulated. These numbers weren’t just painful—they were unsustainable.

To be honest, it was gutting. We looked at the math and knew we couldn’t keep running the business the way we had been. And for a moment, we wondered—can we survive this?

Robby Ringer shares the story of how Bivo almost imploded before it began, and how the community support from all of you made all the difference.