No Sugar, No Carbs, No Slowing Down: How One Entrepreneur Crafted a Potent Canned Cocktail Company

Adam Kroener (EO Wisconsin)

Adam Kroener’s life changed with one revolting sip. In May 2018, Adam and his wife, Amanda, were at a lake with friends when one of them handed him a hard seltzer. The slim white cans had just begun to flood the market and Adam was intrigued. The label promised low carbs and low sugar, after all, which meshed perfectly with the keto diet the couple had recently adopted.

One sip, though, was more than enough. The drink was overloaded with carbonation and light on flavor, Adam thought. “I actually spit it back out in the lake,” he says now. That moment crystallized an idea: If this was the best option for the legions of people like him who wanted to enjoy alcohol but also to limit carbs, calories, and sugar, then certainly someone could develop a product with more flavor.

Within days, Adam, now an Entrepreneurs’ Organization member through EO Wisconsin, started blending his own carb-free, sugar-free vodka lemonades at home. That first batch begot Carbliss, a budding, nine-figure beverage empire Adam and Amanda co-founded. The company has ranked in the top 50 of the vaunted Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing companies two years in a row while twice placing as the top company in the Midwest. (Carbliss ranked seventh in 2024, 35th this year, and was the highest-ranking EO-member-owned company on both lists.) Having achieved so much, so soon, Adam keeps his focus trained on methodical growth rather than basking in success.

“I do enjoy it for about five minutes,” he says of Carbliss’s ever-expanding list of accolades. “But I think Patrick Mahomes said, ‘You win the Super Bowl, and you have dreamed about it your whole life — and then you realize that high only lasts for a few days. After that, you just want another one.’”

From Factory Floor to Corner Office

Adam did not sketch a blueprint for building Carbliss on a whim. His formative years were spent in Wisconsin’s cheese industry. He started as a cheese cutter in 2008 and surged up the food chain until he landed a manufacturing director role that had him overseeing 1,200 employees. That experience afforded him fluency in scaling operations, navigating supply chains, maintaining a lean budget, and holding teams accountable.

His leadership style? At first, aggressive. He had enlisted in the Army at 17 and “the only leadership I knew was: Yell and you get action,” he says. Over time, though, his approach softened. After reading “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and becoming a certified Dale Carnegie leadership trainer, he learned to emphasize culture over commands.

Still, early on, Carbliss hemorrhaged money. Aside from a US$1 million angel investment round in 2021 that allowed Adam to quit his day job and focus on growing the company full-time, he has not accepted any outside funding. To keep Carbliss solvent early on, he took a salary well below what he had earned in his previous role. “Everybody for the first two years made more money than I did,” he says. “I did that intentionally because I was betting on the company.”

Still, the ascent has been marred by turbulence. The initial partners he enlisted to manufacture the product did not meet his standards and nearly torpedoed the brand. Consultants pushed aggressive expansion strategies that did not fit Carbliss’s vision to establish a foothold in the local market. Each misstep, though, reinforced his conviction to trust his instincts and build a team that shared them.

“When I look at our PNL, most people would be very jealous of the business we have,” he reflects. “So, let’s maintain that and grow it rather than potentially blowing it up.”

Carbliss’s formula is deceptively simple: quality alcohol and real fruit flavors, without sugar or carbs, in a can. Yet executing it required deep industry knowledge. Adam had spent years experimenting with ingredients, inspired by European standards that ban an array of chemical additives and are often more stringent than regulations in the United States. He had even dabbled in creating low-carb, low-sugar coffee creamer before striking gold with cocktails.

When hard seltzers started gaining market share around 2018, he noticed something others overlooked: People were drinking them not for the taste, but because they loved what was on the nutrition label. He informally surveyed hundreds of bar patrons and “the best answer I ever got was, ‘Meh, it’s OK.’” But when he asked if they would prefer a flavorful vodka lemonade with the same nutrition profile, the responses were resoundingly positive. That insight has driven Carbliss’s offerings ever since, and the company now offers an array of fruit-forward flavors, from the original lemon to black cherry to watermelon.

The company’s trajectory bucked industry norms. While competitors chased national distribution as quickly as possible, Adam and Amanda chose a slower, methodical, “backyard to backyard” expansion strategy. The company first saturated Wisconsin, then spread deliberately across the Midwest before pushing into select new markets. “It allowed us to focus on doing things in our area really, really well rather than trying to be everywhere tomorrow,” he explains.

Culture Before Growth

Adam knows he cannot innovate in isolation: That realization led him to EO in 2023, where he joined EO Wisconsin and found the peer group he needed. After years of attending entrepreneurship and leadership conferences that felt repetitive, a speaker at an EO event introduced him to new concepts around scaling and acquisitions that immediately resonated. For an entrepreneur accustomed to carrying the weight of every decision — where the stakes are his family’s livelihood, not simply a corporate line item — EO offers both perspective and camaraderie.

“Having a group of people that I can associate with is just the outlet that I thought I needed,” he said. “So far, it is working.”

Despite nearly 30,000 percent revenue growth over the past three years, one of his proudest accomplishments has nothing to do with a balance sheet. Instead of chasing hustle culture for its own sake, Adam and Amanda focused on building a workplace that employees loved. The result? Only one staff member has ever resigned, and they have a loyal, lean team of about 70 people.

"At the end of the day, I just want to have a group of individuals who love what they are doing.”

- Adam Kroener (EO Wisconsin) 

Carbliss offers employees unique perks like a US$5,000 annual travel stipend and extra week off on each employee’s work anniversary. Plus, the company holds all-staff business and team bonding trips every other month. He built those programs into the company’s budget from the start, making them foundational parts of the culture he hoped to create instead of incentives to chase.

Carbliss is far from finished. The brand is systematically building the infrastructure to expand without sacrificing profitability, product quality, or culture. Florida is next: Adam, Amanda, and their children are relocating for a brief period to help oversee the launch.

From a single sip spit into a lake to one of America’s most successful young beverage companies, Cabrliss’s story offers a roadmap for any aspiring entrepreneur: identify a gap, bet big on yourself, and grow deliberately — culture first.

“I could have never fathomed the money that we are able to bring in, and so (wanting more), to me, becomes just pride,” he says. “And I do not need that. At the end of the day, I just want to have a group of individuals who love what they are doing.”

Interested in becoming an EO member like Adam? Learn more here.