Illustrations: Eva Cremer

The Cutthroat Battle Between S’well and Its Bougie Water Bottle Copycats

Entrepreneur Sarah Kauss built a thriving $100 million business — but she never imagined the hell she’d find on the other side

Stephanie Clifford

Published in

Marker

22 min readNov 25, 2019

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Sarah Kauss makes water bottles. Those bottles hold liquid. That’s it. That’s what your average person might think. But when Kauss…

Stephanie Clifford

Written by Stephanie Clifford

Writer for

Marker

Journalist covering criminal justice and business; novelist (NYT bestseller Everybody Rise). Latest: https://marker.medium.com/inside-the-surreal-and-emotional-

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