I’m Helena, one of the founders of Haus. As a creative who spent her career working in Silicon Valley, I bet the last thing you’d expect someone like me to build was a booze company. It’ll all make sense in a moment. Keep reading.

I’m married to a booze guy. His name is Woody. We live on a farm in Sonoma County where he makes wine and manages 67 acres of wine grapes, as well as a variety of fruits and botanicals.

[caption text="Woody, Sophie, and I, the year we had the idea for Haus."]

I started my career working in bars, but once I paired up with Woody, I got a good look at the alcohol industry behind the scenes. It didn’t take long before I noticed something was off.

During my years in Silicon Valley, I saw almost every industry changing. A new generation—my generation— cared deeply about what they consumed, from food to beauty products. We were looking for better ingredients, transparency, authenticity. Entrepreneurs were creating better brands than corporations, better products that reflected our values, and changing industries in the process.

Looking at alcohol, these brands didn’t exist. The accessible options were owned by corporations, and the brands with better values were almost impossible to find. I wondered why. 

[caption text="Our first flavor, <a href='https://drink.haus/products/citrus-flower?utm_source=helena&utm_medium=medium&utm_campaign=inpursuitofabetterwaytodrink'>Citrus Flower</a>. It’s light and refreshing."]

At the same time I was also experiencing a drinking dilemma of my own.

I have always been a career-oriented, social person. Drinking, for better or worse, is built into the fabric of business and society. 

We have happy hours, networking events, business dinners, etc. Even though it’s all been virtual for the past year, it’s easy to find yourself casually drinking several nights a week.

This creates a lot of problems for a lot of people. It makes our sleep worse, it makes us hungover, it’s, ironically, keeping us from doing our best work.

[caption text="We create all of our flavors with real ingredients."]

A little research told me this is actually a universal problem with millennial drinkers. People aren’t looking to get wasted anymore — they are health conscious and they care about their image. They’re looking for what I’m looking for.

So I wondered… with such a huge market wanting something different from alcohol, why isn’t there a better way to drink?

Long story short, we couldn’t find what we were looking for, so we decided to make it ourselves. We launched Haus in summer of 2019.

A year and a half later, Haus remains a true labor of love. We hope you enjoy Haus as much as we love making it.