When John Thorp and Buzz Wiggins first saw small appliance machines for sparkling water, they didn’t see bubbles—they saw waste. A booming $40 billion market was dominated by outdated countertop devices, single-use bottles, and consumers frustrated with bulky gear or rigid subscriptions. The duo knew they could solve this waste problem, so they built Aerflo, a beautifully engineered portable carbonation system that’s refillable, rechargeable, and regulatory-approved.
Along the way, the cofounders disrupted a mature category with design-thinking, navigated years of hands-on R&D, and built a refillable system that meets strict shipping regulations. It helped that they could lean on their strong partnership to stay focused through every twist. Aerflo’s journey proves that persistence can turn big challenges into lasting innovation.
Reimagining a growing market with design-led innovation
The idea behind Aerflo started with a sense of wonder. As a kid, John remembers his father had a soda siphon on his bar cart. “It seemed like it was magic,” he recalls. A seed was planted and that childhood memory stayed with him into adulthood. Years later, when he and Buzz began brainstorming ideas, they saw how much the sparkling water market had grown—and how little the technology had evolved to match consumer behavior. “As we looked at the options that they have—single-use or countertop systems—we just felt like they were both lacking,” John says.
Instead of rushing to production, they started by interviewing hundreds of sparkling water fans—people who owned machines, those who’d given up on them, sustainability advocates, skeptics, and everyone in between. What they heard shaped everything that followed. People loved sparkling water but often felt guilty about the waste or frustrated by subscription models that didn’t align with how they consumed the product.
Testing, tinkering, and rebuilding through R&D
Aerflo’s first prototype was built in Buzz’s backyard with whatever they had on hand. “It was absolutely miraculous to us that that worked,” he says, describing a jerry-rigged combination of a bike pump, a swell bottle, epoxy, and a pressure gauge. Looking back, he’s amazed it didn’t explode. But that early success validated the core idea—and proved there was a path forward.
The next two prototypes, developed with outside firms, were expensive failures. What followed was rebuilding everything from scratch and five more major iterations—none of which shared a single common part. It was during this phase that the team started to understand not just what the product needed to be, but how to build it. “We were also learning a lot about how to be mechanical engineers and how to build things,” Buzz reflects. Eventually, Aerflo brought on full-time engineers who helped refine the product into a pressure-safe, scalable system. These engineers are what made a backyard experiment into a robust consumer device, shaped by testing, setbacks, and hands-on iteration.
Tackling the logistics of circular sustainability
From the beginning, John and Buzz knew the center of Aerflo’s value had to lie in its reusability. Designing a refillable CO₂ capsule—something that didn’t meaningfully exist in the market—was non-negotiable. But turning that concept into a scalable, shippable product was anything but simple.
Buzz spent months combing through Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations, navigating the complex intersection of compressed gas, consumer safety, and postal logistics. After half a year of preparation, the team secured a rare in-person meeting with a roomful of DOT engineers. “I remember feeling like I have not been this nervous since my Grade 12 physics exam,” John says, recalling the anxiety of biking to the meeting from their backyard yurt workspace.
The green light they received that day meant they could move forward with a refill facility in New Jersey and finalize their closed-loop system. Instead of forcing customers into a subscription model, Aerflo’s refill experience was intentionally flexible: users simply drop empties in the mail and get fresh capsules sent out. The final system wasn’t just compliant—it was user-friendly and waste-conscious, reinforcing the brand’s commitment to making circularity seamless.
Building a business on partnership and shared purpose
What brought John and Buzz together wasn’t only a clever product idea—it was a shared belief in solving meaningful problems. From the start, they found alignment not only in their skill sets but in how they worked. “Working with John was the first thing that got me excited,” Buzz says. “He’s just a really great cofounder—extremely diligent and hardworking and all of these things that you would look for.” Their dynamic evolved naturally: Buzz took the lead on engineering and mechanical development, while John focused on regulatory approvals, branding, and the logistics behind the refill system.
Over five years of stealth development, that partnership was tested repeatedly. But it was their shared sense of purpose that kept them steady. John often reflects on how many people believed in the mission even before there was a product. That collective belief—and their own—made it easier to stay motivated. The duo wasn’t interested in launching just any consumer brand; they wanted to create something that could help shift behaviors. As John puts it, “We were only interested in doing something if … it makes the world a better place. Because then it makes it a lot easier every single day to find that motivation to do something a little bit better, to get it in more people’s hands, and start moving away from single use.”
John and Buzz didn’t just build a product. They built a system, a process, and a partnership—all fueled by purpose, persistence, and the resilience to keep going after hundreds of investor rejections. Their determination ultimately led to more than $10 million in funding to bring Aerflo to life. For aspiring entrepreneurs in hardware, sustainability, or consumer goods, Aerflo is a lesson in how vision, iteration, and values can become your biggest advantage.
To learn more about Aerflo’s disruption in the carbonated beverage industry, listen to the full interview on Shopify Masters.
