D’Amore-McKim Student’s Hylux Sport Drinks Goes Toe-To-Toe With Gatorade

Northeastern’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business recently published an article written by Jason Korwitz about a brilliant and seemingly oxymoronic concoction by fourth-year business major Lamar Letts ‘17—Hylux sports drink, a healthy alternative to Gatorade.

In high school, Letts maintained abysmal eating habits—“late-night junk food binges were common”—but it seemed to have little effect on his accomplishments as a track star. This changed abruptly during his senior year when Letts was diagnosed with myocarditis, “an inflammation of the heart muscle,” which left him bed-ridden for months on end.

When Letts returned to a regular fitness regiment, he was surprised to discover that his sweet tooth had all but disappeared. “I imme­di­ately real­ized that I didn’t need or want the extra sugar that was in the food I was eating. I started to dilute tra­di­tional sports drinks with water.”

The process of regularly diluting traditional sports drinks during workouts triggered an “ah-ha” moment. Letts quickly recruited a food scientist and a U.S. manufacturer to develop Hylux Sport, an all-natural, healthy alternative to the sugary sports drinks on the market. Hylux contains “less sugar than Gatorade, more elec­trolytes than Vit­a­m­in­Water, and more potas­sium than a banana.”

IDEA, Northeastern’s “student-​​run ven­ture accel­er­ator,” awarded Letts $10,000 in gap funding, which he says has been instrumental in getting Hylux up and running. “IDEA has enabled me to get insight from people in the field while learning a lot about run­ning a busi­ness.”

Hylux currently comes in four flavors—berry mix, strawberry kiwi, lemon lime, and unflavored. Athletes can find Hylux in stock at Boston’s UFC Gym, Republic Fitness, and Velo-City, as well as Northeastern’s on-campus supermarket, Wollaston’s. 3% of Hylux proceeds “go toward pro­viding clean water in devel­oping coun­tries via actor Matt Damon’s Water.org nonprofit”—an issue Letts cares deeply about.

Down the line, Letts wants to see superstar athletes chugging Hylux after game-winning plays. “My dream is to bring Hylux to an even bigger audi­ence. I need upfront cap­ital for a large pro­duc­tion run that will help us meet demand and intro­duce Hylux to more people.”

Take a gander at Letts’ Kickstarter campaign, which is seeking $10,000 to “redesign Hylux’s bottles and labels.”

regions: Boston

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