Sioux Falls company’s ‘beverage buckle’ goes viral

It’s called the BevBuckle.

And after Thursday, roughly 32 million people and counting know what it is.

That’s thanks to a video that went viral, amassing millions of views in hours as company owner Sean Coffman got caught totally off guard.

“This is pretty fun,” he said late Thursday. “We had to go buy label printers to keep up with the orders.”

The video was produced by VT, which has 20 million Facebook followers and focuses on content designed to amass huge viewership. It shows how BevBuckle attaches to a belt buckle and flips down to hold a beverage.

Coffman is the founder of Carsforsale.com and a dedicated entrepreneur. He saw the BevBuckle on Shark Tank a few years ago. When he struggled to order one, a series of conversations led to him eventually buy the company.

His Sioux Falls-based team has been “slowly working on creating new designs,” he said.

Things sped up considerably as orders came in by the thousands once the video took off. The BevBuckle is manufactured in California and sells for $24.95.

“We’re calling our supplier and ordering as many as we can as fast as we can because we know people will want them before Christmas,” Coffman said.

“We weren’t ready for the video. We did not know they were publishing it. It completely caught us off guard. We don’t know how long this lasts. Do we get a second wind? Does it last a few days?”

Regardless, the response validates his hunch it was a winning product.

“I was drawn to the product. We bought it more because it was fun and we knew we’d have fun with it and we knew it could be a big product. We just didn’t know how big,” Coffman said.

The BevBuckle has mostly been sold online and through a hardware magazine.

“There’s a lot of interest in it from retailers but we really haven’t landed that big one. We think it speaks to enormous opportunity for beverage companies,” Coffman said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we get follow-up interest from other companies.”

The viral nature of the video “shows how creative and fun and powerful that product is,” he added.

Needless to say, it made for quite the atypical day at the office.

“Every day is a gift. You don’t know what it’s going to entail,” he said. “You just have to wake up and be ready for whatever comes your way.”

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Sioux Falls company’s ‘beverage buckle’ goes viral

It’s called the BevBuckle. And after Thursday, roughly 16 million people and counting know what it is.

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