Meet the Company Behind the Coconut Water Craze

— -- Two guys walk into a bar… No, it’s not the beginning of a bad joke, but the start of the Vita Coco story.

Founders Michael Kirban and Ira Liran launched Vita Coco 12 years ago after meeting two young women from Brazil in a Manhattan bar.

“They mentioned that the thing they miss most about Brazil was agua de coco, which is coconut water …they explained this whole thing about how good it is, how good it is for you, and how big it is down there and we liked the idea,” Vita Coco co-founder and CEO tells ABC News’ Chief Business and Economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis.

The chance encounter led to a beautiful relationship -- Liren traveled to Brazil and eventually married one of the women -- and a booming business. After Kirban visited Liran in Brazil and saw coconut water everywhere, the two entrepreneurs set out to bring their own brand to the U.S.

“I didn’t know anything about creating a consumer goods brand or about branding (...) beverages at all, I just felt like it was a business opportunity,” Kirban says.

In 2004, Kirban and Liran released Vita Coco, the first line of natural coconut water in the U.S. Over the last decade, coconut water has become one of the fastest-growing beverage categories in the country, the official Vita Coco website said.

Throughout this time, investors like Madonna, Demi Moore and Matthew McConaughey have joined them.

“The key was the product,” Kirban comments. “The product and the brand. If it was me introduced to Madonna with some other product in some other brand, it wouldn’t have been so successful. She already loved the product, already was drinking it.”

Now available in 30 countries around the world, Vita Coco continues to grow and expand, most recently launching its own brand of coconut oil.

“I live by something that I’ve heard from a professor at Stanford: the key to making the right decision is making a decision and then making it right. And it works for me every time.”