36 | JUNE 10 • 2021
business SPOTlight
brought to you in partnership with
B I R M I N G H A M
A
ri Tolwin always wanted to be
an entrepreneur. When the now
39-year-old based in Brooklyn,
N.Y., was growing up in a Southfield yeshi-
vah family, he spent his days coming up
with creative business ventures. At age 12,
Tolwin was selling CDs to his classmates in
school.
“I bought $400 of CD inventory using bar
mitzvah money,
” recalls Tolwin, who recent-
ly received a $2 million deal through Shark
Tank for his plant-based Numilk line, which
allows customers to make dairy-free milks
with the push of a button. By selling CDs as
a child, though, he got some of his first les-
sons in making money and finding buyers.
Next, he moved on to selling baseball cards.
Even when playing with Legos, Tolwin says
he turned every game into a competition.
“I didn’t have commercial success,
” he
says with a laugh, “but that was my first
entrepreneurial-like thing.
”
EARLY STARTS
Tolwin, son of Rabbi Alon Tolwin, founder
of Aish HaTorah Detroit, which is now
led by his brother, Rabbi Simcha Tolwin,
has come a long way from selling CDs and
baseball cards in school. Now, he’s on track
to scale Numilk nationally, with dreams
of one day taking the plant-based line
international. But it wasn’t an easy road to
Shark Tank success, which saw Tolwin and
co-founder Joe Savino close the deal with
billionaire investor Mark Cuban earlier this
year.
“I always wanted to do something in
business,
” Tolwin says of his ambitions.
He was also a history buff, reading about
entrepreneurs like steel tycoon Andrew
Carnegie, which helped him realize that
business opportunities were always possible.
Tolwin pursued an undergraduate degree
in political science from the University
of Pennsylvania and then followed the
business path with an M.B.A. from Duke
University. By doing so, he combined his
love for entrepreneurship with his passion
for history and education.
His early career saw him working for
McKinsey & Company, a global manage-
ment consulting firm. Yet, when his older
brother Chaim, who lived in upstate New
York, invited him out to see how he made
maple syrup from his maple trees, Tolwin
had an idea for something different.
“I’m at his house and we’re making maple
syrup,
” Tolwin recalls, “and he’s explaining
to me that water comes out of the tree. So, I
tried the water and thought it was fantastic.
”
This water — known as maple water —
was the inspiration for Tolwin’s 2014 line,
Happytree Maple Water, where he served
as co-founder and CEO. But it didn’t give
Tolwin the success he was looking for.
“Maple was awesome, but ultimately the
ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Shark Tank Tale
With a $2 million deal, Detroiter allows consumers to create
plant-based milk at the push of a button.
The founders of
Numilk, Joe Savino
and Ari Tolwin,
pitching on an
episode of ABC’s
Shark Tank.
ABC
Small
enough to
fit on your
kitchen
counter.
continued on page 38