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

