Persistence and Commitment at HONEST TEA, a guest post by Marissa Levin

Guest Blog Post from Marissa Levin, CEO of Information Experts and Founder of Successful Culture, a new business dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and business leaders build successful cultures within their organizations.

Marissa was a guest at Lore Systems’ Big Idea CONNECTpreneur Spring Forum on March 7, 2012 and Seth Goldman, Co-Founder and TeaEO of Honest Tea, was one of our featured speakers on the “Entrepreneurship with a Higher Purpose” panel.

This post was written on March 13, 2012 and can be found on Marissa’s awesome new Blog, Successful Culture.

Honest Tea CEO Seth Goldman Takes Persistence & A Commitment to Mission to New Heights

Imagine pitching your idea to 1,000 investors. Over and over and over again. A little insane, right? Not if you’re Seth Goldman, TeaEO of Honest Tea. When we think of Honest Tea, we think of a delicious beverage, and a wildly successful business.

Dig a little deeper into the roots of Honest Tea, and you’ll discover an entrepreneur who is forever committed to the mission of “changing the way people eat, drink, think and live.”

Seth shared the struggles of his early days with 300 business leaders at the sold-out ConnectPreneur Event in the DC region, architected by global serial entrepreneur and angel investor Tien Wong, CEO of Lore Systems (www.lore.net).

Building an Empire One Brick at a Time

As a bootstrapped entrepreneur who has never sought outside funding, I was amazed at Seth’s relentless quest for angel investments when he launched Honest Tea. “I did over 1,000 pitches and landed 120 angel investors. I took $25,000 at a time,” Goldman said. “There were plenty of times when I was financially out of business. But you need just enough fumes to keep things going.”

The question on everyone’s mind – which was asked – was, “How did you keep going?” All entrepreneurs seek the answer to this question from others that travel the path of business ownership. What is the magic bullet -the secret sauce – that gives us the strength to keep pushing when we are seemingly out of options?

Always Return to the Mission

“What kept me going is I always believed and still believe in my mission. I believe we have to change the way we eat, drink, think, and live. Quitting was never an option.”

In addition to the initial 1,000+ calls, Goldman had to ruthlessly follow up with potential investors. Follow-up apparently is just as important as the initial contact.

“You need to be ruthless with your follow-up. You can’t ever quit. Your follow-up is a good indication of your commitment to what you are trying to build, and to your work ethic. Some we talked to for years before they came on,” he said.

Seth’s tenacity is an inspiration to anyone trying to make their entrepreneurial mark. Equally inspiring is his commitment to his core values, and his refusal to relinquish what matters most to him – providing healthy products that consumers feel good about drinking.

Coca-Cola now owns 40% of Honest Tea. The mammoth company’s management is like a bull in a china shop. This, however, doesn’t sway Goldman from his values. “Coca-Cola wanted me to remove “No High Fructose Corn Syrup!” from our labels. I asked if this was a legal or regulatory requirement, and it wasn’t,” he explained.

Goldman continued, “Because their products contain this ingredient, our label wasn’t a positive reflection of their brand. I refused to remove it it. The discussion made its way to the very top of the executive ladder, and I refused.”

Finally, Coca-Cola relented, and conceded that as a minority owner, they couldn’t force Honest Tea to remove the labeling.

All Natural Ingredients for Successful Entrepreneurship

Goldman boiled successful entrepreneurship down to the two basic tenets that we all inherently know: 1: A steadfast, laser-focused, driven commitment to what we are building, in which we will do whatever we need to succeed, and 2: A passionate belief in the change we are trying to make.

Thanks to Tien Wong (follow him on Twitter: @tienwong, and subscribe to his blog – Winning Ideas at (http://tienwong.wordpress.com/) for helping to quench the entrepreneurial thirst for learning with a great event!

And thanks to Seth Goldman (@HonestTea) for showing us what happens when you never ever ever ever ever give up.

“Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.” ~Napoleon Hill

Featured image courtesy of “A Girl With Tea,” licensed via creative commons.

Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year – A Winning Tradition

Congratulations to Ernst & Young on their 25th Annual Entrepreneur of the Year awards gala, which was held Thursday night, June 16, at the Tysons Corner Ritz Carlton.  Great work by E&Y’s Debbie Kissire, Rene Salas, Herb Engert, and Erika Chambers.  You guys really know how to put on a show!

This awards program is the de facto “Academy Awards” of Entrepreneurship in our region, and brings together some of DC’s finest business leaders.  The impact of this pioneering program in celebrating entrepreneurship and fostering confidence, inspiration, and pride in our community is immeasurable, and we all owe a debt of gratitude to the great work of the E&Y Team for these past 25 years.

Ten years ago, Doug Palley and I won this award.  At that time, the company we had co-founded and built, CyberRep, was a leading call center/CRM provider with over 1000 employees and around $45 million in revenue in 2001.  While winning the award didn’t change our company, per se, the recognition from our peers was a real confidence booster for us, and a morale booster for all of our associates.  The best part, however, was becoming a member of the E&Y “family” and being invited to their Palm Springs national event every year, as well as participating in EOY alumni receptions, and just staying involved, etc.

Thursday night, I had the honor and privilege of returning as an alumnus to co-present the award for the 2011 Technology Entrepreneur of the Year to Kevin Mandia of Mandiant. The finalists in that category were Sid Bannerjee of Clarabridge, Tony Jiminez of MicroTech, and Craig Abod of Carahsoft Technology, all awesome entrepreneurs.

Winners in the other categories were:

Richard Fairbank of Capital One Financial (Master Entrepreneur), who thrilled the crowd with his story and a great acceptance speech which focused on the gratitude and appreciation of his family.

Tim O’Shaughnessey of LivingSocial (Business & Consumer Services)

Daniel Yates of OPower (Emerging)

Willy Walker of Walker & Dunlop (Financial Services)

Thomas Watkins of Human Genome Sciences (Health Services)

Warren Thompson of Thompson Hospitality (Hospitality Services), my former Virginia Baseball Club Partner, and owner of one of the largest African American-owned businesses in the USA.

Matt Desch of Iridium Communications (Telecommunications)

The best part of the night was the honoring, for the very first time in 25 years, of 2 Youth Entrepreneurs, including Liam McGhee, a NFTE student.  By celebrating entrepreneurship education, E&Y has taken the program to another level!

Power Networking – Put a group of Winners in one room and let them have at it!

Tonight the good folks at WalkerInformation of Indianapolis (walkerinformation.com) and Lore Systems (lore.net) co-sponsored an “Execs Night Out” at Zola Wine and Kitchen in DC.

It was Power Networking at its finest.  We put a couple of dozen regional business leaders together and it was magic.  The group included Luis Fiallo, Managing Director of China Telecom Americas;  Steve Graubart, Managing Director of University of the District of Columbia; Frank Walker, Managing Director of Baker Tilley;  Matt Curry of Curry’s Auto Service;  serial CFO David Samuels;  Rob Klingensmith, SVP of The Washington Group; Paul Innella, CEO of TDI;  Colin Eagen, CEO of EGroup;  angel investor and mentor Glen Hellman of Driven Forward; Co-Hosts Steve Walker and Jackie Ross of WalkerInformation; and Patrick Binsol, Dwight Fischer and Laurie Freeman of Lore Systems.  New connections were made, old ones nurtured, and it was great to see deals being done!

The focus of the event was “Customer Challenges” and each attendee shared what they felt was their top customer challenges.  Terrific insights, and the interesting thing was that, despite the disparate industries and businesses represented, we all were saying the same thing:  The consensus theme was that we absolutely MUST bring real value for our customers today.  They are more demanding than ever, and have more choices than ever. It’s no longer enough to do our jobs well.  We need to go above and beyond merely delivering our actual solution sets.  What’s this mean?  In order to win and retain business, we need to help our clients achieve their goals, whatever they may be: strategic, financial, political, efficiency, operational, governance-related, etc.

This is the correct approach to business today in the new reality of the hyper-competitive marketplace, so the Winners will be those companies who keep practicing this habit well into the future, long after we recover from this recession.

The food and wine were great also, so yes, this is an endorsement for Zola Wine and Kitchen.