Honest Tea with Integrity

Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff knew success grows from believing in themselves, being true to the original concept of Honest Tea, their original business goals, and to their customers.

Seth learned how to deal with rejection while wrestling for his high school team. He learned to stay focused on his goal without quitting. This resilience helped him as he while making mistakes and learning from them, allowed Seth and Barry to grow and improve themselves and their business.

After a workout one day, he was looking for a tea to drink that wasn’t filled with a lot of sugar but just a little bit of sugar. He searched but he could not find a tea that met his needs and not undo the benefit of his exercise at the gym. He then realized there was a need in the tea market for a missing product that he could fill. He began to make a mixture of tea in his family kitchen to create his product. His wife supported him because she believed in his goal and in his ability to provide a healthier tea.

To go into the highly competitive beverage market, he knew he needed expert help so he turned to his professor, Barry. Together they learned how to work with different people in manufacturing, product distribution, and sales. They were surprised when they discovered the distributors were used to the taste of tea that was different from theirs. There was much pressure from them for them to reconfigure the recipe and sweeten the tea. They were told by many people their tea would not sell well because people want to drink a sweeter tea. Seth discovered that he needed to find a different way to appeal to them. He focused on the business opportunity not just the taste of a beverage.

They eventually built up a following in health food markets of customers who liked their tea and supported them because it satisfied their desire for tea without large amounts of sugar. As their business grew nationally, Seth and Barry noticed that other tea manufacturers began offering lower sugared teas in response to the growing popularity of their product. What separated them from Honest Tea was that it still contained more sugar and they tasted very similar to each other.

Integrity happens when you are honest with yourself in the face of compromise.

Many wanted them to alter their recipe, but Seth and Barry wanted to stay true to their original recipe of an iced tea beverage with lower amounts of sugar. They also appreciated their customers’ loyalty to their brand and the overall philosophy of their mission to provide a healthier tea. They wanted to take their tea nationwide but did not have the knowledge and resources. Merging with Coca-Cola allowed them to grow their business. Seth insisted on retaining its original mission, goals, brands, and created a partnership that allowed them to retain creative control of their product. Seth mentions that many people thought they “sold out” when they merged but he felt it was a positive decision because their new partnership supported their original goals for Honest Tea and their product did not suffer but expanded into a successful national brand.

My personal experience with program ideas re-purposed would be when the English Departments at the Alamo Colleges re-adjusted the classes they offered to their students. In 2012, I started working as an Adjunct Instructor teaching developmental writing. A few months later I was asked to also teach developmental reading classes also. Eventually it was decided by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board that the community colleges within Texas needed to offer Integrated Reading and Writing instead of offering the subjects separately. The state governing board repackaged Developmental English courses to mirror how English Language Arts are taught within K-12 where it is an integrated curriculum. This readjustment is viewed as an improvement on the instruction of Developmental English within community colleges.