The Mission Driven Business
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May 6, 2008

Ring The Gong!

 

Even though Honest Tea has enjoyed an annual compound growth rate of 66% for the past ten years, there's never been a day or a week where I've walked in and said, "Wow! We're growing." Until now.

We've been ringing the gong in our office -- reserved for company milestones -- on a weekly basis as we break sales records. And though we expect great things to happen when we start distributing our drinks through the Coca-Cola system, all of the growth we're seeing so far this year is happening before the Coke distribution kicks in.

Last year, our best sales month was $2.8 million for August. So when we set our April 2008 sales goal of $2.9 million we thought we were being aggressive. But we hit that number on April 15, and eventually we took in orders for more than $5 million!

My immediate reaction is to try to explain the growth -- maybe it's our new products, our great new salespeople, our new label designs, our new presence with Honest Kids at Sam's Club, or more people looking for organic foods. It's certainly not the weather! But at a certain point, none of the possible reasons can explain everything, so perhaps it's best not to overanalyze and just enjoy.

And ring the gong!


Seth Goldman is the President and TeaEO of Honest Tea, the company he co-founded in 1998 with Professor Barry Nalebuff of the Yale School of Management. The company has become an innovator within the beverage industry. @HonestTea