Honest Tea: Seth Goldman

How I Built This · 16 Jan 2017 · 29m

What this episode covers

Seth Goldman, co-founder of Honest Tea, explains how he identified a 'sweetness gap' in the beverage market and launched the company with $50,000 from his father. He details the early challenges of securing a Whole Foods order, brewing tea in mesh bags at a juice plant, and navigating distributor rejection. Goldman also discusses a critical quality failure involving faulty glass bottles that forced a voluntary recall, and how maintaining control through a unique equity structure allowed Honest Tea to grow before being acquired by Coca-Cola.

Most relevant to

founders before launch, early-stage companies and companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies: Whole Foods, Coca-Cola, Tetley
Products: Honest Tea, Snapple, Arizona, Nice Mug

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The Startup CPG Podcast21 Nov 2023 · 38m
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The Startup CPG Podcast1 Jun 2022 · 25m
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The Startup CPG Podcast5 May 2026 · 48m
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Seth Goldman, co-founder of Honest Tea and CEO of Just Ice Tea, along with his roles as chair of Beyond Meat and Plant Burger, explains the strategic formation and governance of corporate boards for CPG founders. He details how to vet investors, recruit high-caliber members like Gary Hirshberg and Jeff Swartz, and manage board dynamics to protect founder control while ensuring rigorous oversight. The conversation covers practical aspects of board compensation, the importance of diversity of thought over cheerleaders, and specific operational wins, such as optimizing pallet configurations to save hundreds of thousands of dollars at Just Ice Tea.
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Host Jessi Freitag counts down the top 10 moments from 100 episodes of The Startup CPG Podcast, featuring insights from founders like Seth Goldman of Honest Tea, Alexiou Gibson of The Sea Moss Transformation Factory, and Rosa Li of wildwonder. The episode highlights strategic decisions in fundraising, marketing, and product launches, including Sandra Velasquez’s Shark Tank experience with Nopalera and the collaboration between Partake Foods and Ben & Jerry’s. It emphasizes the importance of resilience, storytelling, and direct outreach in scaling consumer brands.
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The summary, chapters and topics are generated from the episode’s audio by this directory, not written by How I Built This. The episode itself belongs to its publisher.

Honest Tea: Seth Goldman

What this episode covers

Most relevant to

Topics

Mentioned

Related episodes from other shows

#51 Pure Gold Series: Ask Seth Goldman Anything! Plus the Announcement of Just Ice Tea

#115 Pure Gold Series: Lessons on Iterating from Seth Goldman + Updates on Eat the Change & Just Ice Tea

#46 Pure Gold Series: Keep Going! Reflection on Coca-Cola's Discontinuation of Honest Tea with Seth Goldman

#247 - How to Build a Board with Seth Goldman, JUST ICE Tea

#100 Toasting to 100 Episodes of The Startup CPG Podcast with Our Favorite Moments