Eric Skae started in beverage with a van and a truckload of water, distributed AriZona Iced Tea in its early days, then lost $3.2 million of his own money bootstrapping New Leaf Iced Tea. He went on to run Rao’s sauce business and now leads Carbone Fine Food, which he says has passed $100 million in retail sales. The Carbone Fine Food CEO tells Ian Schwartzman why he tasted every batch in year one, why he prices a dollar above Rao’s, why he trusts in-store demos over TV ads, and why everything in this business happens at the shelf.
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:11 A cook, not a chef
01:53 Why a brand needs a soul
03:18 Family dinners and tasting every batch
04:51 What distribution teaches you
06:18 Routing 212 7-Elevens with paper maps
07:50 From flipping houses to beverage routes
08:39 How AriZona kept it simple
09:34 Bootstrapping New Leaf Iced Tea
11:44 Losing $3.2 million and starting over
13:26 Scaling Rao’s
14:41 Premium pricing and penetration over awareness
15:19 Not a sauce company
16:38 Taste test straight from the jar
17:32 The billion-dollar goal
19:16 150 Whole Foods in 60 days
20:38 6,000 demos and a 49% repeat rate
21:48 Center Cut Cards
#Carbone #Raos #Entrepreneurship #BuiltDifferent #YahooFinance
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