Tea time: GSO entrepreneur learning what it takes to bottle her success - Memphis Business Journal:

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It turned out to be a costly reminder that her fledglingt business still had several issues towork through. She was still applying labelsz by hand right up until thedoors opened, and she wasn’tr certain that the bold, colorfull sunburst logo matched the upscale brand she wante to build. Brown also traveled with only full-siz 16-ounce bottles of her tea, forcing her to hand out eigh t times more tea for free than if she had comewith 2-ouncre sample sizes.
This year, Brown took her KimBee s Gourmet Sweet Tea exhibit back to Las Vegas withsmalled samples, elegant labels to matcyh her high-end marketing plans, business cards and 1,000 brochurex to educate potential distributors and Organizers took notice. Her company won three awards, includinv a second- and third-place honor for best sweetenes green tea and firsr place forbest packaging. “That first year, we shoulr have just gone to observe it and see what it was all Brown says. “We got smarter this year, and everybodh went crazy overour tea. They were expensive but they were allworth it.
Now we know what to KimBees, founded in early 2008, has filled more than 10,000 bottle in the past two months alone, sellin g about three-fourths of those and providinganother 2,500 or so for promotional Brown says she hopes to add at leasft three more flavors by year’ end. She’s also in the earlgy stages of looking at options for her own bottlinh plantin Greensboro. Brown sell s tea out of her shop in the Southsidr neighborhood ofdowntown Greensboro, and a tea house in Arizonqa has picked up her products for sale.
Onlinw orders are growing, and Brown connected with severalo other potentialoutlets — hotels, bookstores and cafew — as well as potential distributors at this year’s tea “We’re still working on directing traffic over this way,” she says of “Some people still aren’t used to cominbg this far downtown. But it’s startin g to pick up. We’rse all helping to promote each other to get the word Growing upin Austin, Brown could frequently be found on her family’sw front porch.
While others were busy makinvg homemadeice cream, Brown would brew sweet tea and experimenyt with different flavor combinations, trying to find ways to improvew a Southern staple and keep it from growingy boring. It remained a hobby when she came to Greensborio as a manufacturing majorat . Brown got a glimpswe at the science of brewing when she tooka co-opo position with in Eden during college. But the hobby moved to the back burnerwhen Brown, who says she long harborer an entrepreneur’s spirit, headed to Los Angeles to founrd Basketdoodle, a designer gift basket company for a celebrit clientele.
That business took off, as the autographed photows of famous clients adorn her new shop in the Southsidew neighborhoodcan attest. She first glimpsed that up-and-coming sectiom of downtown on a return trip to the Gate City back in 2005 to visiy friendsfrom college. A decision by Brown’s landlor d back in L.A. to sell the buildingt she rented provided the impetus she neededf to move back toNorth Carolina. “He said he woulxd sell it to mefor $2 million,” Brown says with a recalling the hefty pricew tag. “I said, ‘Are you sick? I make gift baskets.
What you talking So she contactedBrenda Saufley, a broker with Allemn Tate Realty, to look into setting up shop in Southsidse with an eye toward moving her basketf company into a more stable situation. “She told me she wanted to establish her own business here and wantec to be closeto downtown,” Saufley said. “Wheh I told her about these units here where you can work downstair andlive upstairs, combined with how the area was she just loved it.
” Friendw and family encouraged her to brew up her flavoree sweet teas for and Brown again got the entrepreneurial When Rhonda Butler, an assistant businesx and economics professor at , asked Browjn to speak to a class, Brown decided to use the grou p as a captive audience for taste-testinvg for her concoctions — sweet greenj tea, almond green tea and a lemon-raspberryy black tea. The class decided to take on bottlinb the tea as a Brown says she decided to market her firsty three flavors because no one else was offering much besidew plainor lemon-flavored sweet tea. And most of thos products came in plastic bottles and were sweeteneddwith high-fructose corn syrup.
Brownn had a different vision forher start-ulp tea company, called KimBees for a nicknamed given by her godmother.