Seth Goldman Brews Another Ice Tea
In a 21 Hats Podcast bonus episode, Goldman talks about starting another tea business more than 20 years after co-founding Honest Tea.
Good morning!
Here are today’s highlights:
Alternative lenders might be allowed to offer SBA 7(a) loans.
Shopify is becoming a brick-and-mortar force, too.
Gene Marks says Salesforce’s new Genie feature is great--but not for you.
The U.S. economy was still producing jobs in September. Is that a good thing?
THE 21 HATS PODCAST
This week, in a special bonus episode recorded right before Labor Day, Seth Goldman talks about getting the disappointing news that Honest Tea, the brand he built and sold to Coca Cola, was being discontinued—and how it took him about two weeks to decide to create another tea business, Just Ice Tea, to fill the shelf space that Coke was vacating. Along the way, Goldman talks about why it made sense to sell a mission-driven business to a soda company, what he wishes he had done differently in the sale, what it was like being a Coke employee, what he’s been doing since leaving, how the beverage industry has evolved, and whether he’ll end up selling this business to Coke, too.
You can subscribe to the 21 Hats Podcast wherever you get podcasts.
FINANCE
Under a proposed rule change, alternative lenders would be able to offer SBA-backed 7(a) loans: “Buried deep in a factsheet from October 4, entitled ‘Vice President Harris Announces New Public and Private-Sector Efforts to Advance Racial Equity at Freedman’s Bank Forum,’ is a notice of a proposed rule change that the U.S. Small Business Administration is expected to undertake in the next few months, lifting a 40-year moratorium on new Small Business Lending Companies. Translation: Fintechs and other alternative lenders would be able to apply for a license to offer SBA-backed 7(a) loans.”
“The working capital loans, available for up to $5 million with repayment periods of seven to 25 years, depending on the purpose of the loan, are among the SBA’s more popular traditional loan programs.”
“The SBA says its objective for this proposed policy change is to grow the number of lenders that receive its loan guarantee, which typically ranges from 75 percent to 85 percent, depending on the program and the size of the loan.”
“‘The problem with the bank network, which has become even more prominent over the past 10 years, is it doesn't reach the very smallest businesses. That space has been taken over by the Squares and the PayPals and the Intuits,’ former SBA boss, Karen Mills, told Inc. in January 2021.” READ MORE
RETAIL
Shopify is making inroads in brick-and-mortar stores: “Shopify, known best as the one-stop-shop platform for online businesses, is making big moves in offline payments, too. The Canadian-founded company recently debuted a new offline payments device called Shopify POS Go, a mobile piece of equipment with a built-in barcode scanner that allows merchants to do checkouts anywhere in store. In the first half of 2022, sales made by merchants using Shopify’s point-of-sale grew nearly 60 percent from a year ago.”
“As the initial phase of the pandemic subsides and offline retail has become an option again, retailers that were forced to go online during shutdowns and discovered Shopify are now turning to the company for all of their business needs.”
“Shopify’s POS Go enables merchants to move flexibly—shoppers can build a cart in the store and then check out and purchase when they’re back at home, if they choose.”
“It also gives merchants a unified view of their business across sales, analytics, and inventory on POS Go from every channel. For example, many shoppers enjoy being able to buy online and return in person, or vice versa, but disjointed software for these kind of hybrid interactions can turn that into a headache for many merchants.” READ MORE
SMALLBIZ TECH
Gene Marks says he loves Salesforce’s new CRM feature, Genie, which makes integrating data from multiple sources a snap—but it’s not for his clients: “Why? Because Genie (like Salesforce) is a product for big companies. It’s being targeted at banks, insurance companies, healthcare organizations, car makers and giant e-commerce platforms. Genie is great, but just imagine the endless amount of time it will take to not only create these amazing integrations but troubleshoot, upgrade, migrate and further develop and support the platform to deliver accurate results with a high level of reliability. And then imagine the endless amount of time it will require to create all the AI and workflows and automation that will use this information — and adapt to it as the information changes.”
“But what about smaller companies? They have the same needs too. But they don’t have the same budgets.” READ MORE
THE ECONOMY
The U.S. jobs market remained strong in September: “But the persistent strength in hiring also underscored the challenges facing the Federal Reserve as it tries to curtail job growth enough to tame inflation. Employers added 263,000 jobs last month on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department said Friday. That was down from 315,000 in August. The unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent. The Federal Reserve’s next rate decision is scheduled for Nov. 2, and officials have emphasized that the central bank is watching the jobs data closely as they determine how aggressive to be. They are eager to see evidence that interest-rate increases are cooling off a frenzied labor market, but not enough to tip the economy into a recession.” READ MORE
PROFILE
A San Francisco restaurant is offering a $75 tasting menu for dogs: “While some eateries may welcome customers’ furry companions during a sit-down meal, Dogue — which opened Sept. 25 in San Francisco’s Mission District — serves only canines. Owner and head chef Rahmi Massarweh said Dogue may be the first restaurant in the country to serve a tasting menu exclusively for dogs. It offers meticulously crafted pastries from its in-house ‘pawtisserie’ and French-inspired courses made with locally sourced, organic ingredients. ‘What we do doesn’t generally exist,’ Massarweh told The Times. ‘My approach is as if it were a human restaurant. It’s as if you have come into my restaurant, and the star guest is your dog.’”
“Burned out from working in the restaurant industry for nearly a dozen years, Massarweh stepped out of the kitchen in 2015 to open a doggy daycare center with his wife. He continued preparing fresh-cooked food for his dogs daily and eventually began prepping the same portions into weekly doggy bags for his private daycare clients.” READ MORE
THE 21 HATS PODCAST
Are You Hitting Your Numbers? This week, Karen Clark Cole, Jay Goltz, and Sarah Segal discuss whether their businesses are meeting expectations and how that’s affecting their plans for next year. They also talk about how to handle an employee who doesn’t deliver, whether now is a good time to hire, and—in an answer to a listener question—how to make the transition from using contractors to hiring employees. And Karen explains why employee utilization—that is, the percentage of her people actually billing clients—is the most important metric she tracks and one she tracks on an hourly basis. Plus: Notebooks or Notion? All three owners tell us how they try to stay organized.
You can subscribe to the 21 Hats Podcast wherever you get podcasts.
Thanks for reading, everyone. — Loren