We recently introduced you to Coke’s Venturing & Emerging Brands (VEB) unit and explored the team’s approach to investing in small brands with big potential. Today we hear from the entrepreneur behind the newest beverage to join the VEB portfolio – Steve Jones of Core Power – on how partnering with Coke has enabled the mission-driven brand to go further faster. Tell us a bit about Core Power and how Fair Oaks Farms Brands – its parent company – came to be.The mission of Fair Oaks Farms Brands is to build a branded health and wellness platform, powered by the nutrition of dairy, in a wide portfolio of great-tasting products that allow you to live life to the fullest. It all starts with responsible agriculture and animal care you can trust. Our vision is that Fair Oaks Farms Brands will play a leadership role in us having a very healthy productive planet full of very healthy people as our population expands.All great beverage companies start with a great product. And our great product starts with dairy farming. A few years ago, Mike McCloskey – a veterinarian with a doctorate in large animal agriculture – had a vision to produce higher-quality milk by significantly raising the standards for how cows are raised, fed and treated. He sold his vet practice and bought a dairy farm, followed by bigger farms, and eventually formed a progressive dairy co-op in the Southwest. Along the way, he developed and patented a membrane filtration system. This process allows us to separate the five parts of milk, increase the good parts like protein and calcium, and reduce the negatives like lactose without adding preservatives or powders. When you combine sensational-quality milk with this proprietary technology, you get Core Power. One of our most distinguishing qualities is our ingredient list, which is only four lines long. That’s what makes it taste so great. Core Power is marketed as a high-protein sports recovery beverage. But athletes are not the only people who need protein. When we exert ourselves, our muscles lose protein. We need protein to regain strength and build lean muscle. And since our bodies don’t produce enough protein, we need to ingest it. Mike launched the product as Athlete’s HoneyMilk in 2010. I came onboard about that time as an advisor before making a full-time commitment at the end of 2010. We re-launched the brand under the Core Power name in 2012 when
In December 2011, The
ATLANTA, May 9, 2013 – The
For the fifth year in a row, Fortune magazine produced a photo essay starring the boards of directors of several Fortune 500 companies, a successful startup and one not-for-profit organization for our historic Fortune 500 issue. The boards of major corporations often seem mysterious; these groups of people are responsible for some of the most important company decisions, yet few members of the public know who they are, much less see them together. “The Directors” puts faces to the names and gives our readers a colorful, inside look at the varying personalities advising companies (and CEOs) through good times and bad. It's a monumental effort to get these images, and we are immensely proud to have such important, iconic corporations in this year's portfolio. Coke, certainly, is a standout. Colleen Leahey is a reporter with Fortune magazine. Follow her on Twitter @cmleahey. Read about the
The
Presenting an idea to a venture capitalist is one of the most important steps an entrepreneur will make during the course of creating a company. If the pitch is successful, it validates the company’s existence and puts the entrepreneur one step closer to making all that hard work pay off. If it’s unsuccessful, the company may not make it off the ground. Venture capitalists say making a great pitch takes specific knowledge about the company, the industry and the audience, as well as the ability to deliver a concise and compelling message in about 20 minutes. Motivation and drive When investors sit down with an entrepreneur to hear a pitch, one of the first pieces they evaluate is whether the person or team is driven and motivated to go out and build a company. Meeting mainly with companies in the early stage, Andreas Stavropoulos, managing director at Menlo Park, Calif.-based Draper Fisher Jurvetson, considers the entrepreneur’s or team’s passion, motivation and why they are taking on this personal risk. “You are often dealing with an entrepreneur who is working day and night on their idea,” he said. “Ideas can change all the time, but one thing you can’t change is how you come across." Stavropoulos looks for ideas that will give a company the chance to get ahead and stay there for many years. He wants those ideas that establish a company as an early player in the market and that will provide an edge over the competition. He also needs to hear how the entrepreneur expects to extract value from his or her company. “I like to say it is an irrational act to start a company because the odds are so against you being successful,” Bryan Stolle, general partner at Mohr Davidow Ventures, also in Menlo Park, said. “It takes incredible focus and the ability to power through things to build the company.” Stolle is also listening for the entrepreneur — who will most likely be the CEO — to show relevant knowledge and information about what problem the company will solve, who the customers will be and the market the product or service will be part of. In addition, he wants the entrepreneur to understand who he or she is pitching. He advises startup founders to arrive at meeting knowing what businesses the venture capital firm invests in, what it needs in terms of a return on investment and know a little about the person sitting across the table. Frank Demmler, vice president of entrepreneurial services at Pittsburgh-based Innovation Works, is looking for someone who he “wants to get in the trenches with.” “There has to be a likeability factor because I want to see them win,” he said. “They also need to be coachable, especially if they are a first-time entrepreneur.” A bad pitch isn't always bad Meetings typically last an hour, Demmler said. During that time, there are usually about 20 minutes set aside for the presentation, which he said should consist of 10 to 12 slides. That might seem a short amount of time to explain something an entrepreneur has worked on for months or even years, but he said the key is figuring out a concise and effective way to communicate. Demmler cautions against any displays of “intellectual arrogance.” “I’ve had people come in talking like they were God’s gift to technology," he said, "and I was fortunate to have the opportunity to cut him a check.” Even though a great pitch goes a long way to ensuring an investor funds a company, Stolle said a person with a great business idea doesn’t have to be a brilliant presenter to get his or her message across. “We’ve funded plenty of companies where the entrepreneur was a poor presenter,” he said. “A bad pitch isn’t one where the person is nervous, but is one where they can’t tell us why their company matters, or why it can be successful.” In addition, an investor and an entrepreneur will most likely develop a relationship, so the experience isn’t a one-shot thing, Stavropoulos said. One of the reasons the person is there in the first place is because the investor heard something that grabbed their attention, he added. “It can be hard to recover if you totally botch it, but seldom do we make a sweeping decision based on one presentation,” Stavropoulos said. However, Nate Redmond, managing partner at Rustic Canyon in Santa Monica, Calif., said a founder losing composure in front of investors can be troubling, indicating how they might perform in high-stress situations, he added. "Starting a company is hard, so I never look down on an entrepreneur," Redmond said. "But any founder looking for money needs to know their business." Last, but not least Stolle gave some tips on what entrepreneurs often miss when preparing for the pitch meeting: 1. Research what the real market is and the size of the market. 2. Be clear on where the money will be spent – meaning when the funds run out, what will the company have accomplished and will it be enough to raise more funds. Investors look out over many years and several fundraisings, not just the immediate one. 3. Do more work on the financial model. Investors want to see projections for at least three years, with five years being even better. “It is not going to be right, and we completely understand,” Stolle said of the financial projections. “We are interested in what that tells us about how you want to build the business, how you think it will play out over time, and what assumptions you are making.”
How is a 126-year-old company building a culture capable of delivering breakthrough innovation that delivers economic, social and environmental value? Guy Wollaert, Coke’s Chief Technical Officer, answered that question and more during an insightful conversation at The Economist’s “Ideas Economy: Innovation Forum,” held last month at the University of California, Berkeley. Watch Wollaert's remarks during the panel discussion – which also featured Peter Diamandis of the X Prize Foundation and Patricia Morrison of Cardinal Health – here: br>More Innovation Stories:Driving the Top Line with Technology: An Interview with Coke's Chief Information OfficerSlingshot: Inventor Dean Karmen's Revolutionary Clean Water MachineStop Selling Us Ads and Do Something Useful
They are changing the face of global businesses. Collectively, they control $20 trillion of worldwide spending. Of what they make, they reinvest ninety percent of their income in their families and communities. They are mothers, sisters and daughters. They are business owners. They are women—women who work and dream of better lives. And in 2013, the financial commitment to grow those dreams was announced in Washington, D.C. The