#18 Co-Founding Honest Tea With Barry Nalebuff

Nov 17 2022 • 1 hr 2 mins

Barry Nalebuff is Co-Founder of Honest tea, Kombrewcha, Real Made Foods, and Just Ice Tea. Barry is also a professor at Yale School Of Management, and has authored multiple award-winning books.

In this episode, learn how Barry co-founded multiple successful food and beverage products using real economic principles. Class is in-session: Dive into concepts like declining margins of utility, arbitrage, games of inversion and symmetry, and negotiation tactics like “splitting the pie.” Don’t forget to take notes as Barry explains how these concepts helped him build a successful business that sold for $43 Million.

OUTLINE:

(00:00) - Intro
(06:46) - The Idea Behind Founding Honest Tea
(11:17) - The Declining Margin Of Utility
(15:15) - You Can’t Have Lovers If you Don’t Have Haters
(17:34) - How To Make “Honest” Products
(20:00) - Origin Of The Name “Honest Tea”
(22:09) - Personal Financial Guarantees In Entrepreneurship
(24:51) - What Does It Mean To “Split The Pie”
(25:44) - Selling Honest Tea to Coca Cola
(28:57) - Never Offer A Deal You Wouldn’t Take Yourself
(38:38) - What Is “Just Ice Tea”
(44:27) - What Is The Game Of Arbitrage?
(48:04) - The Games of Inversion and Symmetry
(51:49) - Pitfalls

EPISODE LINKS:

Just Ice Tea: https://eatthechange.com/products/just-ice-tea
Honest Kids: https://www.honestorganic.com/products/honest-kids
Real Made Foods: https://realmadefoods.com/
Eat The Change: https://eatthechange.com/
Personal Website: https://barrynalebuff.com

BOOKS BY OUR GUEST:

Split the Pie: https://www.splitthepiebook.com/
The Art of Strategy: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Strategy-Theorists-Success-Business/dp/0393337170
Why Not?: https://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Ingenuity-Solve-Problems-Small/dp/1591391539

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Charlie Munger’s Mental Model of Inversion: https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/inversion
Never Split The Difference (Chris Voss): https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended/dp/0062407805

PODCAST INFO:

Podcast website: https://forwardobsessed.com/
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/forward-obsessed/id1615760781
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2TrkOZ7xL7WSlzc2mrwXuC?si=aa5e7790aca64e05
YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-ldUUGxQZ5b9WPqVXz_qlfXgK3hHPs4z
YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-ldUUGxQZ5Yt0LiPml0y6pNUSrqHzWql

SUPPORT & CONNECT: