Showing posts with label Pepsi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pepsi. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Starting to Grow, How Rushing to Market Turned Crystal Pepsi Into One of the Worst Product Fails of All Time, Even After Half a Billion of Sales in Its First Year

Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 9


This video is part of my series - Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders, learn more by visiting https://bit.ly/3hExYJX


As your business starts to grow, what do you see? Is everything running smoothly? Or are there hiccups in your business operations? When everything seems okay, you grow confident and start to take on more and more customers.

With more customers come more operational challenges. Challenges such as customer service, human resources, delegating roles, etc. It is also important for entrepreneurs to anticipate future challenges and their respective solutions. It is also important to ask yourself if you still like your business. You have options.
-Evaluate your business model and make some changes
-Focus on taking your business to the next level

You also need to watch profitability and cash flow. Initially, you do not need to be overly concerned about money because there are many ways to monetize a good business. But as your business grows and takes on more customers, it becomes imperative that your business makes money for it to stand on its own. Most of us do not have enough wealth in our bank accounts to lose money forever. 

If there is a market for your business idea you will make money, you will probably move on to the next step. If not, you should probably go back to the drawing board. If it doesn’t make money, it doesn’t make sense. 

You also need to make sure you have your product or service ready for mass scaling before you grow too much.

Crystal Pepsi was poised to become a billion-dollar idea. Instead, it was a colossal flop. Less than a year after the commercial hit the airwaves, the soda was yanked from the shelves. It became a cultural laughingstock.

How did Crystal Pepsi go from pop culture darling to the beverage world’s biggest fail? 
-A rush to launch before the recipe tasted right. 
-Spoilage from using clear bottles with a clear liquid, apparently colas are brown for a reason

In April 1992, the drink launched in Boulder, Colorado, and was soon flying off the shelves. But the clock was ticking. They wanted the soft drink to launch nationally in time for the Super Bowl on Jan. 31, 1993, as part of a $40 million ad campaign.

All told, Crystal Pepsi was rolled out across America at breakneck speed -- just nine months after initially pitched. By contrast, It took three years to launch Slice. It wasn’t enough time to accurately test Crystal Pepsi’s shelf life.

After the Super Bowl commercial, sales of $1.50 six-packs soared. The company sold $474 million of Crystal Pepsi by March 1993, according to The New York Times.

Unfortunately, Cases of Crystal Pepsi were being displayed sitting out in the direct sunlight. As predicted, ultraviolet rays caused the soda to spoil. Reports began pouring into Pepsi headquarters from customers saying that Crystal Pepsi tasted strange.

By 1994, less than a year after Crystal Pepsi’s big launch, it was discontinued. Two decades later, in 2014, the soda was named one of the “10 Worst Product Fails of All Time” by TIME Magazine.



Are you looking for funding for an idea or business, send us your stuff and we will take a look, Funding@OmegaSeedFund.com

Are you interested in investing time or money into any of our businesses, info@omegaseedfund.com

Are you interested in promoting your product or service to our audience, contact Opportunities@OmegaSeedFund.com


Disclaimer: This is only for informational and discussion purposes. This does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation of any security or any other product or service. We are not offering any legal, investment, tax, or medical advice.



                             
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Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Building a powerful elevator pitch - How Steve Jobs' Stole John Sculley From Pepsi During the Early Days of Apple

Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 2


This video is part of my series - Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders, learn more by visiting https://bit.ly/3hExYJX


After you pick the business idea you want to explore, it is time to go to work. The next step is for an entrepreneur is to build an elevator pitch. What is an elevator pitch?

An elevator pitch is a short, concise way of describing your business to outsiders who have no idea about you or your business. It is a prepared mini-speech designed to spark interest in potential investors, customers, and employees. A good elevator pitch is succinct, intriguing, and memorable. A great elevator pitch makes your listener want to learn more. An amazing elevator pitch makes your listener drop everything and join you. More on this later.


Imagine you are riding in an elevator with someone for 30-60 seconds. Can you describe your business idea to that person before the elevator ride is over? I recommend you hit as many of these elements as possible. 
-Who you are
-Business name and tagline
-What you are doing
-Value proposition 
-Why you are doing it 
-Why others should care about it
-Where you will do this
-When this will happen
-How you are doing it
-Your ask(s), maximum of 3 
  
Perfecting your elevator pitch takes time and will likely change, especially if you have not finalized your business idea. At this stage, I definitely think it is beneficial to leave room for flexibility and pivoting. The earlier you work out the kinks of your business idea the better. Changes down the road typically cost more time, money, and effort. 

I have one more quick suggestion for all of you entrepreneurs out there. It is easy for thoughts to change or even slip away if you keep them in your head. This will not happen if you write them down. Document all your thoughts about your business idea in a journal, or even better on your Smartphone. Then you can revisit your thoughts, and document potential changes or ideas, so you can create the perfect elevator pitch for your billion-dollar idea.   

Would you like a little more convincing about the importance of an elevator pitch? Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, made one of the more famous elevator pitches to John Sculley of Pepsi.

Back in 1983, John Sculley was the president of Pepsi. He was a very highly paid executive sitting atop of one of PepsiCo's most important divisions, and the youngest president in Pepsi's history.

Sculley had dedicated his career to Pepsi, and was widely believed to be a serious contender to become PepsiCo's chairman one day. Sculley constantly turned down offers from other companies. Then Steve Jobs reached him.

Apple was looking for a CEO. Steve Jobs needed someone to run the company while he focused on product development. Although Sculley was intrigued by Apple's rise to become a Fortune 500 company in only six years, he said he was not interested.

Sculley eventually agreed to meet Jobs. Initially, he was taken aback by how young he was. Steve was only 27, but he and Sculley had a lot in common. Both were detail-oriented perfectionists, and both liked to build companies.

However, Sculley was shocked by Apple's headquarters. It looked like the branch office of an insurance company. Completely unimpressive. Sculley also noticed he was the only person wearing a suit, as all the Apple employees were dressed less formally than the maintenance staff at Pepsi.

Jobs told Sculley that Apple was going to be the most important computer company in the world because it was going to put the technological power of corporations into the hands of the individual.

Sculley was impressed with Jobs. Jobs was fascinated by Pepsi's marketing. However, at the end of the meeting, Sculley reiterated that he was not interested in leaving Pepsi. 

Jobs persisted. Eventually, Jobs had one more opportunity to pitch Sculley. During the pitch, Jobs looked Sculley in the eyes and said, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?"

That challenge hit Sculley like a fist in the stomach. That one sentence that haunted him. It gnawed at Sculley. It would not let him sleep. It was so powerful, it finally convinced him to leave Pepsi behind and join Apple. Today, that elevator pitch is considered one of the best elevator pitches in history.



Are you looking for funding for an idea or business, send us your stuff and we will take a look, Funding@OmegaSeedFund.com

Are you interested in investing time or money into any of our businesses, info@omegaseedfund.com

Are you interested in promoting your product or service to our audience, contact Opportunities@OmegaSeedFund.com


Disclaimer: This is only for informational and discussion purposes. This does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation of any security or any other product or service. We are not offering any legal, investment, tax, or medical advice. 



Want More?


Previous Post - What Kind of Business Should You Start? – How Mark Zuckerberg Pivoted From Rating Hotness to Facebook- Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 1