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 costlgy reminder that her fledgling business stilll had several issues to work She was still applying labels by hand righg up until thedoors opened, and she wasn’ certain that the bold, colorful sunburst logo matchesd the upscale brand she wanted to Brown also traveled with only full-size 16-ounce bottles of her tea, forcing her to hand out eightg times more tea for free than if she had come with 2-ounce sample sizes. This year, Brown took her KimBees Gourmeft Sweet Tea exhibit back to Las Vegas withsmaller samples, eleganty labels to match her high-end marketingh plans, business cards and 1,000 brochuress to educate potential distributorsd and customers.
Organizers took Her company wonthrew awards, including a second- and third-place honor for best sweeteneed green tea and first place for best “That first year, we should have just gone to observer it and see what it was all Brown says. “We got smartefr this year, and everybodyg 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 bottles in the past two montha alone, selling about three-fourths of those and providinganother 2,50o or so for promotional Brown says she hopes to add at least three more flavors by year’s end.
She’s also in the earlyy stages of looking at options for her own bottlinyg plantin Greensboro. Brown sells tea out of her shop in the Southsid e neighborhood ofdowntown Greensboro, and a tea housw in Arizona has picked up her productd for sale. Online orders are growing, and Browb connected with several other potentialoutlets hotels, bookstores and cafes — as well as potentialo distributors at this year’s tea expo. “We’re still workinh on directing traffic over this she saysof Southside. “Some people still aren’t used to coming this far downtown. But it’s starting to pick up.
We’rs all helping to promote each other to get the word Growing upin Austin, Texas, Brown could frequentlgy be found on her family’s fron t porch. While others were busy making homemade ice Brown would brew sweet tea and experiment with different flavor combinations, trying to find ways to improvw a Southern staple and keep it from growin g boring. It remained a hobb y when she came to Greensboro as a manufacturingg majorat . Brown got a glimpse at the science of brewing when she tooka co-olp position with in Eden during college.
But the hobbyh moved to the back burnerwhen Brown, who says she long harborec an entrepreneur’s spirit, headed to Los Angelez to found Basketdoodle, a designer gift baske company for a celebrity clientele. That business took off, as the autographed photos of famous clients adorn her new shop in the Southsid neighborhoodcan attest. She first glimpsed that up-and-comingy section of downtown on a return trip to the Gate City back in 2005 to visitr friendsfrom college. A decision by Brown’s landlord back in L.A. to sell the building she rented provided the impetus she needed to move back toNortbh Carolina.
“He said he would sell it to mefor $2 Brown says with a chuckle, recalling the hefty price tag. “I ‘Are you sick? I make gift baskets. What you talking So she contactedBrenda Saufley, a broker with Allen Tate to look into setting up shop in Southside with an eye towards moving her basket company into a more stabled situation. “She told me she wanted to establish her own businessw here and wanted to be close to Saufley said.
“When I told her abou these units here wheres you can work downstairs andlive upstairs, combined with how the area was she just loved Friends and family encouraged her to brew up her flavoref sweet teas for sale, and Brownb again got the entrepreneurial itch. When Rhonda an assistant business and economics professorat , askedc Brown to speak to a Brown decided to use the groupo as a captive audience for taste-testing for her concoctions sweet green tea, almond green tea and a lemon-raspberry black tea.
The classx decided to take on bottling the tea as a Brown says she decided to market her firstf three flavors because no one else was offerintg much besides plainor lemon-flavored sweey tea. And most of those product s came in plastic bottlews and were sweetenedwith high-fructose corn syrup. Brown had a different visiom forher start-up tea company, called KimBeese for a nickname given by her godmother.