This photo is from a trip my partner and I took to Cortes Island, but it made me think of one of my favourite little things in Germany, fritz-kola.
Fritz-kola, as the name suggests, is a German soda brand. They make a regular cola, a “super zero,” which is effectively a zero sugar cola with extra caffeine, and other flavours (including mischmasch, which is a delicious combination of kola, orange drink, and lemonade).
Growing up, I was a big soda fan. We never really had it in the house, but I’ve got a wicked sweet tooth, so I’d drink as much of it as I could get my hands on. Sugar, as we know, is the devil, so I had to try to cut it out or at least find alternatives. Diet Coke is okay, but I never really liked the taste that much, so when Coke Zero came out and I found that it tasted pretty similar to the real thing, I was already primed to be hooked.
Anyway, fritz-kola is way better! And it comes in glass bottles, which is cool. I mean, it’s better than plastic, that’s for sure.
But anyway, one of the things that it made me realize is that if a savvy entrepreneur in Vancouver were to develop their own zero sugar cola alternative that:
- tasted as good as Coke Zero
- costed roughly the same amount
- had simple but elegant branding
then they could potentially do decent business, right?
I think there are two types of small businesses these days. First, are the businesses started by someone who doesn’t just want to be an entrepreneur, but wants to run that type of business. Think restaurant owners who work as either the General Manager or Head Chef, breweries that are owned by their brewers, or book stores where the owner works the cash and stocks the shelves.
The second type are businesses like the first, but the owner doesn’t want to be involved in the day-to-day. I’ve worked for a couple businesses where the owner really wants to treat it almost as a sort of passive income stream, and wants little to do with the day to day. Or, they hire managers to run the business so that they can take on a more “strategic” role, and end up getting in the way more than anything else.
What I’m trying to say, is that I don’t think you’d do very well starting a soda brand in Vancouver if your goal was to not have to work, or to eventually compete with Coca-Cola and Pepsi Co. I do think you could make a good living, create some good local jobs, and provide a valuable product that I would be so grateful for. I hate giving Coca-Cola my money!
It can’t be that hard either, right? Maybe you could rent out some space in a local brewery, because they’d have similar equipment I think. I know Calister was doing soft drinks for a bit, and Phillips does sodas too. So you find some space, get your recipe figured out and really dial it in. And then put some decent thought into the the branding. But don’t spend too much time on that. Get a nice logo and font, and maybe a website so that people can contact you for orders once you start to gain steam?
And then what, bottle a few palettes and try to sell them? It can’t be that hard!
Think about it!