The Reinvention(s) of Sophia Collier, Part 2

Sophia Collier is a woman who just won't quit. In the first part of our story, Collier stormed Washington, DC to try and convince the FCC to allow her company, Broadwave, to share the broadcast spectrum -- despite howls from cable-TV and direct-broadcast-satellite industry giants.

That was only the latest wrinkle in a career ranging from a stint at an ashram to the top slot at a mutual-fund company. In the second part of the story, we circle back to trace the earlier triumphs in a remarkable career.

Reinvention II: Pop Star

Collier wasn't necessarily opposed to doing something as ordinary as going to college. The soda business just caught her fancy before she could get there. On a hot August day in 1977, not long after she dropped out of her ashram and moved to Brooklyn, New York, Collier and a friend experimented with mixing up seltzer, juice, fruit, and a few secret ingredients. Since they liked the results, they figured others would too. "The memory of the variety of seltzers and syrups that once existed will always be a part of New York," Collier says. "I remembered the fruit sodas that were mixed to order when I was a young child. But by the 1970s, Coke and Pepsi were big, and ginger ale was considered an alternative beverage. No natural sodas existed." Her own fond memories were enough to convince her to start bottling her concoction as Soho Natural Soda; she used the $10,000 that she had earned as book royalties to fund the startup.

Every part of the business was a crash course in something or another, and Collier soaked it up like a college freshman turned loose without distribution requirements. She especially enjoyed tinkering with flavorings. "One of the most exciting things about a soda company was the opportunity to be involved with the product itself," she says. "We loved seeking new tastes and experimenting with all kinds of wonderful fruits and spices. We'd go to our suppliers and say, 'Please bring out all of your very best ingredients, so we can try them,' and they would. I especially love orange juice, and it turns out that orange juice has as many different blends as single-malt scotch."

Collier and her partner soon discovered that even the highest-quality flavor essences were only a tiny part of the total cost of producing soda. "We could create the ultimate quality soda without hurting our ability to have a profitable product," Collier says. "The truth is, it's easy to make great soda. Most companies just choose not to do it because they think the public can't tell the difference between good and bad."

Collier set out to prove that notion wrong, starting with the first line of consumers: retailers. She likes to say that she earned her MBA on the streets of New York, hustling deli owners up and down Manhattan for orders of a case or two. "They key thing is not to insult the manager," she says. "A lot of the stores were owned by immigrants who were very recent arrivals. The manager was sometimes 14 years old. So I'd ask for the manager, look him in the eye, then open the cap on a cold soda, and just give it to him to try. Almost no one can resist an open soda."

Investors, however, have a knack for resisting all sorts of yummy-seeming stuff. "One gentleman, Jim Wickersham, asked me what my goals were," she recalls. "I told him that my goal was to make a great soft drink. Then he asked me what my real goals were, saying, 'Don't you want to make money?' "

Intrigued nonetheless, Wickersham put Collier in touch with the Rockefellers. "By then, I knew the proper answer: My goal is to make money for me and my investors," Collier says, in a still-gentle but now-firm tone of voice. After the once-over from Wickersham, she also overhauled her wardrobe, laying in a supply of cashmere and pearls. "Now I always have them on. I'm always ready," she says, resplendent on a rare, hot New Hampshire day in her sweater set and sensible short haircut.

The Rockefellers were duly impressed. "I brought the cold sodas and the business plan," she recalls. "And I remember looking into the eyes of those stony-faced people in the family office in Rockefeller Center. They looked like the characters in American Gothic. So I finished up, and the man said to me, 'Ms. Collier,' and I expected him to tell me to get out. 'You were fantastic.' " Fortuitously, the Rockefellers had been looking to invest in a socially responsible, profitable, natural product. The fact that two women ran the business out of a warehouse in Brooklyn was a bonus. "Everything that was a negative to other people was a positive to the Rockefellers," she recalls now. It was a good lesson in the importance of finding like-minded investors -- not simply financial ones -- a lesson she would put to good use later on.