Review by Frank Plowright

In 2013, two years after selling the iced tea company they founded in 1998 to Coca Cola, Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff produced a graphic novel about how they identified a gap in the market and successfully filled it. Coca Cola killed the brand in 2018. Apparently Barack Obama’s endorsement counts for little.

Goldman and Nalebuff began by realising the amount of sugar in comparable products. Know how many spoons of sugar there are in a bottle of iced tea? Six? Nine, like a can of Coke? Ten, actually. Goldman and Nalebuff’s Honest Tea had just two, and to them still tasted great, and that was their starting point.

This is a business publication, published under Crown’s business imprint, and while the tone is good-natured and humorous in simplifying complex discussions, this isn’t a graphic novel for everyone. Mission in a Bottle can still be dry with technicalities, but anyone interested in starting their own business will discover the full package covering concept, design, economics, manufacture, marketing and publicity.

Obviously much of the step by step detail is particular to their business, but much of it isn’t. Defaulting customers, distribution and manufacturing are common to almost every sales start-up, and while they had the necessary degrees and Nalebuff had one hell of a CV, neither of the partners had practical experience in running a business. Over the first few years the learning curve was rapid and steep.

Illustrating an educational graphic novel is a distinct talent, as the primary function is imparting information clearly, not telling a story clearly, and Sungyoon Choi masters the necessities. As the authors offer their own narrative she has to draw them again and again, and they form the connection points as the business progresses. Choi’s simple cartooning always ensures the advice being given can be easily understood, even when moving into more technical areas.

It’s never spelled out, but is emphasised in so many ways, starting with the product being named Honest Tea, that Goldman and Nalebuff intended to run an ethical business. Success might have come quicker were shortcuts taken, people treated poorly and less pride taken in the product, but all would have impacted long term. Yet investors generally want as large a profit as is possible in the short term, and then they move on. Greed is a powerful drug, but these people were avoided.

The story told overall is interesting, and the writers put their hands up regarding errors, perhaps giving a false impression overall for a successful business, but some mistakes obviously left lingering feelings. Several pieces of advice resonate, one being that you can have myriad computer projections and analysis, but when dealing with actual people, they’re not as valid as many businesses would have you believe.

All these years after Mission in a Bottle was published, you’re not going to find another graphic novel about starting a business, and this has plenty to offer. If you’ve never previously run a sales business it’s probably indispensable.