From 
Del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
TwitThis
A Brown University student, Scott vacationed on Nantucket Island, a resort community off the coast of Massachusetts. At 19, he spent his days working on his boat, so when someone suggested he make muffins to sell to people docked in the harbor, Scott figured, Why not?
As he and a college friend, Tom First, made their muffin rounds, yachties would ask if they had newspapers or cigarettes for sale. "We'd say, 'Sure, up at the dock.' Then we'd hurry back, buy ten papers and sell the extras to our other customers."
Soon they had a thriving business. With the slogan "Ain't nothing those boys won't do," Tom and Tom could be seen running around the harbor doing everything from selling ice to shampooing dogs.
The summer of 1988 was a hot one. Tom First came back from vacation in Spain praising a particularly thirst-quenching peach juice concoction. He tried to replicate it and, as Scott says, "Bang! It was that quick." Nantucket Nectars was born.
The market opportunity for a healthy, tasty drink was wide open. Bottled water hadn't yet become popular. Most juices, Scott recalls, "were horrible, full of additives."
Scott says he never thought about going into business. He and First both failed an accounting course at Brown. It wasn't until Scott took a community college class that he began to understand the concept of profit margins. Mostly, he says, "we learned on the job."
They focused obsessively on quality and getting the product they wanted. When they started bottling their juices, the bottle cap company made caps only in white or silver for other clients. "We wanted a purple cap. They said, 'We are not putting purple paint in the machine.' We said, 'We'll clean the machine.' "
The purple caps became a hallmark of Nantucket Nectars. So did the messages printed on the underside of each cap -- fun trivia about Nantucket or inside information about company employees or the fact that Scott's ball-retrieving dog Becky was "part Lab, part springer spaniel, and part shortstop."
"A lot of that stuff is more intuitive than people realize," Scott says of their offbeat marketing efforts. Although he and First were heralded as mavericks, he admits, "For us, it was so much trial and error. You bounce off this wall and then off that wall, and meanwhile you try to stay on your feet."
Their balancing act worked. Nantucket Nectars grew to national prominence, landing on Inc. magazine's list of fastest-growing U.S. companies for three years running. They were in 49 states and some 15 countries. Still, Scott felt he couldn't be complacent.
"There was never a moment when we said, 'Wow, we are making it.' I lived in my car for a long time. Plenty of nights I cried because I thought we'd go out of business. But when you have this dream and you love what you do, you do it."
After a dozen or so years, though, the sense of adventure, of always learning, faded. Growing the company from $100 million to $500 million would demand different skills and tasks than creating it from scratch. "The business was no longer about marketing a product the way no one else had before. It was about distribution and shelf space."
Instead of waking up each day to the excitement and challenge of something new, Scott realized, "I wasn't having as much fun."
They sold the company to Cadbury Schweppes in 2002. "It was a challenging time," Scott recalls. "I didn't know what to do with the rest of my life." After a lot of soul-searching, he concluded, "The only way I can be happy again is to do something I love."
He was approached by Nantucket Television, a tiny local cable station that was always on the verge of bankruptcy. Scott had even bailed them out. This time, he had a new answer: "How about if I buy you guys out, and I'll run the station?"
Four years later, Nantucket Television has morphed into Plum TV, a station serving local news with a global twist to markets in Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Vail, Aspen and the Hamptons. "My hope is that one day Plum TV can be very smart, very fair, interesting TV."
For now, though, Scott's loving his job again. And that's enough to make every day an adventure.
And FYI...
- Martha Stewart turned her passion into a billion-dollar empire. She shares her secrets in her book The Martha Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success as You Start, Grow, or Manage a Business.
- Dr. Alan R. Zimmerman, author of Pivot, says just one turn in attitude can lead to success.
- Looking for a meaningful, happy life? Try What Do I Do Now? A Handbook for Life by Mark E. Klein.
From Reader's Digest - July 2006
Got a money question? Write to Maria Bartiromo at
.
Advertisement 
