Professor and student: Goldman (right) met Nalebuff at Yale business school
FORTUNE -- In September 1997, I went for a run with a friend in New York City. We both wanted a tasty post-exercise drink, but everything on the market was too sweet.
I'd had the same discussion three years earlier with Barry Nalebuff, my business school professor at Yale. I e-mailed Barry, who had just returned from India, where he was writing a case study about tea.
He told me that tea was one of the world's cheapest luxuries, but that bottled teas in the U.S. were made from the lowest-quality tea. Barry and I had always wanted to work together. We had our product.
I had no experience in the beverage industry, but I quit my job at Calvert, a socially responsible investment firm, and Barry and I began brewing tea in my kitchen [in Bethesda, Md.]. In March 1998 we took a batch of tea in thermoses to Whole Foods (WFMI, Fortune 500), and the buyer ordered 15,000 bottles.
Over the next eight weeks we had to raise money, design the labels, and make the tea. Filtering those tea leaves was no easy task! We also found that by cutting down the amount of sweetener, we could afford to use natural sugar sources, a move that eventually led us to make our drinks all organic.
As health and environmental concerns hit the mainstream, our teas took hold, and after ten years in business we sold 40% of the company to Coca-Cola (COKE).
Our goal: to see Honest products in stores around the world. 
| Overnight Avg Rate | Latest | Change | Last Week |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 yr fixed | 3.75% | 3.66% | |
| 15 yr fixed | 2.89% | 2.79% | |
| 5/1 ARM | 2.66% | 2.59% | |
| 30 yr refi | 3.74% | 3.64% | |
| 15 yr refi | 2.89% | 2.79% |
Today's featured rates:
| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 13.24 | 0.03 | 0.23% |
| General Electric Co | 23.53 | -0.13 | -0.55% |
| Pfizer Inc | 29.04 | -0.07 | -0.24% |
| Microsoft Corp | 34.27 | 0.12 | 0.35% |
| Intel Corp | 23.92 | -0.13 | -0.53% |
| Index | Last | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dow | 15,303.10 | 8.60 | 0.06% |
| Nasdaq | 3,459.14 | -0.28 | -0.01% |
| S&P 500 | 1,649.60 | -0.91 | -0.06% |
| Treasuries | 2.01 | -0.01 | -0.59% |
|
The fuss over Apple's complex strategies to avoid taxes put the corporate tax code on display in all its convoluted glory this week. More |
The 79 tornadoes that hit over three days in 10 states caused billions in losses, with most of damage concentrated in Moore, Oklahoma. More |
Users are flocking to a new email program. More |
Vermont, a patent-rich state, is cracking down on so-called "patent trolling," a growing problem for entrepreneurs nationwide. More |
New residents are flocking to these 10 cities, which added the largest number of people between July 2011 and July 2012, according to Census Bureau. More |
.
