The Million Dollar Comeback

[Melissa Russian]

Theembattled cyclist was able to rebrand himself using "The Forward" that features weekly interviews on a variety of topics. Under the WEDU brand, Armstrong sells cycling gear and merchandise through its online store and offers listeners a premier subscription service with exclusive content at $60.

The Department of Justice sought out nearly $100 million in damages for defrauding the U.S. government by accepting millions of dollars in sponsorship money from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) cycling team. Armstrong settled with the federal government for $5 million in 2018.

At the pinnacle of his career in 2005, Armstrong earned an estimated $28 million from salary, endorsements, book sales, and speaking engagements, according to Forbes. He announced his retirement after winning his seventh consecutive Tour de France in the same year.

Armstrong staged another comeback into pro-cycling in 2009 where he reportedly earned $20 million. In that year, he became an early investor in Uber through venture capitalist Chris Sacca. Armstrong invested $100,000 in the ridesharing company, according to CNBC.

This includes a $50 million Royal Reset Refresh calling for new POS terminals, kitchen display screens, and indoor digital menu boards, which will be deployed starting this month. These investments are matched dollar-for-dollar by participating operators. Because of strong interest, Burger King accelerated its timeline and will spend most of this $50 million investment in 2023.

The company is also working through applications for its Royal Reset Remodel program, which provides up to $200 million in funding for remodels. Restaurants and operators with the greatest potential for higher returns are being prioritized. Almost 25 percent of remodeling applications are for complete scrap and rebuilds.

When it comes to the digital business, sales increased 36 percent year-over-year and mixed 11 percent. Same-store sales were also fueled by a focus on the Whopper, momentum from the Royal Crispy Chicken platform, and value positioning.

Popeyes U.S. same-store sales increased 1.5 percent in Q4, thanks in part to a better digital business. Roughly 20 percent of sales came via those channels in Q4, a 30 percent increase year-over-year.

Globally, the chain ended 2022 with almost 4,100 restaurants, a leap from the roughly 2,700 it had when RBI acquired it in 2017. There were more than 200 North America openings in 2022, featuring the highest number of new franchisees and the highest percentage of freestanding single or double drive-thru locations in five years. Outside of North America, Popeyes opened 180-plus units, a nearly 7x increase above 2017; that growth came from existing markets like Turkey, Spain, Brazil, and the U.K., and new markets, such as South Korea, India, and Indonesia.

The pandemic has been challenging for the family of four, Ward said. Her daughter graduated high school last spring after moving to online courses to finish out the year, then had to attend most of her classes in her first year at Colorado State University from her dorm room.

There will be three more million-dollar drawings over each of the next three weeks. The state announced on Thursday the first five winners of the $50,000 scholarships for vaccinated kids ages 12-17, and there will be drawings each of the next four weeks to hand out a total of 25 scholarships.

Summers says he was the only licensed Black distiller in the U.S. post-Prohibition in 2012, and when he launched his hibiscus-based liqueur that year, he had to navigate an industry that wasn't set up for him to succeed.

"I started working the market, and when I went to accounts, no one believed I was the brand owner," Summers tells Entrepreneur. "To this day, most places I go (and I've been to thousands) have never met a Black liquor brand owner before."

"These are people who had everything stolen from them," Summers says. "They were taken from their home; families were destroyed. They were given new names, forced to practice a different religion. They had every part of their identities destroyed. But somehow they preserved this cultural identifier."

"The difference in spices that were traded on various islands correlated directly to the ethnicities of the indentured servants working there," Summers explains. "Jamaica, for example, had a high number of Chinese indentured servants, hence ginger and cardamom. Islands like Trinidad and Tobago had a high influx of East Indian indentured servants who brought their spices with them, so cinnamon, nutmeg and clove."

"My doctor found a tumor inside my spine the size of a golf ball," Summers says. "He said, 'You have a 95% chance of death and 50% chance of paralysis if you live. You should organize your paperwork.' I lived, and the experience will adjust your perspective."

"What I really want to do is day drink," Summers says. "I want to be around interesting people in the middle of my day, in the middle of the week. I want to have great conversations with great food and beverage, and I want to monetize it."

"The organic matter in the base mix is removed in the form of complex polysaccharides, and everything that's left is crystal clear and shelf-stable," Summers says. "Again, I am not a food scientist. It took me a long time to figure that out. But that's my contribution to this centuries-old story."

"First, I have a speech impediment and have great difficulty pronouncing the letter 'r,'" Summers says. "However, I had eight years of enunciation lessons in public school. One of the things I learned was: words that end in a down sound are sad. 'Sorrel' is a sad word. 'Sorel' is happy, and I can pronounce it."

The ways to enjoy Sorel are near-limitless, Summers says. Although people of Caribbean descent typically drink it straight (hot or cold), it complements an array of seasonal cocktails too. Part of Sorel's unique appeal is in its flavor-first approach.

"Big liquor companies solve the problem [of alcohol tasting bad] by adding flavors to alcohol," Summers explains. "So we have blueberry-flavored vodka and habanero-flavored tequila. I reverse the process. They add flavors to alcohol; I add alcohol to flavor. Flavor's always the most important component of what we produce."

About six months after Summers left corporate America behind, a friend and VP at Hearst magazines asked him to lunch to consider an attractive job offer: mid-six figures, a corner office on the 32nd floor overlooking Central Park.

A man at the next table overheard their conversation and asked if Summers was looking for investors. Summers gave him his card and an extra bottle he'd brought ("Because I live in New York City, I know to be prepared," he says.)

The man turned out to be Alexander Bernstein, son of internationally acclaimed conductor Leonard Bernstein. He became Sorel's first investor and made it possible for Summers to acquire the brand's distillery in Red Hook.

"Six feet of seawater in the basement," Summers recalls. "Five feet of seawater on the first floor. All of the commodities, all of the equipment, destroyed. The building took major structural damage. Insurance did not pay a dime. FEMA did not pay a dime. The SBA rejected 90% of the applications that came out of Red Hook."

"I rebuilt it with a lot of sweat, and it took every last dime to relaunch the business," Summers says. "That really should have been the end right there. That should have stopped us. But I figured that the people who kept this beverage alive had to go through more than I did, so I should at least try as hard as they did."

"You can do everything yourself, but you can't do everything well," Summers says. "I was making the product, doing sales calls, opening new markets, doing all the marketing, packaging, merchandising, keeping up all the books. I wasn't doing a good job of all of it, and I was neglecting myself in the process. [We] could not keep up with how much product we needed to make to be a successful business."

In the middle of it all, Summers also struggled to find investors whose values aligned with the brand's. A series of frustrating close calls ensued: A national deal to take Sorel across the country for millions of dollars. A bidding war among three of the biggest liquor companies in the U.S. Another deal worth millions that made it to final negotiations in 2016.

"The people who created this deserve to have this story told, and that doesn't happen if my goal is to build it and then flip it," Summers says. "My goal is to use the product as a vehicle for storytelling. Because story matters. So for me, the big part was not just finding money, but finding people whose intention and values align with my own."

In addition to prioritizing investors who share his values, Summers has spent years writing, teaching and coordinating educational curricula to promote diversity and inclusion within the beverage industry.

"There was a time, and it wasn't long ago, when we did not talk about sexism, homophobia, racism, antisemitism or any of these things in our industry," Summers says, "and because I experienced a particular level of discrimination myself, I wanted to make sure that we could make the most level playing field possible for everyone involved."

For many years, Summers taught a seminar called "How to Build a Longer Table." But in 2019, when nothing had fundamentally changed, he decided to teach a different course: "How to Build Your Own Table."

"Because it's easier to construct something that is equitable from the ground up than to convince people who exist in structures that are not equitable that they should change for anyone's benefit," Summers explains.

"And I sat back and I said to her, the only thing better than building a company that they offer you $100 million for is building a company they can't afford," Summers says. "And I see that's what you are doing. If you're asking me if I've got a chance to create legacy, the answer is yes."

Sorel returned to shelves in October 2021 and "had an especially auspicious first year back," Summers says. In 2022, Sorel entered international spirits competitions and placed gold or better 37 times.

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