The Lizard King is back in the arena, but he’s backstage, not front and center. That’s where he says he wants to be, though. He’s through with the song and dance routine, he insists. He’s not a brand manager, and he’s not the entrepreneur either.
The Lizard King – John Bello, in his former role with SoBe, where the rallying cry was “Drain the Lizard” – is an investor now, a power broker, a guy who spots potential, feeds and nurtures it, and then rides it to a payday. Whereas it was once about flipping cases for him, now it’s about flipping companies.
At least, that’s his position, and in some ways, he’s right. After all, it was just two years ago that Bello parlayed a $6 million investment in IZZE sparkling juices into a $75 million sale to PepsiCo, the same company to which he more famously sold his own creation, SoBe Beverages for a cool $337 million back in 2001.
But Bello the salesman is still in full effect, even when he’s selling Bello the investor. There’s been some friction between paydays, and some of it’s still ongoing. He’s seen one product line collapse on him, another one struggle to keep its feet. Even Bello’s admirers – and there are many – might want to see the now 62 year-old kick back, lighten up, recognize that he’s had a nice, dreamy, multi-million dollar run in the beverage business, wake up and smell the coffee.
Only problem is, Bello already did wake up and smell the coffee, and to him, it smelled like more cash.
Bello and his partners at Sherbrooke Capital recently invested $6 million in Adina World Beat Beverages; their aim is to create a set of coffee products that will become the biggest brew in the cooler case since Starbucks’ Frappucino, and they think Adina has the potential to do it.
But while the once-hyperactive Bello said he’ll have a hand in the brand’s development, he won’t be hustling cases out of trucks – or hassling the distributors who own those trucks – like he did during his days as the co-founder of SoBe.
In those days, Bello cut a reputation with his employees by getting his hands dirty and personally dabbling in all the tasks he asked them to do. These days are different, he swears.
“I don’t want to get on the field,” he said. ?But here’s the question: can a guy who made his bones pulling tricks like stealing his competition’s cooler stickers continue to find success when he’s not able to re-shape a brand around his own personality? His two greatest successes, SoBe, and before that, the promotion of NFL Properties, both had attitude, a gutsy feel that was all their own. Even when Bello sold IZZE, the acquisition by PepsiCo was considered by some to be a last-minute bailout for a strapped niche brand that had lost its momentum, the combination of Bello with the brand felt oddly incongruous. For a Yoga-Mom friendly brand with the hip quotient of a Volkswagen Beetle, they were sold by a guy whose approach correlates more directly with a Panzer division.
So what does that mean now that he’s put his money into an exotic-juice-cum-coffee company that plans to save the world? Can the Lizard King really do coffee?