By Lisa Gibson
Herald Staff Writer - 09/10/2007
This article can also be found at http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=49780§ion=Business.
At 20, East Grand Forks' Nick Beste already owns a few businesses expected to bring in more than $6 million this year.
While his business endeavors are more diverse now, Beste started with just the Beste Co., which distributed Village Hot Sauce outside of the Red River Valley. Now, Beste Co. also distributes Red Pepper Chip Sauce and Village Mild Sauce.
“We have Village in 150 different stores in Minnesota,” Beste said.
Beste is a student at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management in Minneapolis. He owns Beste Co. with his father, Kevin Beste.
“We are food brokers,” Nick Beste said. “We line up the distributors, retailers and marketing efforts.”
Beste is heading into his junior year at Carlson. He's been working on his food brokerage business since the first day of his freshman year.
“Anything from the milk you buy to the cereal you buy goes through someone else's hands,” he said. “A very strong relationship has to be formed between the company and us.”
Beste Co. now has Village mild and hot sauces in 30 stores in the Minneapolis area and Red Pepper Chip Sauce in 40 stores outside of the Red River Valley.
“Every week, we call the manufacturers and order what we need,” Nick Beste said. “Then, it gets shipped to Minnesota. It's a pretty slick process.
“It all started with the sauces and expanded.”
More interests
Beste also co-owns Vici Enterprises, which controls The Alumni Advisor, Ushirtz and part of Long Drive Media with Kevin Carlow, whom Beste met at school.
“We started talking about this, and we just sort of hit it off,” Beste said.
The Alumni Advisor is a book for college graduates. Paid for through advertising, it is distributed free at nine schools in the country.
Last year, 8,000 copies of the book were handed out at the University of Minnesota. This year, Texas A&M is on board for 55,000 copies for March 2008. The company is growing quickly, looking at distribution at 50 schools for next year.
The Alumni Advisor is a finalist for the Minnesota Cup, a business plan competition. Many companies submit their business plans and go through an extensive evaluation process. The Alumni Advisor is in the top three in the student division. If Beste and Carlow win the student competition, they'll receive $5,000 cash and the top three finalists will win legal assistance from the University of Minnesota Multi-Profession Business Law Clinic.
Ushirtz makes custom products for fraternities, sororities, intramural teams and other institutions. It makes anything from T-shirts and sweat pants to poker chips.
Long Drive Media has an agreement with more than 600 golf courses nationwide to advertise on the GPS on golf carts. The first major advertiser for the company is almost signed to a seven-digit buy.
Beste said the goal is to turn his business ventures into something along the lines of Virgin Group, Berkshire or Cerberus, all large companies that control hundreds of individual companies.
“Ultimately, I would like to retire by the time I'm 25,” Beste said. “At the current place we are and at our current earnings, I am well on my way to that goal. That doesn't mean I will actually stop working at 25 because I love what I do, but I will have the ability.”
Reach Gibson at (701) 787-6754, or lgibson@gfherald.com.
