Evolution of Love 2

Think Big

Coca-Cola refused to give one man a discount. That man bought their dead competitor and turned it into a global giant.

But here’s the twist.

He didn’t build it from scratch.

He bought a brand that had already failed. Twice.

And that’s what makes Pepsi’s story different from every other business origin story you’ve heard.

Caleb Bradham was a pharmacist in New Bern, North Carolina.

In 1893, he created a drink at his soda fountain. Called it “Brad’s Drink” at first. Then renamed it Pepsi-Cola.

It took off. He built a company. Expanded across the country. Had hundreds of bottlers. Life was good.

Then World War I ended.

Sugar prices went crazy. Bradham speculated. Bet wrong. Lost everything.

In 1923, Pepsi-Cola went bankrupt.

Bradham didn’t pivot. Didn’t rebuild. Didn’t have a second act.

He went back to running a pharmacy until he died.

That should have been the end of the story.

But someone bought the bankrupt brand for almost nothing. Tried to make it work. Failed.

Pepsi went bankrupt again in 1931.

Two bankruptcies. Two different owners. The brand was a punchline.

No visionary founder steering the ship. No Steve Jobs. No Walt Disney. No one with a grand plan.

Just a dead brand that kept getting passed around like a bad debt.

Then Charles Guth bought it.

He ran a candy company. Needed a cola for his stores. Coca-Cola wouldn’t give him a discount. So he bought the twice-dead Pepsi brand out of spite.

Not vision. Spite.

He reformulated it. Sold it cheap. “Twice as much for a nickel” became the pitch during the Depression.

People were broke. They wanted more for less. Pepsi gave it to them.

The company survived. Barely.

For decades, Pepsi was the scrappy underdog. The cheap alternative. The brand your parents bought when Coke was too expensive.

No mythology. No founder genius. Just survival.

Then Donald Kendall changed everything.

Kendall was a salesman who worked his way up through the company. Became CEO in 1963. And he understood something his predecessors didn’t.

Pepsi couldn’t out-Coke Coca-Cola.

Coke owned tradition. Owned Americana. Owned the past.

So Kendall went after the future.

The “Pepsi Generation” campaigns targeted youth. Made it about identity, not taste. Coke was your parents’ drink. Pepsi was yours.

He launched the Pepsi Challenge. Blind taste tests in malls across America. Let people discover they actually preferred Pepsi. Made them question everything they thought they knew about cola.

Then he made the move that transformed Pepsi from a soda company into something bigger.

He merged Pepsi with Frito-Lay.

Suddenly Pepsi wasn’t just competing in beverages. They owned snacks. Chips. The stuff people bought alongside their drinks.

Kendall saw what others missed. People don’t just drink soda. They snack. Own both and you own the whole moment.

That merger created PepsiCo. A company that could compete with Coca-Cola not by beating them at cola, but by playing a different game entirely.

Kendall took a twice-bankrupt soda brand bought out of spite and turned it into one of the largest food and beverage companies on the planet.

Not because he had a founder’s vision.

Because he inherited a mess and refused to play by someone else’s rules.

Each CEO after him added something. Fixed something. Expanded something.

Not because of some master plan from 1893.

Because they kept showing up. Kept adapting. Kept refusing to die.

Today PepsiCo owns dozens of brands. Operates in over 200 countries. Employs hundreds of thousands of people.

All from a brand that went bankrupt twice before it was 40 years old.

Here’s what most people miss about Pepsi’s story.

It didn’t have a visionary founder who saw the future.

It had a founder who lost everything and never recovered.

It didn’t have a perfect plan.

It had a series of people who inherited a mess and made it slightly better.

It didn’t have destiny on its side.

It just refused to stay dead.

That’s the part nobody talks about.

Most business stories are about genius founders with perfect vision.

Pepsi’s story is about ordinary people making the best of a bad situation. Over and over. For a hundred years.

Sometimes the company that wins isn’t the one with the best start.

It’s the one that survives long enough to figure it out.

What situation are you in that feels like a twice-bankrupt soda brand?

What mess did you inherit that everyone says is beyond saving?

What “cheap alternative” positioning are you embarrassed about when you should be leaning into it?

Pepsi didn’t become a global giant because of where it started.

It became one because it refused to accept where it was.

No founder myth required.

No perfect origin story.

Just survival. Adaptation. And the willingness to find a lane when the obvious one was taken.

Your business doesn’t need a legendary beginning.

It needs you to keep showing up.

Keep adapting.

Keep refusing to stay down.

The company that wins isn’t always the one that starts strongest.

It’s the one that lasts longest.

Think Big.