About Sharelle

I’ve been starting businesses since I was ten.

Building DRY and now Second Sip gives me the chance to see an idea become a national brand and to learn how businesses evolve as markets, customers and partners change. I loved building it, and I learned something at nearly every stage.

Sharelle Klaus laughing in a kitchen, stirring a pitcher of a sparkling drink beside bottles of DRY Botanical Bubbly

Before DRY

I grew up in Bend, Oregon, and went to Seattle Pacific University. I majored in political science, but the finance and accounting classes I took ended up being some of the most useful of my career.

After college, I worked in Washington, D.C., consulting on public-private partnerships with Price Waterhouse and Infrastructure Management Group. I learned how complicated deals get put together, but I also realized I wanted to build a business of my own.

In 1999, with two young daughters, I started Planet Squid, an internet portal for tweens. I loved creating the brand and discovered I enjoyed raising money. Then the dot-com bubble burst. We couldn’t raise our next round, and the company closed. I decided my next business had to be something I was truly passionate about. Around that time, I was also president of the Seattle chapter of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs. Being around other women who were building businesses was incredibly valuable.

Starting DRY

In 2004, I was pregnant with my fourth child and still loved going out to wonderful restaurants. But if I wasn’t drinking wine, my choices were basically water or a sugary soda. It drove me crazy. Why should the person not drinking alcohol have the least interesting thing on the table?

I called a food scientist for help, bought a refractometer and started experimenting in my kitchen. Most of those early sodas were terrible. I tested flavors over and over, and lavender nearly did me in. In 2005, I borrowed $15,000 against our house and launched DRY with lavender, lemongrass, rhubarb and kumquat.

I started by walking into restaurants and asking chefs to taste it. The first thirty said yes. They understood immediately what I was trying to do. Then QFC came along, and I spent plenty of nights stocking shelves myself. When The French Laundry placed an order, I could hardly believe it.

Building DRY nationally

About six months after we launched DRY, an investor tried to lower our valuation hours before closing. I walked away, and a month later we raised a Series A twice the size. In 2008, committed financing disappeared during the recession and I had to lay off most of the team. Those were completely different lessons about money, people and timing. Neither came from a business school case study. I learned them because I had to make the decision and live with it.

By 2018, DRY was in more than 9,000 stores, including Target, Kroger and Costco. We were the fastest-growing CSD in both the natural and conventional channels. We built markets, earned national placements and developed relationships with retailers, brokers and distributors such as KeHE and UNFI. Over time, I learned how to support those partners, make smarter investments in distribution and adapt when the market changed. That experience has been invaluable in building Second Sip.

Over twenty years, we learned how to build a national beverage brand while constantly improving the economics behind it. We got smarter about where to invest, where to pull back, how to maximize margins and which opportunities were actually worth pursuing. We also helped shape the growing non-alcoholic beverage category, investing in Sans Bar, co-writing The Guide to Zero-Proof Cocktails and helping establish the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association. By 2024, DRY had sold more than 100 million bottles and cans. That kind of longevity taught me not just how to grow a brand, but how to keep adapting and building a stronger business along the way.

Closing DRY

DRY closed in late 2025. After twenty years in market, it was time for a new chapter. Closing a business I had built and loved for so long was difficult, but it doesn’t diminish what we accomplished. We created a brand that customers cared about, helped establish a thriving category and built relationships that lasted for years. I’m proud of that work, and I carry the experience of every stage of it into what I do today.

Second Sip

Second Sip started because I once again saw a gap in the market. At DRY we had a front-row seat to consumers’ changing drinking habits, and I personally love a good martini, but I don’t always want all the alcohol that comes with one. I’d still like to enjoy a second drink and get up for yoga the next morning. I tried the zero-proof spirits and they just weren’t giving me what I wanted. So the idea of Second Sip was born.

I called Leo Robitschek, whose work at Eleven Madison Park and NoMad I admired, and Leo brought in Nick Strangeway, who co-founded Hepple and has spent his career making exceptional spirits. We agreed we weren’t going to put a product on the market unless the best bartenders in New York and London would actually use it in a martini. We didn’t start with a price or an alcohol target. We started with taste. After a lot of work, we had a gin at 20% ABV, about half the alcohol of a conventional gin.

We launched in New York in 2025 and partnered with Southern Glazer’s in early 2026. After twenty years with DRY, I came into Second Sip with a much deeper understanding of what distributors, buyers and accounts need from a brand. It’s also my first company with co-founders, and I love what Leo and Nick bring to the table. We each make the business better.

What I’ve learned, so far

Five lessons from twenty years in business.

1.
Not knowing the rules is an advantage for about a year.
I asked QFC for displays without slotting fees because I didn’t know any better. That innocence helped at first. Twenty years later, I value understanding how the retailer makes money just as much as understanding my own product.
2.
A store count is not a business.
I’ve won big national placements and I’ve lost them. The exciting part is getting on the shelf. The real work is making sure the product sells, the retailer wants it back and you can afford to keep supplying it.
3.
Choose investors the way you’d choose a co-founder.
I’ve taken money, fought to raise it and walked away when I desperately needed it. The terms matter, but so does the person you’ll be dealing with when things get difficult.
4.
Make the hard call a quarter earlier than feels comfortable.
I’ve held on to accounts, plans and expenses longer than I should have. It took years to learn that changing course isn’t the same as giving up.
5.
Taste first. Then everything else.
For Second Sip, we started with the martini we wanted to drink, not a target price or ABV. But I also know from DRY that great liquid isn’t enough. You have to build a business that can keep selling it.

Sharelle Klaus in a blue headscarf sitting on a sand dune in the Moroccan Sahara at sunset

Away from work

Outside of work.

I’ve always found inspiration in nature, food, and experiencing different cultures and ways of life. I love traveling, discovering new places and seeing the world from a different perspective. I’m also the mother of four adult kids who continue to inspire me in all sorts of ways. I’ve never been one for a traditional office. I spent a year running DRY from the road in a converted SUV, and these days I’m often working from Morocco. I’ve found that getting out into the world, meeting new people and experiencing new things is where some of my best ideas come from.

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Professional bio

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Short bio

Sharelle Klaus is an entrepreneur, brand builder and CEO with more than 20 years of experience in the consumer beverage industry. In 2005, she founded DRY Soda Co., growing it from a kitchen startup into one of the longest-standing independent beverage brands in the U.S., with national distribution in more than 9,000 retail locations, including Target, Kroger and Costco, and more than 100 million bottles and cans sold. A pioneer in the adult non-alcoholic beverage category, she was a founding board member of the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association and co-authored The Guide to Zero-Proof Cocktails.

Today, Sharelle is co-founder and CEO of Second Sip, a lower-alcohol spirits company. She also advises founders, investors and consumer companies, drawing on two decades of firsthand experience to help them identify opportunities, improve profitability, avoid costly pitfalls and build brands that last.

Long bio

Sharelle Klaus is an entrepreneur, brand builder and CEO with more than 20 years of experience in the consumer beverage industry. In 2005, she founded DRY Soda Co., growing it from a kitchen startup into one of the longest-standing independent beverage brands in the U.S. Under her leadership, DRY expanded into more than 9,000 retail locations, including Target, Kroger and Costco, and sold more than 100 million bottles and cans over its twenty years in market.

Sharelle launched DRY in Seattle with a $15,000 home equity loan and four distinctive flavors: lavender, lemongrass, rhubarb and kumquat. The brand helped pioneer the adult non-alcoholic beverage category and developed a loyal national following. She went on to co-author The Guide to Zero-Proof Cocktails and became a founding board member of the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association. DRY operated for twenty years before closing in late 2025.

In 2025, Sharelle co-founded Second Sip with internationally recognized beverage experts Leo Robitschek and Nick Strangeway. Their first product, a 20% ABV London Dry-style gin, was developed to deliver the experience of a classic martini with half the alcohol. Second Sip launched in New York in 2025 and partnered with Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits in 2026. Sharelle continues to serve as the company’s CEO, applying the experience gained over two decades of building DRY to this new category of lower-alcohol spirits.

Throughout her career, Sharelle has raised capital, secured national retail distribution, built relationships with major distributors including KeHE and UNFI, and managed the financial and operational demands of growing an independent consumer brand. Her experience spans everything from launching new products and entering national retail accounts to improving margins, managing spending and adapting to changing markets. She now shares that knowledge with founders, investment firms and consumer companies, helping them recognize opportunities, make better decisions and build profitable, lasting brands.

Before DRY, Sharelle worked as a consultant with Price Waterhouse and Infrastructure Management Group and founded Planet Squid, an early internet business for children. She also served as president of the Seattle chapter of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs. She holds a degree in political science from Seattle Pacific University.

Originally from Bend, Oregon, Sharelle is a mother of four and spends much of her time in Morocco. She continues to build businesses, advise founders and investors, and speak about entrepreneurship, consumer brands and what it takes to succeed over the long term.

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