Speaking & podcasts
Speaking about the realities of building a business.
I speak to founders, investors and people in food, beverage and hospitality about what twenty years of building a brand can teach you. From developing a category and winning national accounts to working with distributors, brokers and investors, I share practical lessons about creating opportunities, protecting margins and building something that lasts.
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Topics
Speaking topics.
- 01
Twenty years of building consumer brands
How DRY stayed in market for two decades, what made it work, where we struggled and what I’m doing differently with Second Sip.
- 02
The parts of entrepreneurship nobody puts on the panel
The everyday decisions behind the big wins: choosing partners, managing capital, building teams, making timely changes and keeping a brand moving forward.
- 03
Building a brand when the odds are against you
Creating a category before retailers had a shelf for it, growing market by market and learning to work with the partners who determine whether you stay.
- 04
Women founders, capital and leadership
Raising money as a woman, leading a business and seeing what has changed over the last twenty years.
- 05
The future of beverage
Why people are drinking differently, what that means for low- and no-alcohol products, and what buyers are looking for.
- 06
Growth, profitability and the economics behind the shelf
What national placements really cost, how distributor and broker economics add up, and why profitable repeat sales matter more than impressive announcements.
- 07
Why experience makes better entrepreneurs
What twenty years taught me about recognizing opportunities, asking better questions, adapting to change and helping the next generation of founders build with more confidence.
Stages and events
- Investors in People · January 17, 2023 · Online talkRe-writing the leadership handbook, from the back of an SUV
- BevNET Live · October 17, 2022 · KeynoteBevNET Live Winter 2022: The Gospel of Gross Margin, with Dry Soda CEO Sharelle Klaus
- Lo and No Beverage Summit USA (Kisaco Research) · November 2020 · RoundtableRoundtable: How to Accelerate Mainstreaming the Lo-No Trend in the U.S. to Create a $1 Billion Category
- BevNET Live · December 2019 · WorkshopBevNET Live Winter 2019: Beverage School
- BevNET Live · 2018 · PanelTaking the Risk: On Women in Beverage with REBBL, Dry Soda & Millennial Brands
Podcasts and recorded interviews
- Taste Radio (BevNET) · January 6, 2026Lessons Learned, Applied. A CPG Pioneer's 'Second' Act.
- Voodoo Brands podcast · 2025Sharelle Klaus: Changing Consumers' Behavior Around Happy Hour
- Female Startup Club (now Imagine If with Doone Roisin) · March 11, 2021How this Founder disrupted the non-alcoholic beverage industry from her living room, with DRY's Sharelle Klaus
- Seattle Pacific University · 2021Zero-proof cocktails with Sharelle Klaus
- Lead Like a Woman Show · October 22, 2020You Don't Get to Quit
- Taste Radio (BevNET) · December 15, 2017Taste Radio Ep. 88: DRY Soda Founder on How to Play The Long Game… and Win
- Venture Voice · 2005How DRY Soda founder Sharelle Klaus pioneered the culinary soda category
- Beyond the Shelf (ChefsBest) · UndatedHow has Dry January changed the beverage industry with Sharelle Klaus of DRY Botanical Bubbly
- Specialty Sodas Podcast · UndatedHow Dry Soda Co. Became the Fastest Growing Soda Company in the United States, with Founder and CEO Sharelle Klaus
The book
The Guide to Zero-Proof Cocktails
I wrote The Guide to Zero-Proof Cocktails with some wonderful Seattle bartenders in 2020. We wanted people who weren’t drinking alcohol to have the same care, flavor and experience as everyone else. Working on the book changed how I thought about what DRY could become.
I’m working on another book, this time about what I’ve learned building consumer businesses.
Planning an event, a panel or a show?
Send me the date, the audience and what you’re hoping to cover.
Speaking inquiries