Long before Nicole Bernard Dawes’ brands filled the shelves of thousands of grocery stores, her business journey began with pushing baked goods in a small red wagon. The two-time founder found her love for entrepreneurship as a child, selling $1 cookies to local small businesses.
“My first step into this world was at age 12. My best friend and I ran a cookie business, and we had actual customers,” Dawes tells . “I even sold to local delis in my town—crazy that that was even permitted.”
Over one summer, their cookie operation brought in $500: an impressive sum to a kid, but trivial compared to Dawes’ later success with her organic tortilla chip brand Late July, which hit $100 million in annual sales. Her pre-teen venture wasn’t a financial hit like her later projects, but it taught her about business costs, product sales strategies, and various marketing methods.
Luckily, the 12-year-old had a strong mentor for her first business: her father, the late Steve Bernard, who founded the $4.87 billion Cape Cod potato chips brand in 1980. Undeterred by her young age, he took her dream seriously, teaching her how to structure product costs, price items fairly, and most importantly, bake high-quality treats for customers. That formative summer job prepared her to later help turn around her father’s iconic snack business and launch two of her own brands.
“My dad was really eager for me to learn the business. When I was young, he’d sit down and show me a [profit and loss statement],” Dawes says. “Even now, I bake great cookies—I’m a really good cookie maker.”
From Working at Her Father’s Company to Becoming a Two-Time Founder
Dawes was meant to disrupt the food and beverage industry. Raised by a mother who ran a health food store and a father who built a billion-dollar chip empire, her entire childhood centered on the snack world—and how to make it better.
“I was just a kid, influenced by what my dad saw in Cape Cod potato chips and the idea of reimagining product categories,” Dawes explains. “That’s how you get someone like me who spends their whole career trying to create versions of the products I couldn’t have as a child.”
But her entrepreneurial passion didn’t fully take off until years later. After graduating from Tulane University with an economics degree, she got a job as a management consultant for food and beverage clients. Dawes says it was a joyless, short-lived role, and she quickly quit to help revive her father’s struggling business. At the time, Bernard had just bought Cape Cod chips back from Anheuser-Busch, which had divested from the company almost “overnight,” leaving it without manufacturers, distributors, or retailers.
“Everything aligned perfectly,” Dawes says. “There was no time to worry—we just had to get the brand back on track.”
After four years working at Cape Cod chips, her father sold the company again to snack food firm Lance. Instead of staying for the new ownership era, Dawes decided it was time to carve out her own path.
In 2003, Dawes launched Late July while pregnant with her first child. Today, the organic non-GMO tortilla chip brand is on shelves at major grocers like Target, Whole Foods, Kroger, and Walmart. Over a decade, the $100 million business (which started on her kitchen counter) grew into a huge enterprise—Campbell’s took a majority stake in 2014 and fully acquired Late July in 2018.
It didn’t take long for Dawes to set her sights on Nixie: a zero-sugar soda line with sustainable packaging, offering flavors from cola and root beer to ginger ale and cream soda. She launched the beverage brand shortly after Late July was acquired, and in the eight years since, Nixie has carved out a spot in the competitive market alongside brands like Olipop and Poppi.
Nixie raised nearly $27 million in funding in 2025, and its products are sold at over 11,000 major grocers including Whole Foods, Sprouts, Safeway, and Ralph’s—even on Amazon and Instacart. The brand’s cream soda recently won the best new organic beverage award at the Organic Night Out Awards Natural Products Expo. Just last month, Nixie released two new flavors: cherry cola and strawberry cream.
Dawes Relies on Fellow Female Founders as a Sounding Board
When it comes to entrepreneurship, Dawes has decades of hands-on experience—but that doesn’t mean she has all the answers. The Nixie founder still turns to a circle of professional contacts to navigate new heights of success in the food and beverage space. She advises other aspiring founders to embrace mentors and industry peers as powerful career resources.
“I just need someone to bounce ideas off of sometimes,” Dawes says. “It’s never too early to build a strong network of peers, along with mentors. But over the years, I’ve found myself relying more on my peers.”
Dawes has 20 female founders at her disposal—just a text away. With so few women launching and leading beverage companies like Nixie, these connections are even more critical. Dawes says they all understand the grind of running their own businesses, raising children, and trying to fit in time with friends—a bond that’s been her “most invaluable resource over the years.” She also hopes to bring more women into the fold, even at her own company.
“I want to inspire as many young women to take the leap,” Dawes says. “A lot of the people who join Nixie’s team hope to launch their own businesses someday.”