Keeping an eye on your competition is one thing. Decorating an entire wall in your office with their products is another. For Tyler Benedict, it's a way to remember how hard he worked. and how quickly all this could escape us. His display of more than 200 energy drinks represents the success he has achieved in an industry that is more likely to send intrepid entrepreneurs into bankruptcy than into Donald Trump's tax bracket. " he says proudly. "Most energy drinks fail within six months." Benedict is the founder, owner and CEO of Greensboro-based Source Beverages, a thriving energy drink company with expected revenues of $2 million this year. year and distribution in more than 20 states. At 31, Benedict works from home in jeans and button-down shirts, selling the most caffeinated energy drink on the market, Burn, a tangy, citrus-flavored drink created in 2002. contains 118 milligrams of caffeine in each 8.3-ounce flaming yellow can — 48 percent more than industry leader Red Bull But the creator of this human rocket fuel isn't what you'd expect. . Benedict exudes an aura of calm and tranquility more typical of a yoga guru than the extreme athletes who swallow his product. The University of Florida journalism graduate doesn't fit the mold for industry success. energy drinks, which is worth billions of dollars - an industry. where almost 1,000 new drinks have been launched over the past four years. “We were very careful not to grow too fast,” says Benedict. “A lot of companies try to immediately saturate the domestic market, and they go bankrupt.” Red Bull, introduced in the United States in 1996, revived the energy drink sector. Since then, the Austrian company has dominated the market, and in 2004 its sales exceeded $1.2 billion. Its other competitors include the multi-billion dollar companies Coca-Cola and Pepsico. Benedict is not deterred by the competition. He has a zen-like confidence that if he works hard enough, he will succeed. “I can’t even explain it, but Tyler never seems to even think about quitting,” says his wife Kristi Benedict. "It's something his parents taught him... to have so much confidence." An avid mountain biker, Benedict moved to North Carolina after college, not for a job (he didn't have one), but for the terrain. He met NC State graduate Kristi while living in Charlotte. He proposed three and a half months after they met..