74 min listen
BrewDog: From Salty Sea Dog to Rebellious Beer Captain
BrewDog: From Salty Sea Dog to Rebellious Beer Captain
ratings:
Length:
52 minutes
Released:
May 12, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
From salty sea dog to captain of BrewDog in the space of a year. James Watt is the founder of the rocket ship brewery and brand known as BrewDog. Now valued at over $1 billion, this incredible startup began life in co-founder Martin Dickie’s mum’s garage.
“No one wanted to buy our beer. Everyone told us to make beer with less flavour, with less bitterness, with less hops, that our labels looked stupid, like nobody wanted to know and we were working almost 24/7, sleeping on sacks of malt on the floor, filling bottles by hand, doing deliveries out of the back of my beat up Volkswagen car, and just going absolutely nowhere.”
But it took a meeting with Michael Jackson (no, not that one), a punt at Tesco and playing two high street banks off against each other to give them the kickstart they needed.
Today, BrewDog are well known for their rebellious marketing tactics and have recruited a clan of investors known as equity punks, raising £80 million through a range of clever crowdfunding campaigns.
But how have they handled the COVID-19 pandemic? What have they done to ensure the nation’s thirst remains quenched - and how the hell have they produced and distributed over 250,000 units of hand sanitizer (free) to the NHS and charities? All the while operating the brewery AND adhering to social distancing measures?
If you’re an entrepreneur, James has one piece of advice for you:
“The only logical thing that my useless advice could be is don't listen to advice, which would also apply to this advice just now.”
We chat about:
From rebellious child, to quitting law, to making beer
Overcoming the first disastrous year
Fanvestors - advocate ambassadors AKA equity punk investors
Developing the next generation of leaders from within the company
The importance of culture fit when hiring
Managing BrewDog through the pandemic
Links:
Book - The hard thing about hard things - Ben Horowitz
App - Hop Drop
Want to receive our podcast on a weekly basis? Subscribe to our newsletter!
“No one wanted to buy our beer. Everyone told us to make beer with less flavour, with less bitterness, with less hops, that our labels looked stupid, like nobody wanted to know and we were working almost 24/7, sleeping on sacks of malt on the floor, filling bottles by hand, doing deliveries out of the back of my beat up Volkswagen car, and just going absolutely nowhere.”
But it took a meeting with Michael Jackson (no, not that one), a punt at Tesco and playing two high street banks off against each other to give them the kickstart they needed.
Today, BrewDog are well known for their rebellious marketing tactics and have recruited a clan of investors known as equity punks, raising £80 million through a range of clever crowdfunding campaigns.
But how have they handled the COVID-19 pandemic? What have they done to ensure the nation’s thirst remains quenched - and how the hell have they produced and distributed over 250,000 units of hand sanitizer (free) to the NHS and charities? All the while operating the brewery AND adhering to social distancing measures?
If you’re an entrepreneur, James has one piece of advice for you:
“The only logical thing that my useless advice could be is don't listen to advice, which would also apply to this advice just now.”
We chat about:
From rebellious child, to quitting law, to making beer
Overcoming the first disastrous year
Fanvestors - advocate ambassadors AKA equity punk investors
Developing the next generation of leaders from within the company
The importance of culture fit when hiring
Managing BrewDog through the pandemic
Links:
Book - The hard thing about hard things - Ben Horowitz
App - Hop Drop
Want to receive our podcast on a weekly basis? Subscribe to our newsletter!
Released:
May 12, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Unruly - From lecturer to millionaire. Sarah Wood tells all.: Today we are joined by one of the best known, and certainly most liked entrepreneurs in the UK - Sarah Wood from Unruly Media. The tl;dr on Sarah is that she went to University of Cambridge, then became a lecturer at the University of Sussex, then she Co Founded Unruly, sold it for £114m to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp a few years later, and now teaches a course back at Cambridge whilst maintaining a role as CEO at the company she helped build. In this episode you'll find out what Unruly does, and how Cambridge University responded to her suggested classroom title she teaches entitled “ Mashups, memes and LOLitics, online video culture and the screen media revolution” by Secret Leaders with Dan Murray-Serter