The Team You Need to open a Successful Wichita Brewery

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Transcript

Improved transcript coming soon.

hello and welcome him back back again to what’s brewing with Augustine and I am Augustine Steen Iacopelli hence the name Augustine and I’m your host today and here we talk about to all things food beer coffee and the excitement and challenges and struggles of opening up a Wichita brewing company here and Kansas that’s what were at in the future where Mr. talking about different styles of beer Roscoe to talk about some of the longer-range plans of Augustine brewing and why we are taking so long seemingly to get our initial doors open it’s hint it’s all about creating the system needed to rapidly grow beyond Wichita Kansas so if you are hearing this podcast from somewhere else across the country there may be an Augustine O coming to you probably not that soon but it is coming so heavily today what the along the lines of the business side of opening opening up a brewing company here in Wichita Kansas is to talk a little bit about becoming a brewery know it all now number one no person is an island and the biggest mistake in business and in life in general you could make is thinking that you know everything or that you even know enough none of us weather were in business already or not knows enough to be successful that’s why it’s important to lean on other people so I a I and my partner Jeff Finn we have been brewing for a combined total of over 40 years we know how to make beer that’s not a problem we don’t know everything that there is to know about starting and running a successful brewery and so for us we’ve realized that it becomes easier when you put the right people around you be beyond both him and I we have our spouses which both thus both of them provide additional education knowledge information and talents that are unique to our team but beyond that you need everybody from a good lawyer around you good accountant around you really in-house you need your brewery person, the expert driving that initially that’s good to be one of the owners longer-term you want to be able to so that you can grow hand that piece of the business off to someone else that you trust and has been hired on and has been the well-trained in what the goals are and what the objectives are for your brewery and then you move on to look at the overall strategy of the business I you also need your eye management person your marketing person this is the non-sexy part of the business for the most part because even the marketing Scana fun especially with beer management means just lots and lots and lots of paperwork also lots and lots of personnel issues that are not much fun to deal with day-to-day most breweries employ younger people will be no different unlikely at Wichita a it at our Wichita brewing company and so unfortunately when you’re dealing with the younger people and perhaps even more significantly are a millennial gentle generation has presented its own challenges with respect to employment it’s good to be daily grind on that side of things and you really need to have somebody who has a thick skin and be has a strong will to say your to do this this is the policies and everything like that I’m flipside it’s a lot of paperwork a lot of paperwork especially the brewing industry there is a town of paperwork that constantly has to be done and especially initially there is anybody hand that off to it’s just a matter of doing it if you grow enough there are companies that to assist with processing the paperwork involved with running a brewery but for the most part of your on your own so I that something to keep in mind another person that you got have you have your financial financial person I you really need somebody who’s good in-house and you also need to have somebody who is an excellent CPA with experience dealing with breweries breweries here in the United States have federal state and local regulations and laws governing them and you really need somebody who knows what to do in order to keep you out of trouble plus is an expert in whatever manner in which you have incorporated with so take your time and make sure you bring on a good CPA firm and also be ready to pay for them a CPA firm can be as cheap as 300 bucks to well over 1000 or more depending on how complicated your situation is so that something if you’re planning a brewery you need to make sure you have in the plan and if you don’t get it in there beer seems like it’s got these massive profit margins and per unit when you just thinking about the production of it does but it gets very expensive because of all the services and all the people we have to have around you so it is something to think about if you’re getting into it finally if you are doing the like we are working to have a restaurant side of the business we believe very strongly that good beer should be paired with good food and all very successful businesses that I know of also have something that’s consistent consistency is really important were seeing a lot of the shift in the local market toward making and establishing your brewery is just a tap room and that does track attract a fair number of people but you have to keep in mind that your margins on the beer that you are producing that isn’t being sold in your truck tap room because you’re driving out to distribution has a much much much lower and margin on it and so you have to sell a lot more beer to make ends meet if you are not selling food in creating a more full-service environment so that something to very much keep in mind because I don’t think a lot of breweries and about that and what winds up happening is they just create themselves an extra job instead of building a business that’s going to be sustainable and not only make a lot of great beer but also make money for the individuals involved which is the point of starting a business if you’re just doing it as a hobby keep brewing as a hobby if you want to make something meaningful if you want to create a real business and create a real business so those are the four people in house that you need and of course we talked about legal we talked about CPA financial people the thing that I touch on is that I think is important as well or at least has been for us as we been getting ready to launch is finding the right people have around you and really working hard to build relationships and take on mentors those are people who are looking out for your best interest and are unafraid to give you very poignant straight forward recommendations as to how you should be operating and also what you should be thinking about if you don’t do it all if you don’t listen that’s kind of up to you but having those people around you is really important I believe to keep on the straight and narrow especially if you’re opening up a business for the first time if you’ve never done it before you need people who’ve been successful around you in order to help give you a chance for success