Eureka Moment
Lockdown runs on Hampstead Heath with my friend James always ended with a couple of beers. Socially distanced... of course! The problem? We'd just undone the run in two stubby cans. In the US, almost half the beer market is lite; in the UK, it's barely 4%. That felt crazy. People want to enjoy a few pints with friends and still make the run club in the morning! No one was creating a beer for that occasion, so that's exactly what we did.
Finance
We bootstrapped at the start, with a small loan from Virgin StartUp. This allowed us to show genuine traction & bring in our first group of investors. But raising money doesn't mean you can get loose-pursed. As a start up, every pound has to work a hundred times harder! Luckily James & I both come from advertising so being creative & entrepreneurial at a fraction of the cost has let us punch above our weight.
Regrets
No, I have far more important things to worry about.
What would you change?
Start‑ups are basically a series of mistakes to (hopefully) learn from. Hiring is the big one for me. We got lucky with our first hire, Luke - he's a superstar and will probably be my boss one day (he's already very good at telling me what to do). But we've also got it wrong, and it has set us back months. Getting the right people early is game-changing.
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