[00:00:00]
Bill: Every contractor in the country basically had said no to working with us. So we had to pivot to build a brewery ourself.
Logan: Welcome to the Logan Bartlett show. And this episode, what you are going to hear is a conversation I have with co founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing, Bill Shufelt. Now this is a little bit of a different conversation in which the Athletic is not a technology company, but it's a product that I've grown to love.
And so I wanted to have Bill on and talk about his unusual journey into being an entrepreneur.
Logan: Bill worked at Point 72, which is Steve Cohen's hedge fund, before he stopped drinking and realized there weren't great alternatives to non alcoholic beer in market. We talk about the state of the beer industry, what it was like in the early days, and doing things unscalable to get athletics business off the ground.
Bill: I can't tell you how many events I've been to. Done like a trail half marathon that I haven't been at since 2018. People have been like, I met you in 2018 and my fridge has been full of your beer ever since. And in my head, I'm like, that's easily a thousand LTV customer.
Logan: As well as the breakthrough moments that he's seen over the course of the last couple of years and what the future of athletic has in store from here.
A really fun conversation, a product that I've grown to love and an entrepreneur. I was very impressed with. You'll hear that conversation with Bill here now.
Uh, well, Bill, thanks for doing
this.
Bill: For sure.
Logan: Crack should we do the ceremonial crack here?
Bill: Yeah. Cheers.
Logan: So Walker Hayes, uh, who I've learned is a country cheers, uh, Country music star. I'm sure some people will be will be amazed that someone that was born in Tennessee doesn't know Walker Walker Hayes is but This is a delicious, uh, delicious beer.
I was having one earlier when you came in. It's great.
Bill: Oh, thank you. Yeah. It's a, it's a really fun, authentic story out. Yeah. So Walker Hayes is an ascending Nashville based country music star. His most favorite famous song is fancy. Like I would tune in the beer after, but like a lot of our celebrity and athlete partnerships, it's like very authentic. Walker discovered our beer himself.
He was drinking our beer and posting about it on social media. And so like we engaged with that and he's just like a high [00:02:00] performing, very interesting person with great values that we. Attached to as a brand and then once we had him up to Connecticut, like his enthusiasm was just there and he's like the nicest guy in the world to
Logan: How do you go about most of the stuff that I, uh, wake up every day thinking about is like either the venture industry or, I don't know, B2B software or consumer internet in some way. And so the concept of brand is like, uh, a little like ethereal and how you think about it or like nebulous, uh, to me, uh, of what the inputs into that are.
So someone like Walker Hayes or JJ Watt or Karlie Kloss or whoever it is, right, uh, expresses interest on social or says authentically they're fans of it. How do you actually go about vetting if this person's values is consistent with what you want to represent as a company?
Bill: yeah, there's two parts of these brand conversations to and each of those people has built a brand up themselves for a long time and you know, they are their brand in many ways and that's what they're compensated and endorsed upon. And, um, so In many ways, they are looking for brands that reciprocate what they want to stand for in the world to, and I know, particularly in like Walker and JJ's cases like that was really important to them that they loved every piece of athletic that they came in contact with.
Bill: Then I've always thought of brand is kind of 2 things. It's like an onion. Like, I want a customer to interact with. A first superficial vision of athletic brewing, like nice packaging, nice logos or something that gets them in. But then over like a five year journey, I want them to fall in love with the brand over and over again.
And still like when there are a hundred beers and athletic brewing find something out about us that they had no idea that they absolutely love and like just constantly giving them reasons to talk to their friends about or their family about and like spread that word about. And so. We've been really conscious to layer in that brand texture over and over again.
And, you know, this brand is my life, so I want it to be deep and meaningful. Also, like, I don't want it to be some [00:04:00] shell contract brewed contract manufactured company that is like, it doesn't really stand for anything. It doesn't have any depth. I want quality product that's making a real impact in the world.
Huge charitable component, giving people great jobs like big American producer. Um, so there's a lot of depth there that I want our company to represent and be super exciting for our fans too. Um, and that's on the brand side, but like, I think There's like the famous, um, sayings like your brand has to be a movement and I think that to like retain inertia past the, you know, there's the, always the early wave of discoverers who will try anything and anything can look like a success for a year or two.
But like to really sustain a big trend over a long time, a real brand has to have a real movement and a real reason for being. So that's something we've also latched ourself onto and tried to create.
Logan: Is
there a quantifiable way? This is probably a stupid question to anyone in, uh, CPG, uh, but like the quantifiable way you actually assess if the values or how the person is perceived, uh, on their socials or what they represent that you can kind of try to look at the concentric circle overlap of brands, or is it a little bit more, you know, when you see it type feeling out or some of both?
Bill: You know, I'm, I'm a big believer in kind of things that scale and doing things maybe a little slower, but like making less mistakes because of that potentially or having more depth and meaning when it does get there. So I would say in terms of like some of these key relationships on the brand side, um, we said Walker Hayes, JJ Watt, David Chang was really similar.
Like all these people we went to, or they came to us either way and met them in person, spend real time together and like. Kind of tried to get a feel for their enthusiasm. I'm sure David Chang wouldn't mind me saying this, but when I, he had heard about us through a mutual connection and asked if he could meet, and I [00:06:00] immediately went to see him and we got around a conference table and it was so clear, he just like totally understood the occasion, the brand, the impact.
And he was like, He wanted to taste it. And like me and John were there, who's our co founder and brewmaster. And the second he tasted the beer, he was like, yes. And like, just like sort of riffing on it with John. And it was a really cool moment to see. And you could tell that natural electricity and, um, a similar thing with JJ Watt.
Um, I'm sure he also wouldn't mind me saying it, but like JJ Watt was a really early discoverer of athletic and investor and just such a high performance person that I think he really intuitively understood what we're about. And, um, He was like, but I'm definitely not ready to be the face of non alcoholic beer.
And like, he's a Wisconsin guy, big football player, big image. And, um, I was like, Can I fly to you? And if you have 15 minutes for me, I'll stand at the end of your drive with a cooler. And he invited me into his home and we spent a couple hours together and he's like the nicest guy, best listener in the world.
And it was asking all these detailed questions about our brand and what we stand for and like our two for the trails program on charitable. He was like, he runs a big charitable foundation himself and he was asking questions about that to make sure it was legit and like. Like, so he was really vetting our brand, but like, I could tell in those interactions with them in minutes that they were just like, so authentic and into it where we've had interactions that are totally the opposite to where we respectfully go the opposite direction and stuff.
So
Logan: That's interesting.
Logan: So, so the stuff that you, uh, and, and as, as I mentioned, uh, like I uniquely, uh, enjoy the product and, uh, I almost always have a case in my fridge and I think I fall into the, 80 percent or 70 percent or whatever the stat is of people in your customer base or demo that drink alcohol as well and use it as a [00:08:00] supplement or augmentation at different times.
But I'm curious when you look back 2016, 17, when was
the start?
Bill: Idea was 2014. I quit my job, Jane one, 2017 launch, May, 2018.
Logan: What stuff at a market level that was outside of your control you uniquely got right in the timing? And then what are the things maybe on the brand side, uh, that, that you guys maybe were able to put your finger on the scale and influence in your direction.
Bill: Yeah. I think it was, um, you know, similar to you describing your experience. I was. somewhat of a corporate athlete, you know, it's, um, you know, I'm not on a, any field of any sort, but like in a high stress, Hedge fund world where you're graded on your intellect every single day and then your compensation and advancement reflects that at the end of every year.
Like there was an incentive to show up and perform at my best every day.
Logan: And, and to be clear for people that don't know, you're at 0. 72, which was Steve Cohen's, uh, head Funds. You'd probably now owns the, The Mets, but, um, I think it's rumored billions was based on, uh, the culture of 0. 72 and there's some books about, uh, SAC and stuff. So, so definitely a high performance competitive environment, uh, as one of our mutual friends, uh, who used to work there, uh, has attested to me as
well.
Bill: the, yeah, credit to everyone in that room, everyone in that room is showing up and performing every day and it is the most intellectually challenging environment, like when words come out of your mouth or you are pitching something, it's got to be thought through. And there are contrarian thinkers challenging every angle of what you're saying and
Logan: scoreboard's fast and the scoreboard just is very democratizing or fair. It's like, here's what it was. There's no, it's not venture where you can be like, oh, well, you know, right space but wrong idea or something. And it's like, oh, that's fooled by randomness. It's like, you don't know, there's a scoreboard and you're going to be kept to it.
Bill: And ruthless risk management. [00:10:00] If you don't know what you're talking about, like, like ideas get reduced. And, um, I credit to Steve. He is in the seat every single day, locked in, knows what he's talking about and like brings real energy. And it's very fair and meritocratist. So like, um, that was kind of like the background I brought to it.
And I really wanted to show up and perform my best every day. And I think that's why I like a lot of high performing corporate people have like so intuitively gotten our product is you have to be out two, three, four nights a week or doing the extracurriculars your job requires and like networking and idea dinners and things like that.
But. I was also, I wanted to be up early working out. I want to be at my best at 630 when I got to the seat.
Bill: And, you know, I, it took me a very long time to realize, but the alcohol was not an element adding to any part of my life in that, but I wanted to be in all those social situations and everything.
And so it was a very natural, like once the light bulb went on with the help of my wife, um, It was a very obvious idea to me.
Logan: The light bulb went on,
uh, for the company itself.
Bill: Yeah. For athletic
Logan: Yeah. For, for, for, for, for when that happened and the stuff that as you look on like the, the trends, cause clearly you've, you've established the movement in some ways and, uh, and built a pretty religious following of, of your brand. But as I reflect on like health trends have been moving in a good direction for a long time.
And there's probably. Some element of like the increased wearables. I've two on my hands right now. And it becoming self, I mean, listen, these things are such snitches. If you have like a drink the night before, it's like they know, and they yell at you. And my bed yells at me. I get yelled at every direction.
So I have to assume that was like one of the things as well. I'm
Bill: I mean, the nice thing is like when I showed up in my physical this fall, [00:12:00] like an annual physical, I was showing up with not only data from my watch and wearables, but like my pre Nuva scan. And like, I was like, this is all the factual information about what's going on in my body. And like, That just didn't exist 15 years ago.
Like if we wanted answers on diet, I don't know where you would go in 2005. Like try to track down and like get old, um, newspapers or something. But, um, it's something I recognized in my own life and, um, You know, I was just living a high performance life in many areas and like, um, whether that was work, fitness, I wanted, I was about to get married.
I knew I wanted to be like a good parent down the road and so I was like, just like very future looking and I was like, Oh, easy. Like this element is not consistent with all the other areas of my life. But then I. It's kind of, you know, I, I love food. I'm out and about in one of the biggest cities in the world all the time.
I lived in New York for 10 years. I was like, wow, there isn't anything for people who aren't drinking. And then I'd look and I was like, wow, 50 percent of adults have 0. 1 drinks or less per week. Like that is a huge economic opportunity being missed here, but it was. The trend was just so obvious to me. I didn't have to do a lot of research.
I, I just assumed my experience is probably a very common modern adult experience and this is a huge hole out there. But like the whole other part of that too was, you know, identifying a good economic opportunity with a, what, 10 percent probability of good economic success.
Logan: sure
you're doing all this math. What's the arbitrage, like you're looking at the data in Europe versus the U S and being like, there's clearly some
Bill: Yeah, and that's why it took, so me and my wife got so excited about the research and had so much fun researching it and I ran with it for two years, but still at the same time I'm doing that calculus, I'm like, yeah, I will probably never quit my job and do this full time. I actually told the colleague two weeks [00:14:00] before I resigned that there's a 10 percent chance I ever do anything with it.
And when I resigned, he was like. What happened there was, so two years into business planning, my wife read all my materials. She had gotten her MBA and um, she had worked a little in BC and gotten her MBA. And so she was in a very receptive place to be hearing an idea. So she really encouraged me in getting going on research and identified like, it was her enthusiasm in the idea that really helped me get excited about it.
It's one of those things where you can't often see things in yourself, Other people watching you taking themselves out of your experience can tell in a second that like that's the right thing So it was very much the right thing for my health my productivity and she'd seen this entire transformation in my life plus they're just all these stats in the world starting to emerge about like the health impact of alcohol on society and like I have no interest in ever taking away alcohol like The world's a stressful place and people can choose whatever they want, but I would love people to have great options and for moderation to be de stigmatized and cool.
And so I was like talking about all these things, my wife saw this huge health impact in me, and she sat me down for dinner on like probably December like 28th, 2016, and basically said, I want you to walk in and quit your job on the second day of the year. And she was like, the impact you could have on this.
I don't know if you realize it, but like the impact you've had on yourself, you could take to tens of millions of people. And that's more fulfillment than you'll ever get in your current job. And I think you should take a chance on it. And she's like, by the way, I read all your business materials while you're away and they're amazing.
And you have to do this. She's like, I don't want to know you in 20 years if we're still talking about
Logan: That's not a typical intervention. I would say, uh, that, that it gets staged on, uh, on people. I think, I think that's probably a little unique.
Bill: And I, in hindsight, that gets more and more dramatic because it's like, and Oh, by the [00:16:00] way, this thing you're enormously passionate about. You have great household support for the like budgeting sacrifices and lifestyle sacrifices you'll have to make to make that a reality, which
Logan: you need, like the stressors of being a founder in general. Right. Uh, uh, let alone, I, I'm, I'm, I'm curious, uh, on, uh, hedge funds are, uh, very lucratively good financial businesses as, uh, as I think, um, Steve Cohen's art collection or, or baseball team would attest, uh. beer, CPG brands, all this stuff. I mean, it's a big, the number of companies that reach your level of success and the way you've gone about it is very small.
Uh, and it feels like you guys have reached, especially in a new and emerging category and all of that. Was it the. Was it the mission of it that drew you in? And you're like, listen, just based on an impact that I can have on the world versus executing trades a hundred at a time over the course of a day.
Was that the, the, the real appeal? Peel because I assume starting a hedge fund probably could have been an equally, uh, you know, financially successful endeavor and probably on a risk weighted thing, a much better one to pursue.
Bill: yeah, the seat that I was in was a great 25 year career for the rest of my life and now very hard to leave. And I found it intellectually challenging and rewarding. And, um, what is like really lit the fire for how hard the entrepreneurial journey is, is that impact? Like, um, it hasn't been the prospect of like a big future payout.
There is a major desire of mine to protect shareholder capital and provide great jobs to our teammates. So like those are major economic drivers for me. But the real one that like lights the fire whenever I'm doing anything totally insane is the impact I could have on the world and for years on like Saturday and Sunday mornings when the alarm would go off at 3 a.
m. and I'd like be going to some event to sample and set [00:18:00] up a tent and get made fun of for six hours straight. Like that was definitely the impact. And as you know, like every step of building a business is laborious and way more difficult than you would ever think. There's so much more permitting and like accounting and like you wonder, how does everyone ever do this?
And so that's the kind of thing that got me through for
Logan: So to that end, on doing things that are scalable, uh, and, and, uh, going out and trying to change the, um, well, one, get distribution, but two de-stigmatize, uh, what is non-alcoholic beer, I think. Um. It was the, the people that drank O'Doul's, uh, when I was growing up, like my friend's parents that, that would have an O'Doul's, it was always with a little smirk that we would, we would be like, Oh yeah, he, you know, they're drinking O'Doul's not drinking beer.
Uh, and you, you mentioned getting made fun of, uh, so there clearly was this like very big stigma behind it. How did you go from a brand standpoint? And we talked about some of the influencers that you involved, but like, how did you How do you think about destigmatizing something like that and making it the perception actually shift?
Because I think this is a U. S. centric perception, right? Europe, I don't think has the not cool element to the same extent that U.
S. did.
Bill: And I think going back, it is that non alcoholic beer was born out of prohibition. And so it was immediately deemed as this lesser than item. Everyone wanted the thing they used to have. They're stuck with this. And then basically that thing wasn't innovated on for like 80 years.
Logan: so, so actually prohibition happened in what, uh, 1920s or 1930s, I guess, early
Bill: it was throughout the 1920s and then the Volstead Act was like 1934 or something.
Logan: was,
Hey, we'll give you non alcoholic beer, uh, in, in exchange, we're going to take all the stuff with alcohol and it is way away. And so there was already this negative connotation associated with it because something was taken away from people. And then that was sort of when innovation stopped around it.[00:20:00]
Bill: Uh, yeah, it was this lesser than product, um, people had to buy it by default if they wanted beer. And then immediately when alcohol was legalized, people went back to alcoholic beer for the most part. And this kind of just existed with like blips of branding here and there and different launches, but really base macro loggers for a long time.
And, um, I, it was just a really ripe area for innovation to come in. For sure.
Logan: a psychological branding standpoint, I, I assume the big Miller cores and Anheuser Busch and all that have done a, have done a purposeful job in some ways of, of tying masculinity and you know, the alpha male and sports and all that stuff to the, the beer industry. As you go in and try to. Yeah. Sure.
Yeah.
Bill: So on their part, there is a bit of an innovator's dilemma there where like. They can't talk too positively about this segment because like 98 percent of their business is this other segment. Um, so there's a conflict there, which is easier for athletic. In how I went about and changed the stigma, um, I kind of knew that if we had ads out there that were just like, not alcoholic beer, people would see that word and immediately shut it off and be like, not for me.
That's for my record. Uncle in recovery or whatever. And, um, really our thought was get out there and talk to people face to face and sample. And like people interacting with me and our teammates at sampling boosts. And, you know, they'd be like, Oh, shoot, it's not alcoholic. Nevermind. Then I'd be like, try it.
Like, if you can make fun of me all you want, if you try it and the, like that first taste impression for so many people and like the light bulb goes on, they're like, Oh, you know what? That is delicious beer. I still have to drive home, you know, it's [00:22:00] refreshing and you see them just like going through checking it in their head and they're like, you know, I could drink this every night of the week with dinner.
Right. And like, they like start telling you the occasions where they may drink it and they interact with me. See, I'm a normal person that I love this. I'm so passionate about it. They find out a little more about the brand and like, yeah, that's a high intensity resource intense. Interaction like the, I don't know what the customer acquisition cost of spending 10 minutes talking to someone at a booth that I've driven six hours to be at is,
Logan: Probably high.
Bill: it's not great, but like I can't tell you how many events I've done and I've gone back to like three years later, like a trail half marathon that I haven't been at since 2018 people have been like, I met you in 2018 and my fridge has been full of your beer ever since, or like, and in my head I'm like, that's easily a thousand LTV customer.
And um, so I think like you said, scalable before, and I'm a big fan of these like unscalable activities if we do enough of them over and over again, like those scalable activities all of a sudden you turn around and you're like, Oh wow, we activated 3, 500 events
Logan: Totally, totally. I remember, I mean, just to give the authentic of my brand affinity, I, I, I realized I had, I, I probably have had 200 of your beers and I, uh, I saw you're gonna be at a conference, this is, uh, two years ago, three years ago, and I shot you a note. I was, I, I forget, I couldn't make it or something.
I was like, I just wanna say thanks. I really like your, like your product. And I, I don't think I've. Ever done that to any CEO sensor before and was just like, yeah. I, I, I appreciate, uh, I appreciate that. Um, on the unscalable, uh, side of things, there was this vintage of businesses that got going, um, uh, mostly on the back of, I think Facebook and some of the social media companies that, uh.
Have disrupted or tried to go after different industries. Warby Parker going after Liz out of an eyewear and uh, you know, there's a bunch of others that dollar shave club and razors. And we can come up with a list of ones that that [00:24:00] grew really quickly, uh, and went through all those acquisition channels.
Um, I heard that, uh, that you were adverse to that approach in some ways, and maybe it's a vintage of uh, elements of the, the, you know, acquisition costs of Facebook and ATT and all that stuff that's happened now. And so maybe it's, um, What is it? The motherhood of invention is a constraint or whatever the phrase is on that.
Um, but how did you think about like going really fast versus being more methodical, uh, in your growth and your
approach?
Bill: Well, I can't claim to have sat out. Uh, all the fun times of, um, but it's, uh, so as you said, there was like some incredible interpreters who built awesome businesses in the 2010s and like, um, all sorts of different levels of. Success monetization, true brand building and everything. And some of them did were like first to market on all sorts of interesting acquisition channels.
Like Warby Parker, such a famous example. Um, but like Zappos has so many other ones. And like, there's so many examples of people who like identified unique acquisition channels and just ran with it. Like I think Bombas did an unbelievable job with like, um, audio ads particularly, and just like found what worked and drilled into it.
Um, It actually was like the digital ads particularly were actually an incredibly successful scalable channel for us originally because we were a first digitally native beer brand essentially because we do have great partners in the three tier traditional beer world, but we have omni channel flexibility with being a non alcoholic brand.
So we launched nationally online and brick by brick spreading out across the nation that way. Most alcoholic breweries before us, like if they had absolutely lightning in a bottle and you were saying like a Massachusetts based brewery, you might have people out the door at [00:26:00] your brewery for like two hours in a line on a Saturday, but you couldn't sell beer to people in California unless you opened up distributors all over the country.
Athletic, um, When I was launching and raising money at the first, I was like, and we're going to do e commerce and like, we'll see how it catches. I'll pack the boxes and ship them originally. And you know, I was doing the marketing, the digital and just boosting posts basically to target audiences, like pretty simple stuff.
But in 2018, 2019, 2020, that was like a real golden age of being able to scale with those programs. And so we would do. Beer releases where non alcoholic beer had been nothing but loggers before we launched, basically. And here we are launching 25 to 50 very cool IPAs, sours, everything, um, pretty much a beer release every week.
And we're basically selling out in like 30 seconds on the extremely limited release beers across the whole country. And so we had huge advantages on that front. But I did also come from the financial world, and like, as we started to go into a rising interest rate environment, and, you know, we definitely started to be more careful about our capital, and, um, we were also investing a lot in breweries at the time, too, and, you know, it's, I think there's a certain timeline, you know, that we Which, you know, also where investors have a lot of forgiveness for, say, three to four years.
But, like, as you turn the corner in that three to five year range, they really want to see not only good unit economics, but, like, actually becoming EBITDA positive, if not profitable. And that's kind of where we, like, really tested The water's on. Is this really effective? And there were obviously changes in that ecosystem.
And so, um, yeah, so it was great. The digital ecosystem was great for building a national brand and awareness. And we're very thankful to be able to jump through that window is kind of like a first to market, not alcoholic craft brewery introducing all this variety. And we opened up 240 distributors across the country to scale that brick and mortar ecosystem alongside of it.
[00:28:00] But in many ways, when we were launching those markets and distribution, we were launching into warm water because we had been there with digital advertising and product releases. So,
Logan: the awareness was there as well. Yeah.
Bill: which was like a very unique advantage. And now, now we can layer in more traditional marketing.
Logan: In what ways do
you fall into the, uh, beer market?
Logan: Uh, and versus in what do you fall into the sparkling water market from a regulatory standpoint and like how things can get distributed? It sounds like you could do e commerce, but there's probably stuff, um, on health benefits or whatever that You, you can't say like, this is better for you than X, Y, Z thing, right?
That's probably a little bit of a subjective analysis. Like where do you fall in the sort of regulatory, uh, paradox there?
Bill: So we catch a little of everything. Um, we definitely have advantages, advantages in marketing, but And other ways, we like can't use a lot of beer words. We can't use beer, lager, stout, ale, words like that.
Logan: Because
those are branded to mean, yeah,
Bill: A certain level of alcohol, and so that's confusing for customers.
Logan: or is that,
Bill: We can that,
Logan: yeah,
interesting.
Bill: yeah. But then, um, you know, and we wish we could make health claims, um, which I won't do right
Logan: We can anecdotally, I, I will make a health claim on your behalf that, uh, when I, when I have, uh, two athletic, uh, beers in a given night, I wake up feeling far better than when I have, uh, two of any alcoholic drink. My sleep is better by my, uh, or a ring is more forgiving. My eight sleep mattress doesn't yell at me.
So I can make the health claims on your behalf at a very personal level. That's my
Bill: Now I can't reshare the post, you know, just kind of, yeah, no, it's like personal anecdotes and experiences I think are totally fine.
Logan: Listen, it's my, my opinion.
Bill: my life is like a walking example of that, you know, it's, I went from
Logan: But we are, that is the example of that is we're treading on a, like, that is a [00:30:00] line of like, uh, some of the,
Bill: Yeah, I couldn't say because of athletic beers, I can run ultra marathons and sleep nine hours a night through the night and stuff like
Logan: yeah. It's interesting. It's interesting distinction that exists, uh, between all
Bill: But like the. The commentary around the industry though is, um, kind of circling back to that other point is like, is so strong though. It's out of really all corners of the country.
It's from traditional media and like governmental health agencies all the way to like bleeding edge lifestyle hackers of health information and like people like Andrew Huberman and Peter Attia providing like the most like cutting edge health info out there. Um,
Logan: podcast Huberman did. Uh, I, I have to, there's one just on alcohol that I assume, uh, yeah. has proliferated circles around the N. A. world, but I've listened to it two or three times, right? It's really informative about the derivative considerations and his scientific opinion about alcohol and the negative effects of it.
I assume there's, there's tailwinds or some anecdotal evidence that that's probably been a boon to the industry as well.
Bill: Yeah. And I think, um, I think there's a lot in there that we anecdotally knew by experience and like, you know, my own experience with alcohol, but like, I didn't know the mechanisms and actually what was going on in the body and stuff. So it's really interesting to listen to that. And yeah, that was the number one most forwarded podcast last year on Apple
Logan: Is that right?
Bill: yeah, out of
Logan: were actually number two, three, four, but it's nice that we gave Andrew a number one. Yeah. Thank
Bill: You too. Good to have you on the
Logan: but you know, whatever. We'll let him have his one. Um, so, so, so the big shift though, there were all these like little micro trends. Uh, I feel like, you know, and we talked about Huberman or Tia and, you know, You know, uh, wearables and I assume, I don't know, cannabis probably, uh, became an alternative for drinking for some people and we could probably come up with other things.
But the, [00:32:00] the D, um, the de stigmatization, uh, in the, the, the endorsement on some of the celebrity side and stuff. Was there a single moment that you look back on and you're like, okay, that felt like a tipping point, uh, that when we got into Whole Foods or when. Uh, J. G. Watt signed up or, uh, some moment that really felt like the conversation maybe shifted from, um, getting made fun of at those races to, to people knowing and gladly accepting it.
Bill: You know, the like anecdotal evidence has always been so strong. Like whenever I can get a beer in someone's hand or, you know, I was, cause I was our direct customer line into the company for the first two years and I was getting all the DMS. And so there was always like being that close to the customer and the brand.
I almost immediately knew that my life experience was on track with what was going on in the world. And like, so the signs of progress were always there. And it's, it's really hard to identify like any single wins. Um, I don't know if other interpreters are like this, but like me and John are, so we have to be really intentional about being like, Hey, celebrate this win.
And also like, let's be sure to hit pause and share it with the team. Cause I'm like such a problem hunter where like, I'm hungry for constructive feedback and just like, You know, you very often like don't take the wins and just celebrate on the losses. I'm like, so I've always been like really into like gratitude at the end of the day also is like part of my entrepreneurial journey is like actually pausing as I'm getting to bed and being like, what were three really good things that happened today and being like generally thankful for those.
Cause like, you know, The best thing in the world could happen at 10 a. m. and I could even like forget to even like mention it when I get home and I'm just like literally thinking about these like three really random annoying things.
Logan: Yeah. The,
the, it's like the, the gambling adage or whatever, that losses feel two X worse than wins feel good or something. I, I, [00:34:00] I think a lot of entrepreneurs internalize that data point
quite a bit.
Bill: For sure. And not to circle back on the other question, from before, but I think I just started walking down a different path. Um, but, um, You know, there were so many incredible businesses born in the 2010s and like so many entrepreneurial success stories across really all verticals. And like a lot of them had very little to do with the easy money policy.
They're just like, frankly, incredible businesses. And there's so many longterm businesses that like finally came to fruition from, you know, businesses that had been being built that like really matured in the 2012 to 2018 area.
Logan: Who do you hold in that like regard that you sort of think of?
Bill: Well, obviously like Facebook is such a success case and it's always been successful, but like they had their own valleys for sure. Just so many businesses out there that, um, I, I think just in the past five years or maybe like slightly before that we got so used to businesses being like three year success stories.
And, um, you know, like get product market fit, scale the hell out of it and it's done so fast. And, um, I, one big thing in my journey, like it relates to the unscalable behaviors and also the, like building a deeper brand and also reflecting on businesses of the last 20 years. Um, it's like time is very often a variable that's not that talked about and like everyone talks about like how big a force compounding is.
But then doesn't practice it and like, I'm really here thinking that if we just stay at this for a long time and are really consistent in our brand and, you know, our awareness is still so low that like all the gains are going to come over a 10 plus year timeline probably.
Logan: it's, it's an interesting, it's a hard thing for time and compounding to internalize. I, I'll get the stat wrong, but something like if Warren Buffett died at 72 or something, he would have been worth like 50 million bucks or [00:36:00] something like that. It's just like, it was the compounding that happened after for the next 25 years or whatever it is, that has led to, uh, and I, uh, I'm wrong on the number.
I'm sure maybe it's a billion dollars or something, but like, whatever the number is, it's like, we wouldn't have part of it was the longevity at which he kept doing it. That has led to such a major financial gains for him. And I think that's true of the entrepreneurial journey as well. It's just like, if you keep doing the inputs over and over again, uh, there's a lot of stuff that tends to fall your way.
Bill: Yeah. And to tie it into my own industry, some examples of that, like companies that are enormous that people assume we've always just been here, but like, um, you know, Red Bull monster twisted tea are all categories that are like, are all companies that are like 25 year success stories. You know, and it's just like they have a 10 percent cogger and all of a sudden they're just like a 50 billion company.
Logan: sort
of forget, uh, about the, uh, the vintage of those companies, I guess. I, I, uh, yeah, it's an interesting point. And also I feel like there's some, uh, and this isn't, I'll pretend like this is an original idea, but it's, uh, definitely plagiarized from someone else. But as we've, we've moved from the, um, The, the four main television channels, whatever, when our parents were growing up, uh, to the cable networks to now the, uh, streaming services and the infinite proliferation of different Um, uh, social, uh, media and just personalized experiences, you're able to get much more tailored experience.
Like you're no longer beholden just to tide as your only detergent. Like there's actually all this and then distributions no longer. video going on, but it's an exciting show. If you enjoyed, [00:38:00] hit like and subscribe. 1
Bill: I mean, nothing about our launch was easy, uh, from finding our co founder was hundreds of conversations with Brewers until I found John, who is absolutely incredible, New Mexico.
Logan: And doing like a, uh,
Bill: he's just had a small brew pub, um, not even canning beer, uh, but they were racking up awards and, um, he was just, uh, I was going to conferences and talking to like dozens of people, every conference having hundreds of phone conversations, literally trying to get someone interested in this job.
And
Logan: so you started a company, I assume you don't exactly, um, you're not exactly a maker of non alcoholic beer if you don't have a maker of non alcoholic beer. Right. So at this point, you're a, you're a founder, just kind of dating, looking for someone that will say, that's a good idea.
Bill: yeah, it's basically a founder with a white paper who is really into finance and sales and marketing without a technical co founder.
Logan: and ready to go.
Logan: That's funny. Sometimes I'll be like, uh, I'll hear from, um, uh, you know, buddies that I went to high school with or college, they're like, I have this great idea. I just need like a, a tech guy. And I'm like, all right, well that's not, that's actually a pretty key requisite to having a good idea is having a good tech guy.
So, I mean, you had a very good insight, but until you had a, uh, someone to go execute on, you were, uh, yeah, you were, you were
sort of looking for that.
Bill: For sure.
Bill: And then it happened to be that John as a co founder had like so many complimentary traits to me as a person too. And it's like, that's worked out beautifully. Um,
Logan: Did he move?
Bill: he did. Yeah. And then we started home brewing in an empty warehouse, uh, two people who didn't know each other at all for like eight hours a day.
I
Logan: guess the process of brewing and kind of figuring out what was, why does this, besides the pretty [00:40:00] packaging and Walker Hayes on it, like, why is this such a better product, uh, than the O'Doul's, uh, that, you know, whatever my, my dad, single friend drank.
Um,
Bill: kind of first principles moment was, um, you know, rather than starting at the end point and being like, okay, this is how people make non alcoholic beer. We're going to get this equipment and make it and hope the hops survive this incredibly processed process. system. Um, we decided to back it up and like read textbooks about the background of like, John already knew this because he'd been brewing, but I needed to like start from square one and think about like, how do you bring along those esters, aromas, products of fermentation that are like so delicate?
Like, Beer is every bit as delicate as like a nice bottle of wine in many ways, um, and we wanted to like respect those ingredients and treat them well and carry that through to the final product. So coming up with that brewing process in an all natural way was like a big technical challenge and scientific challenge and we did hundreds of trials to try to get to that and then the food safety challenges on the back end too, like without ethanol as a preservative is a big one also.
So,
Logan: can you elaborate on that?
Logan: That's a fascinating point, but ethanol actually serves as, uh, it has a purpose, uh, other than the, the alcohol
component, right?
Bill: For sure. And so, um, we've invested a lot of money in things like tunnel pasteurizers, which aren't common in the craft beer world. But, um, I know the world word pasteurizer. Um, It doesn't have the best image, but I don't think it's understood. Essentially what a pasteurizer, tunnel pasteurizer is at least is, when this beer is in its finished container, it goes very slowly along a conveyor and basically gets a shower.
So there's no chemicals or processing ever touching the inside of the can. It just gradually warms up the beer to like a temperature that's just high enough to kill any bacteria, yeast, or anything that's going to be a spoilage. Um, Organism in [00:42:00] there and then it cools it off again, but it's like it's incredibly gentle to the product to the product and everything.
So, but like no one else really in beer besides the mega breweries was doing things like that. And we had to invest in these enormous tunnel pasteurizers to be sure that our product was bulletproof from a food safety perspective. And, um, There are all these technical challenges, like John and I got food safety degrees and stuff.
So, um, a lot went into that and in the middle of all that, we're just there churning home brew, like trying thing after thing. John approached our, we had a target method in mind, but he's like, okay, we're going to start all the way over here and we're going to change each variable by one degree or like time or pH any given day.
And like that added up. I was like, But if we end up over here, that's going to be like at least a hundred trials. If that's the method. And he's like, yeah, it's gonna take us a long time. And so we stood around and did that. And
Logan: how much, how much did this process take money wise of doing like iterating on this? Cause it's not like shipping bits of code, right? It's a, there's, there's a lot of process that goes into this.
Bill: yeah, not much. Our rent was like 7, 000 a month. And like, there
Logan: Getting the materials and stuff wasn't super expensive
Bill: for sure.
Logan: so it was really just your time that was expensive, uh, um, on a relative basis. So, okay.
Logan: So you're going through this process and have you raised outside
Bill: I was in the process of raising from like basically the minute I met John, I started raising and I thought I was going to have 10 conversations in two weeks and raise the, I was initially going to raise 1. 5 million and then I ended up raising three just to like give a big cushion built. I doubled the size of the brewery we were planning to build and um, every contractor in the country basically had said no to working with us.
So we had to pivot to build the brewery ourselves.
Logan: did they say no? They just didn't believe in the idea or
Bill: Which I mean, in
Logan: [00:44:00] their business?
Bill: fairness to them and their perspective, looking at what I was pitching to
Logan: They didn't believe in 0. 72 as a
Bill: great business decision on their part to say, no, it's like, we didn't have a recipe. We didn't have the process. Like, we didn't know what we're doing. We didn't have demand once it was already made.
So, like, Bill. The embroidery was the right decision and I just didn't know that.
Logan: What, what,
so the verticalization, what did that allow you to do differently?
Logan: Because you actually own the full
Bill: So it's actually been a huge boon, especially through like the COVID period and stuff that we own so much of everything we do and like you can pretty much hedge out a lot of what we do to, um, and get pretty good certainty. So, um, it. It allows us to control quality, like every drop of liquid that comes out of our facilities.
Like we can do everything from ingredient inspection to testing everything that's in tanks multiple times a day, make sure everything's within spec, and if not, it goes down the drain. And then we do 55 more tests on every run before it goes out the door too. And so like, we hold ourselves to a really high standard of quality that we couldn't possibly ask of someone else making our beer.
And, um, So there's a lot of advantages there too. And like. During like peak summer season or if there's fluctuation or we want to make something different in any given day for any given reason, like we have pure flexibility in our facilities to do whatever. Um, and then we also fulfill a lot of our orders in house too.
So it's like there's a lot going on within our spaces that adds to the economics, but yeah, back to your other question.
Bill: So we were home brewing in the empty warehouse, the beer started to taste good. So John started making it as house too, or we had like a little bottling set up or hand bottling and the, Plain brown bottles and um, I was going around to the state of just all over the state of Connecticut because no distributors wanted to work with us until we like I knew if I proved I had a couple hundred stores that would want to buy the beer immediately unavailable, a distributor would be like, of [00:46:00] course, we'll work with you.
So I essentially went around and opened 300 accounts myself and would go with brown bottles, have people taste it, show them an image of what the cans will probably look like in three months. And brick by brick signed up. A number of retail accounts, almost all of which were skeptical and like, I played all sorts of shenanigans around this.
Like I would find people in the parking lot and be like, I'm having a really tough day. Can you do me a solid and come in like two minutes behind me, I'll be talking to the person at the cashier and just be like, And like, so people would pop over my show and be like, did you say non alcoholic beer?
That's an IPA. Get out of here. Or like a woman would like one time at this store in Westport, I had a woman, uh, come in and be like, did you say 50 calories? No way. Where can I buy that? And like, the guy was like, yeah, we'll take it when it's ready.
Logan: Uh, that's
funny.
Bill: like a lot where like
Logan: stuff. The, uh, the word of mouth, the validation in, in all of that.
Logan: Um, and, and so didn't the people that it resonated with on the investor side, were they people that just believed in you and from the whatever the finance world, or were these people that uniquely believed in non alcoholic, uh, beer or what was the combination of that?
Bill: Yeah. Some were like friends, family, colleagues, like a good portion of that. And then I did get a surprising amount of nos or non responses among like people I thought would definitely be in. But like, you know, also like everyone's got different financial moving parts in their life and like, I definitely was not begging anyone to lob checks in with low probability of return.
None. Um, But I was really lucky in that like a lot of no's that I thought were probable yeses, all of a sudden those people would reach back out and be like, you know, I have this other friend that I think would be really into it. And like, there's this amazing network of like one degree away connections that I made and like people I didn't know before, but are now like very good friends are awesome supporters and.
I ended up doing about 120 [00:48:00] meetings, so we'd homebrew during the day and then I'd go to meetings at night or travel or wherever and, um, did 120 meetings. We had 66, um, investors in our angel round, uh, ended up raising about 3 million and, um, it was, You know, it's been an incredible group and, um, uh, they came right back on our series a and like that group, like I wrote monthly investor updates for four years.
I do quarterly now is like an accountability exercise. And I knew if, if all else goes south, I want this to be like a fun, meaningful journey for these people. And like writing those investor letters, um, It was actually like a very meaningful, informative process for me in terms of accountability, progress, and keeping them up to speed.
I had this army of ambassadors and a lot of our best connections as a brand have come through that, um, network of people of our angel investors too. So. Yeah, I got so lucky in that part of the journey. And like, there's so much reflecting on the journey now that I like maybe got right by accident.
Logan: What was that? Like, what was the, yeah. Picking the angel investors are sort of looking into them. What was the, uh,
Bill: Yeah, well, I think, I think so often, uh, both on the founder side and the investor side, there's so little like alignment on like. What do we both want here before we like jump into this, you know, and, uh, I've seen founders who are incredibly like longterm and want to build a 20 year old brand to have like, like people who want to scale now and fast and go, or, um, on my side, like I knew we had to lay out a very big network of manufacturing, hire salespeople, run deeply unprofitable for awhile and then start to really scale the business and get profitable.
And, um, so I, on that longterm time horizon, I got very lucky with the. Like more private oriented investors, but we did bring in a great consumer private equity firm along that journey in our series C, which was probably the perfect stage to, to, um, have some support in business maturity, structuring [00:50:00] board meetings, um, you know, uh, thinking about the longterm org chart, like, um, you know, things that, you know, very well about, like that are great to introduce at a certain stage in business, but there is that earlier stage where the flexibility and speed is so key
Logan: Was the mission kind of the unifying belief between you and the investors initially and that, uh, That the people that were doing, obviously they wanted a financial return, but that wasn't the sole purpose similar to you that like, it wasn't only about the financial opportunity that this presented. Was that sort of the overlapping concentric circles between you and the initial investors?
Bill: Yeah, I think, I think that long term belief in what we're doing and that ultimately it would be, uh, that I would deliver on that. Um, but you know, uh, the details of how we get there, the time horizon, things like that were pretty flexible and, you know, I, I definitely don't claim to know that I had all the answers and I've learned a lot of that in.
And like, that's one of the, like the top things I try to talk about found with founders. Like I try to assess that, like, what do you want? Like what's your goal? How long will that take you to get there? Like that should be informing your investor decision and a big way to, so,
Logan: That's interesting. So, so what is that?
Logan: I mean, hard to say what the future holds, but, uh, is stuff outside of the beer category interesting to you is, uh, will it, will it for the foreseeable future sort of stay within the bounds? Anything that, um, as you kind of look forward that, that piques your interest?
Bill: yeah, that's kind of the challenge is like, Everything always piques our interest and John and I love innovation and we're tinkerers and like I,
Logan: constraint is a
Bill: yeah, my ideal breakfast or lunch is finding a restaurant with a drinks menu with like six different functional fermented things on it that I can like, uh, surround my plate with.
So like the interest is there. Um, but I think the constant challenge is to [00:52:00] like, remember that we're still. Relatively early stage, low distribution, low awareness and stay focused on the true opportunity and just like kind of execute relentlessly about that on that. And then, you know, there is probably a time in the future to become a better diversified company or, um, you know, wait patiently until those two opportunities to emerge.
Logan: Present
Bill: yeah, we definitely have ideas. But like, I think that discipline is, um. You know, if, if those ideas are only like 60 percent as good as our core idea, like it might be worth a, a beta test and like testing it to like make sure we're right about that. But um, at the end of the day, dollars and time taken away from the core is dollars and time likely taken away.
I,
Logan: bit about like running the company and the business of beer or alcohol, but I'm curious experiences that you took from point 72, uh, over, I I'm sure there were, you know, Elements of, of the day to day that didn't port straight over, uh, but probably elements that did. What, what did you like replicate from that experience in, in athletics today?
Bill: I'd like to say like a contrarian thinking mindset, you know, like, From the moment a discussion emerges about an idea in a place like Point 72, like everyone's trying to help you think through the pitfalls of it, to like, you know, try to keep things out of everyone's. Um, but I think that's been part of it is just, um, you know, being a critical thinker and like the velocity of that too.
Um, but, uh, I don't know, there's other things that like people in the beer industry might even find offensive, like the velocity of emails and like, um, you know, I met John who was in the beer industry and I've heard him joke about it since. But like, um, And the speed at which I sent him a hundred emails after we met was probably like outright terrifying.
Logan: Oh yeah. Sure.
Bill: and then we hired more people from the financial industry and like all of a sudden the [00:54:00] culture was just like,
Logan: Professional
persistence is a, uh, is something that I, I don't know if it's, if it's, uh, been totally imparted on, on all parts of a mainstream business, uh, in general, at least what you learned in the finance industry, it might not be the most natural thing.
Bill: but also like, um, in so many industries, people try to like put a pin in something and be like, okay, I'll circle back on this on next Thursday. I'm like, wait, why are we solving this now? Like what is stopping us from like literally solving this right now? Or tomorrow. And like, what does next Thursday have to do with this?
Or like, it's like, I, um, and so there is like a whole different speed in some ways too. Um, but at the same time, um, you know, it's that consistency too and finance, I was in the seat every day, locked in like very specific routines. And I think for that reason I have like no problem working like kind of relentless 10 hour days.
I, I think I have like pretty good balance at this point. I have like good family time, but like a very clear 10 hours where I'm like getting stuff done every day. And um, I, I kind of think of it as like, you know, just very consistently going like 65 miles an hour down the highway. Like every single day I'm at it every year and like so many people on, on our team is that way too, that we're just like really consistent making progress,
Logan: I've
heard you be fairly, um, magnanimous in your praise for, uh, what ostensibly could be considered like competitors in the industry or people that kind of have similar ish missions, uh, in, or maybe they're copying you guys, however, whatever the appropriate way of framing it is. But Um, you don't seem very zero sum from a competitive standpoint in the, in the industry, I guess, first, is that a fair characterization?
And in second, if so, why, why is that the case?
Bill: multiple faces of that. And I [00:56:00] think, um, I. I think anywhere where you're doing good work and adding value is ultimately positive. Some, and I think, um, they're, they're also, even in big, big trends does tend to be power law type return. So I think I have an element of confidence in our execution and our staying power in the industry, but also with like the size.
Of the trend we think we're on, plus the populations we want to bring into the category, a really healthy range of well supported brands is positive for that ecosystem. And so, you know, Heineken launched their zero zero in the U S about six months after we launched as a brand. And I was really excited for that.
Like a lot of. Maybe our investors or like other people are asking me like questions about being worried and it's like, you know, this is one of the most thoughtful, well branded companies in the world and they're probably going to meaningfully enter the spray space and do a good job of marketing and they've done just that.
And then, um, It's great to see like a non alcoholic Guinness in the space and non alcoholic Corona. So like those are fun beers with name recognition that like help people easily jump into the category. Um, but if people like their experience in the category and realize like they don't miss the alcohol that much, like my hope is eventually they get to athletic or like, wow, that is a really good beer too.
and um, and kind of where I do have problems is where like, you know, there are Transcripts and opportunities. Any trends to, um, and so people who like really under invest and aren't necessarily telling an authentic quality proposition, aren't making the product themselves and, um, you know, but like cut and paste the whole website, you know, I've had people who we've had essentially the same words on our cans for six years now.
And like the whole paragraph has ended up on multiple websites are like our whole about page with Basically, just the names changed. Um, [00:58:00] you know, there was also someone who's like little brother did a business school project on athletic and like, didn't tell me that like their brother was launching it.
And so things are dilutive. If like, if you are like stealing all the words and all the ideas, but not delivering on those things that is dilutive to the consumer too. So that kind of thing bothers me, but I, I love it when people are making a real honest go and investment in the category.
Logan: I've, I've heard you talk about, um, leading with a why within your team and explaining to your company, like the why behind a lot of things rather than more unilaterally making the decision or ruling with an iron fist on, uh, uh, when, when things get decided, um, why do you think that's an important principle for you guys as a company?
Bill: Well, I think it. It helps layer depth into a decision, gives people purpose when they're doing something and may not see the reason to it. They're like, Oh, this is why we need to do it. I think that's helpful in adding just like day to day fulfillment rather than like wrote tasks, like people basically going down someone's checklist and they don't know the meaning for it.
But also I'm, I'm like the expert of absolutely nothing. I have a lot of inherent brand intuition and customer intuition because I've, I've dealt with tens of thousands of our customers individually and have been along for the ride on a lot of brand mistakes and stuff, so maybe we have already made certain mistakes already and stuff, so um, but I also share uh, I'm very transparent with our team and share more info on why and stuff like that so that our teammates who are very likely better at what we're talking about than I am, can Give that feedback in real time and disagree.
And we like to have a very flat hierarchy where dialogue is appreciated. Collaboration is encouraged and stuff. So.
Logan: You're, you're not,
um. Particularly, uh, disparaging or antagonistic to the alcohol industry. Uh, and I, I, I guess that's probably a smart [01:00:00] tactic given a lot of your, um, uh, customer base also drinks alcohol, but there are, we talked a little bit about some of the health considerations around it.
Logan: Um, one of the questions I had, and I alluded to this earlier, but why, why was non alcoholic such a big thing in Europe?
Uh, I think it's. Is it 10 percent of the overall
industry over there,
Bill: Depends on the country. It's um, I think on average, so Europe, it's like 5. 6 percent of the beer market.
Logan: which is in the U S today is what 0.
Bill: one, 1. 3 percent something like that. Yeah. It
Logan: when you started, maybe it was
Bill: was like 0. 3 when we started in a lot of channels in the U S it's getting up to five to 10%. It's just like, they're very large channels where it's still zero, basically, um, like convenience and stuff.
Logan: Is the cultural reason though, tying back to that prohibition point, uh, or why did it like, what did Europe do? Right. That's different than the U S.
Bill: I think so. Europe has a bit more of a lager culture, so like, non alcoholic lagers being very present and available. Um, they had very well respected breweries investing in it early on, so that's part of it, but I, I think Prohibition is one of the key things. Um, Spain is one of the biggest cultures. Um, I think it's somewhere 12 to 15 percent of all beer in Spain is non alcoholic beer consumed.
Um, part of that is that it's, uh, it's very affordable. And, uh, I think I'm speaking of big generalizations, but the Spanish culture is prone to like very long sessions and like 10 PM dinners and like shutting it down at two or three in the morning. And, um, even as like whole families. And so I think like a piece of moderation, so you can like, Hang out during that whole thing is something I think business lunches in Europe and the UK are much more likely to potentially feature alcohol.
Um, a lot of these countries had, um, [01:02:00] low alcohol popular styles to begin with. Um, whether that on the continent, that's like pretty common. Farmhouse beer says on things like that, or in the UK, like bitters and mild ales and like mid strength beers, um, brown ales, like just so many really good two to 4 percent offerings where the U S there's always been this, like, of course there are like the macro light beers that are like 4.
2%, but like so much us beer is high octane too. So, yeah,
Logan: People slugging like 10, 12 percent beers.
Bill: like a big part of the reason why I'm.
Bill: Not disparaging to the alcohol industry is like the world is stressful and, um, yeah, while alcohol, there's a lot of health evidence out there. There's also, um, you know, the world's stressful and people need to, like, take a break from that in certain ways.
Like it can be that it can be socializing, can be exercise, it can be meditation or whatever is people's thing. Also, a lot of great introductions in the world have happened that may not have happened. Like how many couples have gotten together and would have been scared to talk to each other if not for alcohol, you know?
So it's hard to,
Logan: I remember
my wife at one 30 at a bar. So I, uh, yeah, I, who knows if not, um, but, but some of the stats on, on like the negative stuff, even outside of health, I didn't realize, uh, how big, so 15 million plus or minus Americans,
Bill: 14. 8
Logan: 14. 8 and
Bill: saw.
Logan: that's like disclosed, let alone the whatever. Uh, multiplier that's undisclosed separate from alcoholism or some form of alcohol abuse.
Is that right?
Bill: Yeah. That's the numbers I've read. Yeah. 14. 8 million documented cases of alcohol use disorder in the country. You know, it's, I've read recently that 5 percent of all cancers are suspected to be attributed to alcohol. There was an article on CNN a few weeks ago, um, like all substances in general, 70 percent of incarcerated people were under the influence of substances, um, [01:04:00] 40 percent of those being alcohol.
So I don't know what year these stats are, but like, um, there is a lot of potential good to be done in the world by. It's like by like moderate options. But the great thing is it's not like we're going at the alcohol industry in any way. Like we are producing growth in the industry. Um, this is volume, it's occasions, you know, people are drinking very little beer Sunday through Thursday, um, for the most part.
This is a chance to sell people beer and give them a lot of enjoyment in those occasions. And it's something like 60 percent adults have 0. 1 drinks or less per week. So like the Bevalk world is also largely missing that cohort. Like that is a lot of people to include in bars and restaurants and menus and bring good times to.
Um, you know, I, I reflect on my generation. Um, you know, I used to live on the second floor above a great New York city bar. Um. And,
Logan: What bar was it?
Bill: a village tavern in the West village. And like me and my friends were probably in there three or four nights a week. And it was like very normal to just like stop in there and see if people were there.
And like, I reflect on the experience of like what I hear from people who are 15, 20 years younger than me, like, The corner independent bar seems to be like slipping away. And like, I think by making exciting non alcoholic options, great cocktails, great non alcoholic beer, beer on draft, there's a great way to get people back in watching sports, socializing.
Like these are important community places. Like
Logan: Have you been to the village tavern recently?
Bill: I walked by it with my wife and son, uh, probably like a month
Logan: They redid
it inside. It looks, it looks like a real establishment, not, not what we would have remembered whatever 10, 15 years ago. It's like a, it's like actually, you know, they redid the TVs and it's actually, it's not as, uh, as, um, uh, the nostalgia I had for, for the place that it once was, is, is long gone, probably for the best, uh, after you walk inside.
So [01:06:00] it looks a lot better than it did a decade ago. Plus.
Bill: Well, a little bit of my heart's in that old renovation.
Logan: Yes. Oh, for sure. For sure. Yeah. No, that makes, uh, makes a lot of sense. Um, one of the things, um, uh, I heard you say the term sober is, uh, Yeah. I don't know if it does. Do you think it has a negative connotation associated with it or is it just sort of an outdated like overly
Bill: For sure. Yeah. I think it's, it's one of those things where like everyone is sober most of the time. Like it's like, why isn't there a word for people who don't drink energy drinks or something like alcohol is just a functional drink in many ways. And like, why does there have to be a word for when you're not
Logan: Coffee. We don't, we don't have a, you know, any term associated with that. I call them psychos that don't drink coffee, but, but you know, I mean, whatever, there's no term that goes
along with it.
Bill: so like, The, I know there's words like flexitarian and other diets and stuff like, whether it's flex sober or just like I drink alcohol occasionally and don't other times, like it, it should be a much more flexible mindset these days, you know? And um, I, I think keeping words like that around and like, it's just so outgrown in modern society that it's like, well, why do people keep like using this out dead concept?
But like, When concepts like that are held on to, I think it really holds back the opportunity for like everything that's out there.
Logan: Has there ever been a point that you've thought about like moderately like a glass of wine or anything? Cause it's been what? 12 plus years since you've.
Bill: It's been probably about like 10 and a half years for me. And, um, I also lost track, but it's, so I guess that answers the question. Like, no, but it's, uh, you know, I have, I love good food, good drink. Um, and honestly, like the itch is [01:08:00] totally scratched by, um, you know, I drink multiple of our beers all the time.
There's now a number of good non alcoholic wines. Um,
Logan: are good non alcoholic wines. I've never, uh, that's yeah.
Bill: tried some recently. Um, I really like odd bird leads. Um, There's a few of them, um, but getting better and better every year. And, um,
Logan: these in show notes. We'll go, we'll go investigate. I'll do a taste test sample on them.
Bill: yeah, I could share some and then, you know, like ritual and other non alcoholic spirits are like making good spirits and there's great bidders companies too. And so like you can make pretty sophisticated off the shelf home cocktails and stuff too. And I honestly just never honestly find myself tempted at all, but I did make a, I just, um, I made a cold turkey decision because if I didn't have a plan, I just figured I'd never make the decision.
And it wasn't enough of a friction and a drag on my productivity and where I wanted to be as an adult, that I just knew I like that it was a worthwhile decision to go that cold Turkey. And I also didn't want to keep the risk around that. Like, you know, I just never wanted to be the adult who has children who was like blowing himself up on Friday.
Yeah. Like I wanted to like make sure that risk was off the table also. And um, you know, it, one thing I always struggled with was, um, you know, I was like, oh, well I'll go out and only have one beer tonight. And like, you get home at 2:00 AM and you've had eight beers and you're like, well that didn't work.
And I'm like, well, what went wrong there? And. It's like, because I had that one beer in like 20 minutes and then like, what is the plan after that? There are no other options. There's nothing. And so like.
Logan: Oh, I, I, by the way, I still will have, uh, eight beers. I just try to work in your product, you know, into five of them or something like I'll still do the same thing. And it's, it's, I don't know what it is. It's the habitual of like the taste or I'm curious, the psychological element [01:10:00] of actually like drinking a beer.
I was. I was at a family occasion, I guess, a couple of weeks ago, and it was a Friday night. And I think I put down three, uh, athletics, just like sitting there at the dinner table. No, no other beer. I was just like slugging athletics. And I'm not really sure what that sensation is. Uh, it's probably some like psychological trained thing that, uh,
I don't know.
Bill: Yeah. And if athletic existed in good non alcoholic cocktail menus existed at that time, like maybe I wouldn't have had to make that choice and give up drinking entirely because like there would have been an easy bridge from that plan. I'd be like, Oh, I'm going to have one beer and then five athletics tonight, you know?
And um,
Logan: What is the sensation of drinking though? I'm sure you've studied it a little bit of the psychological level, like the perception of, I mean, some of its tastes, some of it's the environment. You're in from a, you know, like after work or the sensations around it. Right. I'm a big college football fan and I can't even imagine.
I've actually done it with athletic now, but like going to a college football game without having a beer, it's just like there's all these little occasions that are sort of built into life.
I feel like.
Bill: yeah. So it's exactly that. And I, I kind of like three takeaways I've realized is a, I just loved being in those moments. And I really, it didn't take me long at all to realize that I just loved being in those moments and it wasn't about the alcohol because I was still having fun with all my friends with nothing in my hand.
And, um, and very often, like my favorite moments weren't the after two, three hours when the alcohol hits, it was when you get to a bar and you have that first drink. And I see my brother who I haven't seen in a month and like, we're just catching up and like, Like those were all my favorite moments and like, I also love, like.
Like, I like, I realized I liked buying drinks and doing stuff like that more than I ever liked drinking it myself. And, um, and yeah, to answer your more sensory question on the experience, like, you know, we've all been drinking alcohol as humans for like 5, 000 years. And there's something about that ritual when you crack a beer and [01:12:00] you smell the malt and the hops and that ritual that is like so much more ingrown.
Born of evolution than anything you've experienced in your own life. And so I think there is a, an enormous wave of a placebo
Logan: Oh, I'm
Bill: maybe isn't related to the alcohol at all. But like, Hey, when I sit down and watch a sporting event or even in the afternoon, like very often I'll have an IPA at three or four in the afternoon and it's got a very calming effect
Logan: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
It's probably, um, I don't know, nature versus nurture and all that, but probably some, some combination of both certainly growing up doing it. It's it's
Bill: for sure. You know, I, I did have, you know, my. 10, 000 hours of mastery of drinking beer and relaxing. So like maybe, maybe it's like a little less evolution, my own historical perspective as well. So yeah,
Logan: If you go back, go back and tell yourself in 2014 or 2016, something about the entrepreneurial journey. Is there something that stands out that you wish you had known when you were getting going?
Bill: I'm sure there are a million people that could definitely point out like incredibly stupid things I've done along the way, but like I, I think there's, Definitely an advantage to like experiencing everything and learning. And so I, I wouldn't necessarily trade any step of the experience for anything. So, um, now we have a lot of investors and all great people.
And, um, so yeah, tough to pinpoint any single one thing. Um, yeah,
Logan: thing that sort of resonates or stands out the most is like, uh, and it's almost the founding tenant of the, the business is the The mission orientation of it, or like the, you know, the, the true belief in what you're doing beyond the financial gain, the, the, the power running a big company, all of that.
And so it's, uh, yeah, not, not often are. Our, our founders. So uniquely passionate [01:14:00] about the problem that they're solving. So I think that probably helps you, uh, helps you every, uh, late night when you're working on something or every early morning.
Bill: no, I say this to my co founder a lot, but if there was a button so often You know, I, I try to break for, I've structured my day nicely where I have like, um, I try to do some family in the morning, then have a great work day, family for two and two or three hours in the evening. And then like another mini work day where I like mostly do projects at night.
Um, Or the email flywheel, but, um, there are so many times at 10 or 11 at night, I would press a button if it were there to give me an extra 12 hours of work, which is like something I never would have done in the past. So I'm very thankful for that for sure.
Logan: Well, thanks for doing this.
Bill: Thank you so much. It was really fun.
Logan: Thank you for joining this conversation with athletic co founder and CEO Bill Shufelt. If you enjoyed this discussion, please share with anyone else that you think might find it also interesting.
Also, please subscribe on whatever podcast platform you listen to this conversation on. We'll see you here next week with another great guest on the Logan Bartlett show. Have a good weekend, everyone.