Moving Forward (Work and Identity Crisis)

I sincerely hope this gets straightened out, but either way I will be heading down this afternoon to pick up some beer for my Le Mans watching party.

Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:

So that's a broken business model. The only way to increase revenue is to increase taproom prices, until the distribution is fixed. You'll need refrigerator trucks, drivers, 2 outside sales reps and a refrigerated cellar room/walk in that's at least 20x30. Any adjustments or plans that don't start with those items is a nonstarter. I brought up bottles for the distilling, almost nobody is bottling beer these days, even during the can shortage of 2020-2021. 

Okay... I asked my questions about "What is the owner going to do to get this company Healthy? This is how I define 'Healthy'. Vacation starts today. We'll see what answers they come back with... or don't.

Assuming they come back with something but it's wishy-washy and a bit vague. Probably the next step is to sit down as a trio and actually map out the business model. What components do we need to have in place to be doing a good enough business clip to be profitable?

All those things you mentioned: Critical staff positions. Critical equipment. Ongoing expenses. Do three versions - what we have now, minimum practical, achievable ideal. While waiting for other things to fall into place to know how much money we'll have to work with, there is no reason we can't figure out how much we're going to need first.

I want us to head off the trap we've been falling into of securing one resource at a time that will eventually be necessary, but not recognizing that we can't actually utilize it until all the necessary components are in place. So effectively all we're doing is wasting money.

We've built up the engine, but we've got a busted transmission and crap tires. Tuning the engine won't help the car at all.

Even if the company is berkeleyed and the owner is not able or willing to un-berkeley it, this exercise will be valuable for Founder-3 and me to lay the groundwork to potentially start a new company if we can't make this one work.

If beer isn't going to be cost effective, they need to stop brewing entirely and focus on distilling as the brewing will never be profitable. If ownership is willing to continue brewing without making a profit, Then I would question their interest in making a profit on the distilling side as well, unless they invest in their production and distribution of distilling prior to product being released. 

I see it as a component that is profitable, but doesn't raise enough profits on its own. If we were brewing and selling beer at full capacity, the company would be profitable. We're not at full capacity. I sit idle too often.

With the amount of attention we have (or don't have) and the state of the market now, I think it would be very difficult to get beer sales up to that point any time soon.

I think if instead of getting up to 100% velocity in beer, we could get up to 30%-50% velocity in beer and 50%-70% velocity in liquor, that is another way to get us to full production velocity. I think those gains would be easier to make, too.

That model would let us lean into taproom sales, where the margins are best. It will require less cold storage. Doing beer and liquor puts us in a unique position in the market that we can lean into to differentiate ourselves and drum up attention.

It sounds like the owner is far too content saying we make great stuff and it's a fun place to hang out and I'm proud of the quality product we make and it's a fun hobby of mine but he doesn't care if he makes money or if any of his employees make money. That's a toxic run situation. 

I don't know. I feel that way right now. So I'm really only in a position to reflect my perceptions and feelings. I need to figure out if that's really the case and things are that berkeleyed, or if things are bad but fixable.

When comparing production velocity and focus between beer and distilling, they should both be able to be 100%. Equipment capacity not labor capacity should always be the defining limiting factor to production. If it's labor, then there's simply a staffing issue. This is why I always measured shop production by hours turned a week per a bay, not per a tech. 

In reply to Captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :

There's a "sort of" answer with that. Spirits wash uses the same tanks to ferment as beer. When the equipment is running at full capacity, we will need to make tradeoffs between spirits and beer. But we're nowhere near that point.

To be profitable my gut says we'd probably need to get up to 70%+ production capacity on beer. We could hit that same profitability level with 35% capacity of beer and 35% capacity of liquor, and have more ceiling room to grow. We can sell that 35% beer and 35% liquor in this market more easily than we could sell 70% capacity of just one or the other.

The real thing limiting factor right now is sales and marketing.

Doing beer and liquor potentially makes sales reps' time more efficient. They can cover more accounts in the same territory, and get more sales from hitting the same number of accounts. It's an easier path to hit profitability sooner, that allows for a longer potential runway to continue ramping things up percentages at a time, before needing to make a major 4x capacity expansion.

There are multiple viable models we could follow to get profitable. We aren't doing any of them. We need to map a couple out and pick one to focus on.

Update: Vacation was good. Moving to be within 2 hours of my brother and nieces is highly appealing.

Sending out messages and resumes online. I think this is the first time I've ever submitted applications where I wasn't really desperate to find a new job. It feels weird to apply for positions with the mindset of just wanting to start a conversation to see if something might be a better fit.

No real movement at the brewery yet. No response to e-mail with important questions. Got a managers' meeting tomorrow, then owner is on vacation for several weeks including 5 days of being off-the-grid and completely incommunicado.

Update:

Putting in lots of applications. Weighing different possibilities. Want to set things up to be able to visit my brother and family in Alexandria, VA more frequently.

So applying to good brewing jobs within about a 6-hour driving radius, and non-brewing jobs within about a 2.5-hour radius (mostly, Richmond, Charlottesburg, and Fredericksburg).

Trying to gauge what non-brewing jobs to apply to and how best to sell my skills. I'm targeting mostly Production Manager, Production Supervisor (if it pays well enough), and training related jobs. Seems like a lot of them want Lean, Six Sigma, or other TLA certifications that I don't have. I don't know if I'm overvaluing my skills, or if I'm just not translating actual know-how into HR-speak. My current salary is $52k/yr with a promised $8k bonus - which is really a case of "If we actually payed you cost-of-living raises, this is what you should be making, but we don't have that money, so we promise we'll pay you later." I figure based on that I'm looking at $65k+ for brewing/spirits jobs, and $70k+ for non-brewing.

Just got word today that I did not get the job in Wilmington, NC that I was really excited about. I'm kinda crushed about not making it to the second round of interviews. That job was realy like - if I wrote out exactly the sort of position and company I would want to be working for, that would have been it.

Got a farm brewery in the Shenandoah valley region of VA, near Harrisonburg that is desperately trying to hire me. Not sure if it would be a good fit or not though. The owner is desperate and kinda pushy. He's the guy who called me up at 8:45 in the evening after receiving my resume.

I'm going to drive out there and check the place out later this week. I see it as having a lot of potential, but it has potential to be a great opportunity or incredibly frustrating. I also don't know how my wife would like living someplace more rural.

In reply to Beer Baron :

Your post made me think that the owner really is the most important thing. They can make your life easy or hell. In a business with just a few employees there's no way to avoid them either. I guess you're doing a lot of interviewing the owner maybe just as much as they interview you.

PM sent, not sure if they always work or not.

Visited the potential job site and had a lot of discussion with my wife.

The job would have been a good fit for me and a great opportunity. I had to turn it down because we decided the location just wouldn't work for my wife.

It may sound silly, but we decided that a women's rugby club for her to play on is a "must have" for wherever we relocate. She's introverted and works from home. Rugby has been a great sport and social opportunity for her. It easy enough to find places with rugby. This job, the closest team would have been 2 hours away.

Wherever we move, I want an opportunity for us both to be doing better than we are here.

Job hunting over the past month, Head Brewer type positions seem to pop up with solid regularity. Pretty certain I'm going to have three interviews next week...

In the mid Atlantic, head brewing positions are pretty much always available. Heck, the brewery that I was formerly a part of has the position open (along with all the same problems, and more, than your current employer has). I believe Trillium is still seeking a head brewer in Canton, MA as well, that would serve as a springboard to being able to get funding for your own start up if you were to ever want to leave there. 

In reply to Beer Baron :

Have you considered going into a field that pays more and lets you work remote? The skills that allow you to be successful at different types of process manufacturing would also probably allow you to be successful at software quality assurance or plain old coding. 

CrustyRedXpress said:

In reply to Beer Baron :

Have you considered going into a field that pays more and lets you work remote? The skills that allow you to be successful at different types of process manufacturing would also probably allow you to be successful at software quality assurance or plain old coding. 

I have considered that. Not sure how to break into those though. I get the impression with positions like that I've looked at, that I'd need a lot of certifications that I don't have.

...and got a semi-surprise phone call interview this for effectively a dream position getting to blank-slate a regional brewery in Norfolk/Virginia Beach. I'm in final 5 candidates and think I impressed them. All fingers crossed.