BrewDog, Scotland's largest independent brewery company, started with two employees and co-founders James Watt and Martin Dickie. Now, the brewery has more than 700 employees today and is ready to rock the United States of America.
BrewDog has subverted conventional industry norms, raising millions from its fans and stubbornly refusing to let go of its principles of openness and transparency.
In an interview with Yahoo! Finance's Kevin Chupka, Watt said that he and Dickie started in 2007, together with a dog, with a mission to redefine the UK brewery industry and with no idea on how the said business is going to be done, run, and managed. They didn't know what to do back then, so the partners did unconventional things and just stayed focus on two important factors that mattered to them the most: beer and people.
When the brewery clicked, both Dickie and Watt decided to expand. Unfortunately, they didn't have any money. "We couldn't get money from the banks. We needed money to buy equipment to expand our business, so we turned to the people who enjoy the beers that we make. So we've got 40,000 equity punk investors who've been with us since 2009. It's the heart and soul of our business, and we don't just have investors - they're ambassadors, advocates, and they've really been key [in] turning our business into what it is today," Watt said.
Since then, they have grown, with profits increasing up to 112% annually since 2011, according to the Guardian reports. The company further expects to be able to produce the equivalent of 264 million pints of beer annually by the end of this year.
With refard to their expansion to the USA, Watt disclosed that they have acquired a 42-acre site in Columbus, Ohio. "Our new production facility there is half-built, so we should be making beer in the U.S. by late 2016," Watt said.
To help those who would want to start a business but don't know how to do so, Watt has a new book, Business for Punks: Break All the Rules - the BrewDog Way.
"Advice is for idiots. If you're going to fail, fail on your own terms, make your own mistakes and don't listen to what anyone says."
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